First Birthday Celebration

I can't believe it's already been a year!  My little guy turned one last week, and we had his party the weekend before.  I spent the couple months before the party scouring the web (and joining pinterest) to find ideas to plan the perfect party.  I even did a few craft projects.  I made a birthday bunting, a photo banner with a picture for every month, and a birthday hat to match the onesie I ordered from Etsy.  I had also purchased a number of decorations, but the high winds made nearly impossible to put them all up.  Besides I realized that I probably should have shared my grand plans for decorating with my husband and dad who ended up doing most of that work since my number one job is tending to my son.  I had planned to make a smash cake, cupcakes, decorated sugar cookies, and chocolate covered Oreos, but in the end I decided a smash cupcake was fine for the first birthday.  Yes, I like to go a little over the top for big events.  Maybe someday I should go into party planning as a career. ;)

I had planned to put the banners above the food table, but the wind was too strong.  It kept blowing the plates away.

I put a number 1 on the birthday boy's cupcake to make it stand out from the rest!

I love decorating cookies even though it's a bit time-consuming.  I was curious how much cookie places charge, and couldn't believe that some charge around $90 for a dozen decorated cookies.  Crazy!

I hung up the bunting and photo banner at home after the party so we could enjoy it the week of his birthday!

He did not want to keep the hat on, but we managed to get a few decent pictures with it on!

Brooksters and Baked Bars

Last Sunday the authors of the three Baked cookbooks were in Austin for a book signing at William Sonoma.  Since I took a class with them a couple years ago at Central Market when their second book came out I had to go.  At the book signing the had a demo of the pumpkin cake in the new book and samples of pumpkin brittle and their salted caramel.  It was all delicious!  After watching them make the salted caramel again I really want to try it again myself.  I've always had problems making caramel - either burning it, undercooking it, or having it boil over when I added the cream.  I think I just need to practice and I will get it right.  Plus, I've had some fleur de sel salt sitting in my baking cabinet just waiting for the perfect use.  

In honor of them coming I decided to do a little more baking from their books again because their recipes never disappoint.  Earlier this month I was in the mood for chocolate and coconut, and when I found the Baked Bars which are also known as Hello Dolly or kitchen sink bars I couldn't resist them.  How could you go wrong with chocolate chunks, butterscotch chips, white chocolate chips, and walnuts surrounded by sweetened condensed milk on top of a coconut and graham cracker crust.  They were quite delicious.  I normally have a sweet tooth, but the comment in the recipe about these being good in small doses was definitely correct.  I think when I make these again I will have to take them to a gathering, cut the recipe in half, or just freeze the other half for later.

For my first recipe from their latest book Baked Elements I decided to bake along with the Baked Sunday Mornings group and make the Brooksters.  I didn't have time to finish mine until Monday night, but I'm hoping to participate a little more in the future (after I get through my son's first birthday party because that is going to take most of my time over the next week).  So, this recipe combines two of my favorite desserts - chocolate chip cookies and brownies.  It's simple to make but does require a bit of planning because both the cookie and brownie dough have to cool for at least 3 hours prior to baking them.  I actually started making the dough Sunday afternoon after the book signing but didn't get to finish them until the next day.  Fortunately I knew there would be extra cookie dough so I threw a half dozen in the oven for my husband and I for Sunday night dessert.  The recipe has two options for baking these either in their special Brookster pan that William Sonoma carries or a muffin pan.  I opted for the muffin pan because I just can't see paying $20 for a single purpose baking pan (at least not anymore).  If I make these again I would probably try making them in mini muffin pans instead because like the Baked bar these are also very rich.  They were very good and even better heated with a little vanilla ice cream, but like so many other bloggers commented I think I still like brownies and chocolate chip cookies on their own a little more.  

Mile-High Vanilla Sponge Cake

I try to bake along with the Avid Baker's Challenge, but I just haven't been very consistent this year.  I'm starting to find a little more time to bake lately - about once a week which is almost perfect with only two of us eating desserts in my house right now.  So, I thought I would join them this month.  I'm a little late posting this though I did make this cake last week.

