Recently, I traveled to Detroit, Michigan to learn all about the new Buick Encore. It's a brand new model that Buick is releasing in 2013 and as part of the promotion, they invited 10 bloggers from different genres to participate in the Buick Encore's Pinboard to Dashboard program.

Basically, we create a Pinterest pinboard to inspire the look of an actual Buick Encore – from the interior and exterior colors and even show where we would take the car, what we would listen to while driving it and who we would bring with us.

I was thrilled to be asked and of course had a blast! I met some great bloggers, Michael, Shannon and Katie (I love their blogs!). We learned all about the Buick Encore and we had amazing BBQ.

I learned a lot about Buick and the new Encore and even got to see it!

The Buick Encore is a crossover SUV, smaller than the Enclave and fits 5 passengers comfortably. When it's released, it will be the smallest crossover and I call it affordable luxury. Buick is not your grandparents' car, they have come a long way in the last 10 years. Their cars are comfortable, full of quality and even style.

It was really cold so a few of us piled into the cars and took advantage of the seat warmers! We were one of the few to actually get to see the actual Buick Encore…it's actually not in production yet.

Some of my favorite features of the Buick Encore…I love the second glove compartment. I love the music choices and the little screen. You can control the radio on the steering wheel too.

There's a center console where you can plug in your iPhone to connect it to the audio in the car and even charge it. Of course, other phones not just iPhones, it's a USB connector.

I also learned that every Buick has IntelliLink features to let you connect to your phone via Bluetooth…talk and make calls hands-free. And connect more than one phone to your Buick too!

So when thinking about how I would like my dream Buick Encore to look like…of course I found inspiration in food. And destinations that I want to take it to…all has to do with food.

I really really love blue, as you know from visiting my site. I also love the combination of chocolate espresso colors with blue. It's a really popular wedding cake color combination.

How to make Blue and Chocolate Swirl Cupcakes

I used Wilton's chocolate buttercream icing recipe and my favorite buttercream icing recipe. First add 12-inch decorator (piping) bags into two cups. This makes it easier to get the icing into them. Measure out 1 cup of each frosting and add to the bags using an offset spatula.

Remove the icing bags from the cups and squeeze the icing all the way to the small end of the bag. Tie off the bags with rubber bands and snip the ends – be sure to cut them both the same size.

Then, set up your large 16-inch decorator bag with a large cupcake tip and add both bags to it. Make sure both bags are lined up and to the frosting tip. And pipe as you usually would, be sure to squeeze icing down to the opening from the top and apply even pressure to both frostings.

You can do this with chocolate and any other color such as pink or two completely different colors…the sky's the limit!

Updated: Here's a video, I later made that has pink & chocolate swirled frosting!

So there's my inspiration and color combination for my dream Buick Encore. Blue and Chocolate! I would love this wood for a trim inside the car. Chocolate leather seats would be perfect…since we will be taking the dogs along with us, it'll be easier to clean the dog hair.

My ultimate feature would be to able to control the reusable shopping bags we all have and they just take up the whole trunk! For the exterior, I would love to have a light blue color.

As to who would I take with me in my Buick Encore? I would take my husband and my dogs for a long road trip. Our dream has always been to drive down the Pacific Coast Highway in California and to see the Grand Canyon. These cupcakes would make a great snack as well as these and these.

Check out my Pinboard to Dashboard pinterest board, I would love for you to like or repin anything you find interesting!

A huge thank you to the entire Buick Encore team (including Molly, Phil, Jeanne, Lloyd, Craig and Erin) for this great opportunity. Five finalists will be chosen out of the 10 pinterest boards and their boards will be sent to fashion & lifestyle magazine editors. The winning blogger will see their Buick Encore come to life as the Buick team will build it!

Follow Buick on facebook and twitter and be sure to follow the #PinMyEncore hashtag on twitter to see the latest!

Now tell me, what features would you like to see in your dream car? What's your favorite colors and where would you take your dream car?

Disclosure: Though this post is sponsored by Buick Encore, the opinions shared in this post are 100% my own. And there are a couple of affiliate links in this post.

The post Blue & Chocolate Swirl Cupcakes and the Buick Encore appeared first on The Little Kitchen.

