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Darcie Bakes //

March 27, 2015

Random Sides // Late Night Logo Practice.

Sometimes, I like to spend hours messing around in Photoshop. I usually choose to do this late at night – when I should most likely be sleeping. Whoops. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: I am a night owl. And my creative bursts generally come to me at odd times, but I’m pretty sure that’s a common phenomenon for most creative people.

So, tonight’s late night Photoshop binge includes me just messing around with some logo ideas for the blog [plus an upcoming small business venture… more on that soon!]. What do you think? I’m no expert, but I guess I know enough to be dangerous. Plus, it’s just great fun to create stuff like this. 😉

logoideas_db

xoxo. <3

Leave a Comment Filed Under: art, diy, graphic design, randomness, sides

February 25, 2015

Random Sides // DIY: Organized Cupcake Liners.

DIYcupcakescover

Since I’ve gotten into cupcake decorating last year, I have acquired quite a few cupcake liners. Here’s only part of my current collection:

cupcakeliners_messy

Yikes. As you can see, I have a lot of liners, and I’d be in denial if I said I wasn’t constantly on the hunt for more cute liners. All that being said, I realized I had to find a way to organize and store my collection. But these liners are so pretty that I didn’t like the idea of stuffing them in a cabinet.

They had to be on display, I decided. I perused Pinterest a bit, and I found this idea: cupcake liners in Weck jars. It’s easy; it’s simple, and it’s super pretty. Behold:

cupcakelinerjar

If you’re in love with pretty liners as much as I am, but aren’t sure how to store them, may I suggest putting them in some kind of glass jar? Then you can keep the dust off of them, keep them fairly organized, and avoid smashing them. It makes it much easier to look at the jars when I’m trying to decide which liner goes with whatever flavor of cake/buttercream I’m making on a given day. Best of all? The liners sure look snazzy on display, if I do say so myself! 😉

closeupliners

Resources:
– Most of my cupcake liners are from Bake it Pretty.
– You can find these Weck jars on Amazon.

jars

topofjar

Leave a Comment Filed Under: crafts, cupcakes, diy, organization, organized, sides

January 14, 2015

Homemade Fortune Cookies.

We’ve officially had another successful RBE {Roommate Baking Endeavor (or perhaps we should call it a challenge?)* for the books!

This time, the roomie and I decided to make homemade fortune cookies. Yeah, it can actually be done. It was – once again – a very interesting experience.

fortunecookiecover
Making homemade fortune cookies was fun, and it wasn’t as scary as I thought it might be. However, I have to admit that there is definitely a slight learning curve with making them. [But of course, I will add our notes and lessons learned below the recipe just for you. That way you can make homemade fortune cookies and learn from Dani’s and my amateur blunders.]

Anyway. I hunted around online for some decent fortunes, and I came across some interesting ones [you can Google “fortune cookie fortunes/sayings,” and you’ll find several “fortune cookie message generators” online]. I printed out fortunes and cut them to fit in our cookies. After all, a fortune cookie is not a fortune cookie without some cool fortunes in them, amirite?

This one is my personal favorite; I would like to dedicate it to my brother, as he has a bottomless pit when it comes to food [and of course, he’s like 6’5″ and has great metabolism…]:

hungryagain
Seems about right. 😀

And here are some of my other favorite fortunes and messages:

morefortunes

fortuneopen

We even made “monster” sized fortune cookies! Check out how big this mama cookie is compared to her baby cookie. Haha.

giantandlittle

Overall, I’d say it was a worthwhile experience. I’m not sure I will ever make them again, but it was cool to see how simple they are to make [minus the first-timer blunders]. If you have a spare hour or two on a weekend and you’re making orange chicken or something, make these for dessert! It was also pretty awesome to know that I can now fold those glorious cookies so that they look like what you get at Asian restaurants! Another RBE crossed off the bucket list. 😀

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Homemade Fortune Cookies

Yield: Sixteen fortune cookies.

Ingredients:
– 2 egg whites from extra large eggs [see notes on this below]
– ½ teaspoon pure vanilla extract
– ¼ teaspoon cinnamon
– ½ cup all-purpose flour
– ½ cup sugar

Fortunes/Optional Decorations:
– Handwritten or typed fortunes [not optional, IMHO!]
– 1 cup chocolate chips
– Sprinkles, for garnish

Instructions:
1. Preheat the oven to 350ºF, and line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a Silpat.

