A Little Cake Won't Hurt

ABC - Nut-Crusted Chocolate-Banana Swirl Cake

2012-01-05T11:52:00.000-08:00

Well, it's been a while since I last posted, and a lot has changed. I now have a 3 month baby boy which means I didn't do much baking over the holidays. I missed baking so I thought what better way to get back into it than joining up with the Avid Baker's Challenge. It's only a once a month baking and blogging commitment so I thought I would give it a try. Plus, they're baking out of one of my favorite cookbooks - the Weekend Baker. I'm a little late on posting this one but with starting back to work this week I just didn't have time to get it done by the 3rd.

This month's recipe was the Nut-Crusted Chocolate-Banana Swirl Cake. I figured it must be good because the banana muffins from the cookbook are delicious. It certainly didn't disappoint. It was moist and I loved the mixture of plain banana cake with chocolate banana cake. The only issue I had was with the nuts sticking to the pan, but they sure were delicious to pull out of the pan and eat alone.

German Chocolate Cake and My Big News

2011-05-02T20:05:00.000-07:00

Before I get to this cake from Rose's Heavenly Cakes I need to apologize for my absence from the blogging world the past couple months. I haven't done much baking in the past couple months, and the little baking I've done has actually been for charity (unless you count the box mix lemon bars and canned cinnamon rolls that I broke down and made). But, I think I have a pretty good reason. I'm about four months pregnant with my first child!! I'm finally starting to get my energy back so hopefully I'll have time to join in on some of the baking and blogging fun for at least the next few months.

Now, on to the cake. This week was Free Choice Week for the HCBers, and I was craving German Chocolate Cake. Since neither my husband or myself need an entire 9 inch layer cake around the house I cut the recipe in half and made a 6 inch layer cake. It worked out pretty well except that since I had to overlap the bake even strips it seemed to cause my cake to fall apart a little on one of the sides. Fortunately that was nothing that a little chocolate icing (ganache with some extra powdered sugar to thicken it up) wouldn't fix. This cake was really pretty simple to make. The only other issue I ran into was the filling thickened a bit too much, but I just heated it a bit prior to spreading it on the cake.

The taste verdict: I liked how moist the cake was, but I wished the filling was a little sweeter. I think I've learned that I like my cakes a bit sweeter than Rose. My husband really liked this cake. When I told him that I thought it could stand to be sweeter he said he didn't think there was anything wrong with it.

Golden Lemon Almond Cake

2011-02-24T04:59:00.000-08:00

I guess it's been a few weeks since I last posted. I started my new job and have something else going on that's kept me from doing any baking with the exception of a few charity items that I had already committed to. Since this week was free choice week with the Heavenly Cake Bakers I really wanted to bake this cake. This cake had ranked really high with the rest of the group, and it sounded like a pretty simple cake to make. I had already purchased the lemon oil so I didn't have to go looking for that.

This cake came together pretty quickly. With the exception of getting the ingredients out the only other part that took much extra time was toasting the almonds and then cooling them. I stuck mine in the freezer after toasting them so they would cool quicker. I didn't really take any progress pictures. I've found that I'm taking fewer progress pictures now that I have a nice, new camera. I just don't want it getting messed up whereas with my old one I didn't really care that much. I did get a picture of it when it came out of the oven.

Since I finished the cake fairly late Tuesday evening I only had a tiny sliver of it and then had a normal slice the next day, but the recipe mentions that it's better the next day. I do agree that there was more flavor the next day, but I always love the taste of bundt cake or bread that's still a little warm. Daniel and I decided this is definitely one of top cakes I've made. I just loved the strong lemon flavor and the crunch of the sugar on the outside from the syrup mixture. (I had to use a little granulated sugar in my syrup because I ran out of turbinado, but it still seemed to work well.)

Cradle Cake

2011-01-30T12:19:00.000-08:00

This week's cake for the Heavenly Cake Bakers was the Cradle Cake. Some of the other bakers were really looking forward to it, but I never really saw what was drawing them to it until I tasted it. It doesn't really look that special, but it tastes amazing. I made the cake Thursday night because I knew I had other baking projects to do and wouldn't have time for everything on the weekend. Besides I'm still in between jobs so I have a little extra time to bake during the week. (I start my new job on February 7th. It was supposed to be tomorrow, but not all of the paperwork was done on time.)

The dacquoise came together pretty easy. It didn't really seem to want to spread up the sides of the pan that well so I had to mess with it again after I had the cake batter ready.

The cake batter was just a simple buttermilk cake recipe that was really quick to make.

After I spooned the batter inside the dacquoise I realized that my pan was actually 10 inches instead of 9 so I had to push some of the dacquoise back down towards the batter.

I was very glad this wasn't going to be the top of the cake because it looked pretty ugly when it came out of the oven with all of the cracks around the edge of the cake part.

The cake looked much better once I removed it from the pan, but it definitely needed something on top. I decided to go with the glaze because it was much quicker, and Daniel wanted some cake.

I didn't have enough patience to wait for the cake to completely cool before cutting it. I absolutely loved this cake. The cake is very tender with a sweet, crunchy crust. Daniel said this was probably his favorite cake so far.

Double Chocolate Loaf with Peanut Butter Cream Cheese Spread

2011-01-30T09:02:00.000-08:00

Today's recipe for the BAKED Sunday Mornings group was an incredibly easy double chocolate loaf. The only thing that would make this easier would be weights in the recipe for dry ingredients.

All you have to do is mix the dry ingredients in the mixing bowl and the wet ingredients separately. Then mix in the wet ingredients and stir in the chocolate. I used Callebaut semi-sweet callets because that's what I had, and I've been trying to use up ingredients that I already have rather than buying new ingredients for everything I make. I guess that made it a touch sweeter, but it still wasn't overly sweet.

While the loaf cooled I made the peanut butter cream cheese spread and then stuck it in the fridge. Daniel and I had a slice after lunch, and to me it was good but a bit heavy. Daniel really liked it. The outside dried a bit so it was crusty on the outside and moist on the inside which is a quality that he loves in dessert.

Whipped Cream Cake

2011-01-19T06:19:00.000-08:00

Last night I really needed a break from job search activities. The last couple days I've had four interviews - two phone screens and two on-site. That's good, but it's also very tiring. So, when I got home yesterday I decided I would take a break by walking my dog and then baking a cake. I wanted to participate in free choice week for the HCB group anyway.

There are so many cakes that sounded good, but I decided that I should make some simple that I already have the ingredients for. When I saw how simple the Whipped Cream Cake is I thought that might be good, but I was afraid it would taste too plain. But, when I looked through Marie's old posts and saw that everyone loved it I decided to go for it. Plus, it would give me a chance to use my new bundt pan that I got with my Williams Sonoma gift card after Christmas. Daniel thought I was crazy for buying a new pan until he realized that there were more crispy edges with this pan.

The batter came together really quickly. I didn't even take any pictures of the process. The only things that really took any extra time were processing the regular sugar so I could have super fine sugar and sift the dry ingredients.

Daniel was very happy when he came home to see that there was a cake baking. The cake came out of the pan with no problems, and I let it cool a little before I sprinkled some powdered sugar on top.

I originally cut some nice normal sized slices, but we each ended up wanting a little more. It has such a soft, moist crumb with a nice crispy outside edge. Daniel and I both loved it!

Elmo Cupcakes

2011-01-15T14:00:00.000-08:00

I delivered my second cake order for the charity Free Cakes for Kids today. It was for a special needs adult who wanted either cookies or cupcakes and either Elmo or circus theme. After doing a little searching I thought Elmo cupcakes would be fun and not too difficult to make. The flavor request for the cupcakes was chocolate so I went with the Devil's Food cupcakes from Martha Stewart's Cupcakes cookbook. I'd made them before with good luck so I thought that would be a good choice again. I ended up with 28 cupcakes so that left a few for tasting because the containers I had held a dozen each. I got the cupcakes baked last night and then planned to decorate this morning.

I think I underestimated just how long it would take to decorate them. Originally I thought I would pipe the fur and the face on the cupcakes, but the one I saw online that I liked had used fondant for the face. Plus, I realized this morning that I didn't have any black food coloring so I decided to just pipe on the fur and use fondant for the eyes, nose, and mouth. The fur took a bit longer than I thought to pipe on, but there was certainly nothing difficult there.

The only thing difficult about the face was trying to get the mouth to be the right shape and then trying to stick the black part of the eyes on the white part after they were on the cupcakes. Those things wouldn't really be that hard except I was in a huge hurry. Daniel printed off a map and directions to the place I was dropping them off while I was finishing the cupcakes, and that's when I found out it would take about 40 minutes to get there. Oops! But, I got them all decorated and in their containers and managed to make it there on time! Aren't they cute?

White Velvet Cake with Milk Chocolate Ganache

2011-01-11T09:48:00.000-08:00

I thought I would take a little break from my job search to post the latest cake for the Heavenly Cake Bakers. I've made this cake at least a couple times before just not the icing so I was very interested to see how it would turn out. Besides, I tend to be more of milk chocolate person than a dark chocolate unless of course it's paired with mint in which case I love the either one.

I baked the cake Sunday evening, and I really didn't take many pictures because it is incredibly simple to make. I think it takes more time to wait for the eggs and butter to come to room temperature prior to starting than it does to mix the batter. Since I started the cake a little late I decided to wait to ice it until the next day.

I thought I would have time during the day, but the job search has definitely kept me busy. I've had very little down time which I guess is a really good thing. I'm not really concerned about finding something. I'm more concerned about the best jobs not moving quick enough for me, but I'm sure it will all turn out well in the end.

So, back to the cake. I finally decided before dinner that I would take a little time for myself to make the ganache and finish the cake. The ganache is also very simple to make, and when Daniel saw the icing sitting out he got excited about having cake for dessert until I told him that the ganache needed to set up for a little white before I could frost the cake. I tried frosting it after dinner, but it was still pretty runny so I stuck the messy, iced cake in the fridge until later that night. Then I got it cleaned up and decided against trying to do anything really decorative on the cake because I just didn't have time. I was happy that I finally got to use my covered glass cake stand that I got for Christmas. I was getting tired of having an ugly plastic cake container on my counter all the time so I asked for this one for Christmas, and my mom bought it for me.

Daniel and I really liked the cake. My crumb probably wasn't as small as it should be because I opted for regular sugar instead of superfine, but it still turned out wonderful. The ganache is very creamy.

Giraffe Birthday Cake

2011-01-03T19:15:00.000-08:00

Before the holidays I ran across a charity called Free Cakes for Kids which provides birthday cakes for kids in need. I looked through their website and found that there was no requirement to be a professional baker or work out of a commercial kitchen so I thought that would be the perfect way for me to practice my cake decorating skills and give back at the same time. I emailed the director and received an application. I sent in my application a few days before Christmas, and I was super excited when I got an email back with volunteer information. Immediately I looked through the list of current cake requests to find one or two that would fit my schedule, my skills, and that sounded like fun. Since I was going to off from work today (and Daniel had to work) I thought it would be a good day to deliver my first cake.

The cake I picked was for a girl turning 18 who wanted a giraffe theme. I didn't really know what to do for it. I thought about trying to sculpt a giraffe, but I was afraid that would be a little too cutesy for an 18 year old. I found a picture online of one with a giraffe pattern and big bow (the Wilton style ones) and thought I could do something similar though I prefer the look of the simpler bows.

