Mixing Flavors and Colors with McCormick!

Thanks to my wonderful friend, Dani I am now the happy owner

of this Martha-like canister set from JCP! Last week, Dani blogged

about using one of these jars as a giftable cookie jar and included

the on-line ordering link so that I could buy them too! If you want to

add them to your home you better hurry because the promo code I

found on-line (FALLAIR) to receive 15% off our order expires today!

Today's been a long day; however, after filling my new canisters and poking

through the box of goodies McCormick sent as part of the swag I received

at MIXED last weekend, I was suddenly inspired to bake something!

I love McCormick spices and extracts! I once worked for Household

Credit Services on Schilling Place in Salinas, CA. The road is so named

because it's where the McCormick-Schilling plant is located! As soon as

the plant came into view, I'd roll down my window to take in the aroma

of the day... Always rolling by a bit slower on cinnamon and garlic days!

Needless to say, I was very happy to see McCormick listed as a sponsor

of MIXED - Especially since they were there to share their message of

mixing color with flavor to make already great baked goods even better!

As soon as the incredible Karen Tack of Hello, Cupcake!

fame demonstrated her use of McCormick food coloring to

create sweet and fun surprises inside of cakes and cupcakes...

I knew I wanted to do the same!

So while the rest of America is busy in the kitchen preparing for

Thanksgiving tomorrow, I'm busy creating secret-snowflake cupcakes!

This mini snowflake copper cookie cutter from CopperGifts is perfect!

To honor the McCormick reps who told us More is More, I

decided to add my favorite extract to my cake batter!

Then, to create icy blue snowflakes I added McCormick's blue

food coloring to approximately two cups of the batter and baked it!

If you haven't already, you must check out

McCormick's Food and Color Guide posted here!

While my cupcakes baked, I enhanced the flavor of two tubs

of white frosting by adding 1 teaspoon of raspberry extract...

Because I love raspberry flavored anything!

I can't lie. I was a little nervous about whether or not I

could duplicate Karen's technique of hiding shapes in cake...

But I did!

In fact, after I discovered the first snowflake I wanted to see them all!

Fortunately, my taste-tester stopped me before all I had left were halves!

This was so much fun I think I'll do it again!

Wishing you Happy Holiday Baking with McCormick!