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)

New Tip!

For a while, I've been wanting an ateco #806 piping tip. My other tips aren't really big enough to do the kind of piping that I wanted, and I couldn't find an 806 in stores, so I finally ordered one online. Well, it finally came in the mail! Here it is:

It may not look like much, but I am really excited to use it! I plan on making my cotton candy cupcakes in the next few days and using it to pipe them.

Three Desserts and One Desire

Wow, it's been a long time since I blogged! Here are three "desserts" that I've made recently, as well as one dessert desire that I have!

THREE DESSERTS:

1. Meatloaf Cupcakes:

Well, this first thing isn't really a dessert. After posting about the meatloaf cupcakes, it was requested that I actually try making some. Well, I don't eat meat, so the idea of handling raw beef really grossed me out. However, I managed to power through it and make Bakerella's meatloaf cupcakes.

I don't know how they tasted, but they smelled delicious! They are meatloaf cupcakes with a tomato glaze and a mashed potato piped topping.

2. Strawberry Cookies:

I was looking for something sweet and didn't really have any ingredients, so I decided to make one of my favorite desserts: strawberry sugar cookies. I used a basic sugar cookie recipe and butter cream frosting and added a bunch of frozen strawberries. The humidity messed with me again, causing my frosting to be a little more whipped than I wanted, but they still came out delicious!

3. Blue Red Velvet Cake Balls

I had to make something for work, so I decided to do cake balls. I wanted to do red velvet, but I only had blue chocolate melts. This is what I ended up with!

ONE DESIRE:

4. Cotton Candy Vodka Cupcakes:

(Image courtesy of winecommune.com)

My sister recently told me about cotton candy flavored vodka. Well, my first thought was obviously that I needed to make cotton candy cupcakes! I don't have the ingredients right now, but hopefully you will be seeing some cotton candy cupcakes coming soon!