The cake itself was pretty simple. The request was for a vanilla cake. I went with another recipe from Tish Boyle's The Cake Book - the Basic Golden Cake Layers. And, I just used vanilla buttercream. I made the cake ahead of time and froze the layers. This seems to help me time-wise and helps firm up the cake prior to frosting it so I don't end up with crumbs in the icing. Then last night I iced the cake and stuck it in the fridge, and then I stayed up late coloring all of the fondant and getting the cake board covered with fondant so it could dry.

First thing I did today was put ribbon around the edge of the cake board. That is such a simple thing that really makes a huge difference in how the cake looks. Then I pulled out the fondant to cover the cake, and I realized the base color looked too pink so I added a bit of yellow and darker brown in hopes that I could fix the color. I think it turned out okay. I also think I'm getting better at covering cakes with fondant because I was much happier with how smooth it looked, and it went much quicker than previous cakes I've done. The next part of adding the pattern is what really challenged me. I have a very logical mind so trying to do something that's artistic rather than just following some method or example is difficult for me, but once all of the pieces were in place on the cake I was really happy with how it turned out. Next up was the bow which is a very methodical thing so I didn't have any major problems there, and this one was much easier than the one I made for my mom since I didn't have to worry about placing a strip of black on the edge of the ribbon. Since, I had placed the cake on a cake board that was a little bigger than the cake itself I hid it with a teal boarder which I think ties the whole thing together nicely. I wrote happy birthday and added a little tag with her age (which was also done on the original cake I found).

I was really happy with how this first cake turned out. I got lots of nice comments when I delivered it, and I really hope the birthday girl enjoyed it. I'm looking forward to making lots of cakes for this group. My favorite part of baking is getting to share with others, and giving a cake to someone who wouldn't otherwise receive one is the best way to share this.

Baked Sunday Mornings: Almond Joy Tart

2011-01-02T16:54:00.000-08:00

Almond Joy was one of my favorite candy when I was younger. I just love the combination of chocolate and coconut cream. This recipe was pretty easy. There are several steps which all have wait times, but none of the steps are all that time consuming. It's just something that you have to plan ahead for just a little.

First you make the almond tart dough and put that in the fridge for at least an hour. You can also make the ganache for the coconut cream filling at the same time because that also has to sit in the fridge for a while (at least 4 hours).

Then the tart dough has to be rolled out and pressed into the tart pans. The recipe recommends using tart pans with removable bottoms, but both Williams Sonoma and Sur la Table just had the smaller tart pans in one piece so that's what I used. I had no problems removing them from the pan after they baked. I cut the recipe in half because after the holidays and my mom's birthday celebration we were feeling a little bit of dessert overload.

After they bake the rest is a piece of cake. You whip the ganache and add the coconut and rum and fill the tart shells. I ended up with more filling than I needed for my tarts. I don't know if my pans were actually a little smaller. After you fill them you have to put them in the fridge while you make the chocolate sauce. I decided to use some 52% Callebaut instead of doing the mixture of milk and dark chocolate. Then you pour the sauce over the tart. Since mine were filled a bit high I ended up with chocolate sauce running over the edge of the tart. It kinda looked like the Bostini I made a month or so ago.

Daniel and I split one after dinner, and we both really enjoyed it. The tart shell was a little hard. I might have cooked it a little too long, but that didn't really affect the flavor. It was really delicious.

Happy Birthday Mom!

2011-01-02T08:55:00.000-08:00

I hope everyone had a wonderful New Years Eve! Our celebrations are normally a little different from everyone else's because December 31st is also my mom's birthday, and this year it was the big 50th. And, of course I made a cake.

I knew that I needed to make a chocolate cake, but I wasn't sure which filling to use. I got Tish Boyle's "The Cake Book" for Christmas, and I decided that her Devishly Moist Chocolate Cake sounded really good. It called for using 9x3 inch pans which I don't have, but that meant I could bake some cupcakes along with the cake for taste tests. The recipe was incredibly simple to make. She gives weight measurements for the dry ingredients which made it even easier. And, the cake was probably the most moist chocolate cake I've made. Daniel said the recipe is a keeper. I finally decided on her Milk Chocolate Peanut Butter Ganache for the filling and then just used a standard vanilla buttercream for the outside with fondant on top. It definitely made for a very rich cake.

I decided to go with a classic birthday present design for the cake. I had learned how to make this black and white bow back in August when Marco Antonio Lopez and Sonia Escobar taught a class on modern cake design and thought that would be perfect for my mom's cake. It's not a difficult technique, but it took more time to make than I thought it would. You cut out pieces of white fondant for the ribbons and then use a clay extruder with black fondant in it to get the long thin strips of black. I used a brush with water to attach the black strips to the white. I think this cake was probably my cleanest fondant work. I covered the cake board well enough ahead of time so it could dry, and then I attached a black and white ribbon to the edge of the board to give a really clean look. I had planned to do a design on the white part of the cake but ran out of time. I still think it turned out really well, and I think my mom really liked it. She sure doesn't look like she's 50!

Cranberry Crown Cheesecake and Christmas Pies

2010-12-27T17:20:00.000-08:00

Since this week's selection for the Heavenly Bakers was very appropriate for holiday celebrations and because I was already taking two pies to my in-laws' house for Christmas dinner I planned to take this cheesecake to my mom's house for our smaller Christmas lunch. And, since I had recently purchased the correct size of tip to make ladyfingers I decided to try them again. Besides, my previous ones didn't get posted since I didn't actually finish making the lemon crown (maybe I'll try again sometime). For some reason my ladyfinger batter doesn't soak in all of the powdered sugar. Here are one of the sheets of completed lady fingers:

I opted to make a round ladyfinger base like we did for the lemon crown rather than positioning the individual ladyfinger across the base.

The cheesecake filling came together very quickly. I wrapped the springform pan with foil and then put the whole thing in one of my 12" cake pans with water. Water in the pan sure does make it difficult to carry to and from the oven.

It looked really good when it came out of the oven. I left it out to cool for about an hour and then covered it with a bowl and stuck it in the fridge.

There was a little condensation on the bowl in the morning. That moisture caused the ladyfingers to get a little soggy, but they weren't bad. The cranberry topping came together very quickly. It took a minute or two longer than the recipe indicated to get the cranberries to pop but not that long. I found some ribbon that perfectly matched the color of the cranberries and wrapped it around the cheesecake. Then I played with my Christmas gift (a SLR camera) to try to get a nice picture of the cheesecake. I still have lots to learn on how to use it.

I took the cheesecake to my mom's house, and it was well received by everyone there. It sat out a bit so it wasn't as hard as it should have been, but it still tasted great. Daniel who doesn't normally care for cheesecake really loved it. He liked how it wasn't quite as rich as normal cheesecakes.

I also made two other pies for Christmas - the Pecan Tart from the Pie and Pastry Bible and a cherry pie from Cooking Light. My MIL requested I bring the pecan tart for Christmas dinner, and my brother loves cherry pie so I had to make that one as well. I realized part way through making the pecan tart that I was actually using the wrong pie dough for it, but that ended up being a good thing because I had better luck with the Basic Flaky dough than the Cream Cheese dough which I also tried making. I really like Alton Brown's method of cutting the edges of the ziplock bag and using the bag to roll out the dough. It worked well for the basic dough, but that's where I ran into problems with the cream cheese dough.

I had better luck with the par baked tart shell this time than I did for Thanksgiving. I turned the oven temperature down 25 degrees. I decided to do two layers of pecans this time because it just seemed a little shallow last time I made it.

I had some leftover whipped cream from the coconut cake last week that I rewhipped and then piped onto the pecan tart and my mom's pumpkin pie. I think this has now become on of my favorite pies. Daniel seems to love it as well. I really like the chocolate lace topping on it.

I had originally planned to make the cherry pie from the pie and pastry bible, but my cream cheese pie dough just completely fell apart when I rolled it out so I went with my backup plan. I made the recipe from Cooking Light which I had made before. It calls for store bought crust but still uses fresh cherries. While pitting the cherries this year I decided that my little brother needs to come help with that part next year. Since I used the store bought crust I decided to focus more on my lattice work. I think it turned out much nicer than normal. It's amazing what a ruler can do for you.

Some of the cherry filling bubbled out a little over the lattice so it wasn't quite as pretty when it came out of the oven, but it still tasted great.

Several people in my family have commented that they were never huge fans of cherry pie until I started making them. I've made this recipe 3 or 4 times now, and it always turns out wonderful.

HCB: Heavenly Coconut Seduction Cake

2010-12-19T20:56:00.000-08:00

This week was another free choice week for the Heavenly Cake Bakers, and since I just joined the group a few months ago I have plenty of cake to choose from to catch up on. This particular cake had been calling my name ever since I got my copy of Rose's Heavenly Cakes last Christmas. The whipped cream icing isn't something that I would normally love because it's much lighter, but the fluffy icing just looks heavenly with the coconut on top. So, when I realized that our free choice week was going to fall on the same week as my in-laws' dinner party I volunteered to bring this. Only problem was the party was on Friday, and I ended up being incredibly busy the whole week. I also had a truffles class on Thursday from 6:00 to 9:00, but I decided that the cake seemed simple enough for me to throw together after the class. Wednesday night before going to bed I put out all of the non-perishable ingredients so that would be one less step for me. Then when I left the class I called Daniel and asked him to pull the butter out of the fridge so it would be softened by the time I got home.

When I got home I got all of the ingredients measured and the pan lined with parchment. I wish the bake shop sold 9 inch parchment circles. They sell most of the even number sizes, but not 9. It sure would make my cake baking even simpler.

First you mix the wet ingredients including part of the cream of coconut.

Then the directions say to process the sugar and coconut. Apparently my brain wasn't working at almost 10pm because I put in the rest of the cream of coconut instead of the dried unsweetened coconut. Fortunately I realized it and scooped out as much as I could and continued on with the processing. It didn't seem to cause any problems. Next you mix the dry ingredients.

Then the butter and remaining cream of coconut get added to the dry ingredients.

Then you add the egg mixture and it's ready to go in the pan.

The bake time was pretty quick. It gave me just enough time to clean up my dishes and throw together lunch for the next day. Including baking time this cake came together in about an hour.

I waited to make the whipped cream until the next day right before going to the party, and that was just as quick as the cake. I had wanted to do something fancier with the cake, but there was just no time for that. So, I went with my standard shells and rosettes.

Everyone at the dinner loved the cake. Everyone commented on how light it tasted. Daniel even loved it, and he's like me in that he prefers buttercream to whipped cream icing.

HCB: Financier-Style Vanilla Bean Poundcake

2010-12-15T20:44:00.000-08:00

I've been so busy with holiday baking lately that I haven't had time to post anything here. I'm going to try to play catch up over the next few days. I actually made these little cakes on Saturday afternoon because I had a big cookie decorating project to do Saturday evening and Sunday (and still more to do Tuesday evening).

If we thought last week's cake was simple this one was even easier to make. I had ordered my financier pan a few weeks ago, but I didn't realize that it was actually a mini financier pan so mine were about half the size they should have been. I guess I'll have to get the regular size one sometime. The batter came together pretty quickly. The only part that took much time was pulling out the food processor to process the sugar and vanilla bean. I also recently purchased a larger piping tip so I was able to pipe the batter into the pan. I had a little extra batter so I baked it in one of my holiday cookie pans (that I use for candy not cookies), but they stuck to the pan a little so the details were lost.

