Christmas Gift Baskets

This past December, my friend Mary at Catarina and I made some Christmas gift baskets for Car City Supercenter.  They needed over 100 gift baskets and a few more for some other offices!  It was a lot of fun making them. We made two different baskets filled with goodies. 

All of them had a variety of the following:  Dulce de Leche, Chocolate Cake Truffles, Ginger Molasses Cookies, Chocolate Covered Pretzels, Holiday Biscotti and Pecan Toffee. 

Ginger Molasses Cookies



Pecan Toffee

Holiday Biscotti (First Baking)

Holiday Biscotti (Second Baking and Candy Coating)

Pecan Toffee

Chocolate Cake Truffles

The Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap Finale

So a while ago I posted about a cookie swap I was taking part in. I kept thinking of a good cookie to send that would stay fresh and ship fairly well.  I settled on my my Molasses Ginger Spiced Cookies, since they have molasses in them I figured they would hopefully keep moist. The shipping deadline was December 5 and I would check my front porch every night to see if there was a special delivery!  Christmas is all about cookies so I was very excited to see what my secret fellow swappers had in store for me.  My recipients were Jessica at City in a Jar, Stacy at What the Cupcake and Toni at Kitchen Savvy Mom. I put them in some cute Christmas boxes I picked up at Hobby Lobby.

I received my three different kinds of cookies last week and they were delicious!

The first to arrive were Browned Butter with Cherries and Chocolate. The cookies came in a cute box with a lid and some Spicy Kettle Corn that I forgot to take a picture of.  They came from Nick at Macheesmo.

The second batch were Flour less Peanut Butter Toffee-Pretzel cookies in a red snowman cookie tub. They came from Leann at Tasting While Traveling.

My third and final cookie delivery were Pecan Balls.  They came in a cute tin from Nicole at Sweet Peony.

And now the recipe for my cookies!

Giant Ginger Spiced Molasses Cookies

Servings: 24

Ingredients:

2 ½ C AP Flour

2 ¼ Tsp Baking Soda

½ Tsp Salt

1 Tbls Ground Ginger

½ Tsp Ground Allspice

½ Tsp Ground Pepper

½ Tsp Ground Nutmeg

1 ½ Sticks Butter, Room Temperature

½ C Brown Sugar

½ C Gran. Sugar

6 Tbls Black strap Molasses

1 Egg

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 325 F.
2. Cream butter and sugars together. Add the egg, mix well then and molasses and mix well.
3. Mix in flour mixture until just combined.
4. Use an ice cream scoop and make 24 balls.
5. Flatten dough balls in granulated sugar and put 3 inches apart on baking sheet.
6. Freeze dough balls for 15-20 minutes if they seem to soft. 
7. Bake  10-15 minutes.

This cookie exchange was soo fun!  The cookies were great and I hope that my recipients enjoyed theirs too :)  

If you are interested in the Great Food Blogger Cookie swap click HERE

Salmon Shaped Banana Cake

I was asked to do a cake last week that was in the shape of a Salmon...yes the fish!  I wasn't sure if I could pull it off, but the customer had seen my Armadillo cake and had faith in me.  The cake was for her husband's birthday and the flavor was Banana Split.  It is Banana Cake with Raspberry and Strawberry filling sprinkled with nuts. The cake is frosted under the Fondant with Vanilla Buttercream.  I also made her some Banana Split Cake Balls, since there was enough left from carving the fish.  I delivered it this morning and she was thrilled!

The Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap

My favorite food blog is Love & Olive Oil. I have been reading her blog for about a year and half, and check it almost everyday! She always has great ideas for meals, sides and, my favorite, desserts. Also check out the pictures of her cats, they are adorable.

So today I checked her blog for anything new to make for dinner and ta da!  The Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap. (I know not dinner, but still something new.) I have never done one of these but it sounds Amazing and Fun!  So far over 200 people are signed up to swap cookies.  So what are you waiting for Sign Up:).

Gift Baskets

I was asked recently by a friend, if I could make gift baskets filled with baked treats and Catarina Dulce de Leche. She is a realtor and would like them for her clients when they move into a new home. She needed a couple samples for the other realtors to see. Very exciting!! Mary, the owner of Catarina, and I came up with a $20 and $40 dollar baskets. We are also working on an individual size for college students or as a small miscellaneous gift.

This basket is our $20 one. The basket contains 2 fruit scones, 2 cookies filled with Dulce de Leche, 2 cake balls, one jar of Dulce de Leche and 1-187mL bottle of Sangria or Champagne.  

This is our $40 basket. The basket contains 4 fruit scones, 4 cookies filled with Dulce de Leche, 3 cake balls, 3 mini cupcakes, 2 jars of Dulce de Leche, and 2-187mL bottles of Sangria or Champagne.

Then here they area all wrapped and ready to go!

I also made some samples for the reality office, so people could try all of our yummy stuff!



Gluten Free Baking

There are only two Bakeries and a handful of restaurants in Grand Rapids that have Gluten Free items. I went to lunch today with some friends and the restaurant had a Gluten Free Menu, which was nice, but not much to choose from. They only had one dessert and no bread that I could eat, but they brought out bread for everyone else...frustrating when you are trying to follow a diet.  I want there to be more choices for people when they go out to eat or get coffee at the local coffee shop.

Today I went out and bought a few different gluten free flours at Harvest Health Food. I have decided that this month I would try and bake as many gluten free items as I can!  So the first two things that I created were Gluten Free Cinnamon Muffins and Herb Crackers.

All of my GF Flours.

 I filled the regular sized muffins with Raspberry Jam and put a powdered sugar glaze on top. The Raspberry Jam mixed with the glaze but they look better that way I think! The small muffins I rolled in powdered sugar.

Look at that crumb!! So delicate and not dense.

The crackers were interesting because the dough was moist. I had to roll out the dough between two pieces of parchment. I then removed the top piece and baked the crackers on the bottom piece all without lifting the dough off of the paper. They were reealllly good and flaky, so worth the effort.

The dough had oregano, rosemary and garlic salt.

Grand Rapids ArtPrize and Samples for Catarina and LaMare Bakery

So Mary Baker the owner of Catarina decided that she wanted to hand out samples of her Dulce de Leche at the Grand Rapids ArtPrize, to get more publicity. Then I thought about it and decided that I should hand out samples for myself since that was a great idea of hers!  (During the 2 1/2 weeks of ArtPrize there are thousands of people that come almost everyday to see the art, eat and explore.)

Mary spent a week making Dulce de Leche and filling about 1,500 sample jars....yes really.  I spent about two days making close to 300 mini cookies for 120 bags to hand out. I made pumpkin shaped sugar cookies and ginger molasses cookies. 

Mary enlisted the help of her friends to help hand out our samples and it was a lot of fun!

These pictures only show a fraction of the art and people that attended ArtPrize. I took these pictures of the Bob's parking lot around 12 and at 4 the parking lot was a sea of people.

Mary filling her Dulce de Leche sample jars.