YUM.neatlysliced.com

Well, last week I was laid off from my web development job. Apparently the recession is even attacking the world wide web. The upside to this is while I seek gainful employment, I will have extra time to post my cooking endeavors. No more 1-year old homepage posts! Hooray!

Bake It Pretty is my new favorite baking supply site. It has the most adorable chocolate candy melt molds you can find.

I particularly love the vintage button mold. That combined with the ever delicious Clasen candy melts she sells is a most decadent delight!

Image via Bake It Pretty blog. Hopefully it's okay to use :)

To help supply your initial cupcake goodness, Fantabulously Frugal is having a 31 day giveaway special. Day 7 is a starter cupcake set from Bake It Pretty!

Today’s giveaway (Day 8) is also great for us green bakers – reusable snack and sandwich bag from Etsy shop Green Street Bags – awesome! Check it out! Even if you don’t win, they’re still great!

Bookmark their site for more giveaways this month!

31 Days of Giveaways

I had received the Wilton 18-pc starter set and set out to decorate some cupcakes.

The Wilton cupcake decorating class provided some of their stock White Decorator Icing (stiff consistency). We had to thin it out with 3-4 teaspoons of water to make it usable for the beginner’s designing on the cupcakes.

(Using the #18 star tip to create pull-out stars)

I dyed my frosting with black icing color, imagining that I would get an emo grey. Surprise! I got this awesome purple pictured in my cupcake shots. I’m really excited because this is my favorite shade of purple and I declare that I don’t think I have ever seen it grace a cupcake or cake before. I wonder why.

(Using the #4 round tip for the dots)

Also with the class came this cool little beginner’s cake/frosting decorating book by Wilton. They have some great techniques in there with excellent illustrations that far exceed the little guide that comes in the starter kit. I’m very visual so I require an extended illustrated guide.

(Using the #18 star tip to create rosettes)

It was a ton of fun to make these pretty and yummy cupcakes. I hope to make more cupcakes – and perhaps delve into the realm of cookie decorating soon. The cupcakes themselves were plain vanilla. I want to find a great frosting recipe so that I don’t have to use their frosting pack – it was quick and easy, but you don’t think “yum delicious amazing!” when eating it like some of the other frostings I have made.

I’ve also added a new Decorating set in my Flickr Food collection. Now I can share yummy goodness with friends here and pretty goodness with the world :o)

Annually, Eat This, Not That (a division of Men’s Health magazine) releases its 20 worst foods of the year.

The #1 worst food is shocking to me:

Baskin Robbins Large Chocolate Oreo Shake
2,600 calories
135 g fat (59 g saturated fat, 2.5 g trans fats)
263 g sugars
1,700 mg sodium

Wow! More than a day’s intake of all those items in a single drink! And, if you’re like me, those shakes go down pretty quickly.

Eat This, Not That is great because (by the very nature of the publication) it offers a healthful alternative at the same locale for every item it warns against:

Eat This Instead! (and ask for two spoons)
2-Scoop Hot fudge Sundae
Chocolate and Vanilla
530 calories
29 g fat (19 g saturated fat)
52 g sugars

Sounds equally yum but for a fraction of the fattening junk! I wish the site had a unique RSS feed, but it only has an email newsletter. To subscribe, or not to subscribe…