I guess I overfilled them a bit because the ran over the edges, but I just trimmed off the excess. For some reason those little pieces that you trim off always seem to taste better than the rest of the cake.

And, in case you want a sneak preview of what ate up all of my time, here are my finished cookies. I will try to get another post up later this week about the cookies.

Heavenly Cake Bakers: Chocolate Velvet Fudge Cake

2010-12-08T06:01:00.000-08:00

This is going to be a quick post. I had planned to bake this cake on Sunday, and then I ended up being super busy. Then Monday I thought I would have time, but we took our cat to the specialty vet for surgery in the morning and then ended up at the emergency vet with our dog in the evening. So, I finally got around to baking this cake last night. Good thing it was a super simple cake because I didn't get started making it until after 9:00 last night.

Misen place minus the cocoa and water mixture which was already in the fridge cooling:

This batter came together very quick. First you mix the dry ingredients and then add in the butter and cocoa mixture.

Then you add in the egg mixture. The batter looks really good at this point.

The directions for the recipe said to use a silicon pan and put it on a wire rack on top of a baking sheet. I didn't know if I still needed to do that with a metal pan, but I did anyway. Only problem is it looks like the cake got a little dark on top, but it looked fine once it came out of the pan.

I finished baking the cake just before 11:00 so neither of us really wanted to have a slice right before going to bed. I'll have to update this post tonight after we've tried the cake.

I'm a little late updating this post. There have just been too many things going on lately. My husband and I did taste the cake that morning and really liked it. My husband especially liked how moist it was. I tend to prefer cakes with icing, but this one was really good.

BAKED Sunday Mornings: Sweet & Salty Brownie

2010-12-05T07:53:00.000-08:00

This week's selection for BAKED Sunday Mornings is the Sweet & Salty Brownie. I was really looking forward to making these. I got to try them in the class I took with Matt and Renato at Central Market and really loved them. The only problem for me was they called for fleur de sel which I didn't have. When I went to the grocery store the only kind they had was $14 for the small container, and I really didn't want to spend that much on it so I decided to substitute regular sea salt which I already had.

The first step for making the brownies is to make caramel. Caramel has become one of my baking nemesis. Last time I made some for the Caramel Apple Cake it boiled over. I was determined to not let that happen this time. I think I just needed to make sure the cream was warm (which I did last time) and pour it in very, very slowly. Only problem this time was my sugar mixture burnt on the first try. I had my thermometer in there, and it never got anywhere near the 350 degrees when it was done.

Things went much better the second time around. I used the thermometer again but only as a gauge to know when it was getting closer. I really just went by color of the sugar mixture. I added the cream in small increments to keep it from boiling over, and it all worked. The only thing I wasn't thrilled with was it was a little too salty tasting with the sea salt rather than fleur de sel. I think I may have to put fleur de sel on my Christmas list (good stocking stuffer).

Next up was time to make the brownie batter. This was pretty simple. It just required using a double boiler to melt the chocolate and butter and then add the sugar.

Once the mixture cools the eggs and then the flour mixture are folded into the rest of the batter. By the way if anyone is wondering what method to use for measuring the flour in these recipes the authors told me they spoon the flour into the measuring cup and then level it with a knife. I personally prefer using weights, but as long as I know which method to use I figure it should come out pretty close to the right amount.

Half of the batter gets spread into a glass pan lined with parchment paper. Then the caramel is spread over that followed by the remaining batter. It then goes into the oven for 30 minutes. Mine took 35.

When they come out of the oven you sprinkle them with fleur de sel and course sugar. I used a little less sea salt than the recipe called for, but I think I should have cut it way down because they were a little salty. I will probably try brushing off a little of the salt before serving them.

Lining the brownie pan with parchment paper sure does make it easy to get the brownies out of the pan. I was actually able to lift them all out which makes serving much easier.

Since I have another thing to bake today and because the authors give instructions for freezing brownies I thought I would give that a try and take some of them to work for our holiday potluck on Friday.

Since I know my husband is one of those who prefers the end pieces, and I don't really have a preference I kept the end ones for us to try. I ate one for breakfast this morning. It was really good, and my only complaint is the salt flavor is a little too much. It's probably the sea salt vs. fleur de sel that caused that so maybe I'll try them again sometime with fleur de sel. The brownies are very moist, and I love the caramel flavor. I have a little caramel leftover so I might try drizzling some with the caramel.

Thanksgiving Dinner

2010-11-27T09:11:00.001-08:00

I hope everyone reading had a wonderful Thanksgiving! Mine was busy but great. My dad and stepmom drove down from Kansas to visit us, and my mom, stepdad, younger brother, and my in-laws came over for dinner. I had grand plans for dinner and dessert and with lots of help we managed to pull off most of them. The above picture shows me in the center with my main helpers - my mom (on the right), my dad, and my stepmom (on the left).

Let me back up to last weekend first. I went to two Thanksgiving related classes last Saturday. The first was a Thanksgiving dinner class at Le Cordon Bleu. I learned some new recipes, and I decided to incorporate the brussels sprouts recipe and dressing recipe (with some tweaks) in my menu. The second class was a tarts class. I didn't make any of the tarts from class yet, but I plan to make one or two of them sometime during the holidays. I did use the Chantilly Cream (whipped cream) recipe from class rather than using canned or frozen whipped cream.

I wanted my Thanksgiving menu to use more fresh produce and scratch recipes than usual so in addition to the two recipes from class I also used Alton Brown's green bean casserole recipe, a mashed sweet potato recipe from Cooking Light, and butter rolls from the Bread Bible. My mom brought fruit salad, and my mother-in-law brought cranberry sauce.

We also had the normal turkey (bought a free range one from Whole Foods this year) which I had hoped to brine, but I ran out of time. The instructions that came with it made it sound like it would take 4 hours to cook the 17lb bird, but I was planning to follow the Le Cordon Bleu chef's and Alton Brown's suggestions to cook for 20-30 minutes at 500 degrees first and then lower the temperature. I didn't realize how much faster the turkey would be done doing that so it ended up being done really early and was a tiny bit dry. It still tasted good, but it wasn't perfect. We also had ham which was really simple and turned out great. My dad took care of cooking the ham.

I had never made brussels sprouts before, and I didn't really think they would be good. But, they were great with maple syrup, bacon, and pecans. I was really amazed that everyone ate them.

The green bean casserole was really good, but it was definitely a bit more work than your normal canned variety. You have to blanche the green beans, bake the onions coated in panko crumbs, cook the mushrooms and other ingredients to make the cream of mushroom, and then bake it all in a cast iron skillet in the oven. But, it really did live up to the recipe's name of Best Ever Green Bean Casserole.

The day before Thanksgiving I had planned to spend the whole day baking, but I had an appointment and a couple other errands so I was a little short on time. Fortunately my mom came over to help when she got off work. I had chosen three recipes from the Pie and Pastry Bible - Pumpkin Pie, Designer Apple Pie, and Pecan Tart. I also chose Bobby Flay's pumpkin pie from Throwdown which has a graham cracker crust. I made all of the pie dough before my mom came over and had started making the dough for the rolls and the first pumpkin pie filling so we had a lot of work left to do. This was my first time making pie dough (outside of a class) so I ran into some problems, but it mostly turned out okay. The all butter recipe was my favorite. I did discover that I prefer Alton Brown's technique of rolling the dough in a ziplock bag and just cutting the edges of the bag. Amazingly in a few hours we managed to get everything except the apple pie mostly done, and the apple pie was about half way there. I finished the pie and rolls that evening except for baking the rolls. I stuck them in the fridge overnight, pulled them out of the fridge a few hours before dinner so they could continue to rise, and baked them right before dinner.

Here's the designer apple pie. My one complaint about this pie is it was a little shallow. I almost wish I had filled it with apple and then put the design on top of the other apples.

The pecan tart with a chocolate lace design and whipped cream rosettes:

The butter rolls were delicious. I bought some backup premade rolls just in case, but there was no need to even open the package.

I had my husband set up the tables. We put the food on a separate table buffet style so we could have more room at the table. He was a great help with all of the little things that needed to be done.

HCB: Chocolate Genoise with Whipped Peanut Butter Ganache

2010-11-22T15:54:00.000-08:00

This is going to be a much shorter post than normal because my Thanksgiving Day list seems like it's never ending right now. I was pretty skeptical about this cake as it sounds everyone else in the group was. For one thing I had never made a genoise before so I really had no idea how it would turn out, and the flavor combination of black raspberry, chocolate, and peanut butter sounded a little odd to me. I actually didn't use the black raspberry liqueur and went with a pomegranate juice instead, but it still turned out much better than I had anticipated.

I had a busy weekend with cooking and baking classes on Saturday and then two things to bake on Sunday so I finally got started on this cake Sunday before dinner. It was pretty simple, but there were a few parts of the recipe that were a little more tedious than your simple butter cake. Clarifying the butter was one of those. I had never done that before so I wasn't completely sure if I let mine go long enough.

Having to heat up the eggs over a pot of simmering water was another one, but it wasn't too bad. Only thing I probably should have done was strain the eggs just in case any of them curdled, but I think it turned out okay. For the most part the rest of the batter was relatively easy. I really need to get a fine mesh strainer or sieve to use for sifting because it would be much easier than the hand crank one. Once it was done baking I let it cool while I ate dinner and then started the icing and simple syrup later.

The icing came together pretty easily. When I started noticing it was getting a tiny bit grainy I stopped whipping it.

The only problem I had was mine was really moist and a little warm so I couldn't do any piping on the cake like I wanted. I wanted to put it in the fridge, but my fridge was already pretty full with stuff for Thanksgiving. I stuck the rest of the icing in the fridge in hopes that I could do a little in the morning. This morning I started moving things around in the fridge because I needed to make space for the turkey anyway, and I managed to get the cake in there while I got ready for work. So, I was able to make it look pretty before I left.

I took the cake to work for the monthly birthday celebration and saved one slice for my husband. The rest of the cake disappeared. My coworkers commented on how moist it was.

Baked Sunday Mornings: Nutella Scones

2010-11-21T10:48:00.000-08:00

When I saw that a new group was starting up to bake through Baked Explorations I knew I had to join. Back in October I went to a class at Central Market taught by the authors Matt and Renato where they demonstrated some of the new recipes. I really liked everything they made so I thought it would be really fun to bake through both of their books.

So, today is the first day of Baked Sunday Mornings, and we started with the Nutella Scones. I actually had this recipe flagged to try. My husband just started buying Nutella, and he really likes scones so I thought he would really enjoy these.

The recipe is really simple. It doesn't even require pulling out the mixer. After I went to the grocery store this morning (to avoid the Thanksgiving rush later today) I got all of the ingredients out and ready to bake.

First I whisked together all dry ingredients and then added the butter. I've never actually made scones before so I was a little unsure about how much to mix and didn't want to over mix.

Next up you add in the wet ingredients. It almost seemed like there was enough moisture, but it did come together.

After kneading it a little and forming it into a rectangle you spread half of the Nutella on the mixture in a criss-cross.

Next you roll it up and then push it down into a disk and cut slices to put on a baking sheet.

Once they came out the oven and cooled I spread the rest of the Nutella on them. For some reason it just didn't want to pour very well. I put it in the microwave longer, and that just didn't help much.

I liked them. I'm not a huge fan of scones, but these were still a little moist and the chocolate helps. My husband said they were really good. He said they were a little moister than most scones he buys and liked the flavor as well.

