Now I’m not going to lie; I cheated. I bought Pillsbury refrigerated pie crust and a can of cherry pie filling. I’m ashamed to admit that I’ve never made my own crust, and I know that some recipes can be really tricky and hard to work with. And for a weeknight spur of the moment baking adventure, “can be really tricky” isn’t really my idea of a good time. Stop judging me.

So here’s what I was working with:

_{Apparently the can of filling wasn’t worth including here. Or I forgot.}

And.. well instead of giving every picture an intro, I’ll just put them all up, and caption them as necessary. So here we go:

_{Cutting out the shapes. That little leaf comes out to be a vent for the top crust! Smart!}

_{Filling. The box for the molds says 1-2tbsp. I say NOT ENOUGH. I’d add AT LEAST 3 next time. Or more. Mmmm pie!}

_{Top crust!}

_{So the crust didn’t want to stick to itself, but DID want to stick to the molds.. you’ll see what happened to the first one in a second. But if you ever try these.. flour in the bottom mold, a bit of water around the edge of the bottom crust before closing.}

_{See the one on the left? That’s the first one. See the nice one on the right? Number 2. Much nicer!}

_{Don’t worry, number one still turned out okay! Just a bit leaky around the edges!}

So there you have it, pocket pies. Super easy too! I can’t wait to do it again, with more filling, and no repeats of pie #1.

_{As you can see, there were a few issues with getting the ears to stay on…}

_{Side view so you can see the construction: Mini cupcake for the head, regular cupcake in special cupcake liner for body, and a mini-marshmallow tail! Plus icing all over the place for a bonus.}

But since I only had four of the footed liners, and there were seven of us for dinner, I decided to make some “nests” on the other cupcakes.

The “nests” were supposed to be made from pieces of a Flake bar, but I couldn’t find one, so I just used chocolate sprinkles instead. Not the same effect, but it got the point across pretty well, I thought. And of course the eggs were the best Easter (and as of this year, year-round) chocolate ever, Mini Eggs (which appear to only be available in Canada.. I feel sorry for the rest of the world if you really can’t get them anywhere else)!

And the main display:

_{We put the rest of the Mini Eggs and some regular chocolate eggs on the middle tier to fill it out since the supposedly adjustable tiers got screwed together too tight and we can’t take it apart to take out the middle.}

Did you make any fun Easter treats?

Valentine’s day fell on a long weekend (Family day), so Matt and I went Stateside to go snowboarding with our friends Lyndsey and Dave at Kissing Bridge and Holiday Valley. Since it was Valentine’s day and we were two couples, I figured I’d make us some lovey dovey cupcakes!

They’re my standard vegan vanilla cupcakes with vegan vanilla buttercream.

So here’s what’s cute this week (and it was last week too.. but I forgot about it because I’m apparently very forgetful): M-Cups – measuring cups that are also matryoshka dolls (aka Russian nesting dolls). I loved them so much that I bought them from Urban Outfitters last weekend! Each half of each doll is a different measurement (1 cup, 3/4 cup, 2/3 cup, 1/2 cup, 1/3 cup and 1/4 cup). See the cuteness for yourself:

I just LOVE them!!

It was made by Treat NYC. It’s so perfect! I love it!

_{via Once Wed.}

It’s such a simple idea that you can do yourself, and I think it looks really elegant (and cute! haha).

I’d never made any recipes using anything other than sugar for sweetness, so this was a change. Not so much for the cupcakes as for the icing; I never really realized, but icing made with icing sugar has a bit of a crystally texture to it – you can kind of feel the sugar when chewing it. But since there was no sugar, the icing was super smooth and silky.

I also thought it would be neat to make maple candies to top the cupcakes with. I bought maple leaf molds to keep with the theme. Unfortunately it didn’t work out exactly as planned – I’d never made candy before and don’t know my stove too well yet (boiling water is one thing, but I haven’t used it much besides on the high setting), so I think I had the element too hot and ended up rushing it a little. The syrup ended up getting a little crystallized once it cooled (although maybe that’s what it was supposed to do..), and on top of that, it wouldn’t come out the molds. I only managed to get one out intact. But it still tasted good and I figured chunks of it would still work on top!

With the maple leaf shaped maple candy:

And with a non-leaf-shaped chunk of maple candy:

I wasn’t thrilled with the taste of the batter or even the icing when I first made them, but once the cupcakes were baked with the toasted walnuts added, and I guess after the icing sat overnight, they turned out to be pretty tasty! Which was a good thing, because real maple syrup costs A LOT, so it would have been sad if I’d wasted it all!

These two are my favourites (especially the green one!!), but there are a ton more here.

Oh my goodness, it’s almost too much cuteness for me!!!

And in this shot (coincidentally of the green one again…) you can see the colours of the cake:

And a cross section for an even better look:

_{via Cupcakes Take The Cake.}

So here’s what’s cute this week – a tattoo of a bird with a cupcake on its head! If you didn’t guess it from naming the company “Little Bird Bakery”, I love birds (and happen to have a bird tattoo of my own!), and I think it goes without saying that I love cupcakes!

_{via Cupcakes Take the Cake}

Soooo cute! I’m super jealous!!

Now stop reading this and go watch LOST already!!!!

I saw this one today, and thought it was such a cute idea for a ring shot!

_{Photo via Style Me Pretty}

Of course I guess the bride & groom had a bit of a sticky situation on their hands after this (HA!), but totally worth it, and it’s nothing a little soap and water couldn’t fix!