Happy [Late] Birthday Mom!

For my mom's birthday, I wanted to do something different. For her dessert, she requested something that included either caramel, coffee, or fruit. I managed to get two out of three categories.

The dessert I chose to make, chocolate-caramel tart with drunken raspberries and vanilla creme fraiche, had really high ratings, but also was rated as pretty difficult to make. All in all, it had five components, each equally delicious:

Part 1: Chocolate chip crust- The crust for this tart was different from the usual tart crusts that I have made. It included egg yolks and crushed chocolate chips, so it turned out more like a thin, crispy cookie.

Part 2: Salty-caramel- Salty-caramel is my favorite type of caramel. There is something so perfect about the salty and sweet flavors coming together. The recipe provided a thick, yummy salty-yet-rich caramel layer.

Part 3: Chocolate ganache- The tart included a thick layer of chocolate ganache, which I made from bittersweet Ghirardelli chocolate chips. This was the last layer of the tart.

Part 4: Creme Fraiche- I made a modified creme fraiche topping for the tart (since actual creme fraiche takes at least 8-12 hours). With three types of cream and a little lemon, it turned out light and tangy.

Part 5: Drunken Raspberries-

I was lucky enough to find delicious, plump raspberries from the store. The recipe required me to make them "drunken," which basically means that they sit in alcohol for a few hours. However, I wasn't happy with just one kind of alcohol, so I made three versions: raspberries in amaretto, raspberries in pomegranate martini, and raspberries in triple sec orange. The berries tasted mildly of the differing flavors, but they definitely tasted drunken! I think my favorite was the amaretto!

With all of these parts, it came out DELICIOUS! It was by far the richest recipe I have ever made, but all of the effort was definitely worth it! If you are looking for a rich, decadent recipe, make this! Here it is! Enjoy!

Better late than never

Over Thanksgiving, I was excited to actually get some time to bake. I have had almost no time to bake throughout this quarter, so I took full advantage of the few days off of school to make some tasty treats. However, I have been so busy with my finals that I have not had time to blog about them until now (and that's just because I'm avoiding my homework). This post is a little late, but I hope you will still enjoy it!

The first dessert that I baked was sweet potato cupcakes with burnt marshmallows on top. This recipe was really easy (surprising, since it was Martha Stewart's recipe) and came out really well.
The sweet potatoes caused the cupcakes to be really moist and the burnt marshmallows provided a really yummy substitute for frosting!

Apparently, the cupcakes were so good that Tucker couldn't resist stealing one for himself!

The second dessert that I made for Thanksgiving actually came from the Cooking Light magazine! It was a cranberry tart with meringue topping. It turned out so rich that it's hard to believe that it could qualify as "light."
The directions had me use shortening in the crust, which I don't usually do. It created a really delicious, flaky crust! The cranberry curd had a very strong taste, so I added a lot of meringue to balance it out. Overall, it was very delicious and [relatively] healthy!
Enjoy!

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween!

I know this is late, but I am finally getting to blogging about my Halloween goodies! As most of you know, I get really into Halloween, so I was pretty excited to make some Halloween desserts. However, I made pumpkin cupcakes a few weeks ago, so I wanted to do something different. I ended up making two desserts: witch finger cookies and apple cider cupcakes with salted caramel frosting.

1. Witch finger cookies

I finally got to try out my new witch finger cookie pan! I made a basic sugar cookie, but added some frozen strawberries into the batter. I got to use some of my new food coloring to make them green and purple. While the molds produced cookies that were actually shaped like witch fingers, I had quite a bit of trouble cooking them. Something about the shape of the molds caused them to cook unevenly, so I had to be really careful with the timing!

2. Apple cider cupcakes with salted caramel frosting

I really wanted to make cupcakes with a candy corn design, but I didn't want to do a regular white cake flavor, so I decided to go with an apple cider cupcake. For a fun twist on a caramel apple, I did a salted-caramel frosting. The cupcakes turned out well--the salty-sweet frosting was a nice combination with the sweet, dense cupcake--but did not taste as strongly of apple as I had hoped.

**Also, I found a pumpkin ale at World Market, which I was really excited about! It pretty much tasted like regular beer, but it was exciting anyway!

Enjoy!

Happy Birthday (to me)

As many of you probably would have guessed, for my birthday I asked for mostly baking related stuff. Here are the awesome baking goods I got for my birthday, as well as the amazing cake my mom made for me!

1. Books

I love getting baking cookbooks! These two were given to me by aunt. The first one, "Cupcakes from the Primrose Bakery," has a number of different combinable cupcake and frosting recipes. Some that I am excited for are strawberries and cream, ginger, cranberry and orange, and coconut lime.