The Bostini

2010-11-16T18:39:00.000-08:00

Since I missed out on making the Bostini a couple weeks ago while I was recovering from foot surgery and because it got such rave reviews I decided I had to make it for the free choice week. The only problem was there were a few other recipes I wanted to try and not enough time for them. I actually had the ingredients for 5 different recipes that I thought about making. I probably would have made the pumpkin cheesecake as well, but I went to a puff pastry class on Saturday and spent part of the rest of the weekend turning my dough from the class. (Hopefully I'll have a post up on that in the next couple days.)

I started with the Orange Glow Chiffon Cupcake batter Saturday evening. It was pretty simple. The only parts that were at all difficult were trying to squeeze the juice out of the stupid oranges and having to clean the mixing bowl and beater part way through making the batter. With the orange I remembered that if you roll the orange between your hand and the counter prior to cutting it will be easier to squeeze.

First you mix the dry ingredients and then make a well in the center to pour most of the wet ingredients.

Then you mix those together and pour in another bowl if you don't have two mixer bowls. I've considered buying another mixer bowl, but I can't decide if I would rather just ask for the 6 quart Kitchen Aid mixer for Christmas (it's between that and a new camera for taking better blog pictures). I currently have the 5 quart, but I've been told that anyone who bakes a lot should really get the larger, more powerful one. I told my husband that Alton Brown said that in his baking book.

Once you have that bowl cleaned you beat the egg whites, sugar, and cream of tartar to a stiff meringue and then fold the that with the batter. And then it goes into the muffin pan.

I guess I got a little greedy when filling my pans because I overfilled them a little. Oh, well. They still tasted good.

On Sunday evening I finally got around the finishing the Bostini. I got everything out to make the cream. I was a little nervous about this part because I had never made a custard or cream like this before. For some reason my large organic eggs just aren't very large. I had to use an entire extra yolk to equal the weight we were supposed to have. My husband went to the store earlier that day and accidentally bought jumbo eggs instead of large ones so I wonder if those yolks would actually be the right size. Also, I decided to use vanilla bean paste instead of the seeds from the vanilla bean, but I did use a previously used vanilla bean pod when cooking the cream.

First you mix the sugar salt and vanilla seeds (or paste in my case), and then you scald the cream, sugar mix, and vanilla pod. This part seemed to take forever. Maybe my pan was too big, but I was scared to have too small of a pan after what happened the last time I made caramel.

Then you add some cream to the eggs before adding the egg mixture to the cream. Then you whisk the cream until it thickens. It sure is starting to look good now.

Then you pour it through a strainer and into a bowl. I didn't even notice all of the steam at the time. I think I was too busy trying to get every last drop from the pan into the bowl.

Then you whisk the cream to allow it to cool and pour it into the cups. I guess my espresso glasses were bigger than the ones in the book because I only ended up with enough cream to fill 4 of them. That's all I had so it worked out okay. Plus, there are only two of us so we certainly didn't need 8 Bostinis.

This chocolate sauce was super easy to make - just chocolate and butter. The recipe called for dark chocolate, but since my husband's only requirement for the cake choice was no bittersweet chocolate I used the semi-sweet Callebaut chocolate I got at Central Market. Funny thing was when he ate the Bostini he said it would have been okay with a more bitter chocolate.

Daniel and I both really loved this one. The cream was definitely my favorite part of this one. It certainly lived up to the rave reviews. After making this I feel like trying to make other custard desserts.

Swedish Pear and Almond Cream Cake

2010-11-08T19:31:00.000-08:00

I've missed baking with the HCB group, but the last couple weeks my foot just wouldn't tolerate it. When I read through this recipe I thought I might be able to make this one even though I would still be on crutches because it really looked very simple. The weekend before I realized that I could use one of our rolling office chairs to get around the kitchen and get ingredients out. So, I had my husband pick up the almond cream and pears at the store. I had never purchased almond cream before but I thought I remembered seeing it near the chocolate. I found it online and showed him a picture before he went to the store.

First I made the almond cream. It was pretty simple to make. The food processor does all of the work. (The small bowl and blade worked great for this and took up less space in the dishwasher.) The hardest part for me was getting the ingredients out and doing the dishes afterwards. It's amazing how long it takes to get ingredients out when you can't walk around the kitchen. I was glad the recipe said it could be refrigerated because I could really only handle a short amount of time in the kitchen.

After a little break I got out the ingredients for the batter and mixed up the batter which was also very simple. I made the trough around the inside of the batter for the cream. When I added the cream I wondered if the trough was really wide enough or deep enough because the cream didn't all fit in there.

I think I misread the directions a little. When I read that the pears needed to be sliced in 1/8th inch slices I was thinking about the slices I would normally cut for a fruit salad. Then I thought the pears were only supposed to go over the cream and not layered over the whole top of the batter. I thought something seemed off, but I just went with it.

The cream spread a little on the top of the cake. I was a little concerned it was going to burn, but it looked okay when I pulled it out of the oven.

This cake was very simple, but it tasted really good. The crumb was very small and soft. My husband really liked how the outside was hard and slightly crunchy, and the inside was very soft. It definitely could have used the extra pear that I left out, but that's okay.

Petit Four Cakes

2010-11-03T17:23:00.000-07:00

Last night I went to a Petit Fours class. I had signed up for this class well before I scheduled surgery. I was looking forward to the class but not looking forward to how my foot would deal with sitting in class the whole time. Even at work I can prop it up on my desk with a small pillow under it and wrapped with an ice pack.

The evening didn't start out great, but it ended up being a fun class. It was raining, and I found out when I got there that there isn't any handicapped parking and all of the spaces right in front of the store were taken. I freaked out a little because I'm still on crutches and not supposed to get my foot wet. I managed to get inside and was pretty upset, but then things got better. Heidi, our instructor, helped me get situated with my foot propped up, and everyone was really helpful the rest of the evening.

For those like me who thought that a petit four is just a little square cake with icing around it I learned last night that they are really just any bite sized dessert. You should be able to eat them in just a bite or two. The bite sized cakes are petit four cakes.

First we went over the two cake recipes - vanilla bean cake and chocolate cake. She said we can use a variety of pans to bake them in. In class we used a jelly roll pan, a silicon mold with individual one inch square openings, and a metal pan with small flower shapes. Next we made the icings - chocolate ganache and petit four icing. She also gave us a white chocolate ganache recipe which might be a good alternative to the petit four icing, but if you want to color the chocolate you have to use water based color. For the petit four icing you can use gel based color just like you would use for buttercream frosting. All of the recipes were really simple.

Then we learned how to cut the cake from the jelly roll pan. It's important to be pretty precise when cutting those so you end up with fairly uniform sizes of petit fours. A ruler is a must for that. Our instructor recommended scoring where you want to make your cuts before actually cutting. We spread raspberry preserves without seeds in between two of the 1 inch square pieces of cake.

Everyone seemed to be having problems with the petit four icing. It just didn't want to stay fluid enough. We ended up with some pretty ugly little petit fours. I'm not quite sure if these ones really qualified as petit fours anymore, but my husband still like the ones I took home. He really liked that icing. He already requested these petit fours for his birthday next year.

The chocolate ganache was much more cooperative. It stayed nice and fluid the whole night. Only problem with that was the petit fours were harder to move after covering them because they stayed sticky.

After covering them with the icing we got to do a little decorating with tiny gumpaste flowers and chocolate drizzled with a parchment bag. That reminded me that I really should practice making parchment bags because it's quite a bit cheaper than a plastic piping bag especially for something like this. Besides, with parchment bags you can reheat the chocolate in the microwave to make it a little more fluid. I think mine turned out pretty cute. Fortunately I got help from Heidi and one of the store employees getting to my car after the class.

Birthday Cinnamon Rolls

2010-10-28T08:00:00.000-07:00

When I asked my husband what his favorite breakfast food was besides waffles (he eats them frequently) he said cinnamon rolls from the can. I thought surely I could find a scratch recipe better than cinnamon rolls out of the can. So, looking through my cookbooks I found one in the Weekend Baker. Perfect! It told me what things I could do ahead so I could just stick them in the oven in the morning. Also, I was looking at Abby Dodge's blog and found a small tweak to the recipe that increased the cinnamon and flour. I had never made cinnamon rolls before, but after making brioche a few weeks ago I had a little more confidence in my bread making abilities. These were so easy to make.

First you make the dough. That was easy though it seemed to take longer for my dough to mix up and start pulling away from the bottom of the bowl. I couldn't turn up the mixer speed too much or it would start walking away. Then it had to rise for about 50 minutes.

In between working on the icing for the caramel apple cake I made the filling for the cinnamon rolls with the increased amounts of cinnamon and flour. Another simple step.

Next up, it was time to roll out the dough and spread the filling.

Then I rolled them up and sliced them. Some of mine ended up being a little bigger than they were supposed to be, but that wasn't a problem.

Then I set them in the baking dish. That was also easy enough. I let them rise while I finished the cake and then put them in the fridge overnight.

The next morning I got up early, started the oven, pulled them out of the fridge, and started the icing topping. I put them in the oven and continued getting ready for work. Not too long after that they were done, and we sat down to homemade cinnamon rolls for breakfast. My husband really enjoyed them. I think those might replace the canned variety as his new favorite!

Caramel Apple Birthday Cake

2010-10-27T09:30:00.000-07:00

My husband's birthday was last Wednesday. Originally he said he wanted a cookies and cream cake, but then after having cookies and cream cupcakes the Friday before he was sick of that combo. Since I got to taste the Caramel Apple Cake at the Baked Explorations class I convinced him to let me make it for his birthday.

I didn't have any time to bake it the weekend before his birthday so the process started Monday night around 8:30. The cake batter is pretty simple, and it smells amazing before you even put it in the oven. It has all of the spices of a pumpkin pie so it's definitely a perfect fall pie. There's a note in the recipe telling you how to make your own applesauce for it, but I just bought some. Unfortunately I didn't realize when I went to the store that it called for 4 cups so I only bought one jar and then had to go back when I started getting the ingredients out.

The applesauce and flour mixture go in last. I used the tip I learned in the Baked class about using a scoop to evenly distribute the batter between the 3 pans. I definitely need a bigger scoop because that seemed to take a while, but they were pretty even.

The only real problem I ran into with baking the cake was I didn't let it sit in the pan long enough because it was late and I really wanted to get to sleep. That ended up being a bad decision because one of the layers started to split down the middle. Oh, well. I figured I would just fix that with icing later and deal with it. I wrapped up the layers Tuesday morning before work.

Tuesday evening was busy. I had decided to make homemade cinnamon rolls in addition to the cake (another post to come on those). First up was the caramel for the icing because it was supposed to be room temperature for the icing. I was determined to not burn the caramel this time. I watched the temperature closely and also went by look. I even remembered that the heavy cream needed to be warmed up prior to adding it to the hot sugar mixture. But, I think I added the cream too quickly or my pot was too short and ended up with caramel boiling over the top of the pan, making a huge mess. I probably should have either started over or at least cut back on the amount of butter I added, but I didn't. It looked okay, but it was definitely very buttery flavored caramel. (Tastes good on vanilla ice cream though!)

Late that night I started on the rest of the icing. It starts out with a roux. The recipe says to whisk it occasionally, but I think I should have whisked a little more because some of the sugar and flour got stuck on the bottom of the pan.

Once the roux is done it goes in a mixing bowl and is mixed until it cools to room temperature. I forgot to strain mine, but it only affected the texture a little bit. And, then more butter goes in. Again, I should have cut back on the butter after the problematic caramel, but I didn't.