Look at those raffle prizes! Unfortunately, I didn't win anything but the Make-A-Wish Foundation benefited from my purchase of raffle tickets. Pictured on the right is part of the crowd listening as the awards ceremony was going on, this doesn't even show you how full the room was! The sheer amount of cakes and talent displayed this weekend in Ocala couldn't even fit in one picture. In the bottom right, a glimpse of the vendor area, I was so busy volunteering, I didn't get a chance to stop by…but that was good for the pocketbook!

I attended one demo in the morning called Perfect Fondant with the Food Network challenge cake decorator Rebeca Sutterby. She is really nice and honest about her favorite tools and brands. She gave us tons of great advice on how to cover a cake and a cake dummy (foam pieces shaped like cakes that cake decorators use in cake competitions). Below are some highlights of her tips:

• She pops air bubbles with a pin while she's rolling out the fondant
• When cutting the excess fondant at the bottom, keep your knife straight & don't saw at the fondant
• She cuts out the fondant on the tops of cakes that are bottom teirs and uses it as a guide as well as using this part as a handle when handling the cake
• Her favorite tool is a non-serrated knife and stabs the cake and uses it to pick up the cake and position it on the cake board and on top of other tiers
• She uses roofing nails and puts them through the bottom of her cake board and this keeps the cake from moving around
• She uses cardstock taped to her fondant smoother as a last step to smooth out her fondant

The 2010 ICED Cake Competition theme was romantic wedding cakes. There were categories for wedding accessories as well as cupcakes and cupcake tasting. And those flowers are cupcakes, can you believe that? How clever was that?

One of the sponsors and vendors was Simi Cakes. Sidney and her mom, Michelle, are awesome! If you haven't heard of Sidney, you need to take notice now…she is very young and very talented at isomalt and pulled sugar techniques!

Here are some of my favorites and below, even more! The one with an R topper on it, that's my friend, Merrie Lee‘s cake!

The center cake (blue) was the 2nd Runner-Up in the Wedding Cakes Professional Division. It was created by Roxanne Moore.

These cakes just scratch the surface of the number of entries. One of my volunteer duties was to tally all of the judging sheets. Boy, it was a lot of work with seven categories and tons of entries!

The cake in the top left was in the non-judged category and was one among my top favorites! This is just part of the huge talent that came through this past weekend. Inspires me to practice my cake decorating skills and maybe even encourage me to even enter a contest…maybe.

I went into the children's cookie decorating room and the kids were having a lot of fun!

The judges worked so hard! In the top left, that's Mercedes Strachwsky of Bake Me a Cake, Edna De La Cruz of Design Me a Cake and Rebecca Sutterby of Sugar Creations. I kind of gave Edna a hard time because of her Nikon (I'm a Canon fan), hope she knows I was only joking and there's no way I can touch her decorating talent! The judges in the bottom row are Ms. Debbie, Susan Clippinger of Sweet Designs Kitchen and Grace Jones of Frosting on the Cake.

Marlene Callahan won the Grand Prize Novice category for Wedding cakes as well as the Wedding Accessories Novice category. I was working the registration desk when she asked about where her accessory was supposed to go. She was torn between moving her wedding accessory from where her cake was located…I'll bet she is glad she moved her accessories to the correct table!

It was great to see the excitement of all of the winners…and one of the winners was my friend, Pam Greenwell of Cake Art by Pam! She won the 1st Runner-up Prize in the Wedding Cakes Professional Division. She was so happy and we were so excited for you! Pam, 2011 is your year!

Angela Schnellbach won the Grand Prize in the Wedding Cakes Professional Division as well as Decorators' Choice and People's Choice! This was her first ever cake competition, can you believe that?

And the theme voted by on attendees and guests for 2012 is Masquerade Ball. Hope to see you in Ocala in 2012 at the Florida ICED Cake Competition. If you want regular updates on the next competition, I would ‘like' them on facebook.

And psst, don't forget the Tanga $25 gift card (there will be two winners) ends tonight!

The post 2011 Florida ICED Cake Competition in Ocala, Florida appeared first on The Little Kitchen.

Cake pops are really popular! I haven been wanting to them for a while. Then, Wilton came out with their new book and I heard about Wilton's contest…and ooh they were sending out Pops kits to the first 40 bloggers who preregister for the contest. I had to give it a try!

What is a pop?

If you can stick it on a stick—it’s a pop! Your favorite sweet treats are more fun to eat when you can just grab them and enjoy. The fun factor really goes off the charts when you decorate them with colorful candy and sprinkles! Here’s just a sample of the treats you can transform into pops.