The cake was very similar to an angel food cake just a bit heavier since it used both the whites and the yolks of the eggs.  With as few ingredients as it had I thought it would be really quick to throw together, but with an 11 month old trying to "help" I don't think anything is really quick.  He has a fascination with the mixer since I made the mistake before of letting him check it out (when there wasn't anything in it).  Plus, it calls for the whites and yolks to be whipped separately

My mom used to make angel food cake fairly often when I was a kid though I'm pretty sure it always came from a box mix.  She would either make a quick glaze to go on top or top it with strawberries and whipped cream.  I ended up making the chocolate whipped topping for it.  The inside of this cake was very soft just like an angel food cake, but just like when my mom used to bake angel food cakes my absolute favorite part of the cake is the top crust that we always cut off and eat first!

Mom and Baby Cookie Party

Last week some of my running mom friends and their little ones came over to my house to do some cookie decorating.  I had offered to teach them how to decorate cookies after bringing some cookies to our coach's baby shower.  It was a lot of fun (especially watching the little ones interact with each other), but I did forget just how much work it is to prepare to decorate cookies.  

I learned how to decorate from taking classes at All in One Bake Shop (now Make It Sweet) whose classes I would highly recommend to anyone in the Austin area.  One of the great things about their classes is they do a lot of the prep work for you, and the parts that we do in class they seem to have down to a science how to do it most efficiently.  I'm learning more each time I do them, and after this time I found some more tips online that  I think will make it faster.  Also, I really wanted to show everyone how to make the royal icing and flood icing (thinned out royal icing) and put it in bags, but next time I would probably do that myself so there's more time for decorating.  Some tips I have are:

• Simplify! Just choose a few colors and styles rather than several.
• Use glass measuring cups to mix each color.  Then put half of the color in the piping bag and thin out the rest to pour into the bottles.
• If you have a lot of cookies to decorate and are pressed for time do all of the outlines of one color first that way you don't have to worry about the icing in the tip drying.  If you have a bit of an assembly line of cookies it goes faster.  
• I have some piping tip covers that seem to help a little, but one tip I read online afterwards is to put a damp paper towel in the bottom of a glass and put your tip in there.

There were a couple of little ones in our group who were at the point where I thought they might enjoy decorating, but I figured that holding a piping bag was probably beyond their level.  I have some paint brushes that I use cake decorating so I gave them each a brush and put some of the flood icing (thinned out royal icing) in bowls.  That seemed to work pretty well, and thanks to their moms it actually wasn't a huge mess!

My 10 month old wasn't super cooperative with my decorating efforts so I think I only managed to decorate a few cookies during the party.  I was trying to figure out afterwards why I was having such a hard time piping (besides the fact that he kept trying to help), and then I remembered that I normally use my left hand to help guide a little bit.  I ended up decorating some more later that night, but I still had a lot left the next day that I wanted to finish.  I knew that the icing in the piping bags would be fine with the exception of what had hardened in tip (which can easily be taken care of with a toothpick), but the flood icing in the bottles separates overnight.  I did a little research and determined that I should be able to remix it.  I got out a liquid measuring cup so I could hopefully just pour it back in afterwards, poured the separated icing in, and just stirred it with a spoon.  I have two different types of bottles - one with a wide opening and one with a narrow one.  I was able to just pour the icing into the wide bottles, and for the others I had to use a funnel.  I think I might need to get more of the wide neck bottles and more liquid measuring cups sometime before I do another big cookie project.  It was so nice to sit down and finish the cookies while Lucas napped!

I really loved getting together with my friends to decorate cookies, and I hope we get to do it again sometime!  Holiday cookies?

Summer Squash Trail Mix Cupcakes

I haven't posted in quite a while.  When I quit my job to stay home with my baby for some reason I thought I would have a lot more time than I did before, but really I only have a little more time for stuff like blogging and a lot more time with my son.  But, that's fine.  So, while I like blogging I don't guarantee that I will do it regularly, but I imagine that as he gets older and naps become more predictable that I will find more time to do it.  I have found more time for baking than I was in the early months of his life, but it typically isn't anything that requires a lot of work though I have done a couple of fancy cakes and decorated cookies.

So, I do still get a CSA share every other week, and I decided this time I would do a better job about using everything before I get the next share.  Only problem is I found out last night that they had me scheduled to get another share this week even though I shouldn't be getting one until next week.  I think something got messed when I went on vacation and pushed out one of my pick up dates.  Rather than dealing with trying to call them I changed my pick up day of the week to Saturday rather than Wednesday to give me the rest of the week to finish what I had.  I decided I needed to use up some of the squash by baking.