After finishing the icing the consistency wasn't quite right so I stuck in the fridge while I finished getting the cinnamon rolls ready. Then I got the cake iced. Despite the problem with the one layer splitting it didn't really cause too much of a problem while icing.

I decided to try to do the same design as the picture in the book. I used a piping bag with a small hole cut at the tip to put circles around the cake and then ran a toothpick from the center to the outside to complete the look. I guess it's not really a birthday design, but it looks cool. My husband really only cares about how it tastes anyway. :)

This cake was so, so moist! The icing was definitely a little buttery so I will have to try making it again because I know it should taste even better. Everyone at the birthday party enjoyed it. The main comment was on the moistness.

Many-Splendored Quick Bread and Other Weekend Events

2010-10-18T06:55:00.000-07:00

This weekend was filled with baking, cooking, and cake decorating events. First there was the Baked class on Friday which I already posted about. Then Saturday evening my husband and I went to an Alton Brown book signing. He did a question and answer for about 45 minutes and then signed books. Fortunately I had gotten a couple of tickets to the event earlier in the week because there was a huge line out the door for those who didn't. He was really nice and just as quirky as he seems in Good Eats.

Then Sunday afternoon I went to an intro class on gelatin flowers. It was a neat technique, but I don't know if it's something that I would do on my own for a cake. I think I prefer the look of gumpaste flowers. Plus, we used disco dust (aka non-toxic glitter) on these and I ended up with it all over me.

When I got home I was going to start dinner, but my husband wasn't hungry so I started the quick bread instead. That was the cake of the week for the HCB group though it isn't really a cake, but it was nice to have something quick to make. I started getting out all of the ingredients and then realized that I had thrown out the canola oil earlier in the week because it was expired so I did a quick trip to the store to get more. The only thing that really took much time was getting the ingredients together because I used the food processor to shred the carrot and zucchini.

Other than that the only part that took much time was toasted the walnuts and attempting to remove the skins. But, after the challenges of some of the other recipes that really wasn't a big deal. I baked it while cooking dinner, and I managed to convince myself to let it cool some before slicing it. The bread was very moist. I love the green and orange specks in it! It almost looks healthy.

Baked Explorations

2010-10-16T06:47:00.000-07:00

Last night I took a class at Central Market from Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito. The class mostly showcased recipes from their newest book, Baked Explorations: Classic American Dessert Reinvented. I bought their first cookbook the week before the class but didn't have a chance to bake anything from it so all I knew going into the class was their brownies were supposed to be the best according to Oprah and others. It turned out to be a very fun class. Their personalities are great, and they have such wonderful stories to go along with each of the recipes.

The first recipe they covered was Chipotle Cheddar Biscuits. These are actually from their first cookbook. They looked very easy to make, and I thought the amount of spice was perfect. (I am a Texan though so keep that in mind if you're not used to the heat.)

Next up were the Marshmallow Chocolate Cups. They really stressed the importance of using a good chocolate and especially one with no oil. I had never made marshmallow before, but I think I will give these a try. I'm not a big fan of dark chocolate, but since it was combined with the milk chocolate I thought they turned out really well.

The Sweet & Salty Brownie tied for my favorite of the evening. And, I learned something about making caramel. They said when you stir the sugar, corn syrup, and water you don't want to splash the sides of the pan or you'll end up with crystals. The few times I've made caramel recently I've always ended up with crystals. The brownies are so delicious. The caramel seeps into the brownies when they're baked so you don't have a distinctive caramel layer, but you do have that flavor. This is definitely on my to-make list. One funny thing we learned was they disagree about which is better - corner or middle pieces. They don't ship corner pieces. I liked both but prefer middle. My husband couldn't believe they don't ship corner pieces. He said that's the best part.

Mom's Olive Oil Orange Bundt is great option if you want something a little lighter tasting. I really liked it with the optional glaze, but I like icing so that's no surprise.

The Caramel Apple Cake was my other favorite dessert and probably my favorite part of the class. A couple tips they mentioned for their cakes are spoon the flour into the measuring cups and then level, and when trying to get even amounts of batter in each pan use a large ice cream scoop with a release mechanism and alternate putting one scoop in each pan. So, when they started making the cake they asked if there were any cake decorators in the class. No one raised there hand at first so I tentatively raised mine because I don't do this for a living and am still learning. They asked if I would come up to decorate the cake, and I at first said no until they said they needed a volunteer from the class at which point I agreed. So, when the cake was ready to be iced I went up to the front of the class thinking for sure I was going to mess it up. The icing for this cake is one that uses flour, and it was very easy to work with. It went on very smooth. I just wish I had gotten someone to take a picture, but they did write "Thanks for decorating" in my book! This cake was very rich. I loved it. I talked my husband into letting me make this for his birthday this week so look for a post on it next week.

I have already marked recipes that I want to try out of both of their books. I'm tempted to try to do a little bake through challenge for their new book, but I'm not quite sure if I can do that and the Heavenly Cake Bakers group. Maybe once or twice a month would work.

Cookies and Cream Cupcakes

2010-10-16T06:20:00.000-07:00

My husband's birthday is coming up next week, and he was going to have friends over Friday evening to celebrate early. So, to make it a little more of a party I offered to make cupcakes. He told me he wanted the blender cupcakes with cookies and cream icing. Because I've made those before and wanted to turn it up a notch I decided to try putting half of an Oreo cookie at the bottom of the cupcake. I had seen that done in other people's blogs so I thought it would work well.

I started off by placing half an Oreo including the cream at the bottom of each of the cupcakes. If I do these again I will probably use Double Stuff Oreos instead. Then I mixed up the Emergency Blender cupcake recipe from the Weekend Baker and poured that over each of the Oreos and stuck them in the oven. Then I mixed up the Oreo frosting which I found on Cake Central. I added a little extra powdered sugar which may have sent the sweetness level over the edge a bit. My husband normally only complains about things not being sweet enough so I guess I wanted to make sure that didn't happen this time. After the cupcakes cooled I started frosting them. Only problem was I didn't use the food processor to break up the cookies and I ended up with some small chunks of cookie which kept getting stuck in the piping tip. After getting mad at it a few times I managed to get them all iced.

I tried getting a nice picture of the inside of the cupcake, but it was dark and my camera doesn't do well with close-ups. It's either that or I don't take good close-up pictures. Either way, it's a little blurry, but you can see the Oreo at the bottom of the cupcake. This cupcake's icing to cake ratio was a little high, but that's how my husband likes them. Amazingly after eating 2.5 of these yesterday he decided that he's had enough Oreo and would like something different for his actual birthday cake next week! Yay! I really wanted to try a different recipe!

Molten Chocolate Souffle and Lava Cakes

2010-10-10T20:54:00.000-07:00

The first time I tried a chocolate souffle cake was on my honeymoon in Hawaii at Roy's. It was amazing. So, I had high hopes for this cake. I really wanted to be able to recreate something similar to that one:

But, I ran into a couple problems and just didn't have the time to fix them. I made the ganache Saturday night. I wanted to use a sweeter chocolate than what the recipe called for, but I was afraid it would effect the consistency of the ganache balls so I stuck with the bittersweet. I poured it into an egg carton lined with plastic wrap. I was tempted to use something else because this seemed to be a bit of a pain, but I decided I should follow the directions. I even weighed as I poured.

Then Sunday afternoon I was running a little late and only had an hour and 15 minutes to finish them before I was going to meet a friend to go bike riding, but I really wanted to get them done so we could taste them after dinner. I got all of the ingredients out and started making the batter. I went the quick route with melting the chocolate and just did that in the microwave. After reading others blogs I had decided to substitute semi-sweet chocolate for the bittersweet in the batter. Everything was going okay until I pulled the ganache out of the fridge and realized that it hadn't firmed up at all. I stuck it in the freezer for about 15 minutes, but that really wasn't enough time to fix it. But, with only 10 minutes left to get out the door I just went with it and put what I could on top of the batter. Most of it just stuck to the plastic wrap.

Then my husband stepped in and helped with pulling them out of the oven when they were done and putting them in the fridge so that I could still get in a bike ride. Given my issues with the ganache I would say they turned out okay, but there really wasn't much lava to them. I will definitely have to give these a second chance though. Next time I will make them sweeter and try Raymond's method of just scooping out the ganache with a melon baller instead of dealing with the stupid plastic wrap and emptying out a carton of eggs.

Apple-Cinnamon Crumb Coffee Cake

2010-10-10T06:24:00.000-07:00

I had a bit of a rough week this week, and I kept thinking that I just wanted to bake something. I wanted it to be something relatively simple and not a multi-day baking project. I found the list of cakes that the HCB group has made and that Marie made prior to starting the group and thought it would be good to pick one of those. I also wanted it to choose something that Daniel would like. When I showed him the picture of the coffee cake he said that looked really good so I decided that's what I would make. I went to the store earlier in the week and bought a Granny Smith apple and walnuts, but then I never had time to make it during the week. By Saturday I was feeling better but still wanted to make the cake. So, after doing a bunch of stuff outside in the morning - running, planting flowers, and putting up Halloween decorations I finally got started on the cake in the afternoon.

You start out by making the crumb topping and then setting that aside in the fridge while you slice the apples and mix up the batter.

I didn't measure my apples when I sliced them. I realized when I started laying them on the cake that they should have been a bit thinner. After slicing you put a little lemon juice on them to keep them from turning brown.

The batter was very straight forward to mix up, and then you layer it in the pan - 2/3 batter, part of the crumb topping, apples, and remaining batter.

While it bakes part way you're supposed to form 1/4 inch balls of the crumb topping. You're supposed to do that for a third of the crumb topping, but that was a little too tedious for me. I might have done one fifth of the crumbs. The rest were smaller crumbs. I don't think that mattered that much though. It still tasted great and looked pretty good. The outside of the cake was a tiny bit dry, but the inside was super moist. My husband mostly approved, but I did find out afterwards that he doesn't really like cooked apples. Hopefully he'll approve of this weekend's HCB cake - it's all chocolate.

Caramelized Pineapple Pudding Cakes with Homemade Brioche

2010-10-04T16:35:00.000-07:00

After surviving the Apple Caramel Charlotte a couple weeks ago I thought I would be fine with anything until I saw this recipe. I had never made bread pudding or yeast bread before. I bought the Bread Bible earlier this year, and I planned to make bread but had been too intimidated to give it a try. I thought about just buying the brioche, but I really felt like I should go all out on this challenge. I knew I needed to start the bread early, but last week was really busy so there wasn't any time during the week. Then around the end of the week I found out my cake classes that I was planning to take on Saturday had been cancelled so I hoped that would give me enough time to make the bread.

So, Saturday afternoon I got started. After reading Marie's post about wishing she had doubled the bread recipe I decided to double mine. The plan was for me to get to the point where there were only a couple steps left to do with the bread Sunday morning. Whisking the sponge and then mixing the rest of the ingredients together with the dough hook (it's first use in the seven years I've had the mixer):

I got the dough to the point where it was ready to sit out at room temperature and rise prior to going to dinner. One of my coworkers told me the trick to making bread around here was to make sure the room is warm enough for the bread to rise since most people have the A/C set pretty cold. She told me one trick was to put a warm pan of water below the dough but not touching it. Well, I don't think my dough had any problems rising:

Next step was to roll out the dough and fold the dough like a business letter. Then it went back in the fridge.

