Mini Red Velvet Bundt Cakes + FREE Printables

When I have an idea, it's only a matter of time before it's executed.  I had a grand idea to make mini bundt cakes for my husband to take into work for his birthday, but unfortunately the idea came too late.  A few weeks ago, while shopping at Bed Bath and Beyond, I found this glorious mini bundt pan and once again, there in the store...the ideas started flowing.  Mini bundt cakes for Christmas.  So we threw the pan into the cart, checked out with our 20% off coupon and headed home.  I debated over flavors for a few days and landed on red velvet because, hello, it's Christmas!  As I thought how I'd package these cuties together and what the tag would say, the phrase "We hope you have nothing bundt a Merry Christmas".  It may not be new to some of you, but it was new and original to me!  Sure I could have sent in plain un-packaged mini red velvet bundt cakes to work with my husband, and sure they would have appreciated them.  But you know how I am about my packaging, and for good reason. So I took my time roaming up and down the aisles of Hobby Lobby until I settled on my plan.  The result was well worth it!  My husband's co-workers RAVED about how adorable they were and how delicious the bundt cake was.  A gift with-in a gift.

I had a blast making these tags, so much so I couldn't leave well enough alone.  I never do.  I made tags that could be used for birthdays, thank-yous, teachers and even realtors.  (If I had emoji's on my keyboard I'd insert the laughing-so-hard-I'm-crying one here).

I layered the tags with a coordinating polka dot tag underneath.  Adding a second layer to the tag adds a whole other dimension of cuteness that I couldn't pass up.

When I saw it all come together, I was a giddy little school girl.  They all turned out so dang ca-ute!

I know what you're thinking, do I have to make my own bundt cakes?  Can't I buy them?  Yup, of course you can!  If you have a Nothing Bundt Cake store around, I'd swing buy and pick them up!  I have to say I was really tempted to do so, but you know me.  I love a challenge.

Let's break these cuties down.  

The recipe I used came from Over Time Cook. This recipe made about 29 mini bundt cakes (30 if I scraped the bowl in desperation....but I wasn't desperate so I didn't).  I used my small cookie scoop to measure batter evenly.  Each was filled halfway with batter.  My frosting recipe is my own, I honestly never really use a recipe (surprise, surprise) but I this time I wrote it down!

Cream Cheese Frosting:

8 oz cream cheese at room temp

2 sticks butter at room temp

1 T vanilla extract

1/4 t almond extract

2-3 cups of powder sugar

Whip until fluffy and scoop into a piping bag with the end cut off.  Easy and delicious.  I try not to make mine too sweet because usually the baked good it's going on is rich, so I try to keep the sweetness to a minimum.  Start with less sugar and then add more until it's to your desired sweetness.

 Once the cakes were cool, I piped a dollop of frosting in the center.

I placed a jumbo sized cupcake wrapper in the snack cup to prevent oils from soaking into the cup. It would have ruined the whole thing, so I'm glad I did!

I very gently, shimmied the cup into the bag.

The next series of pictures, runs through how I attached the spoon and the tag to the bag.  It was a tedious process! 

Loop twine around spoon.

Add tag.

 Loosely tie tulle ONE time.

Loop tag and tie.

Tighten tulle and tie a second time.

One down, 23 to go.

The cups and wooden spoons came from Hobby Lobby.  They were both on an end cap for a burlap themed party.  They also have wooden spools with a chevron design on the handle.  (I used those in my Oatmeal Raisin Froyo post).  They also have a variety of colors of snack cups, but for Christmas I went with plain brown and added color with the tulle and tag. 

These were absolutely so fun to make and I hope you end up making them for someone too!  Whether it's for your child's teacher, a co-worker or a client these will bring a smile to their face! And by all means, if you're not a baker, buy a bundt cake!

See what I mean about oil spots?  How horrible would it have been if the cups would have been soaked?  It would have ruined the whole thing!  So please line the cups!

FREE PRINTABLES:

For the printables, I included only a .pdf of my Christmas tags but made .png files of the rest.  That way you can create your own sheet in a document program and even make your own stickers just by adding the image onto the template.  Click on each picture to download!

Christmas Tag PDF

Christmas Tag Polka Dot PDF

I hope you have nothing bundt a Merry Christmas!

Holiday Gift Wrap

I can't even tell you how much I love gift wrap.  Whether it's for Christmas, birthdays or a simple card...I love making gifts just as special on the outside as they are on the inside.  I think back to when I was a kid and every year we'd get the Christmas tree out of our musty Midwestern basement.  We would sort the branches by color, then fluff the branches, one by one.  My dad would tell us what color he was ready for and we would bring them at his request.  Next came the lights.  We would untangle for what seemed hours, maybe even days, no matter how hard we tried to keep them neat the year before.  You know what I mean.  And while we were busy with the tree, my mom would ready the ornaments.  We had a hodge podge of ornaments from homemade to collectibles.  We would stand back in awe at our creation! Then as my parents would go Christmas shopping in the weeks to come, presents would slowly appear under the tree.  I was the nosy one and liked to try and sneak a peek (sorry mom and dad, that was me who ripped a hole in my Tinkle Bell lip gloss set.)  My sister and I would lay in bed playing the "I'll tell you yours if you tell me mine" game and I would fall for her tricks every year.  Every year I would divulge her presents and excitedly listen as she would say, "no, I don't want to tell you" or if she was feeling particularly sinful, she would make them up.  Cruel, sis.  Just cruel!  But after falling for her evil schemes year after year, I have finally learned.  Our phone conversation tonight went a little like,
me: "I'm so excited about your Christmas present!"
sis: "What is it?"
me: "I'm not telling!"
sis: "Come on, I'll tell you what I got you!"
me: "No, way!"

