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!!