Whoa!! Hope everyone's survived without me these past few months!!! Ha! Sorry!

Boy does time fly and unfortunately it's not always for a good reason. Though the summer has been generally lots of fun, my heart goes out to everyone that has been effected by Hurricane Irene and all the flooding that's occurred since then. I couldn't imagine that type of devistation.

On a lighter note, even though I haven't written in awhile, I've still been baking! That never stops, although it does get pretty darn hot in my house when I do!!!  As usual, we hosted my mother's birthday party at our house this year so I decided to do all retro cakes for her. I first made a pineapple upside down cake (oh my God it was sooo good..... and pretty too!!!) and then I made a chocolate coconut cake. I regret not taking a picture of it. By the time I thought of it, the entire cake was gone!!!   One thing I did different with this cake was I used fresh shaved coconut, not the sweetened store bought kind.  What a HUGE difference that made. I highly reccomend going out of your way to find it (generally at most Asian markets). It had a great texture and just the right amount of sweetness!  I also iced it with a cream cheese whipped cream, once again, cutting down on the sweetness. Being the chocolate cake was very sweet, the lightness in flavor of the whipped cream and coconut made an excellent balance. I will make this again and I will get pictures!!!

We also celebrated a few other birthdays.  My daughter wanted a very simple cake. Go figure. I told her she could have whatever she wanted  and she chose vanilla with vanilla custard and vanilla buttercream, Not very exciting, but OK. So here's how that came out...........

We also celebrated my father-in-law's birthday.  Being that he's a true Italian, what better to make than a cannoli cake!!  I wasn't sure if he liked chocolate or vanilla cake so I went with both. One layer chocolate, one layer vanilla, and a thick layer of cannoli filling. I topped it all off with a vanilla almond buttercream and sliced almonds.  All I have to say is all the old school Italians went nuts for it (and they're a hard crowd to please).  The cake itself has a very simple presentation, but the flavor was superb... I know..... patting myself on the back again!!!! But I'm honest, and I do say when something I make is not so good or ugly!!! Anyway, here's a picture of that cake..........

So hopefully I've made up for lost time and I'll be back soon!!! See ya! And remember................................

                                   There's always room for dessert!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Cupcakes For Sale!!!

I'm happy to report that my little sale was a success!  I was happy to see a few you I knew there and was even happier to see lots of new faces!  So far, any feedback I've received has been extremely positive... I'd be happy to hear what anybody who went there has to say (positive or negative).

I wanted to try a little experiment so I made a variety of styles for my cupcakes. I made traditional chocolate and vanilla with a big swirl of icing and I also made some more elaborate cupcakes that consisted of monkeys, panda bears, sunflowers, and big pink flowers.  Needless to say, the "fun" cupcakes were the biggest sellers, the sunflowers in particular, with the pandas coming in at a close second!

Now that that's over, I think my next experiment will be with flavors.... any suggestions?

I've been bad....

I know, I know, for a few people, I've really been slacking and I know!!!  But I've only been slacking in the blogging department..... I've been busy with a few things here and there and then my "real job" just gets in the way!!! 

So as you know, I'm doing the indoor sale @ Our Lady of Peace Church in North Brunswick tomorrow ( Sat. April 9) so I've been hard at work planning and finally creating all fun my fun treats. I'm not going to post any pics yet... if you wanna see 'em you gotta come!!  But just so you know, I have some fun chocolate cake-pops, cupcakes, and some really fun cupcakes (pandas, monkeys, flowers).  Yeah, my word of the day is fun... so why don't you have some fun and come on down to the sale, not just for me, there are over 60 vendors and it's for a good cause to help a parish family in need.  I will be posting pics next week from during the sale, so hopefully, my "fans" and "customers" will be in them.............................

See you there!!

Time Flies.....

I've been a slacker, I know, but that doesn't mean I haven't been doing any baking!!  I was actually pretty busy with some parties and then last week was my birthday (no, I didn't bake my own cake!!) but here I am, back again and this time I do have some uglies to show you!!
So I decided to make Pineapple Upside Down cupcakes. I really like the cake version so why not try it out on a smaller scale??  I have to say that when I took them out of the pan they were the UGLIEST cupcakes I've ever seen!!  I got past the ugly and I ate one.......... OMG............... they were soooo good! These would be great for dessert after a BBQ with friends on a nice summer night (your good friends won't care if they're ugly).  They were so light and delicious, eating more than one was not a problem!!!  So here's a pic of the little guy.............

Looks like it's bleeding in the center!!!! But YUMMY!

OK... enough of the ugly!  Now on to the cute stuff!!  I'm working on theme cupcakes and here are  a few of them..... These are not so much about the flavors (they're basic chocolate and vanilla) but more about the appearance and presentation. It's amazing what kiddie treats can make when you think out of the box!!!

Happy Valentine's Day!!

I hope everyone had a very happy Valentine's day!  I know I did!   I decided to throw together a couple valentine's cake pops and these are the final result!  I had some left over frosting but not enough to make anything substantial and it was also colored green (not very Valentinesy)!   I think I went a bit overboard with these... my heart shaped cookie cutter didn't look that big but apparently it was!  Normally, these would be dipped in chocolate- no big deal, but they were so heavy they kept coming off the sticks and I couldn't get them out of the chocolate... not exactly what I had anticipated!  So my quick dips turned into a laborous project!  The chocolate had to be applied like icing and it was so bumpy when it dried so I had to do some camoflauge (is that how you spell it) with the pink chocolate!  All in all, I will never make them that big again!  It took 3 people just to eat one heart pop!

