King Cakes!

Today I make king cakes for the first time!  I was inspired by this blog post by Kittee Berns at kitteekake.blogspot.com.  Mine weren't vegan though.  I used this recipe.

I made the dough and let it rise for a few hours.  Then I punched it down, made the king cake rings, and let them rise again.  They are filled with a cinnamon-sugar-pecan filling made with recently harvested New Mexico pecans.

I mixed food coloring into white granulated sugar to make the green, yellow, and purple toppings.  I only had gel food coloring so I had to mix in a little water to get the colors to combine with the sugar.  I think I'll get the regular kind of food coloring for my next king cakes so hopefully the sugar won't stick together so much.

  

These taste like giant cinnamon rolls - yum!  I'll definitely be making these again.  

I hope you enjoyed your Saturday!

Donuts!

I love these donuts and their super happy colors so much!  I'm inspired to knit and felt a "Pink Donut with Sprinkles Stripes" beverage can cozy for my Etsy shop!  It should be listed in a couple of weeks.

Speaking of sprinkles, here's a catch-up of my 2013 Christmas cookies.  I made my grandma's Italian Knot Cookies again this year, which is something I do every year, and I added a lot of new sprinkles to the mix.  I love how they turned out!  I have a really good friend in Michigan who I sent these cookies to every Christmas and it was fun to mix them up a bit.

I also FINALLY achieved my goal of making and icing my own sugar cookies.  I ordered the cookie cutters and meringue powder from Amazon and stayed up super late one night to get them all baked and decorated.  So worth it!  I can't wait to make more for holidays throughout the year.

And I'll just take a second to let everyone know how much I LOVE the US Postal Service.  I feel like I rely on them so much with my Etsy shop and with Las Cruces Knit Charm and they never let me down.  I'm super happy that I was able to personalize their Christmas cookies this year.

There might be a few more catch-up posts coming and I'll also be sharing some new projects with you soon.

Have a great Friday tomorrow!