The second, "Ghoulish Goodies," is a cookbook of both Halloween desserts and Halloween snacks. I can't wait to try them out for a Halloween party that my roommates and I are having!

2. Tools

I got three exciting baking tools for my birthday as well. The first is a pastry brush from Wilton, which I have found myself wanting for a number of recipes.

The second item is a cake tester, which I have already used quite a few times. It is AMAZING because it allows you to test your cake without leaving a big hole in it, and it saves you from having to use toothpicks every time. I'm pretty excited about it!

The final tool is something that I have really wanted all season. Don't ask me why I need this item so much, but I do. It is a cookie pan for witch finger cookies! I'm hoping to find more recipes than just cookies, because I want to use this pan as much as possible!

3. Flavoring, coloring, and sparkles

In the sparkle category, I got green edible glitter, and black and orange sparkle gel (all of which are definitely going to be used on some serious Halloween desserts).

The second category, coloring, includes a 12 PACK of Wilton icing colors!! Wilton makes really amazing coloring gel, which lasts forever and provides really vibrant results. These are going to be getting some definite use!

The final category, flavoring, is probably the most exciting for me. I got 7 different extracts, including root beer, cherry vanilla, amaretto, coconut, pina colada, watermelon, and bubble gum. These are going to make some AMAZING cupcakes!

4. Birthday Desserts

For my birthday, I got two amazing desserts. When I went out with my friends, we stopped at Jeni's, one of my favorite ice cream places. Well, because it was my birthday, I got four different flavors: apple butter, salty caramel, pumpkin 5 spice, and smokey chocolate with marshmallows! As usual, salty caramel was my favorite.

And for my actual birthday, my mom made me a delicious, adorable jack-o-lantern cake that was funfetti with pina colada frosting. Yum!

Happy Birthday to me!

It's About Time

FINALLY!

I have baked something. I realize that it has been about a month since the last time I baked. I blame it on taking 20 credit hours and having to shop for my own groceries.

Well, I have two lovely fall-ish items for you to enjoy.

1) Peanut Butter Cheesecake Bites Dipped in Chocolate

For the first, I had to bring a dessert for my Nourish International Party (a group dedicated to sustainable development projects) so I decided to go with peanut butter cheesecake bites dipped in chocolate.

Well, I realized about half way through that the cheesecake bites were pretty similar to buckeyes, but I decided to go through with them anyway. They actually weren't that hard to make, but they required a lot of fridge time. I'm glad I started the recipe the night before!

They turned out delicious, but VERY rich. They are different from buckeyes because, even though they are pretty peanut buttery, they still taste like cheesecake. I did run out of regular chocolate half way through, so I made some of them with (blue) white chocolate.

2) Low-Cal Pumpkin Cupcakes Topped with Caramel Glaze

This recipe is one that my roommate, Kate (bestfootforward-kate.blogspot.com), recommended (and bought the ingredients for). It is a pumpkin cupcake topped with a caramel glaze. It was really easy to make, and the best part about it--each cupcake has 108 CALORIES!! I had to resist the urge to top it with a cream cheese frosting (which would defeat the point of making this low-cal recipe), but they still turned out yummy!

Here are the cupcakes without the glaze:
And with the glaze...Look out for more fall-related blogs in the near future! Enjoy!!

60th Anniversary Cupcakes!

For my grandparents' 60th Anniversary, I wanted to do some kind of dessert that represented their interests. Unfortunately, I had to work the day before the party, so I didn't get to do as much as I wanted to, but I still think they came out pretty cool!

THE CUPCAKE:

I wanted the cupcake to center around wine and berries, because my grandpa is into gardening and wine making. The recipe I came up with was white cupcakes infused with a sweet wine, filled with a wine berry compote, and topped with vanilla bean cream cheese frosting.

The cake was moist; the filling, which was made of wine, raspberries, and blackberries, was tart; and the frosting was thick and sweet.

THE DECORATING:

I used an idea from "What's New, Cupcake" to make knitting cupcakes for my grandma, who loves to knit. However, I could not find any kind of cupcakes decorated with gardening or wine bottles anywhere online.

First, my mom and I made fondant from scratch. We decided that it would look cool if we shaped twinkies like wine bottles and covered them in purple fondant and white fondant labels. Well, they looked okay... until I put one on top of a cupcake and realized that they were ridiculously large for cupcake toppers.

So we started over and made miniature fondant wine bottles instead. Fondant was not nearly as easy and fun to work with as I had imagined!

The knitting cupcakes were decorated with blue frosting and pocky sticks for the needles.