The next morning after getting my weekly grocery trip out of the way I rolled out the dough again and got it ready for the final rise in the pans. While it rose my husband and I took our dog to a nearby trail for a long walk. And, it once again rose more than expected in that short time. But, I hoped it wouldn't be a problem. I cut a slit across the top and brushed the loafs with an egg glaze and stuck them in the oven. The kitchen smelled so good while they were baking. They looked really good when I took them out, and I had to resist the temptation to cut into them too early.

After letting the bread sit for 2 hours it was finally time to start on the actual cake. Now it was 3:00 and I was starting to question whether I was actually going to finish this. I had originally planned for my mom to come over for dessert, but I just didn't think I would be done at a decent time. Of course, I went for the quickest option for drying the bread cubes - in the oven at 200 degrees for an hour.

After that it was time to make the creme anglaise which was very straight forward. Then the bread cubes are soaked in the cream.

The bread cubes had to soak for at least 2 hours so while they soaked I cooked and ate dinner and then got started on the first caramel. I actually managed to get my thermometer attached to the pan correctly and the color looked good to me. It stayed liquid until after I poured it in the custard cups, and then it was hard as a rock. I figured that it would be fine once the pudding cakes cooked, but as everyone else found out that didn't happen. It stayed stuck to the custard cups.

The next step was to roast the pineapple, but first I had to peel, slice, and core it. I had never done that before, and I almost bought some already peeled and cored at the grocery store but decided I could figure it out. That's what the internet is for. I found this great video.

The roasting syrup for the pineapple gave me problems. First it just wouldn't caramelize like it should have. I think it might have burnt a tiny bit, but I was so ready to be done that I continued on. I put the pineapple in and finally got it in the over. The directions said to baste every 5 minutes until it was tender and the juices thickened to a sauce. I sat down at the breakfast table next to the oven so I could watch my Sunday evening shows and baste the pineapple. I kept wondering about how long this should take because it seemed to be taking forever, and each time I opened the oven I was just hoping it would be done. Finally once it was done I took the pan out and instead of waiting for the pineapple to cool in the pan I moved it to the cutting board to cool quicker and slice.

I finally made it to the last step, and it was now after 10pm. I was just ready to go to bed. I had already told my mom she could come over Monday for dessert, but I need to finish this and wanted to try it before going to bed myself. I arranged the pineapple in each dish and put the bread cubes on top. The directions said to drain any cream not absorbed by the bread cubes, but there was nothing left for me to drain so I just skipped that step. The bread puddings have to cook in a roasting pan with a boiling water bath, and that ended up being a pain because my pan was huge and needed more water than my kettle could boil at once. Eventually I managed to get them in the oven.

After 40 minutes of cooking they were done, and it was finally time to unmold one of the puddings to taste. Fortunately I had already read that others were having problems with the caramel so I didn't try to force it to cooperate too hard. The first one I plated didn't look the great because I did put the ugly caramel on top, but then one of the ones I plated tonight looked really good (the first picture).

My mom came over tonight and really liked the bread pudding part but wasn't wild about the pineapple, but she isn't a pineapple person. I thought they were pretty good, but I'm not a huge fan of bread pudding. My husband didn't like them, but he really dislikes bread pudding or anything with wet bread. I probably won't make these again, but I will definitely make the bread again. This helped me get over my fear of working with yeast breads.

Chocolate Tomato Cake with Mystery Ganache

2010-09-27T18:49:00.000-07:00

When I first read through Rose's Heavenly Cakes and saw this cake I was pretty skeptical, but after reading some people's comments online prior to making the cake I figured it would probably turn out well. I definitely happy to have a quick and easy cake this week because I spent Saturday biking 72 miles at a charity ride and just needed something easy and relaxing to bake.

I planned ahead relatively well this time and made the ganache right after lunch so that I could ice it later in the evening. My plan was to take the cake to work for our monthly birthday celebration so it just had to be done by the end of the day. I was tempted to substitute some semi-sweet chocolate for some of the bittersweet because I tend to like my icing sweeter, but then I remembered reading that you should always try making the recipe as is first before making substitutions.

I guess I missed the part that said the chocolate was supposed to be chopped because I just put it in the food processor in big pieces. It was loud, but it worked.

You definitely can't tell that there is any tomato in this ganache.

So, after taking a break to do some other chores and watch some TV I started getting everything out to make the cake. I weigh most of my dry ingredients, and there have been a few places where the measuring method mentions sifting before measuring. I was trying to figure out if I should also be sifting to get rid of clumps before weighing so yesterday I decided to sift the cocoa while weighing and ended up getting it all over my scale. Instead being smart and wiping it off with a paper towel I ran the platform under water and guess what it stopped working. At first I thought maybe the battery needed to be replaced. When that didn't work I took it to my husband who noticed the water, and I pretty much decided it was ruined. Instead of just going to the measuring cups I drove to Bed, Bath, and Beyond and got a new scale. I was hoping that maybe they had one with 1/10 ounce measurements, but they didn't. So, after less than 30 minutes I was back on track and got all of the ingredients ready to go. My husband was able to revive the old scale so I'm hoping I can return the new one and wait to get a better one.

By this time it was getting close to dinner time, and I just wanted to get the cake in the oven so I could get dinner started so the step by step pictures were the first thing to go. This recipe is really pretty simple. I got it everything mixed and in the pans with the bake even strips around them.

I think I was a little distracted towards the end of baking time. When I first tested the cakes at 30 minutes they definitely weren't done. The centers didn't spring back at all when pressed lightly so I put them in for another 5 minutes, and the same thing happened the after that 5 minutes. I probably should have put them in for a shorter time the second time around because they looked a little dry around the edges. But, I've learned that I can fix a slightly dry cake with a simple sugar syrup - 1 part sugar, 1 part water. You stir and boil the mixture until the sugar dissolves and then brush over the cake. It's super easy, and although it would be better if it hadn't dried out in the first place that seems to help.

Next up was the construction and icing of the cake. I enlisted my husband to capture some pictures of this part. I love the cake lifter I got for setting one layer on another. It makes that so much easier and less messy.

Here I am trying to make it smooth until I realized that I was going to cover up the sides anyway so it didn't really matter how smooth they were.

And, then I did my best to imitate the wavy lines from the picture in the book.

At this point I wished I had just purchased a tube of red buttercream at the grocery store instead of making my own. I just used the recipe from the Wilton cake decorating class (cut in half) because it's really quick and I knew it would give me the consistency I needed for piping the stars. I ended up using all of my red food coloring to get this shade of red.

Then I started measuring and cutting the cookies to go around the cake. I used the chocolate fudge pirouettes because I didn't really pay attention to which ones the recipe used, and when I went to the store I figured chocolate would go well with a chocolate cake. I alternated between 4, 4.25, and 4.5 inches. I knew I hadn't really let the ganache dry enough, but I also knew I wouldn't have any time in the morning to complete it. Looking back I should have let it sit and sacrifice a little sleep to keep from having soggy cookies.

Once all the cookies were on the cake I piped the stars. I tried using piping gel and a paint brush to go back over them later, but there just wasn't enough time to get the look I wanted so I stuck with the stars. I think it still looked pretty good. And, somehow I managed to take this picture while holding the piping bag as if I was actually piping.

I took the cake to work with me today, and I told everyone there was a mystery ingredient while they were eating and let them guess until they had mostly finished their pieces. I got guesses like coffee, chile pepper, and sour cream. Everyone loved the cake and were very surprised to hear there was tomato soup in it. At least a couple people said it was very moist and light. I made sure to cut my slice and get a picture before the cake got demolished by everyone. This picture almost makes the cookies look like they weren't the chocolate ones.

This cake was interesting, but it probably won't go on my list to make again. Next week's cake the Caramelized Pineapple Pudding Cakes with Homemade Brioche has me a little nervous. I've never made bread with yeast before, and I won't have a lot of time to spend on it this week. I've been told that brioche is fairly easy to make, but it's still a big unknown for me so we'll see how that goes.

Cookbook Reorg

2010-09-24T16:58:00.000-07:00

I like collecting cookbooks, and my collection has grown quite a bit in the last year. When we built our house we had shelves built in on one side of our island. For a while they weren't even filled up. Then earlier this year they started to overflow, and I just started pushing them to the back until one day the weight of the books caused the top shelf to fall down bringing all of my cookbooks with it. So, then I moved the ones I don't use to a cabinet and started stacking them. That left my shelves looking nice:

Recently I've also started getting cake decorating books, but since I really didn't have a good place for them I just put them in the container in my pantry with all of my supplies. A couple weeks ago after signing up for a baking class taught by Nick Malgieri I thought it might be nice to try out some of his recipes from other cookbooks first. I went to Borders to get Perfect Light Desserts with a coupon and happened to find The Modern Baker for only $5.99 as well so that added two more to the mix. So, my pile in the cabinet was growing so I figured I needed a better place for them at some point.

I was in one of our spare bedrooms last week and realized there was a large corner shelf that was pretty close to the color of our cabinets not being used. It was one that my MIL stained so even though we didn't have a good place for it we didn't just get rid of it. So, today I finally decided to move it into the corner of the breakfast room, and I put all of my baking and cake decorating books on there. It works out perfectly because most of them are very pretty books anyway. Right now it's a little sparse, but I'm sure that will change.

Apple Caramel Charlotte

2010-09-19T19:26:00.000-07:00

I had been following the Heavenly Cake Bakers blog for a while. They are baking their way through Rose's Heavenly Cakes. I finally decided to see if I could join. I was told by Marie that I could and to just decide which cake I wanted to make my first one and let her know when I had a post up. I decided I wouldn't completely commit to making the Apple Caramel Charlotte because I wasn't sure if I was up for attempting a recipe that was 7 pages long. After giving it a few days thought I finally decided to give it a try figuring I would learn some things along the way even if it didn't turn out great. I read the recipe at least a couple times the whole way through and then read each section of the recipe prior to starting that step probably two or three times.

I started the cake Saturday afternoon. I poached the apples which was something I had never done before. I searched two different stores for a hard baking apple that was red like some of the ones mentioned in the beginning of the recipe, but ended up just using golden delicious and adding the red peel from a red delicious apple.

Then Saturday evening while watching the UT vs. Tech game I made the biscuit part of the cake, measured, and cut it up into the different pieces needed for the bottom and sides of the cake. I think I should have pulled mine out of the oven a little earlier than 7 minutes, but I was probably a little distracted by the game. Note to self, it's probably not the best idea to bake a cake during a potentially stressful football game.

After the game where the Longhorns fortunately managed to pull out a win I strained some apricot preserves and stacked the rectangular pieces of cake. One side was slightly thicker than the other, and I hoped that wouldn't cause a problem. At the time of stacking I didn't understand the reason for spreading preserves on the top piece, but when I started putting the whole thing together it made sense.

Sunday morning I had planned to go for a bike ride, but then my friend Alice asked if I would be up for going in the late afternoon instead. That worked out well because it gave me time to finish the cake the first. I thought I would end up with time for grocery shopping too, but I underestimated just how much work I had left to do. I knew today would be the day for lots of challenges. The first part was relatively easy. It was just tedious cutting the biscuit and placing them around the spring form pan and placing the round piece in the center.

Next came the hard parts - the bavarian cream. First you make a caramel, and I think mine might have ended up a touch burnt. I think my candy thermometer doesn't work with small amounts of liquid. Fortunately I didn't wait for it to hit the temperature or it would have been very burnt. Here it is with the apple poaching liquid poured in. Notice the number of pans on the stove. I had to go to my old pans to find enough small pans to make this cream, and I still had to hand wash a couple of the pans for later use.