I think we've just made it apart of our Christmas traditions. 

But back to gift wrap. Back then, gift wrap was simple.  Just wrapping paper and a tag made from folded pieces of wrapping paper.  I remember as we got older, my dad would buy the "real" gift tags from the store.  And then there was the year that he came home with a bag of multi-colored bows.  I thought I was in heaven getting to match the bows with the wrapping paper.  Now that I am all grown-up and starting traditions of my own, bow matching, ribbon tying and all that is involved makes me just as giddy and excited as it did then.


Last year, I kept it simple by wrapping in butcher paper I bought at the Dollar Tree.  I Googled my favorite Christmas chalkboard printables and then duplicated it on the wrapping paper with a chalkboard marker.

 

This year, I dressed up my gift wrap a little more.  For this year's Holiday Extravaganza at church, I was in charge of gift-wrap so I came up with what I think is some pretty spectacular gift wrap ideas and tips to share.  These are easy and simple ideas that anyone can do, which is one reason why I love them so much.  You didn't have to spend lavish amounts of money to dress up a gift.  I most certainly do not!

But first, let's talk about this tree set-up.  It's a mini 3-4 foot tree that I set on top of two produce crates.  I covered the crates with a few pieces of burlap and then covered the base of the tree with fabric garland.  I loved having the tree set on crates.  It allowed more room for gifts to be displayed and was the perfect place to put smaller gifts that are otherwise hidden.

I am in love with this Christmas tree garland from Hobby Lobby.  At 50% off, I couldn't resist and I'm glad I didn't!  I'm probably gonna need some more.

I found all of my tags on Pinterest!  I've shared my board below so you can snag them for yourself!

This one is probably one of my favorites.  I love the gold berries against the gold polka dot background.  

 

If you haven't noticed already, I used a lot of tulle this year!  I've never really been a fan of tulle until I went fabric shopping with a good friend of mine.  Now, I can't get enough.  My husband will probably never want to see tulle, glitter or gold polka dots ever again!

I used a Silhouette to make this Christmas tree using a Christmas tree font.   But if you don't have a Silhouette, you can still print the Christmas tree out on cardstock and make a template.

After I used these boxes for the event, I brought them back home to decorate.  I have them displayed with other Christmas decorations around the house.  Such an easy and inexpensive way to add Christmas to your home!

For printables and more gift wrap ideas, check out my Christmas Pinterest Board!



I hope you found some gift wrap inspiration!  Use these tips and ideas for any occasion!
When planning your gift wrap, don't forget this easy tips!

Batman Cupcakes

Happy Halloween!!

This week has been filled with so many activities from my son's third birthday to a Trunk or Treat at church and making these cupcakes!  I made them for a couple at church who has a son that just turned one, so they had to be extra special!  These cupcakes took quite a bit of thought, planning and even more practice.  I still have some work to do on icing sugar cookies with royal icing, but I was really pleased with the outcome for being such a newbie.  I wanted to walk you through what I did for each step so hopefully you'll feel confident to make your own!

Cookies:

I started with a classic sugar cookie recipe and made sure to leave the dough pretty thick when I rolled it out.  I love thick sugar cookies but always seem to manage to roll them out to thin.  This time I paid close attention.  The royal icing is really hard to figure out, especially if you just find directions online.  Reading can only teach you so much, practice is what perfects something like royal icing.  I'm still working on it, but this is only the 3rd or 4th time I've used royal icing so I still don't have it down yet.  My sister says to use color flow instead of the meringue powder royal icing calls for (both in the specialty baking isle at Wal-Mart and major craft stores).  I may try color flow next time to see the difference.  If you have any suggestions, please help me out!  I kept the icing thicker to pipe the edges, then added more water to create a flow.  This is where I had problems.  The icing was still a little thick so I had to spread it out with my icing spatula.  You can see that instead of being the same height as the border, it actually turned out to be a little thicker.  Adding more water also affected the color of the icing, but of course I had run out of black.  I ended up using 1 1/2 bottles of black icing from Hobby Lobby, and could have used a full 2 or 2 1/2.  Adding sprinkles to the wet icing helped to hide any inconsistencies as the frosting dried.

I followed Wilton's Royal Icing recipe.  It's says to use 6 tablespoons of water but I ended up using close to a cup of water to create the piping edge and then even more for the flow in the middle.

The cookie cuter came from a local cake decorating place.  There are several types of sets you can buy online.  You can always buy a Batman candy mold and use Candy Melts to make a topper!  Use your imagination!

Cupcakes:
I have said it once and you can guarantee I'll say it again, Hershey's Perfectly Chocolate Chocolate Cake  recipe is perfect and is incredible easy!  You probably have the ingredients in your pantry already.  I have used it so much this week that I have it memorized!  I used a jumbo cake pan and liners I bought from Hobby Lobby.  Note to self, buy another jumbo cupcake pan.  It only makes 6 at a time.  SIX!


Frosting:
Butter.  Vanilla.  Powdered Sugar. Gold Gel Food Coloring (from HL).  That's it.  I used 2 full cups of butter and added powdered sugar until I was satisfied with the sweetness, about 3-4 cups. To pipe the frosting, I put it in a frosting bag and snipped the tip off, making about a 1/2-3/4 inch hole to pipe the frosting through.  I didn't want this frosting to have height because I was putting cookies on it, so I started from the outside and made a flat swirl towards the middle.   Then I just lightly pressed the cookie on top.

I'm not gonna lie, these were NOT easy to make and I had some hiccups with frosting the cookies, but for the level of difficulty and my amateur skill level, I was very pleased with the outcome and I hope the family is too!  Through this, I have definitely opened up the door to a whole new way to make cupcakes!