2. In a large bowl, whisk all of the ingredients together: egg whites, vanilla extract, cinnamon, flour, and sugar.

3. Scoop about one tablespoon of batter from the bowl, and place it onto the lined baking sheet. To smooth the batter, use the back of a spoon to flatten it into a very thin circle. The circle should be approximately ~3 inches in diameter.

4. Repeat step 3 a few more times until you have two or three circles of batter on the sheet. Bake for about 5 to 7 minutes. The edges of the cookie should just start to brown.

5. Once the cookies are done, place the fortunes in the center of the cookies. Using a flat spatula, carefully (so as not to tear the cookie) lift the cookie from the sheet.

6. To form the fortune cookie shape: fold the circle in half toward the top [over the fortune]. Then pinch the edges of the semi-circle inward to create the shape. [NOTE: I didn’t get photos of this part, but if you see the blog where I found this recipe (listed after the instructions), Kelly has better instructions/photos on the folding technique. I also have tips for folding them successfully below.] The cookies will harden quickly, so you must work fast to fold them into their signature shape.

7. If you want to dip some of them in chocolate (or all, I won’t judge), melt the chocolate chips in the microwave at 20-30  second intervals. Stir it to ensure that it’s properly melted, then dip the cooled cookies into the chocolate. Immediately decorate with sprinkles, if desired.

**Bonus: Darcie + Dani’s Lessons Learned:
– It’s best to bake and fold the cookies in batches.
It probably seems tedious, but even with two people working on them at once, it’s just easier to work with a few at a time. They will harden quickly, thus ruining your chance to fold them nicely.

– We found that flipping the cookies over carefully ensured that their “pretty” side [the side against the cookie sheet that looks much smoother and shinier] would be on the outside once folding them.
– As Dani said, “If you’re not burning your fingers a bit, you’re not doing it right.” In order to work quickly and get that signature fortune cookie shape, you have to work fast, and you may burn your hands a bit. It’s nothing crazy or super painful, of course… Just a forewarning. 🙂
– You really do need “extra large” eggs. I didn’t even know this, because I always mindlessly buy “large” eggs at the store. Apparently, the amount of ounces per egg does vary [Don’t quote me on this, but there’s at least a ~0.5-1.0 oz. difference between egg sizes] significantly. So if you use large eggs – which you probably do – you will need more than two to have enough whites.
– Don’t put the fortune cookies in the fridge. I know this might seem goofy, but I packed a few cookies in my lunchbox for work the other day. I always put my lunchbox in the fridge to keep my more perishable food cold, obviously. Well, the fridge made the cookies extremely chewy… So I would advise against refrigerating them. 🙂
– Get creative with your fortunes! Make them funny. Make them inspiring. Whatever; it’s up to you. Just make them fun.
– Fortune cookie recipe from Kelly of Just a Taste.

finalpicfortunecookies*Our “Roommate Baking Endeavors [RBEs]” are a thing now. Just so ya know. 🙂

Leave a Comment Filed Under: cookies, desserts, diy, RBE

December 5, 2014

Random Sides // DIY Baking Themed Christmas Tree!

bakingtreecover

OMG. I am so excited about this that it’s ridiculous.

My roommate was teasing me a few months back, because I claim to not be “that into Christmas,” yet I’ve been planning for this since the end of October. As I’ve said before, I’m not exactly a Grinch. But I don’t get as excited about Christmas as I once did. I think it probably has something to do with that elusive thing called “adulthood.” I also really dislike how Thanksgiving basically gets overlooked, especially in all of the stores. It seems to me that we often forget about Thanksgiving because we get too wrapped up in Christmas/end-of-the-year shenanigans.

*steps off soapbox*

Okay. I have a valid excuse reason for planning ahead on this. I’ve been wanting to do a baking themed Christmas tree for over a year now, but I didn’t properly plan for it last year. And we all know that without proper planning and preparation, most projects are doomed to fail. So in order to execute this tree project well, I had to start thinking about how I would go about it a month or two in advance. Overall, I’m pretty happy with how it turned out.

