Mini Gingerbread Houses

Every year around Christmas time I think about making a gingerbread house. Once in high school I made one with a friend but we put it on display in the dorm and people ate it. So I've never quite worked up to making another whole house. Then I saw these mini mug houses on Not Martha. My friend Sarah was coming over and I knew we had to make them. Ours were not quite as cute (or as photogenic) as the originals, but they are still pretty good! Edible, mini, and multiple, when you look at the whole neighborhood!

White Chocolate White House

Apparently every year the White House pastry chef makes a gingerbread model of the White House. This year it was covered in white chocolate and the whole thing weighed 390 pounds. That's a lot of house!

But the cutest part was the little marzipan garden! Mini veggies are bound to be cute, and mini veggies made of candy are even cuter. The detail on these leaves and the baskets and signs are amazing. I'm not sure how I feel about the White House putting so many resources toward extravagant holiday decorations, but I am glad to know that they have some cuteness in there!

Sushi Cakes

My latest creation, to go with a sushi dinner we had at our house. Sushi cupcakes! Without looking at them closely, a couple people didn't even realize they weren't real sushi. Snigger snigger.

These are another great example of cute things that look like other things. Sushi is not cute. Cupcakes alone are not cute. But combine these two great things, and cuteness is born. Unfortunately, they didn't taste as great as they looked. But the point was really to admire them and we accomplished that!

For details on how they're made, read about them on GastroFabulous.

Soy Sauce Fish

I've been meaning to post these soy sauce fish for a long time. I actually got them on the flight back from China and these are a great example of why Asian stuff is so great. They rarely miss an opportunity to add cuteness to an everyday object. Why should a packet of soy sauce just look like a packet, when it can look like a fish!? Things that look like other things have a certain duality to them that increases the cute factor. Making the red cap look like the nose of the fish is the perfect finishing touch.

Carrot Cupcake

The next cute seasonal treat is made by - moi! Carrot cake, cream cheese frosting, and fondant carrots growing on top. I'm no cupcake expert (yet) so this was quite a production for me. You can see more photos and read about it over on my food blog, Gastrofabulous. You'll see there are other simpler ones with just a carrot sitting on top. I would say those are medium-cute. But this one is extra cute because it looks like the carrots are growing out of the cupcake! You see, I'm always looking to take the cuteness to another level for ya.

Sheep Cupcakes

Continuing on with the edible sheep theme:
Aren't these little lambs so cute you almost can't take it?! I know. At first I thought they were just faces peering out of fluffy cupcakes. But then I realized they are little fluffy sheep balls with their feet all splayed out! I think the bulk of their cuteness comes from the ridiculousness of their tiny faces peering out of all those fluffy marshmallows. I'm pretty sure if I made them they wouldn't come out this cute so I'm not going to try. But if anyone else wants to, here's the Food Network recipe, and let me know how they come out!

Sheep Pops

Okay I know you've had enough bunnies for a while. So let's move on to sheep. We all know sheep can be very cute, especially knit sheep. Something about their fluffy fleeces perched on those little black legs. Actually, real live sheep are much less cute, particularly because their fur is usually all dirty and matted with hay sticking to it. Very disappointing. So let's stick to the cute sheep. And this week - the edible ones:
These sheep pops by Bakerella are so adorable they barely look edible. But if you read her other posts about pops, you'll see they're actually made of cake inside. Now let's list the cute factors here, shall we?

• Thinking about cake inside a little lamb's tummy is a cute idea in itself.
  
• Those little dangling legs are to die for. If that sheep was not on a stick, it wouldn't even be able to walk it's so chubby.
• Their chubbiness makes them look like floating balloons.
• The teensy heart nose!
• Their sugary-woolliness.

And there you have it! Adorable little sheep pops. The recipe to make them as well as tons of other cute cake pops are all on Bakerella's site. Next up will be another delectable ovine treat! Stay tuned.

I'm melting...

This is a good one for today because for some reason it's 50 degrees so all the snow is melting.
Cute may not exactly be the best word to describe this guy, but it is awesome. I think it's mainly because of two things:

1: It's a cupcake that looks like a snowman. Things that look like other things are awesome, and cute.

2: The snowman is melting and it makes you feel so sad! The fact that a simple cupcake can evoke such emotion, combined with it being just a tad ridiculous, adds to the awesomeness.