All posts by Melissa

Airplane Cake Topper {Tutorial}

Tutorials and Videos

Planes Trains and Automobiles Cake

Remember this cake?  I made it a few weeks ago for a special 1 year old birthday.  It was such a fun cake to make.  I love making cake toppers, I think it really brings more height and interest to any cake.  I used to design my cake toppers from paper templates but now that I have my 3D printer, I can create cutters to simply create any design I like.  I actually used a paper template to create this topper, but I still wanted to design the cutters so I could easily replicate this in the future.  First you will need my airplane cutter set which can be purchased here.

Airplane Cutter Set | Lil Miss Cakes

I just realized how cute this would be for cookie favors or even a cookie cake topper!  Okay, let’s focus on the fondant/gum paste cake topper for now.  Here’s how to make this cute topper using my cutter set.

Roll out fondant or gum paste | Lil Miss Cakes

If using fondant I would recommend adding some tylose powder to add extra stability and help the fondant harden and dry faster.

Cut out 3 airplanes | Lil Miss Cakes

Use any colors you like, I thought it would be fun to display a more girly looking airplane here.

Trimming the airplanes | Lil Miss Cakes

You can use a straight edge to cut the airplane pieces or just do it by eye.

Cutting airplane wings | Lil Miss Cakes

I like the look of 4 wings on the airplane.  When assembling the airplane, one larger wing and one smaller wing will be rotated and attached behind the airplane so it looks like it is on the other side.

"Propeller and windows | Lil Miss Cakes

I think that on the original airplane I used an even smaller piping tip to cut the circles for the windows.  Just use whatever round cutter you have on hand, or leave the windows off.

Pieces needed for airplane topper | Lil Miss Cakes

I like to let the pieces dry overnight.  If you are in a hurry, you can turn turn on your oven light and place the pieces inside your OFF oven.  The heat of the oven light bulb will start to dry your pieces out.  When removing your pieces, they will be warm to the touch.  Allow them to cool down for a few minutes before handling them.  If you do this trick, PLEASE put a piece of tape over your oven controls!  The last thing you need is to accidentally bake your airplane!

How to assemble airplane topper | Lil Miss Cakes

To assemble your airplane use royal icing or sugar glue and follow the arrows for placement.

Finished Cake Topper | Lil Miss Cakes

I used my airplane as a cake topper, but you could just as easily place this on the side of your cake.  You can purchase the airplane cutter set here!

Pumpkin Spice Chocolate Chip Cookies {recipe}

Cookies,

Pumpkin Spice Chocolate Chip Cookies | Lil Miss Cakes

This recipe happened by accident. I was trying to make my favorite chocolate chip cookies for my sisters birthday.  They happen to be her favorite too.  The recipe calls for a package of vanilla pudding mix.  I started putting the recipe together and went to the pantry to grab a pudding mix from my stash…my empty stash!  I was all out of vanilla-my options were lemon or pumpkin spice pudding mix.  If I were baking for my mom, I would have grabbed lemon.  My sister is not a lemon fan though, so I went for the pumpkin and hoped for the best.

Pumpkin Spice Chocolate Chip Cookies Close Up | Lil Miss Cakes

Yum!  They taste like my soft chocolate chip cookies, but with a hint of pumpkin spice.  It’s nice for once to not be overwhelmed by pumpkin especially this time of year.  Even I need a break.  And I’ve posted pumpkin a lot! See pumpkin cinnamon buns, pumpkin spice pudding cookies, pumpkin doughnuts, pumpkin doughnut holes, and pumpkin snickerdoodles (my first ever post-I’ve come a long way).  Anyway, these cookies were gone so quickly!  My sister was so happy and had a great birthday weekend, thanks to this dairy-free cookie recipe.

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Pumpkin Spice Chocolate Chip Cookies {recipe}
Author: 
Prep time: 
Cook time: 
Total time: 
Serves: 3 dozen
 
Ingredients
  • 1 cup (2 sticks) margarine
  • ¾ cup brown sugar
  • ¼ cup sugar
  • 1 tsp, vanilla extract
  • 2 eggs
  • 2¼ cups flour
  • 1 package pumpkin spice pudding mix
  • 1 tsp. baking soda
  • ¾ tsp. salt
  • 12 oz. semi-sweet chocolate chips
Instructions
  1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
  2. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.
  3. In the bowl on an electric stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the margarine with the sugars and vanilla extract until smooth.
  4. Add in the eggs, one at a time, and mix until combined.
  5. Mix in the flour, pudding mix, baking soda, and salt, and mix until combined.
  6. Add in the chocolate chips and mix just until combined, trying not to break up the chips.
  7. Using a 1½ Tbs. size cookie scoop or spoon, scoop cookie dough onto parchment lined cookie sheet and bake for 8-11 minutes until edges are lightly browned. Remove from oven and let cookies cool on baking sheet to firm up a bit. Enjoy!

Thanksgiving Turkey Cookies

Cookies

Thanksgiving Turkey Sugar Cookies | Lil Miss Cakes

Hi I’m Melissa, and I’m bad at icing sugar cookies.  Okay, I can get my royal icing to the proper consistency, I can color the icing to every color in the rainbow.  But I can’t look at a blank cookie and create a cute, fancy, intricate design.  I have spent years dabbling with royal iced sugar cookies and I have gotten the basics down!  I finally realized that I need to be esigning cookies my own way.  I can decorate a simple design really well.  So I deconstructed the turkey and created 2 simple designs.  The feather cookie is a simple design, and the turkey cookie is simple as well.  When they get stacked together…tada! Here’s a breakdown of how I made these.

Turkey Royal Icing Cookies

I was going for an orange brown color for the turkey, I guess I ended up with a pumpkin pie color, but I  like it!

Adding royal icing feathered wings

This is the exact color I envisioned for the feathered wings.  I used Sweet Sugarbelle’s color tutorial on these cookies, it was so helpful!  I had a few ideas for the look of the feathered wings so I tried them all.  I definitely don’t love how all these styles look, but I was playing around.

Turkey Cookies Coming Along

I added white eyes, a dark brown center iris, and yellow beak and feet.  I used the tutorial from the Bearfoot Baker to make the uneven crazy eyes.  I didn’t make royal icing transfers because these cookies were pretty small, but I used the same idea.  I had a few ideas for the look of the turkey feet as you can see here, but in the end I only liked one of the choices.

2 part turkey cookie

I forgot to take a separate picture, but added the red hanging thing to the turkey beak (did you know it’s called a snood?  I did not).  I also decorated the feather cookie extremely simply, kind of looks like a peacock.  Here you can see the cookie cutters I designed to cut these cookies.  I have had this cookie idea for a while, but I am not a fan of cutting cookies by hand.  With this cutter set, it makes cookie making much more fun!  You can buy the cutter set here.

Stacked Turkey Cookies

Gobble gobble.