Wow! It's been forever since I've been on here!

Here are my updates from my last post.  I really need to start getting on here more often.  I will definitely have updates for the Christmas goodies I will make in the next couple weeks.  Stay tuned!

Eneida's Birthday Cake

Heather & Erik's Labor Day Party Cupcakes

Rice Krispy Treat pumpkins for Halloween

AMAZING Apple Cinnamon Roll Cupcakes- absolutely to die for!

My Dad's birthday cake-He's lining up his shot!

Really good Apple Pecan Cheesecake

Bake, Eat, and Enjoy!

Happy Labor Day!

We went up to Connecticut for a Labor Day BBQ and I wanted to bring a fun dessert.  I made yellow cupcakes dyed multi colored red, white, and blue with vanilla frosting dyed red, white, and blue.  Very big hit!  Everyone loved them!

Happy Birthday Eneida!

This was a great cake!  I had so much fun making it and it was quite simple.  I made 2 6 inch cake rounds of dark chocolate cake with vanilla buttercream frosting.  It's covered with white fondant to make it an igloo and the base is blue fondant for the water.  The penguin is also made out of fondant.  

Mmmm Dinner!

Mini pigs in a blanked- crescent dough rolled around mini hot dogs.  Very quick, easy, and tasty!

Pizza Muffins- Cut up pizza dough to fit in muffin pan, filled with pizza sauce, mozzarella, sausage, onion, and pepperoni.  Yummy! It will definitely be made in my kitchen again.  Thank you Martha Stewart!

Luau

Chris and I hosted an end of the summer luau at the end of August.  I had never made chocolate covered pretzels so I decided to try that.  I put fun tropical animal sprinkles on them like dolphins, sharks, turtles, and fish.  These and my fruit skewers were my favorite items at the party.  Both were very simple to make.

Heavenly Bars

Wow! It's been a very long time since I've been on here.  I made these Heavenly Bars awhile ago after I got back from Wisconsin.  My mom got some as a deli near are cabin and told me I needed to figure out the recipe.  I knew it was similar to a scotcheroo but there was this frosting type layer in the middle.  I had a thought that it was vanilla pudding.  Well, the recipe from betterrecipes.com is below but beware that it makes quite a bit of them and it's hard to put them down, hence the name.

Ingredients

• 1 pkg. (4-serving-size) instant vanilla pudding mix
• 2 cups packed Brown Sugar
• 2 cups peanut butter
• 1 cup Karo corn syrup
• 4 cups Rice Krispies cereal
• 4 cups powdered sugar
• 1 stick (1/2 cup) butter or oleo, melted
• About 6 tbsp. milk
• 3/4 cup chocolate chips
• 3/4 cup peanut butter

 

Method

Measure dry pudding mix and divide it into two equal portions; set aside. For the first layer, in a large saucepan combine brown sugar, the 2 cups peanut butter, the corn syrup, and ONE portion of the pudding mix. Stir over low heat just until combined. (Mixture may stiffen.) Remove from heat and stir in Rice Krispies. Spray a 15x10x1-inch jelly roll pan lightly with nonstick spray and press the mixture evenly into the pan. Place in refrigerator until firm. For the second layer, stir together the powdered sugar and the remaining portion of the pudding mix. Add melted butter. Stir in the milk, about 1 tablespoon at a time, to make a fairly thick frosting consistency. Spread over the first layer and put back in fridge about 30 minutes or until firm. For the third layer, melt together chocolate chips and remaining peanut butter just until smooth. Drop by spoonfuls over the powdered sugar layer and spread out evenly. Chill until set. Cut into bars. (Best if kept refrigerated.)

 

Notes:

 

Number of Servings: 24 to 36

Past baked items that were made prior to this blog

A crumb behind!

Well, I have been very busy since my last post.  My friend at work had a request for a treat.  She really loves M&M cookies and she doesn't like much chocolate.  I decided I wasn't in the mood for just making simple M&M cookies so I somehow wanted to combine it into a cookie.  I've made brownie cupcakes with Snickers in the middle so I thought why not try putting M&M cookies in the middle of the cupcake.  My friend doesn't like chocolate so I figured brownies were out.  I filled the cupcake liners 3/4 full with yellow cake mix.  I knew it wouldn't turn out right if the cookies were already baked so I tried freezing some M&M cookie dough in small balls and putting them on top of the cupcake batter.  I then put chocolate buttercream on top.  See how they turned out below.

