Cookies, Cupcakes, and Cardio

OPI Nail Polish Bottle Cake:3-D Nail Polish Cake

January 10, 2015 by Jenn 5 Comments

We’re back!! We took a short break to recover from the excitement of 2014, and will be slowly getting back into the swing of things this month. To start off with our first video upload of 2015, I have a super fun 3D nail polish bottle cake to show you. I’ve recieved many requests for this type of a cake, so I’m happy to finally be able to bring it to life.

If you’ve been watching my YouTube channel for a while, you know that I always have my nails done. Some days are better than others, but they’re polished 99% of the time. Don’t check my old videos out though . . . I prove myself wrong in those. Teaming up with a fellow YouTuber for nail polish bottle cake was a must for me! One of the channels that I have been watching for quite sometime for nail art ideas, is IHaveACupcake! What a perfect name for a collaboration! Elizabeth has a fabulous channel full of beautiful nail art ideas. She explains everything so simply, that it makes me think I could actually do my nails myself! Make sure you check out her channel, subscribe to it, and you can also check her blog out here.

In Elizabeth’s video, she shows you how to make cupcake nail art and in mine, we show you how to make a carved nail polish bottle. You can follow the technique that I show you in the video to match your favourite nail polish brand. I just happen to have a lot of OPI bottles around, so I chose to go with that type of bottle. Customizing the nail polish bottle colour is totally up to you, and I went with purple as it’s my favourite colour.

Fireworks New Year’s Cake

December 28, 2014 by Jenn 2 Comments

I think this year will be a great year for a NYE celebration! Paul and I had so many wonderful things happen to us in regards to YouTube in 2014 that we are super excited about what 2015 will be bringing us! We finished off a six month YouTube program in February with our third trip to YouTube Space LA, in the summer we took a two week working vacation to Vancouver Island and caught up with family and friends and filmed a fun video on the beach. October brought us to Toronto to take part in Buffer Festival, and that was a great experience to see how Canada’s YouTube branch does things. We celebrated 500K subscribers in the fall and hosted a giveaway that shut our blog down!! Lesson learned- we’ll have it ready for the 1M giveaway that we will be hitting sometime in early 2015. I can’t wait for that milestone! If you’re reading this, let me know in the comments what you think would be a gigantic way to celebrate it! We are very grateful for everything that has happened to us, and are so excited to plan 2015.

On to the cake for our New Years Eve celebration:

I purchased all of these New Year’s eve decorations at WalMart. Before Christmas had even happened, the stores were filled with NYE decorations and were pushing us onto the next celebration they could sell us stuff for. The candles and sparkles are available all year round, and I found those in the birthday section. The glitter ribbon I found in the crafting section, and it would be my guess that it is also available year round.

The fireworks are really easy to make and don’t require any templates. They are easy to freehand. The key to the fireworks is to make the centre the brightest, and to add the small dots and dashes around the outer rim. I practiced them a number of ways, and I found that those were the key to making it look most realistic.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

December 24, 2014 by Jenn 2 Comments

Thank you for all of your support by reading my blog, watching my videos, and following me on Social Media sites! Cheers to more success in 2015 for each and every one of you!

Filed Under: Randomness Tagged With: christmas wish, CupcakesandCardio, happy holidays, Merry Christmas

Italian Peach Cookies (Pesche Dolci)

December 22, 2014 by Jenn 6 Comments

When Paul and I first started dating, Christmas was only two months into our relationship. Can you say awkward? I had no idea what to buy him and ended up getting him some gift certificates to somewhere I don’t even remember. It was a total cop-out, but I didn’t know him well enough to get him something more personal.

During that first Christmas, I tried my first Italian Peach Cookie. It was amazing! When Italians get together, there is never a shortage of food. Never. A dessert tray is no different from a main course or the third, or the fifth- there is always a ton of food. The cookie platter that held the peach cookies, had a bunch of other pastries and sweets as well, so I’ve got a lot of cookies to replicate in the years to come.

Finally last year, I tried to replicate the peach cookies on my own, without help (my stubbornness shining through!) and didn’t succeed. This year, with my Mother In Law in better spirits (she has had some heart problems in the past), I approached her about teaching me, and then teaching everyone in a YouTube tutorial. Being that she is 80 years old, she has no idea what YouTube is, and barely understands a computer. But, being the strong, confident woman that she is, she was willing to do something that she didn’t really understand the purpose behind. She has been wanting to help us for years in our business, and she was so happy to finally be able to do so.

Paul and I will cherish this video for many years to come, and we are so lucky to have been able to include Pina in our tutorial.

Christmas Cake with Snowman Macarons: Collab with Sugarcoder

December 20, 2014 by Jenn 4 Comments

Merry Christmas everyone! This is our last Christmas tutorial video for 2014, so I hope that you enjoy it.

For a special Christmas video this year, I joined up with my friend Miki who has the YouTube channel Sugarcoder. I was fortunate enough to have met Miki early this year, way back in February. She lives in San Francisco and flew to LA to meet Paul and I when we were filming at YouTube Space LA. She is one of the happiest and sweetest people I have met. She is always sending me presents . . . that’s not why I like her, but it speaks to her thoughtfulness.

Miki previously had a different YouTube channel (Miki’s Pantry) and recently started this new one as it was more true to the brand that she wanted to convey. I think that it was very brave of her to leave behind 60K subs to start all over again!