On a lighter note, I did make a whole bunch of one bite cupcakes. Nothing crazy. Just dark chocolate (I'm really into the dark chocolate for some reason) with a nice fluffy vanilla buttercream (of course I mad it pink!).  I brought a bunch to work and to the orthodontist's office. Needless to say, they were devoured immediately!  I like to bring treats when I have appointments (hair, dentist, etc.).  I know my office always appreciates the thought and it does make the staff like you a bit more!!!  I always hope that they'll remember that when I need an emergency appointment!!

I can't believe I've only been doing this blog for a month!  I'm hoping that maybe, someday, I'll have lots of readers and they'll be inspired to pick up a spoon and a bowl and create something too!  See ya next week!

Week 4....Lots of Birthdays!

So, as you know, last week was both my husband's and my father's birthdays so needless to say, I did alot of baking!  We're not the type of family that celebrates a birthday just once, we keep it going all week long!  I posted pics last week of the birthday cupcakes I made for my hubby so this week I made him a cake and I made Super Birthday Bowl Cupcakes for my father.

This was my Honey's cake.  I have to say, I've never seen a cake eaten so fast!!  I tried a new buttercream recipe and it was phenomenal!!! (If I do say so myself)!   Usually when I hear the word buttercream I think very sweet and heavy and this was anything but that!  It was so light and fluffy you could eat 2 pieces and still feel good afterwards! But enough about the icing!  I tried something new for the filling as well (if you can't experiment on family, who can you experiment on??).  My husband's favorite ice cream is Rocky Road so I thought, why not make a Rocky Road filling?  I've been told that my whipped creams taste just like ice cream so this wasn't a far stretch!  I wish I thought to take a picture of the insides of this cake! It was loaded with marshmallows and nuts in chocolate whipped cream sandwiched between Devil's food cake! YUM!

Now these are the Super Birthday Bowl Cupcakes!  Once again, experimenting on the fam!  They are dark chocolate BEER cupcakes with a Beer Glaze.  They little footballs were made from Lindt Chili Chocolate.  The subtle spiciness of the chocolate worked well with the sweetness of the glaze. Overall, I, myself, would have preferred a bit more of the beer flavor but the cupcakes were extremely moist and sweet enough. These too went very quickly so I'm guessing that they all enjoyed them!

I'd love to hear about anybody else's baking expeditions!  Until next week!!!

Week 3..... Happy Birthday to my Hubby!

  
        First and foremost I want to say Happy Birthday to the two most important men in my life, my husband Will and my father Bob!! With that being said, I think it's quite obvious what I've been up to this morning- BAKING!  Will loves the combo of peanut butter and chocolate (who doesn't really!) so I made him peanut butter cupcakes with chocolate icing decorated with chocolate pieces and peanut butter drizzle- see pic above!  I took the liberty of taste testing one for breakfast and I have to give myself a pat on the back!

    Earlier this week I did a little experimenting. Sometimes I get a little tired of just chocolate and vanilla so I thought I'd mess around with my favorite spice- GINGER!  I literally put it in almost everything I cook so I figured why not try it in cupcakes!  After a bit of searching around, I found a recipe for Ginger Lime Cupcakes (two great tastes that taste great together!).  I had my usual tastetesters handy and they liked them, they really did!  To me, it kind of reminded me of a ginger flavor muffin (which I didn't mind) but the icing is what made it. They cake was more gingery (is that a word?) and the icing tasted very limey with a hint of ginger.  This combo was more of a spring-summer flavor to me so I will be trying it again later in the year!

      I'll be doing a couple birthday cakes this week so hopefully next week I'll have some some interesting things for you!  Until then remember-  Life's too short...... eat dessert first!

Week 2.... what's new??

So this is my latest creation.  I made all the roses out of chocolate and they were delicious!!  I don't think I mentioned before but I am also attending a cake decorating class to improve my deco skills so this was my project for this week.     Needless to say, my cake testers were chomping at the bit to cut into this one!!  It's a vanilla cake filled with chocolate whipped cream- Yummy!
I think I may have failed to mention that you can click on most of the photos to get the recipes (only the ones I found online) or if you don't wanna exert the effort, I can make them for you!!

Week One....let's see where this takes us!

Okay... here I go!  I'm not really sure what I'm doing here but I guess I'm hoping that by sharing my experiences of baking (all the trials and all the errors!) I may help someone else out and maybe someone can help me out. I'll be posting pics of the good, the bad, and the uglies.... not everything comes out the way it's supposed to!
You see, my goal for this year is to open my own bake shop so I'll be doing alot of R&D.  I need all the constructive criticism I can get.  Unfortunately you can't taste it but I have my oh so lucky family to do that job.  Sometimes they really enjoy their job but sometimes not so much. When I made rosewater cupcakes they wanted to quit being my tastetesters! Has anybody made them where they came out good??  It was like eating a bottle of perfume! All I could picture was that scene in the movie Elf when Will Ferrell sprayed the perfume in his mouth!!! AAAAGGGHHH!
So, getting back to my R&D, last night I made Cakepops. Now if you're a fan of Bakerella you know what I'm talking about. If you haven't heard of her, check her out at http://www.bakerella.com/ . 
I made them with devil's food cake and coconut pecan frosting.  They were good but very sweet. I need to come up with a less sweet combo because once they were dipped in chocolate, the sweetness factor hit a very high note!  One thing I did notice which I never noticed before, the Wilton Candy Melts harden extremely fast!  In the case of the cake pops that's a good thing.  I ran out of milk chocolate candy melts so i used Ghirardelli chips instead and they took FOREVER to harden! 
Alog the way , I'll be posting some of my favorite recipes and some that I've come up with on my own. I'd really like you (if I have any readers) to comment on them and share some of your own.