 

Next, it was another friend's birthday, which is actually 5days before mine, so we decided to have a joint celebration on June 18 at work.  As her present, I told her I would make her a birthday cake.  She told me these were her favorite things: Hello Kitty, the color pink, chocolate, orchids, karaoke, and Lady Gaga.  I made a two-tiered square cake(8in and 10in).  I covered it in HOT pink fondant with a border of white fondant strip.  On top I made a fondant Hello Kitty singing karaoke.  My plan was to put orchids all around the bases, but the gum paste didn't work well for me.  If anyone has any tips, please let me know!  I was also going to pipe out the words to her favorite Lady Gaga song but I was too tired from my day of walking around the city with a friend visiting from home.

Until next time, happy baking!

Pound Cake Cupcakes!

Today was my Sunday, so I decided I would try to make pound cake cupcakes that I found on the Cupcake Project blog while waiting for Poland Spring to not show up.  They're very frustrating.  I guess they'll be coming tomorrow.  I just hope no one steals our bottles since we won't be there to let them in.  But on with the cupcakes...

Below is the picture of the cupcakes before being frosted.

They looked tasty even without the whipped cream.  I thought about trying them, but decided to wait since the whipped cream just sounded so tasty.  The recipe is below:

Pound Cake Cupcake Recipe

Makes 12 regular cupcakes or 24 mini cupcakes

• 3/4 C sugar (If you have some vanilla sugar on hand, this would be a good time to use it.)
• 1 vanilla bean
• 1 1/2 sticks (6 ounces) unsalted butter, softened
• 3 large eggs, room temperature
• 1 T pure vanilla extract (You could use vanilla bean paste here instead. If you use vanilla bean paste, you could skip the addition of the vanilla bean.)
• 2 C (7 ounces) sifted cake flour
• 1/2 t baking powder
• 1/4 t salt
• ¹/3 C (3 ounces) sour cream, at room temperature

1. Place the sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer.
2. Use a paring knife to split the vanilla bean lengthwise, then turn the knife over and use the dull edge to scrape the seeds into the sugar. (Save the pod for another use - like making vanilla sugar.)
3. Blend on low speed until the seeds are evenly dispersed.
4. Add the butter and beat on medium-high until the mixture is very light—almost white in color, 4 to 5 minutes.
5. Beat the eggs with the vanilla in a small bowl.
6. With the mixer running on medium speed, add the eggs to the butter mixture about 1 tablespoon at a time, allowing each addition to completely blend in before adding the next.
7. Sift the cake flour, baking powder, and salt into a medium bowl and whisk together.
8. With the mixer on the lowest speed, alternate between adding the flour mixture and sour cream, ending with the flour mixture.
9. Fill cupcake liners 3/4 full.
10. Bake at 350 F. For mini cupcakes, bake for 12 min. For regular cupcakes, bake for 20 minutes.

The topping is a strawberry whipped cream.  Very simple, you just whip heavy whipping cream, add some sugar, and add some almost pureed strawberries.  Below is the recipe for that:


Strawberry Whipped Cream Recipe

• 1 C heavy whipping cream
• 1/3 C sugar
• 4 T food processed strawberries (take some fresh strawberries, wash them, remove the stems, and throw them in the food processor until they become a thick, seedy liquid)

1. Whip cream until it looks like whipped cream.
2. Mix in sugar.
3. Mix in strawberries until just combined.
4. Be sure to frost your cupcakes before you eat all of the strawberry whipped cream.

If you decide to make these, I really hope you enjoy them as much as I do!  Happy baking!

Memorial Day

Well, I am definitely getting the hang of fondant as my Memorial Day BBQ cupcakes came out great!  They were such a hit.  First no one wanted to eat them because they looked too fun.  After one of my friends came to me to ask if they were for eating and I said yes, they were gone in less than 15 minutes!  They were very simple to make and so much fun.  I just did a simple dark chocolate fudge cupcake and vanilla buttercream frosting.

These were the cupcake toppers before I put them on the cupcakes.  They were sooo delicious. 

I think my next personal project will be Pound Cake Cupcakes with a Strawberry Whipped Cream Frosting.

It's exciting because my co-worker, Juana, and I are into this whole bake off and we have everyone at work do a blind taste test.  It is so much fun just to be able to try new things.  I think this Tuesday will be Rhubarb Pie.  I've never even tasted rhubarb, much less baked with it.  We will see how that goes.

I will let you know how the baking goes!

Fondant is a piece of cake!

So I've been sketching out ideas for different cake designs and my co-workers have decided they now want these cakes for their birthdays.  I haven't ever used fondant but heard it was difficult to work with.  It was not difficult at all.  Maybe I was just lucky.  But the cake above is my first fondant cake-very simple.  I think it turned out very well.  Too bad I live in a one bedroom apartment and don't have a baker's kitchen.  I definitely could use the space!  I tend to make a complete mess of the entire apartment and my boyfriend is nice enough to sometimes clean up after me.  All in all, it was a painless first experience!  I even dyed the fondant on my own.  I could really use a bakery!  Let me know if anyone wants a cake!

Kaitlin