Fourth of July/Independence Day Treats!

Hi! The Fourth of July is coming up soon so here are some tasty treats that are great for a party or just enjoying a fireworks show with the family.

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Happy Independence Day! Thanks for reading!
-Ally
Check out my Pinterest for more 4th of July ideas! Pinterest

Pool Party Paradise! -PartyPerfect

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It's almost summer! That means it's time for pool parties, right? Here are my favorite ideas for the perfect pool party.

Food Ideas and Recipes:
Fruit Punch-
A great drink for a pool party. There are so many variations on this one as well. You can mix any combination of different fruit juices, sparkling water, Sprite (or a similar soda), lemonade, so many other possibilities!

Fruit Snacks-
Fruit snacks such as Fruit Roll-ups, Gushers, jelly beans, gummy bears, or gummy worms are fun Psnacks that are easy to eat while sitting around the pool. Plus, many of them are individually packaged which makes them easy to serve to your guests.

Fruit Salad-
Also has many different variations and possibilities. Here's one of my favorites:
Ingredients:
16oz. Cream Cheese
1 cup Strawberry Yogurt
Strawberries (quartered), Grapes, and Pineapple Chunks

Jell-O Cups-

You could serve your fruit punch in paper cups... or you could serve it in totally edible cups made of Jell-O! Click here to see a recipe.

Chips & Dip-

There are so many different flavors of dips and chips to pair together.

Birthday Cake:

If you're hosting a pool party for a birthday, here are some cool cake ideas:

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Food Games:
Flavor Guessing Games-
Players wear a blindfold and attempt to determine which flavor they are tasting. This can be played using different flavors of chips, smoothies, soda, fruit juice, or anything else you can come up with.

Swim-for-the-Food Race-
Pick out some different types of foods that come in water-proof packaging (candy, fruit snacks, chips, etc.). Throw these items into the pool and have everyone jump into the pool and race to get the snacks. You get to eat whatever you grab. However, most public swimming pools don't allow food. If this is the case, you can also play this with prizes like toys.

Thanks for reading!

-Ally
Edited By: Monica M.

Flag Day!

Hello! Today is Flag Day here in the United States. Flag Day celebrates the adoption of the United States flag. Here are a few fantastic flag cakes and cupcakes!

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Happy Flag Day!

-Ally

Frosting Decoration Basics- Part 1

Hello, Everybody! Welcome to Frosting Decoration Basics, where I'm going to explain the basics of how to decorate with frosting from the very beginning! This will be a three part series.

In Part 1:

• Coloring Frosting
• Decorating Bags
• Round Tips
• Star Tips

Coloring Frosting-

First, you're going to need frosting. You can check out my buttercream frosting recipe here or you could try out my sugar-free cream cheese frosting recipe here. Separate the amount of frosting you want for each color into separate bowls. Add the food dye to get the colors you want. If you want some more information about food dye, you can find it in my post all about food coloring here.

Decorating Bags-

Tip & Coupler:

The first thing you're going to need is a coupler. A coupler has two pieces (labeled in picture)

Next, you're going to need a decorating tip. There are many different shapes and sizes to choose from depending on what you're making. The two tips talked about in this part are round tips and star tips.

Coupler

Inserting the Decorating Tip into the Decorating Bag:

1. Place the decorating tip onto the first piece of the coupler.
2. Cut the tip off of the decorating bag.
3. Put the tip with the piece of the coupler into the bag and push to the end until the tip is poking out of the opening you cut in the bag.
4. Screw the second piece of the coupler on the first piece over the bag to keep everything in place.

Filling the Decorating Bag:

1. First, place the bag into a tall drinking cup/glass with the tip at the bottom and fold the top edges of the bag around the rim of the cup/glass. This makes it much easier and less messy to fill the bag with frosting.
2. Next, just use a spoon to scoop the frosting into the bag.
3. Finally, remove the bag from the cup/glass. Lay it flat on the counter, and then push all the frosting down toward the tip until it start to come out of the tip. You want to make sure a little of it comes out of the tip to remove the air from the bag. Then twist the bag just above the frosting to keep it inside.

Decorating:

The important thing to remember is to apply light pressure at the top to push the frosting down (towards the tip) and keep it from oozing out of the opening at the top and making a huge mess.

Round & Star Tips-
Round decorating tips and star decorating tips come in a large variety of sizes. A larger tip is great for decorating the tops of cupcakes with large swirls. You can also use these types of tip for a variety of different borders for decorating cakes. Smaller round tips work well for more intricate details like designs or letters/words.

Round Tips

Star Tips

Star Tip Decorating Idea

Thanks for reading!

-Ally
Edited by: Monica M.

Technical Difficulties

Hello! I haven't posted anything in a while because most of the things I had planned recently were intended to have videos to accompany them. However, I have been having some problems with my video camera and have not been able to make these videos. So, for now, I will just post them with pictures (possibly in the form of a video, only with pictures instead of actual video clips). I hope to be able to create and add videos for the posts later, once I resolve the camera issues. Thanks for being patient.

-Ally

10 Super Spring Sweets!

Hey everybody! Spring is finally here! Flowers, birds chirping, green grass,... and best of all, NO MORE SNOW (hopefully)! So, for our first spring post, I'm going to be listing ten of my favorite ideas for super spring sweets!

10. Anything Colorful

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9. Fruit
Nothing says spring like fruit!

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8. Flower Cake

Decorate with flowers!

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7. Butterfly Cupcakes

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6. Lemon Pie

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5. Fruit Tarts

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4. Fruit Cheesecake

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3. Garden Jars

Layers of chocolate pudding and brownies or cookie crumbles, topped off with mint leaves.

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2. Tulip Cake Pops

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Finally, my personal favorite...

1. Flower Pot Cupcakes

Bake chocolate cupcakes inside small flower pots. Spread with chocolate frosting. Use frosting to make flowers.

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Written by: Ally M.

Edited by: Monica M.

How to Make Chocolate Decorations for Cakes and Cupcakes

Hello Everybody! In this video post, I'm going to show you how to make these chocolate decorations. They look great stuck in the top of cakes and cupcakes.



Hope you all enjoyed! Thanks for reading and watching! Bye!

Fast and Easy Chocolate-Dipped Treats! -PartyPerfect

Hello, and welcome to something new here on the Piece-of-Cake blog: PartyPerfect! PartyPerfect will be a series of posts where I share my favorite foods for parties. I am super excited for this because... I love parties!

In this PartyPerfect, I'm going to share some of my favorite chocolate covered treats that are easy to make and loads of fun at parties, or any other time really! So here they are:

1. Marshmallows
These are so much fun because they are so customizable. You can add sprinkles and other types of toppings, varying types of chocolate, or even colored/flavored marshmallows! The possibilities here are endless! And for a fun party activity (especially for a child's or teen's party) you can set out the ingredients and let the guests make their own! My favorite thing about these is biting into one and getting a mouthful of smooth, melty chocolate combined with deliciously squishy marshmallow.

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2. Strawberries
Anybody who's tasted a chocolate-dipped strawberry knows what I'm talking when I say a flavor combination couldn't be more perfect. Though these are common, or maybe even overdone, I decided to include them because of the many decoration options: sprinkles, chocolate drizzles, etc., or you can get really creative like these wedding ones, but where the real fun happens is with a chocolate fountain!

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3. Fruit Kebabs
Chocolate drizzled fruit kebabs are super simple, but taste amazing. Again these are very customizable. One of my favorites is strawberry, banana, and kiwi. These are also great with marshmallows. As with the strawberries, you can take these to the next level with a chocolate fountain.

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I hope you all enjoy these ideas! Thanks for reading, bye!