Its been a while

....since my last post. Not that I've stopped baking! The holidays are always crazy and then I've been working hard on my new diet and workout routine since the beginning of the year and have admittedly made less goodies than normal.

I've officially finished my 2nd Wilton Cake Decorating Course, which I thoroughly enjoyed! I'm so looking forward to the next one but it won't be starting till March because of my busy busy February...busy because in about 5 days, I'll be headed to ITALY! Can't wait!

So I'm not sure I'm in the mood to write alot now, but I figured I'd get on her and get the bug for blogging again...so I'm going to post a bunch of photos that I've been meaning to share for a while....Hope you enjoy!

This is my first REAL fondant covered cake. I made it for my cousins little boys baby shower! It was fun to do, but man, a LOT of work!

yes, the baseball is a cake too...I used the Wilton Ball Pan, I was very happy with the results

showing off some of my royal icing flowers made in my cake decorating class

I tried out this great sugar cookie frosting recipe....it was easy to use, but after a couple of days, the pink took on a brownish hue....I'm going to try poured fondant next time.

ooohhh, I LOVE these cupcakes! I used up some frozen mini one-bowl chocolate cupcakes and made the Salted Caramel Cupcakes with dark chocolate frosting. I was trying it out to make sure it was a delicious recipe from Martha Stewart before I made 100 to donate to a charity event this weekend!

they are all topped with royal icing hearts....I had to use up the royal icing from the flowers and though it was a cute idea on the cover of MS Living.

way back in december, I wanted to make a croqembouche for my holiday party...well I did, it was fun to do and I would definitely do it again...though I have work to do on the sugar part, it hardened up on me way tooo soon, but I LOVED the pastry cream filling and the puffs! It makes a LOT of puffs...

and I think I used them all for the tower...I didn't start it off very well to keep it nice and straight, but it tasted good none the less!

Well thats it for pictures today.... I'm going to be making some red velvet cupcakes for my little mans daycare (Valentines gifts) and then those Salted Chocolate Cupcakes again for this coming weekend...then I'll definitely be taking some time off as I will be far to busy eating fresh pasta and drinking delicious italian wines! Happy Valentines to everyone! Happy baking!