Here they are! Enjoy!

KNITTING CUPCAKES:

WINE BOTTLE CUPCAKES:

Gooey Molten Lava Cakes

I have been seriously craving chocolate lately, so I finally decided to give in and make a chocolate dessert. We didn't have very many ingredients, so I decided to try to make one of my favorite desserts: lava cakes.

Well, we REALLY didn't have any ingredients, so I had to substitute most of the ingredients, but it still turned out really yummy! I also got to try out my beautiful ramekins for the first time!

Lava cakes are small, chocolate cakes that are fully cooked on the outside and gooey on the inside. Here are my amaretto-chocolate lava cakes, topped with vanilla bean ice cream!

The Cakes:

Detail:
Gooey inside and vanilla bean ice cream:Enjoy!

Making Whoopies!

It has been a while since I've baked anything, so I was very excited to finally have a day off of work to get baking. I had a few different ideas for what I wanted to make, but finally decided on whoopie pies.

Whoopie pies, for those of you who don't know, have two large, fluffy, cakey-cookie like patties filled with cream. The traditional version consists of chocolate cookies with vanilla cream. I wanted to do something a little different though, so I decided to try to make strawberry whoopie pies with strawberry cream.

They were pretty easy to make, although I had to modify the recipe that I used, because the batter was REALLY thick.

I wanted to make mine pink, but got a little carried away with the red food coloring and they turned out very pink! Here is a picture of the cookie parts:

The cake part came out fluffy and delicious, with bits of cooked strawberries, and the cream tastes similar to gooey strawberry peeps with strawberry chunks. The only problem that I had was that, once again, the cream was a little melty due to the heat and humidity. All in all, I think they turned out to be very yummy, but they are too big to eat all at once!

Enjoy!

Wanted: Candy Corn Cupcakes

I have a few different cupcakes that I want to try during the upcoming fall season. Most of all, I want to find a good candy corn cupcake recipe. I've seen a number of people make cupcakes that look like candy corn, but I haven't seen any that TASTE like candy corn.

(Image courtesy of candyaddict.com)

I have heard about Jones making a candy corn flavored soda, but I read the reviews, and most say that it is disgustingly sweet. Hmm...

I'm also playing with the idea of doing a caramel apple frosting for it? I don't know.

Anyone have any ideas? Or have another yummy fall dessert idea?

Cotton Candy Cupcakes!

So ever since I heard about the cotton candy vodka, I've been wanting to make some cotton candy cupcakes. Well, I couldn't find the vodka, so I had to make it work without it.

THE INGREDIENTS:

I'm not really sure what I would describe cotton candy as tasting like. It is really sugary and sweet, and doesn't really taste like anything else. So when I couldn't find any cotton candy flavor or extract, I had a hard time coming up with other ingredients to use. Well, I finally settled on using actual cotton candy, cream soda, blueberry pop, raspberry extract, and cotton candy jelly beans.

THE CUPCAKE:

I did a basic white cupcake recipe for the cake and then tried to add the flavor after. I didn't really have a recipe, so I just added some of the cream soda, blueberry pop, and raspberry flavor to the batter and made a cotton candy reduction.

The cotton candy had a really cool colorful fizzy reaction with the pop!
The batter ended up tasting really sweet and somewhat like cotton candy. To add to the cotton candy effect, I decided to layer the batter in three different colors: pink, blue, and yellow.

THE FROSTING:

I wanted to make a cotton candy buttercream frosting, so I used my favorite buttercream recipe and tried to add cotton candy flavor in every capacity that I could think of: the same reduction from before, actual pieces of cotton candy, and a cotton candy syrup that I made. It ended up being a purple color due to the pink and blue color of the cotton candy.

I used my 806 tip for the first time, and this is the piping it created. (I still need more practice with it!)

THE TOPPINGS:

To decorate the top, I used cotton candy and cotton candy jelly beans. Here's the finished product!

Enjoy!

Duff Goldman's New Baking Line!

Not to advertise for my job or anything, but Duff Goldman of Ace of Cakes/ Charm City Cakes has a new baking line out that he is selling exclusively at Michaels, and I'm pretty excited about it! It includes such baking goods as cake tattoos, fondant, tips, cake graffiti, and a bunch of other items! I haven't tried any of it yet, but it all looks amazing! He even offers basic cake mixes and frosting for those who want help with the whole baking process. Hopefully I will eventually get to try out some of his stuff! Here are some pics!

Cake Tattoos:
(Image courtesy of goodhousekeeping.com)

Fondant:

(Image courtesy of charmcitycakes.com)

Cake Mix:

(Image courtesy of bakingbites.com)