Here are some close up photos of the different ornaments on the tree – prepare yourself to be bombarded with pictures [better than text bombardment, I reckon]:

rollingpin

wisk1The main theme colors are as follows: candy apple red/light pink, mint green, and gold. I wish I could have had more mint green, but alas, I did not end up with as much as I’d like. Oh well.

I’ll admit that this project got a tad bit pricey… But to me it’s an investment: I will love having a baking themed tree every year. Or if I don’t, then someone slap me. 😉

muffintinpantreepanhandmintgrncupcakeornamentbowcinnornamentcookiecuttercupcake2Most of my ornaments were all DIY. So even if you don’t want to invest a ton of money into a baking themed tree, you can still make some of your own nifty baking themed ornaments, if you so choose. I’ll do separate posts for all of my DIY ornaments so that you can see how I made them, but for now I just wanted to share pictures of my awesome tree!

I think the only thing I forgot was oven mitt ornaments… 😉 Dang.

sprinkleornamnetmixercloseupdonutcloseup1My DIY donut ornaments! Love.

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// The Baking Tree – Resources:

– Christmas Tree: This is just an old, hand-me-down tree that my dad gave me. It’s not really a mini tree, but it’s not quite full-size either. It’s kinda janky, but it works for now. I would love to have a white or bubblegum pink tree. But that will have to wait, as I can’t spend all of my disposable income on crafts. 😉

– Garland / Lights / Other:

  • Gold Garland: This is just your average gold garland. I got it from Target.
  • Pink Pom-Pom Garland: I spotted this at my local Anthropologie the other day, and just had to grab it. Isn’t it awesome?
  • Lights: These are LED string lights from Target. They’re a bit larger than your average Christmas lights. I like them.
  • Red Bow Topper: I couldn’t think of anything to have as a cool tree topper, so I just went with a stereotypical Christmas bow. You can find these just about anywhere.

– Purchased Ornaments:

  • Red Kitchen Aid Mixer Ornament: I spotted this at Michael’s a few months ago and snatched it up. I was searching high and low for a mint green mixer ornament to match my actual mixer, but had no luck. Note to Kitchen Aid: y’all would make BANK if you would produce and sell mixer ornaments. Just saying. 🙂
  • Sparkly Cupcake Ornaments: I saw these at Urban Outfitters and once again, snatched ’em up.

– DIY Ornaments:

  • Donut Ornaments: These DIY ornaments are made out of plaster of paris and then painted. I got the idea from Studio DIY, and I absolutely adore them. I’ll be doing a separate, more detailed DIY post on these soon.
  • Sprinkle + Mint Green Ornaments: I simply took clear ornaments [mini sized] and filled them with acrylic paint or sprinkles, and tied them with baker’s twine. Again, I’ll go into more detail on this later.
  • Cinnamon Dough Ornaments: My lovely friend Jordyn and I made these aromatic cinnamon dough ornaments a few months back. All the dough is made out of is cinnamon and applesauce! You can find recipes for them online pretty easily.
  • Baking Tool Ornaments: For all of these ornaments, I took miniature baking tools and either hot glued or tied a ribbon around each item and hung them from the tree. Boom! Instant ornaments.
    • The whisks, spatulas, miniature muffin tins, and miniature wooden spoons were all purchased from Amazon.
    • The miniature bundt cake pans, pie pans, rolling pins, and cookie cutters were purchased from an Ikea children’s baking set. I opted to not use the baking sheets because they were too large for my smaller tree. {These little sets will also be useful if I ever reproduce, because you know any kid of mine will be forced into baking.}

– Inspiration: General inspiration for my baking tree came from Bake it Pretty [One Charming Party] and Studio DIY. 🙂

Even for someone who is not quite so enthused about Christmas, I must admit that this was SO MUCH FUN. I hope you enjoy this tree and I hope that it inspires you to make your Christmas tree awesome!

PS: I still hate Christmas music. This is most likely a result of working in retail for three years. WOOF.

Leave a Comment Filed Under: baking, christmas, christmas tree, decor, diy, holidays, sides, the baking tree

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I'm Darcie. In a nutshell: I'm a baker and mental health advocate in the tech industry.
Darcie
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