I had made Martha Stewart's Zucchini Spice Cupcakes before using half zucchini and half summer squash so I decided to try all summer squash this time.  My son fell asleep for his morning nap and actually let me lay him down so I got busy getting ingredients out.  I soon realized I would have to improvise quite a bit as I didn't have vegetable oil or walnuts.  I ended up using a mixture of safflower, canola, and olive oil because that's all I had.  I've tried cake with olive oil in it before that I liked so I figured  it was worth a try.  I had a bag of trail mix with walnuts, almonds, raisins, cranberries, and dates.  At first, I thought about pulling out all of the walnuts, but then I decided I would just chop it all up and see how it works.

When they came out of the oven I thought they looked a bit more like muffins than cupcakes, but the inside is soft like cake.  They turned out delicious!  I think I still prefer them with just walnuts, but I would say this was a nice substitute!

These are great without the icing as a little snacking cake, but they're even better with a bit of cream cheese icing.  I mixed up some with half butter, half cream cheese, vanilla splash of milk, and powdered sugar to the consistency I want for piping.  I frost a few for the next couple days and then freeze the rest so they taste fresher.  It doesn't take long for them to defrost in the fridge.

I set one out on the plate to take a picture, but I had to go change my baby's clothes as he has decided that the dog water bowl is a fun place to play.  When I came back I saw my cat licking her lips and part of the icing missing from one side, but you'd never know that by looking at the picture above!

Cranberry Orange Scones and Big Changes

This month's recipe for the Avid Baker's Challenge is scones.  We're baking out of the Weekend Baker cookbook which has become one of my favorite because the recipes tend to be pretty quit and always delicious.  This one disappoint.  We were given some flavor options in the cookbook, and I went with cranberry and orange.  In an effort to make them slightly healthier I substituted just over a third of the AP flour for whole wheat flour.  Then to negate that I sprinkled them with turbinado sugar right before baking and a orange juice and powdered sugar glaze right after baking.

The big change in my life right now is I quit my job to stay home with my son.  This week is my first week of not working.  I'm hoping to have more time to bake and blog (especially if I can ever get him to nap in his crib rather than on me).  If not, I'll just do what I did this time and put him in the Ergo carrier while I mix everything and put him in the highchair when I'm dealing with the oven.  It's a little slower that way, but I guess he gets to learn really early about baking.

Also, I got my first CSA share today!  Even though this blog has been primarily focused on baking I thought it would be fun to do a post every week or two about what I've made with my share.  I'm cooking and eating so many of these things for the first time so this should be interesting!

I think the directions were probably pretty standard for making these, but I've only ever made one other scone recipe.

Here they are just after glazing.  I'm not sure how much of the glaze actually stayed on the scones, but it seemed to add to the flavor.

My little helper looking on wondering "Mommy what are you doing?  Why is that so interesting?"

I was worried that substituting some whole wheat flour would make these too dense, but they were just perfect.  I baked them for 18 minutes like the recipe called for.  The bottom of them were a little dark, but the inside was soft and not at all dry.  The next day they tasted delicious heated for just 15 seconds.

ABC - Emergency Blender Cupcakes

The recipe for the Avid Baker's Challenge for March was the Emergency Blender Cupcakes. I've made them two or three times before and really liked them, but I've never actually made this frosting. I did actually make them early this month, but I'm just now getting a chance to sit down and type up a blog post. My life with a baby is definitely much busier than my life pre-baby, and I was a busy person anyway. Fortunately life got a little less crazy a few weeks ago when we decided to stay in our current house. We had planned to sell and even got it ready, but then decided it just wasn't worth it. The great thing is I get to keep my kitchen that I absolutely love! Now that we're done with that and I'm figuring out how to do more things with my little helper Lucas I'm hoping to do more baking again.

These cupcakes are so easy to make. My only problem is when I've made them before I've tried to use my blender which is a piece of junk. I always end up wanting to get a new one, but this is the only thing I would use it for right now. So, this time I opted for the hand mixing method which was much easier. The cupcakes turned out perfect - moist and delicious! The frosting was good though a bit heavier than I really prefer, but it was nice to try something a little different than my normal buttercream.

ABC - Nut-Crusted Chocolate-Banana Swirl Cake

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.