Wilton's book has so many ideas on how you can make different treats into pops. I opted for the classic cake pop. Although I do want to try a brownie pop next!

I actually found a box mix that is only 9 oz, which is half the size of a regular cake mix box and made two different flavors. Chocolate and yellow. I decided NOT to try to crumble the cake by hand. A few seconds in the food processor and I had the perfect cake crumbs!

Print

Cake Pops

Ingredients

• 1/2 of a cake baked from an 18 oz. cake mix crumbled up
• 1/2 cup of frosting
• candy melts assorted colors
• candy sticks
• assorted candy decorations

Instructions

• After you crumble the cake up, mix in 1/2 cup of your favorite frosting or buttercream icing until it turns into a dough-like consistency.
• Roll into 1 Tbsp or 2 Tbsp balls. Then, chill in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours.
• Once they have chilled for 2 hours, dip your candy stick one at a time into the candy melts (melted) insert into the bottom of your cake ball. Now it's a cake pop! I wiped away any excess and I chilled them overnight before dipping them into candy melts.

A couple of things I learned and some tips:

• Don't use a buttercream that has butter in it. I'm a huge fan of buttercream that has butter in it but it's not very useful for cake pops. The candy melts are really warm and draws out the butter in the buttercream. They still taste fine but aren't very attractive if you're using this as a present or a party favor at a baby shower. Use store bought icing or a buttercream that only has shortening in it.
• I was not able to get the candy melts into a good consistency for dipping without adding vegetable oil to the melted candy melts. Don't be afraid, I think I even had to add at least 1/2 cup of oil even.
• To get evenly sized cake pops, I used a Tablespoon measuring spoon to measure out cake "dough" before rolling into a ball.
• When covering cake pops in sprinkles, I found dipping them proved to be too messy. Holding them over my bowl of sprinkles and using a spoon to drip the sprinkles over them worked best.

Now onto the cake pops I made…

Kitty or pig, kitty or pig? I was trying to make an orange kitty that looks like my kitty Clone. Did I succeed? I used these candy eyeballs and for Clone's muzzle I used these decorations.

These are cute kitties are they? For both of the kitties I did, I used chocolate chips for the ears. I “glued” the ears down with candy melt and back into the fridge they went before dipping. I tried both chocolate chips and white chocolate chips. The white chocolate chips tend to melt a little and make the “ears” sink and round off a little. So if you need rounded ears for something, I would recommend the white chocolate chips. I used the black candy melts, I had one bag left from my Wilton halloween project.

I made these with Wilton nonpareils I already had on hand and these are actually the 1 Tbsp size cake pops.

Verdict? Cake pops are fun to make once you get the idea and the routine down. I can't wait to try more detailed cake pops. I brought them into work and my co-workers loved them! I'm going to definitely make these for my niece's first birthday! Also, my favorite are the chocolate ones of course!

My favorite Wilton product out of all of the ones I received for this contest?

The Chocolate Pro Electric Chocolate Melter is awesome. If you follow the directions correctly, this is your friend when making cake pops. I only wish I had more of these for the different color candy melts. The chocolate melter is perfect for making cake pops as well as having out for parties…for dipping fruits and marshmallows. Party idea, yeah!

Disclosure: Wilton provided me with some of the products for the purpose of this contest and I received no monetary compensation. All opinions are my own. Some of these links may be affiliate links.

The post Wilton’s Pops Blogger Contest appeared first on The Little Kitchen.

When I was invited to participate by Casey of TasteStopping to participate in this new series for her brand new website called Kitchen Play, I was excited! I love making and decorating cakes and I enjoy using many of Wilton's products. I took all four Wilton cake decorating classes a few years and had so much fun.

About Kitchen Play: it's site devoted to connecting food bloggers and PR professionals through sponsored events such as the Progressive Party, the SideCar Series, the Pampered Pantry and more. Congratulations and kudos to Casey for starting such a fun project, I know she has been working tirelessly on it and I'm honored to be a part of it!

I really wanted to go for a Halloween theme that's accessible even if you have never done any cake decorating. That meant little to no fondant and a buttercream icing that's easy to make and very tasty. So with that goal in mind and after seeing the molds for these candy tombstones, I had a little idea of what I wanted to do.

My plan was to make a graveyard cake complete with tombstones and bones! I also wanted to make some Halloween themed cookies to go with the cake that would make great party favors.

