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)