So, here's where I made my big mistake. And, when things start going wrong I often forget about taking pictures. The recipe said to set the caramel custard aside to allow it to cool, and I decided that would be a good time for a break to eat lunch and one other thing. When I came back to the mixture it was already starting to harden. So, I quickly started trying to get the Italian Meringue done which is another problem area for me. The sugar always seems to get hard too quick when adding it to the egg whites, and I just don't really know what the meringue should look like after the hot sugar is mixed in so I don't know if it worked correctly. Fortunately I'm going to cake baking and icing classes in a couple weeks, and I've been told that we're going to cover that.

After finishing the meringue I decided that I needed to do something to get my custard back to liquid form so I stuck it in the microwave very briefly. There was no time for starting over on that step, I couldn't really work with what I had in that state, and I didn't want to give up. I also ended up with issues whipping the cream which should have been one of the easiest things. I got distracted for less than a minutes and ended up whipping it too long. I had another cup of heavy cream in the fridge so I dumped what I had and redid that. I got the filling in the cake and stuck it in the fridge.

Finally the most rewarding part was getting to the last couple steps of laying the apples in a rose shape and brushing on the glaze. That part was really very easy. I was so happy to finish this cake. I love the way it looks, but I don't think it's one I would do again. My husband and I really prefer chocolate desserts so it just wasn't our kind of thing.

Roasted Banana Cupcakes

2010-09-13T19:55:00.000-07:00

I had some very brown bananas yesterday, and I was in the mood to bake something so I decided on the Roasted Banana Cupcakes from Martha Stewart's Cupcakes. The recipe was really pretty easy and quick. Roasting the bananas definitely brought out the banana flavor.

The cupcakes are topped with a honey cinnamon frosting which was almost too sweet for my tastes which rarely happens, but it did complement the banana flavor well. In the cookbook, she suggests using making multiple swirl designs, but I actually didn't own the piping tip that she recommended using so I went with my usual swirl.

More Gumpaste and Fondant Practice

2010-09-12T14:51:00.000-07:00

Wilton changed up their classes this summer, and I figured I would probably learn something new and get a little more practice from the new Gumpaste and Fondant course. In the class we learned how to make a big bow, some flowers, and how to cover the cake and board in fondant. I had purchased some chocolate fondant a few months ago but didn't get around to trying it so I knew I wanted to use that for the final cake, and I came up with the plan to do a chocolate and teal look for the cake. I took the Modern Decorations class in the middle of this one so I also decided to use the stencil. And, even though I knew I wouldn't have a lot of time to get the cake done because I was doing a cake balls class the night before our final class I still decided to try a new recipe with lots of parts.

So, lets start with the recipe I chose. Since I knew it needed to go well with the chocolate fondant I went with the Chocolate-Covered Strawberry Cake from Rose's Heavenly Cakes. Since I knew time would be an issue I made the cakes the Sunday before and froze them:

First problem was the filling called for strawberry butter which I couldn't find here so instead of using the simple substitute I searched online for a strawberry butter recipe and made my own. It tasted good on its own but didn't give much strawberry flavor to the cake so I think it might have been too different from the one in the jar.

The next issue was that I wasn't sure if the chocolate frosting in the cake recipe was going to work under fondant. After talking to the instructor at my cake balls class I decided to go with a chocolate ganache instead which added yet another thing which I had never made before. I found a recipe which looked pretty simple in my Martha Stewart Cupcakes cookbook, and after making it I will definitely have to try that again on some of her cupcakes. It was amazingly simple to make.

The other big issue I ran into that night was the merengue. I guess I just need more practice, but every time I go to add the hot sugar to the egg whites it hardens before I can mix it in. I ended up having to redo the sugar. In the end I think the filling turned out as well as possible with my choice of strawberry butter.

I really love how nice the cake looks with just the ganache on it. I will definitely try making a cake sometime that is covered in just ganache.

So, the next day at class I got the cake covered in fondant and got my cake board covered and did one of the stencils. I ran into so many problems that night with all of those things that I wasn't able to finish the cake until the next morning. It ended up looking really nice.

Unfortunately Daniel and I were the only ones who got to enjoy it because I didn't have work that day and didn't get it done in time for Daniel to take with him. We ended up throwing out quite a lot of cake because we just can't eat that much cake ourselves. I think my limit is really a couple pieces. Next time I will definitely plan better, and I will have to try this recipe out again without the substitutions. Either way I love the coloring of the slices:

Cake Balls

2010-09-05T18:11:00.001-07:00

My mom and I took the cake balls class together this Wednesday evening at All in One Bake Shop and had a lot of fun learning how to make them. Here's my mom at the class:

They had four different mixes of cake and icing already made up for us but went over the technique for doing that. We started with rolling out our cake balls. Here are ours after rolling them:

Then we learned multiple techniques for covering them in chocolate. The easiest was definitely the hand method where you put chocolate on your hands (with gloves on) and then roll the cake ball around in the chocolate. That method is super fast, and you get some neat texture to the chocolate. If you don't care about having smooth cake balls that is probably the best one. If you want them smooth my next favorites were then toothpick and stick methods. With the toothpick method you put a toothpick in the cake ball and dip it in the chocolate, drop it on the cookie sheet, and cover the hole with a little chocolate. That method seemed okay until the cake balls warmed up and started falling apart. You use the stick method if you want to make cake pops which I really want to do. With that one you dip the stick in chocolate and then put it in the cake ball and let it drop before dipping the ball in chocolate. There were a few other methods, but these were my favorite. Here's some in progress cake balls:

It was really fun taking this class with my mom. We already have a project in mind for Christmas time to practice what we learned, and I have Bakerella's Cake Pops book on order now so we'll have lots of projects to try out. Here's my completed cake balls:

Devil's Food and Strawberry Cupcakes

2010-08-28T19:10:00.000-07:00

After watching all of the new cupcake shows it's really put me in the mood to bake some cupcakes so when Daniel told me someone at his work was having a picnic for his group this weekend I thought that was the perfect time to make cupcakes. I really wanted to try something different than the normal chocolate or vanilla which is all that most of my cookbooks have (unless you use a cake recipe). Of course, that gave me an excuse to purchase a new cookbook. I decided on the Martha Stewart Cupcakes cookbook. It got good reviews and had lots of recipes. When I asked Daniel what sounded good he said he liked them all but prefers just plain chocolate. So, I decided to make one basic chocolate recipe and one strawberry. Only problem was after going out to dinner on Friday and doing a short run Saturday morning that didn't leave much time for making cupcakes.

Friday night was spent making the strawberry cupcakes (not the frosting). I ended up staying up until midnight. It's amazing how much longer it takes to bake then you think it will. I prefer getting all of the ingredients out prior to mixing anything. I often end up doing that while the butter or eggs come to room temperature. The only complaint I have so far about this cookbook is the lack of weights for measurement, but that's the case with most cookbooks. At least with this one it gives the method for measuring things like flour at the back of the book.

And, my helpers for the night. Don't worry Missy stayed off the countertops I was working on.

Saturday morning after my short run I debated whether I should still make the chocolate cupcakes or just focus on the strawberry since I didn't start as early as planned. I decided to go ahead and make the chocolates ones and simplify the frosting if needed. The devil's food recipe was different than others I had made. It has you melt the butter and sugar together before mixing everything.

After baking the cupcakes and getting ready for the picnic I really only had about 45 minutes to make the icing and ice the cupcakes so I knew that wasn't enough time to make two completely different recipes so I decided to make the basic fluffly vanilla frosting recipe from the book with a minor tweak to make it tolerate the Texas heat a little better, and then for half of the frosting I added pureed strawberries. And, I took the extra 5 minutes to top them with strawberry slices.

I sent Daniel to the store for a second cupcake carrier after lunch so we were all ready to go. Everyone seemed to love the cupcakes at the party. Mine even went better than the ones that someone bought at Sugar Mama's Bakeshop!

Catching Up

2010-08-22T12:48:00.000-07:00

The last month I've been really busy with a big cake project and a couple cake classes as well as general life stuff that has kept me from sitting down to post. So, this post will include lots of pictures.

The big cake project was my in-laws 25th wedding anniversary cake. I was told there were going to be around 40 people at the party so I decided this would be a good chance to practice doing a two tier cake. My mother-in-law asked for some interesting fillings for the cake. So, I decided on a devil's food cake with cookies and cream filling and white cake with lemon buttercream. Both cakes were going to be covered in fondant so it didn't matter if they matched. Since, the filling recipes were both new to me a couple weeks before I took cupcakes to work in those flavors:

I had originally planned to make gumpaste roses for the cake, but then my mother-in-law asked if I could make hibiscus so I looked online to see if I could find a good tutorial. I found this one which is very detailed. I worked on them the weekend before the party. They ended up taking me 10 hours to make 6 flowers, but I think they turned out really great. I just wish I had taken more pictures of each step.

Once those were complete I still had to make the actual cake and put everything together. I had decided on a schedule. I needed to bake and freeze the two cakes (each two layers) by Wednesday at the latest, and then on Friday evening I would defrost the cakes, make the icing (3 different kinds), and torte and ice each of the cakes. I managed to stick to the schedule, but workout and sleep schedule ended up suffering a little. On Monday I made the two 12" layers for the Devil's Food cake. Unfortunately I learned that my mixer really can't handle that amount of batter. I somehow managed to make it work, but it wasn't pretty and may have affected my cake in the long run. I also learned how to use heating cores to bake the cake evenly though I later learned there are other nicer ways to do that. On Tuesday evening I made the 8" white cake with no issues. Sorry, no progress pictures here. Then on Friday I stayed up past midnight to torte and ice the cakes and get them in the fridge to set the icing a little. The smaller cake was no problem. I had never torted a cake before, but it wasn't too hard. I ran into issues with my larger cake being too dry and decided to try using a simple sugar syrup for the first time to moisten it. It was very simple to make, and I will certainly do that again.

Saturday morning after a short run I had to make more icing to finish frosting the chocolate cake because I didn't have quite enough for the crumb coat. Once that was done, it was time to get the cakes and cake board covered in fondant. This was only my third time to cover a cake in fondant and only my second time for a two tier cake. I stuck with a simple design to keep the flowers the showcase of the cake. I just used a template to pipe on a simple design and then brushed the cake with pearl dust.

After I got the cake ready I steamed the flowers to set the color and make them a little shiny. Then we put the cake in a box. Unfortunately the box was just the right size which meant that it pulled a couple edges of the fondant on the cake board off, but I fixed that by cutting it off the rest of the edges off. I put the flowers and "25" on the cake once we got to the party. Many people at the party thought the cake had been professionally made. I'm very happy with how the cake turned out though as my own toughest critic I can always find plenty of flaws.

So, the other big cake thing I did were cake classes in the evening on the 10th through the 13th with Marco Antonio Lopez and Sonia Escobar. They were in town from Colombia and teaching classes at All in One Bakeshop. I originally planned on just taking one class, but I talked into taking another one. The classes were taught in Spanish with an English translator which was good because my knowledge of Spanish is pretty limited to numbers 1-10 and a few other words. The first class was on modern cake decorations where we learned how to do stenciling, a bow with an edge to it, a bow with a buckle, and a few other cool things. The second class was modern gumpaste flowers. We learned how to do a lot of neat fantasy flowers. The first day of each class was demonstration, and the second we got to practice some of the techniques. I'll just post pictures of the things I did, but there were a lot of other really cool things in the classes.