The first thing I do when planning a cake is to decide on a theme or a central element of a cake and then build around it. I will often make drawings and often plan aloud with my husband. He is way more creative than me and I love bouncing ideas off of him. Sometimes he'll grab the pen and paper from me and start drawing too. My drawings don't look all that great but they help me get my plans on paper and are often a guide for me when I start the cake.

I will start out by showing you how I made the candy tombstones.

List of supplies for candies:
Candy molds – skeleton bones and tombstones
Candy Coloring Set – I used black from this set and orange from this set
Premium Candy Melts – I used white and dark cocoa
Candy Melting Plate
Glass bowl or any microwave safe bowl
Tapered spatula – that's just what I grabbed out of the drawer, a regular angled spatula would have worked just fine
Decorator bags

I started out making the tombstones. I used the black candy color from this set to make a gray color for the gargoyle type tombstone.

I use the same method to fill bags with royal icing for decorating cookies. When using the decorator bags with candy melts and molds, I did not use a tip or coupler. Fill the bag with the colored candy melts (already melted) or if you're using white or chocolate (without needing to add color), fill the bag with candy melts and microwave according to the directions on the bag. No need for tips or couplers unless the candy mold is very small and detailed. Do not put tip on the bag before microwaving!

I also made the white chocolate skeleton bones but didn't photograph the process. I would say to cut the decorator bag really small or even use a small tip & coupler along with your decorator bag.

So here's the cake broken down:

Here's some more details of the cake:
I doubled Wilton's chocolate buttercream icing (I used cocoa powder and the suggestion of coffee instead of milk) – it's a really yummy icing recipe!
For the fence, I used the flat side of the basketweave (#47) tip and it didn't matter if I got it straight since the goal was for it to be rickety looking
It's a 2-layer red velvet cake and I used the same chocolate buttercream icing as the filling

When planning a cake, I also plan when I'm going to do what, this helps make the process go smoother. Working a full-time job makes it really hard for me to make the cake and decorate it all in one day. Plan ahead and stay organized is my advice.

The coffin and ghost cookie cutters came from this 18-piece Halloween set.

See this post I did about Valentine's cookies for the recipes I used. I did use Wilton's royal icing recipe. I always double it. When doing decorated cookies, it's best to plan ahead. Figure out how many colors you want to do on your cookies, I often list them so it helps me stay organized. From there, I figure how how many batches of royal icing I'll need to make. Making the coffins and ghosts were easy as I only used two colors which meant two consistencies, 1 for flooding and 1 for piping the outline and eyes and mouth on the ghosts.

I hope you enjoyed this post and found it useful. Visit the other Halloween SideCar Series posts now!

The post A Haunting Halloween Cake, Wilton-style appeared first on The Little Kitchen.

The cake flavor is everyone's favorite:  chocolate! The cake is decorated with buttercream and the decorations are fondant with tylose powder (the stuff that's in gumpaste). I like using a little tylose powder because it will allow the fondant to dry faster and I won't have the problem of stretching when I go to move it around (if I let it dry a little).

As I was working on the cake, I was really worried that it was ugly. I love twitter because I posted this and when I posted a picture of the lion cake along the way, my tweeps convinced me it wasn't ugly.

All of these pictures were taken with my iPhone 4!

How did she know the birthday girl was going to wear a dress with a cupcake on it? I just wanted to say, it was great to hear that a friend used a recipe she found on my blog. I love to hear when people try recipes that I share!

Here's a video of the action (some notes on the video, also taken with my iPhone 4 and I should have left it at landscape, know better for next time):

Glad everyone liked the way the cake looked and more importantly how it tasted. We had so much fun at the party and the Mexican food we had was soo tasty!

The post A Lion Birthday Cake appeared first on The Little Kitchen.

I used a 10×10 pan because I didn't have a 13×9 pan. I cut four inches on one side to make it 10×6. I think next time I would try the 13×9 and cut it in half like Julie from The Frosted Cake ‘n Cookie did.

I was a little inventive and used this sprinkle container, parchment paper and a measuring spoon to hold up the corner of the book. It did hold up and stay in place during the hour long drive but didn't make it the entire party. The weather was incredibly humid so it did start drooping after a while.

And here's the finished product! This was my first time doing ribbon roses! I learned them using this video.

The post Graduation Cake appeared first on The Little Kitchen.