Making this cake is basically just assembling many prepared pieces. The links to everything you need to have prepared are in the recipe below, so make sure to check that out. I found that the candy canes were mostly broken inside their wrappers, so I opted to leave the wrappers on the candy canes in order to not have to deal with that issue. Just ensure that they are clean before placing them on to the cake.

Making macarons has always been a challenge for me, so when you head over to Miki’s channel, Sugarcoder, and try out her recipe, don’t get discouraged if you don’t succeed the first time. The first time I made french macarons, I failed four times until I got it right. Miki’s recipe is simple to follow, and she learned it first hand from a chef in San Francisco. Give it your best effort, and remember to keep practicing if you’re not successful the first time. Have fun!

Surprise Inside Christmas Cake: Vertical Striped Cake

December 13, 2014 by Jenn 2 Comments

Merry Christmas! We’re only a couple of weeks away from the big day, and I’m sure you’ll need some sort of dessert to help celebrate. This vertical cake roll will impress the jolly man in the red suit, and all your other guests!

This cake roll is something a little different than the regular type of roll you might be used to. Instead of traditionally rolling up the cake by the width, this cake is rolled up length ways in small strips to create a large roll. It gets a little messy when you roll this cake up but it’s kinda fun to get dirty sometimes, right? It’s fun to roll it up!

As far as fillings for inside the cake roll go, it’s best to work with a light filling, such as whipping cream, but you could also use a fruit filling, and if you prefer, you could try buttercream, but I’m not sure how that would affect the ability of the cake to roll. I had decided that since there was so much buttercream around the outside of the cake, and using something different for the inside was probably best. It is also really easy to roll up whipping cream as opposed to other fillings.

Decorating the outside of the cake can be done however you want, and I’m sure my viewers and readers have great ideas! I liked the way the ribbons up the side of the cake we soft looking and very festive. Anything themed for the season would be great for this holiday type of cake!

Candy Taste Test Challenge

December 12, 2014 by Jenn Leave a Comment

Stephanie is back for our forth challenge video! On a recent trip to Spokane, Washington, I went shopping and came across some oddly flavoured candies. With making a future video in mind, I bought them, and asked Stephanie to join me in taste testing them. I’m sure she’s upset she agreed to it.

If you haven’t met Stephanie Moore from Stephanie Moore Photography yet, you must meet her now. She has become a great friend and a great guest to have on my channel. In fact, I’m thinking she may have been inspired to start her own channel. Fingers crossed we’ll be able to watch her in all her glory soon on YouTube.

These candies were not enjoyable to eat. The Jelly Belly draft candies were reminiscent of the vomit flavoured jelly belly’s in the Bean Boozled challenge. I didn’t like them then, and I didn’t like them this time either. The boogers pretty much tasted like regular candies. Now, for the exploding candies, they tasted just like pop rocks, and I can’t say that I was a fan of the explosions, or the flavours. These candies did not compare to the ones that we previously experienced with the sour candy challenge, but I can tell you that they were gross just the same!

I wouldn’t want to experience them again.

If you’ve got another idea for a challenge video, let me know in the comments!

Get Jelly Belly Draft Beer candy here.

Get Box of Boogers candy here.

Get Exploding Wasabi candy here.

Get Exploding Popcorn candy here.

Filed Under: Challenge Videos, Randomness Tagged With: Box of Boogers, candy, Candy Taste Test Challenge, Exploding Popcorn candy, Exploding Wasabi candy, jelly belly, Jelly Belly Draft Beer, taste test, youtube challenge

Starbucks Peppermint Mocha Cupcakes

December 10, 2014 by Jenn 6 Comments

As you probably know by now, I have a slight additction to Starbucks drinks. In the fall, I love me a PSL, and when the winter time hits, it’s either a Peppermint Mocha Light, or a Gingerbread Latte, half sweet, non-fat, no whip. Yep, I’m that girl. Slightly high maintenance, but since I’m paying $5 a drink, I feel I’m entitled to a bit of choosiness.

Back in September, I made a Pumpkin Spice Latte drink into a cupcake (see it here), and our viewers really seemed to enjoy that, and so many people requested that I do another cupcake. Since the peppermint mocha seemed to be popular, and a drink that I already enjoyed, I decided to make that!

The chocolate and peppermint combination in this treat is perfect for any holiday celebration you might be attending. Bring cupcakes to a Christmas event can be a nice change from the normal assortment of cookies trays that are found in abundance around this time of year.

The swirl affect of the icing looks super hard, but it’s actually really easy! In simple terms, all I do to create that effect is to “stripe” the bag with gel paste prior to putting the white buttercream into the piping bag. I have shown viewers how to do that before when I made a Skittles cupcake, and I will also use it again in a video up loading this weekend!

I hope you enjoy this tutorial, have a very Merry Christmas!

OPI Nail Polish Bottle Cake:3-D Nail Polish Cake

Fireworks New Year’s Cake

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Italian Peach Cookies (Pesche Dolci)

Christmas Cake with Snowman Macarons: Collab with Sugarcoder

Surprise Inside Christmas Cake: Vertical Striped Cake

Candy Taste Test Challenge

Starbucks Peppermint Mocha Cupcakes

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