A Treat "Fore" The Golf Lovers In Your Life!

The one year anniversary of my blog is coming up next month and one of my first projects was a golf course made out of cupcakes.  At the time I thought it was a bit sad looking and had wanted to give it another go with the proper tools, namely a grass piping tip.  Finally, I had a reason to do it when I was asked to create a cupcake golf course for a birthday party.

As with any cupcake project, I baked up the cakes!  Once they cooled, I arranged them on a cake board.  Without giving it much thought I designed the shape the same way I've noticed the courses on google - random and askew:

The order was for 20 chocolate and 20 vanilla cupcakes.  I purposely placed the chocolate on the outside so it would resemble earth beneath the grass.  I'm not sure it made a real difference.  Vanilla would have been just fine.  Next, I mixed up three batches of buttercream icing.

Vanilla Buttercream Icing

2 sticks of butter

4 cups of confectioner's sugar, sifted

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

3-5 tablespoons half and half

Using a mixer, beat butter until it is fluffy.  Add 3 cups of sugar - one cup at a time - mixing until it's completely incorporated.  Add vanilla and half and half along with last cup of sugar and mix, adding more half and half until the icing is the desired consistency.


I wanted to make enough to cover the entire golf course.  Since I was dying the "grass" green, I needed enough to be sure I wouldn't need to mix more icing.  If I needed to make more I couldn't guarantee the greens would match and that there wouldn't be a darker or lighter patch on the course.  For 40 cupcakes three batches of icing was perfect.  I didn't have much left over at all by the end!

So, I combined the three batches (I mixed them up separately to ensure it turned out okay.  Recipes are funny like that; some you can double or triple with no consequences, some you have to make adjustments in the measurements.  I was under a time crunch, so I played it safe mixing the buttercream in three separate batches.  I spooned out a nice sized scoop for the water and another spoonful of white for the sand trap.  I spread the blue and white over the areas I designated for the water and sand.  On top of the white I sprinkled brown sugar.  I thought it had a nice, sand-like texture.  I've seen other courses where crushed Nilla Wafers or Graham Crackers were used for the sand and I think next time I will do that just to cut down on the sweetness factor.

Once the "water" and "sand" were applied, I filled a piping bag with some of the green icing fitted with a Wilton #233 grass tip.  Using the green, I filled in the remaining surfaces of the cupcakes.  My client asked me to make it look like a smooth course, not like separate cupcakes arranged as a course.  To that end, I filled in the spaces between cupcakes with some icing for a surface to pipe the "grass" on top.  Once I made some decent progress with the rough, I designated an area for the green.  Using the same frosting/smoothing technique as for the "water" and "sand", I added green icing and topped it with some light green sanding sugar to mimic the short grass of the green.  Then I continued piping the rough.

To finish the "water" I added some small chocolate rocks:

Lastly, for the golf course, was the flag and hole in the green.  I used a wooden skewer (next time will use a lollipop stick) for the post and white fondant for the flag.  The hole was an upside down chocolate chip and the golf ball a white dragee:

That's it!  A bit time consuming to pipe all of the "grass", but EASY.  As always, however, I have a few ideas to improve the design.

So, the order was for 40 cupcakes, but I was only able to fit 30 onto the cake board.  For the remaining 10 cupcakes I made cupcakes designed to be a golf course "green".

Picture quality is not so great, but you get idea.  I have a new macro lens and camera I'm still trying to figure out, which means some photos will be better than others until I work it all out.  :)

In elementary school one of my teachers had each of us students write a paragraph on the first day of school.  On the last day of the year she handed them back to us so we could see how our writing improved and how much we'd progressed during the course of the year.  This golf course is kind of like that for me.  When I see where I was a year ago and what I can do now, all just because I keep trying, it feels pretty good!

Peanut Butter Kiss Cookies: Prettier in Pink!

I wanted to make something simple and fun after the golf course, so I chose these adorable cookies. I first saw these cookies here: http://dailynibbles.com/2011/02/01/in-the-kitchen-pink-peanut-butter-hugs/, and immediately fell in love. Pink is my favorite color, they mimic the hot pink/zebra combination that is so popular right now, and they just make me smile. Turns out, as is often the case with baking something for the first time, it wasn't so easy! Coloring these correctly took a few tries...3 batches of dough later I was finally pleased with the result.

To make these cookie you will need the following things:

Your favorite Peanut Butter Cookie recipe, pink sanding sugar, Hershey Hugs, neon pink gel food coloring, and red gel food coloring (optional). I have a Peanut Butter Cookie recipe I have been following forever and I love it so much I would hesitate to even think about using another one. Here it is:

Peanut Butter Cookies (adapted from Betty Crocker's Cookbook)

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup peanut butter (I prefer Reese's Peanut Butter)

1/4 cup shortening (I prefer Crisco baking sticks, butter flavor)

1/4 cup butter, softened

2 tablespoons milk

1 egg

1 1/4 cups all purpose flour

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

Cream together the butter, shortening, and peanut butter. Mix in sugars, egg and milk. Add the remaining ingredients. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Roll the dough into 1 1/2 - 2 inch balls and place on an ungreased cookie sheet at least three inches apart. Using a fork make a crisscross pattern by pressing down on the cookie. Dip the fork in flour between cookies to prevent the dough from sticking. Bake between 9-10 minutes. Let cookies cool several minutes before removing them from cookie sheet.

Since I was making pink cookies, I added a few drops of AmeriColor's Christmas Red gel food dye. I read this would make a terrific shade of hot pink. I used a hand mixer to incorporate the color; doing it by hand proved to be impossible for me, I am not strong enough to evenly mix it completely.

I had some issues with coloring the dough, which I will explain in a moment. Once the desired color is mixed into the dough, roll it into 1 1/2 - 2 inch balls, dredge through pink sugar until fully coated, and bake:

After the cookies are finished baking, immediately place a Hershey Hug in the middle of the cookie, pressing it down about 1/2 way. The Hug will keep it's shape as long as it's not touched (the chocolate will half melt from the heat of the cookie). Once the cookie and the chocolate cool completely, the Hug will become solid again and the cookies can be packaged or placed in an airtight container to store.

Voila! Adorable hot pink zebra strip peanut butter cookies! Now, let's go over coloring the dough.

For the first batch I mixed up, I didn't think it was possible for it to turn pink with only a few drops of Christmas red, so I added some neon pink. I baked them and was not pleased. So, I mixed up another batch and mixed in the neon pink, still was skeptical of how they would look baked, panicked and added some red. This was close, much better, but still too dark for my taste. After thinking about it, and not ready to give up, I decided to mix up a third batch of dough and split it in two. In one half I mixed in only Christmas red dye. In the other half, I mixed in only neon pink. Here are the results of all four trials:

From Top to bottom: Uncooked dough, baked cookie with no sugar, finished cookie with sugar and hug.

The first column is the mostly red dye with some neon pink added. The second column is mostly neon pink with some red added. The third column is red dye only, and the fourth neon pink only. I had to use my judgement on how much dye to add. I was almost ready to stop at my second attempt (second column), but I'm happy I experimented with only using one color. Here is a close-up of column two and column four finished cookies, the two I decided were closest shade of the hot pink I was trying to achieve:

Cookie on left is neon pink and red dye, cookie on right is neon pink dye only.

The cookie on the left had a bit too much of a red hue and in certain light did not appear pink enough. So, the cookie on the right is the winner! I mixed approximately 6 drops of food coloring in one batch of cookie dough. I may add a bit more to darken the pink a bit, but three batches of cookies later I finally achieved my goal and I'm happy!