Kids Birthday Cakes – HilaryStyle

As much as I love to be on the road exploring, and contrary to how it might look if you follow me on Instagram, I’m not always traveling, in fact more often than not, I’m home, which if you don’t already know is beautiful sunny Los Angeles, California.

However, I do have other non-travel related interests, and thought it might be fun to share some of them with all of you, after all this blog is about travel, fashion and FUN.

#royalicingcookies #ilovela #cookiesareeverythingn — I LA

So, what, beyond all things travel related, constitutes fun Hilary style? I’ve got many irons in the fire, so to speak, but currently I’ve been spending a lot of time creating in the kitchen (mainly cookies and cakes), and with Valentine’s Day just around the corner, it seems like the perfect time to share some of my sweeter creations.

Cookies

I’ve always loved to bake, but my newest baking obsession is cookies. Mainly French macarons and sugar cookies decorated with royal icing. The later being a nice mix of baking and art.

I’m enjoying this so much, that I admit to being a bit behind in some other areas, as I can’t seem to stop decorating. Though I haven’t heard any complaints from the family.

Lunar New Year Cookies

These cute little sweeties seemed like the perfect treats to bring to the Lunar New Year party we attended.

Birthday Cookies

Baking the cookies onto lollypop sticks seemed like a fun idea, and thankfully it worked out beautifully. I will definitely be doing this again. Not to mention eating them off the stick was particularly satisfying.

#cookiepop #cookiesareeverything — Cookie Pops

Thinking it would be fun to “dress” the cookies as their recipients I had no idea that they would actually be wearing matching outfits. A photo was absolutely in order, as I couldn’t have planned this better if I tried.

Cookie Bouquet

The happy cookie recipients

Destination Cookies

I love travel and I love cookies, so baking cookies related to some of my favorite travel destinations makes sense. Here’s an attempt at some USA/California themed treats. I think I still need some work here, but thankfully my brother-in-law has volunteered to eat all my practice cookies. He lives in Seattle, so I’ll be shipping these his way just in time for…

#californiadreaming — California Dreaming

Valentine’s Day Cookies

This is my younger son’s last year of elementary school, and also our last year exchanging class Valentine’s. This is a bittersweet milestone, as moving on and up is a positive, but we’ll miss these fun elementary traditions and are going to go all out with heart cookies for everyone!

#rainbowcookies #cookiesareeverything #royalicingcookies

Rainbow Heart Cookies

We had friends over for a cookie decorating party and everyone loved the speech bubble cookie. I’ve seen a lot of fun Valentine pun cookies around, but I’m going with “I love you soy much”, which I thought up on my own!

I Love Cookies

Donut Love

I love you soy much

French Macarons

Learning to make French Macarons was a fun and delicious challenge. I don’t know that I’ve mastered it quite yet, but I have learned that they are delicious whether they look pretty or not!

If you’re a beginner macaron baker, consider flavoring the filling as opposed to the shells, which can be finicky even when using the most basic recipe. Displayed here are pumpkin shells with a cheesecake pumpkin butter filling, chocolate with chocolate hazelnut ganache, vanilla peppermint with crushed peppermint, orange cranberry, orange chocolate and vanilla with a vanilla and chocolate ganache center.

Pumpkin Cheesecake

Chocolate Ganache

Vanilla Peppermint

Cranberry Orange Macaron

Orange Chocolate

Vanilla Chocolate Ganache

Did you know that macarons can be frozen for up to 5 months? Pre-baked shells can be thawed and then filled with buttercream, chocolate or curd as needed. I got this cute little stand/carry case for $11 on Amazon, which comes in handy if you want to bring your creations with you.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this sweet detour from my usual musings about art and travel, and if so you might like to follow my cookie adventures on my new cookiestagram @cookiesareeverything, which is just getting started.

I’ll be back to travel next week sharing some off the beaten path fun from our most recent visit to New Orleans, and stay tuned for more baking fun…

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😂 😊 😍 😎 🙄 🙃 😶

In keeping with the theme Elliot requested the cakes and frosting both be lemon flavor. I wanted to the cakes to be uniform in size and shape, so used mini spring form cake pans, and baked the cakes in two batches. Once the cakes had cooled completely a cake leveler was used to ensure they were all the same height. Spread a thin layer of frosting over each cake, this will also help adhere the fondant.

While the cakes were baking I prepared the fondant.

You can purchase fondant in every color of the rainbow, however, if you can also color the fondant yourself, which is what I did. Divide the fondant up based on how many colors you’ll be using.

A helpful hint: put parchment paper down on your work surface and wear clean new plastic gloves while kneading the fondant. Not only will this protect your hands and surfaces from the food coloring, but you’ll find fondant much easier to work with if you don’t touch it directly with warm hands.

Rather than use a traditional cake board I thought it would be fun to make the cake board part of the theme! Using a piece of recycled cardboard covered in foil and parchment paper I created a birthday “text box.” Use the leftover cardboard to create little boards for your mini cakes, which will make handling and decorating them a lot easier.

Creating the faces was actually much easier than it sounds. I used items I already had on hand in the kitchen, including cookie cutters and alphabet shapes. For example the tears of laughter were created using the letter J!