Chocolate Fudge Brownies with Butterscotch Chips and Pecans

2010-07-17T23:30:00.000-07:00

I'm trying to get caught up with my blog posts. This one is about a week late. I had an exciting evening last Saturday of going to the grocery store after going out to dinner. My husband invited his friend over to play video games, and I was in the mood to bake when I got home from the store. I picked these brownies partly because I love butterscotch and because I had all of the ingredients. They were pretty simple to make and tasted good, but I think the topping needed to be added a little earlier so it would stick in the brownies better. Also, the butterscotch didn't stand out as much as I thought it would. Daniel really liked these served a la mode.

50th Birthday Golf Cake

2010-07-01T20:29:00.000-07:00

This post is a few weeks late, but a lot happened between now and then that got in the way of sitting down to post. I offered to make my stepdad's 50th birthday. My mom suggested a golf theme, and I looked through pictures online of neat golf cakes that I thought I could do. I knew I couldn't use fondant so I was a little more limited in design. I found one similar to this one except it had indentions for the golf ball on the white zero and didn't have the "grass" around the cakes. I got a new cake pan for these which allows you to make any number or letter. They're a little block like, but that could be fixed by carving them a little. The cakes are two different flavors. The 5 is Devil's Food from the Magnolia Bakery cookbook with buttercream, and the 0 is Spice Cake from Rose's Heavenly Cakes with a modified version of her Dreamy Creamy White Chocolate frosting. I just add extra powdered sugar until I get it to a consistency that works for me. I really liked the way the cakes turned out. They were both incredibly rich.

For my next big cake I'm doing my in-laws 25th anniversary cake. I get to use fondant and try to do my second two tier cake. I'm even going to try making gumpaste flowers. It should be fun!

Chocolate Cupcakes

2010-06-23T06:09:00.000-07:00

All last week I was in the mood to bake something. Finally Thursday evening after a trip to the gym, dinner, and walking dogs I decided I still had enough time to bake something quick. I gave Daniel the option of either the banana muffins or emergency blender cupcakes from the Weekend Baker cookbook. He said the cupcakes sounded intriguing. I was amazed at how easy they were to make and how few dishes they produced. I decided to make mini cupcakes, but I ended up with enough batter to make 3 regular size ones as well. I had some leftover chocolate icing frozen from a previous cake so I defrosted it overnight and then remixed it to make it smooth.

Daniel and I each ate one cupcake, and then I took the rest to work. I figured it would just be a nice Friday treat, and since I went with the mini ones I think people felt less guilty eating them. The texture and flavor of these cupcakes was great. I had lots of compliments on them and the icing. I need to figure out my recipe for that icing one of these days because it was actually a icing recipe that I had botched and then fixed, and it has ended up being one that I've received the most compliements.

Brown Sugar-Peach PIe with Coconut Streusel

2010-06-13T19:27:00.000-07:00

I had originally planned to make a peach pie with the Fredericksburg peaches I got a couple weeks ago, but they were just too soft to slice for a pie. So, I bought some peaches at the store for the pie. I decided to go with a Cooking Light recipe and also made their pie crust as well. It was my first time making a the pie dough from scratch, and although it didn't look that pretty I thought it tasted good. I never was a big fan of fruit pies as a kid, but now that I've started making them with fresh fruit I really do like them.

Flowers and Basketweave

2010-06-06T20:54:00.000-07:00

I finally got to take Wilton Course 2 after having to postpone it for my foot surgery. The last class was this Thursday. The first two classes were spent learning new techniques rather than decorating cakes. In the first class we made a bird using a color flow technique, but I think most people ended up tossing their birds rather than putting them on the cakes. In the second class we made royal icing flowers. I didn't like some of the flowers I made in the class so I spent part of Memorial Day weekend making lots of new flowers. (My hand is still cramping up after that.)

Then in the last class we learned the basketweave which I had done before but on a much smaller scale in the cupcake and cookie classes. It certainly isn't hard, but it's pretty time consuming to cover the entire cake with it. We also learned the rope border and decorated our cake using the flowers that we made before. This was probably one of my favorite cakes that I've done so far. I took the cake to work the next day, and it was mostly gone pretty quick. People seemed afraid to cut the flowers though.

And, it was another scratch cake - Devil's Food Cake. That's probably my favorite chocolate cake recipe so far. The only issue was it was supposed to make 3 layers rather than just 2 which I realized as I was putting it in the oven so I pulled them out and made 6 cupcakes which Daniel took to work.

Spice Cake and Roses

2010-05-26T06:12:00.000-07:00

My grandmother and her husband came into town this weekend, and my mom had us over for dinner so I offered to make a quick cake. I had lots of leftover icing from class this week and my brother's birthday cake earlier in the week. I went with a spice cake from Rose's Heavenly Cakes because I'd made it before and knew it was pretty simple. I decided I wanted to practice doing roses since I hadn't done them in a while. I managed to throw the cake together including decorations in two hours! The cake didn't cool fully, but since we were cutting into it soon anyway it wasn't a big deal. It ended up being very moist. My husband said it was one of his favorites, and my mom requested I make it with a cream cheese frosting for my step-dad's 50th birthday.

Chocolate Birthday Cake

2010-05-21T13:57:00.000-07:00

I seem to be unable to get my blog posts done right after I finish the cake. This one I made on Sunday (after getting up early to do a short triathlon in the morning) for my brother Daniel's birthday on Monday. His requirements for the cake was no flowers and some sort of American buttercream icing. So, I made this Chocolate Buttermilk Layer Cake with chocolate buttercream and did a simple swirl pattern that I saw online.

Mother's Day Cookies

2010-05-12T05:59:00.000-07:00

This weekend I put my cookie class to use by making a Mother's Day cookie bouquet. This is probably one of the most creative projects I've done. I got lots of ideas online, but I was really surprised at how well the whole thing came together. I had planned to make the cookies Friday evening, but all I was able to get done was making the dough and rolling it out. Then it had to cool in the fridge so I got up early Saturday morning to cut out and bake the cookies before going for a bike ride with Daniel. I used the recipe from All in One Bakeshop which was great because the cookies didn't spread at all and still looked like the cookie cutters. I had some issues with the dough breaking when I put the sticks in, but I just added a little dough to patch it. It all got covered by icing later.

My friend Adriana came over after lunch and helped make all of the royal icing and flood icing. That part takes quite a bit of time so we only had an hour or so to decorate before she had to leave, but that was enough time to get some cookies decorated. It was a lot of fun having company for the decorating. I think next time it would be nice to have several people here to decorate cookies.

I ended up staying up fairly late to finish decorating the rest of the cookies. It's almost therapeutic though because it's something completely different from what I normally do. I put the cookies in a ceramic flower pot and put fake flowers around the outside of the pot. I even put plastic wrap on it mainly to keep the cats from messing with it Saturday night, but I also thought it made it look very professional.

Carrot Cake

2010-05-02T20:20:00.000-07:00

This week I decided that I would make dessert for Sunday night and then take the rest to work on Monday. So, I made one of Daniel's favorite types of cake - carrot cake. I made the Classic Carrot Cake from Rose's Heavenly Cakes, but I modified the frosting a little to make it sweater and thicker. The cake itself was very moist and delicious. Daniel loved it, but with my frosting it was so rich that neither of us could finish the pieces.

More Cakes

2010-04-26T15:38:00.001-07:00

I'm a little behind on posting these, but I'm going to cheat and post date them. Sunday morning I made Banana Bread with Coconut and Toasted Pecans from the Magnolia Bakery cookbook which I just got. It turned out very well.

Then in the afternoon I made the icing for Chocolate Layer Cake with Caramel Ganache from Rose's Heavenly Cakes, but I accidentally got out the amount of butter for the cake rather than the icing. I ended up fixing the icing later by adding some powdered sugar so it was kinda a cross between the ganache and buttercream icing. I made the cake after dinner and then tried to ice it before going to bed, but the cake kept sliding so I put it in the fridge to let it set over night. I put the remaining icing in as well, and by morning it was a little too hard, but just took a little stirring to get it to work. I did a quick design on the top and shell borders. I took the cake to work for the monthly birthday celebration, and everyone must have liked it because it was almost gone. For me, the icing needed to be more of a milk chocolate, but most everyone else I talked to loved it.

Gumpaste Flowers Bouquet

2010-04-25T20:44:00.000-07:00

These were fun to do in class, but I don't really see myself doing them on my own at home. They just take so much time, and I'm not a big fan of the floral wires and tape. I had so many problems with the tape during the last class that I nearly gave up on trying to make an actual bouquet. I think I could see maybe doing individual flowers and putting them on skewers or spaghetti so they can be stuck directly in the cake. I do love how real they look though. Brushing the color on them was cool, and I was surprised at how little artistic ability it actually took. Now I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do with them. They're sitting in a small box for now. One of the petals on my large rose already has a small piece missing so I know they won't last forever around here.

Perfect Party Cake

2010-04-18T18:00:00.000-07:00

My mother in law's birthday was today, and I volunteered to make a birthday cake. I needed an excuse to practice my decorating skills and try out another cake recipe. I was determined to use a non-shortening buttercream icing this time. I chose Dorie Greenspan's Perfect Party Cake which is a white cake with a hint of lemon flavor. I put the coconut on the sides of the cake but left it off the top to save room for decorating. The cake itself turned out great, but the icing was a little hard to pipe with and a bit too buttery for my taste. I guess I'm used to the American buttercream with the powdered sugar and shortening. I didn't give myself quite enough time for the decorating, but I'm still pretty happy with how it turned out. The drop flowers are great when time is limited.

More Gumpaste Flowers

2010-04-17T19:31:00.000-07:00

Today we finished putting our calla lilies together, learned how to make carnations, stephanotis (the star shaped flowers), made holly leaves, and the calyx of the rose (the green part under the flower). The stephanotis were a lot more work than they're worth. My favorites are the rose and calla lily. I can't wait to see them with color next week.

Gumpaste flowers

2010-04-10T20:06:00.000-07:00

I was originally planning to take Wilton Course 2 in April, but because I'm having surgery on my foot next week I had to transfer to the next class in May. So, I decided to try out the gumpaste flowers class because I thought it sounded like fun. Plus, unlike the other courses I don't have to do any work prior to the class at home. For the first class we made a rose, rosebud, leaves, and the center of a calla lily. The roses will get some color added in the third class. By the end we're supposed to have a bouquet and boutonniere of gumpaste flowers.

Recent Creations

2010-04-10T19:39:00.000-07:00

Here's a quick look at some of the things that I've made over the past couple months.

Cakes from Wilton Course 1 at All in One Bakeshop:

Yes, I did make my own birthday cake because I wanted to practice my buttercream roses:

I took the Wilton Course 3 next because it was offered next and order didn't matter. We only did 2 cakes for this one, but the flowers from the first night were pretty cool as well. We learned how to work with fondant and how to make two tier cakes. It was a lot of work, but worth it when I got to see the finished product. It sure was hard to cut into the cake at the end.

In the middle of these classes I volunteered to bring cupcakes to work for the monthly birthday celebration (like I really needed to give myself something more to do):

And, last Saturday I took a cookie class and a cupcake class. It was fun, but it definitely seems like something that would be a lot of work to do on your own and more fun with a group. I sent most of these to work with Daniel: