Chocolate Covered Strawberry Tree

Working evenings at a grocery store, you get a lot of time to read magazines. One night I was flipping through one and fell in love with this:

So when it got to be Christmas Eve and I needed to bring something, I made my own.

Cookie Tray!

After the incident last year with the Christmas Cupcake Wreath,  I was hesitant to make anything for Tim to take to work. But, I went ahead and baked a bunch of cookiws and made a neat platter out of them.

Don't worry! I also sent a veggie tray to balance out all the sweets. :)

Christmas Cookies!

Every year, Tim's family gets together one day to decorate Christmas cookies for fun. These were just some of the ones I made tthat I thought I'd share. :) They were all just done for fun, not to be perfect.

^My favorite^

^This^ and vthisv are the same cookie cutter just turned upside down. 

Neat, right?

Turkey (sugar) Cookies!

Tim's dad tends to randomly bring me home baking equipment,  which is much appreciated. Well, at one point he brought me home a big bag of cookie cutters. I eventually noticed the large turkey and leaf in there and decided I had to use them. Thus, these cookies were made. Sorry if some of the photos are blurry. :/

The hearts were only made because I had extra dough. 

Cinderella

Guess what time it is!? It's Cecelia's birthday! The girl whose gotten two SpongeBob cakes and a Minnie Mouse cake.  So what did she ask for this year?  SpongeBob! Amd what did Aunt Tessa say? Pick again! And somehow my mom talked her into wanting a Cinderella cake. Obviously this meant I had to do a dress cake.

Disclaimer: this was the first time I'd ever tried something like this... so by no means is it perfect, but now I kmow how to adjust next time.

My first step? Finding Cinderella in a dress where I could see both the front AND back. So here's what I found:

Pretty, right? Then my mom found me a doll to use. Typically you'd go to the craft supply and get a doll topper meant for cakea like this, but since Cecelia is in love with barbies lately I wanted her to have a doll to keep.

My first step was using a bowl to get the dress shape. 

Then I added two 9" round cakes that I cut down to be the same size as the bowl shape.

Crumb coat.

Final coat.

Then I put the barbie in. MISSTAKE #1. Put the barbie in first. 

I had to re-ice, re-smooth, re-do all the hard work I had just done. Ugh. Also move her to a bigger tray.

Side view:

Started the details of her dress.

I was originally going to leave the bodice alone but I liked the color blue I had better (it was more purple). Also started the pearls. Oh. So. Many. Pearls.

Added a bottom border.

Now I added some piping.

Nearly done! I oroginally put a "C" on her for both Cecelia and Cinderella. 

But then I didnt like that you couldnt tell it was for a birthday... so I changed it to a 5.

Ta-da!

She's totally worth it.