March 17, 2010

Hand over the cake…

So, I am really proud of this post. Not so much my words though. Blah, blah, blah! I am really excited about my cake. It was just another German chocolate cake, not really complicated. And the frosting wasn’t even perfectly smooth. But I made a gun! Out of fondant! A fancy fondant revolver! For my dad, because he loves guns, and it was his birthday. And I love my dad. So certainly he needed a gun cake!

I would have attempted sculpting it, but coconut pecan frosting isn’t particularly obedient, and it needed to look decent. So, I pretended I was five again playing with play-doh.

Just a side note, fondant is way better than play-doh, but just as messy!

So this was the result:

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Happy Birthday to an amazing Dad! Love you! 

March 9, 2010

Eat your vegetables, for dessert!

Vegetables and cake don’t mix, or at least that’s what my husband said on Sunday as I was baking his dad’s birthday cake. He learned yesterday that this is just not so, as he ate a good portion of that vegetable infused carrot cake.

I admit, I am not the biggest carrot cake lover (I think it has something to do with the raisins), but this was a mighty tasty cake. It also helped that the sides were coated with cream cheese frosting, toasted coconut and walnuts.

I used my Martha Stewart Cupcake book again for the cake recipe. This has been my go-to book lately, and it has yet to disappoint.

Here are some shots of the cake:

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Happy Birthday Doug!

Taste the Rainbow

Basically, I have been on a sugar cookie baking frenzy! Last week I made over one hundred sugar cookies for a church event my mom was in charge of.

Our church has a program for teen girls called Personal Progress. It serves as a method for teaching young women to set and accomplish goals that will help them to be strong women in the church, as well as in their community.  Last week’s event was a way to introduce the program to the girls and their families.

The Personal Progress program uses eight values that the girls base their projects on. Each value is assigned a color. I decorated the cookies in each of these colors, piping the values on some of them. The eighth value, virtue, was recently added. We used bees instead of coloring them gold. Bee virtuous!

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I had so much fun making these, and it was really great practice for the piping skills.

February 20, 2010

Think Pink!

Not for me, or my little boy bun in the oven. We are all blue over here, but my friend is having a baby girl. Last weekend I was able to go to her shower and got to make some yummy little treats. I went with some cute sugar cookies and mini spice (sugar and spice, and everything nice!) cupcakes with cream cheese frosting.

Oh cream cheese! You are delicious!

Here are some photos. I have a habit of forgetting the camera, and so my sister’s had to do. My friend’s shower/baby nursery colors were brown, green and some pink. I got a little carried away with the pink. Oops!

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I promise they looked much cuter at the shower, but again, I forgot the camera!

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To frost the cookies I used royal icing. It works best when stacking cookies. To do the polka dots, you use a wet on wet technique. You pipe the edges of the cookies, and then fill with icing. While wet, add in your alternate color dots and then let dry. So easy and so cute! If you want a similar top to the cupcakes, roll out fondant, cut into the desired shape and press with an acrylic stamp. Its incredibly simple to do, I promise.

The shower was so much fun and I can’t wait to meet the sweet baby girl. It also made me even excited for my own baby. I cant believe he is going to be here in only a few months!

February 7, 2010

It’s Game Time!

Do you have your Super Bowl treats ready?

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Who’s gonna win? Saints or Colts?

January 28, 2010

Lemony Sunshine

It has been raining here in San Jose, or at least it was raining. For over a week. We had a tornado watch. Its been dreary and gloomy, and I have missed the California sun. I decided to bring some sunshine into my kitchen by making lemon bread. Nothing screams sunshine like lemons.

I have several new recipe books that were given to me over the Christmas holiday, one being a Williams Sonoma baking cookbook. So I thought I would test Mr. Williams, or Mrs. Sonoma, or whoever managed to create such a name for themselves, and try their lemon bread. The recipe is pretty basic:

Cream shortening and sugar.

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Add eggs.

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And lemon zest.

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Add dry ingredients followed by wet ingredients.

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Bake for an hour.

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And devour!

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Congrats Mr. Williams or Mrs. Sonoma. You make a mean Lemon Bread!

**Note: Williams-Sonoma was founded by Charles E. Williams, though I am not sure this is his actual recipe.

January 18, 2010

Happy Birthday Mom!

My mama had birthday. She is 29 again, and looking fabulous! I decided I wanted to make her a special cake for her birthday. She has a favorite truffle from See’s Candies. Key Lime. Its delicious. Key Lime buttercream coated in white chocolate. Sounds kinda cakey. So I thought I would make a cake that had some of the same flavors.

I made a simple white cake. I should have added a bit of lime zest, but I didn’t want to overpower with lime. The cake was filled with a lime curd. Oh my goodness! Lime curd is fabulous. Don’t buy it. Make it! I used Alton’s recipe again, but changed a couple things. Here is the recipe:

5 egg yolks

1 cup sugar

4-5 limes, zested and juiced (It’s about 1/3 cup juice, its ok if its not enough, and wont hurt it if there is too much. Don’t add extra water…bleh!)

1 stick butter, cut into 8 pats

In a small saucepan, boil a small amount of water. In a metal bowl (that will fit over the saucepan without the water touching the bottom), whisk egg yolks and sugar. Add lime juice and zest and mix well. Place over boiling water, and reduce heat to low. Stir until yolk mixture has thickened. It takes longer than you think, about 10-12 minutes. It need to get thick, especially for a cake filling. I didn’t cook it long enough, and had to start over. Once it has thickened, remove from heat and add the butter, one pat at a time. Stir each pat until its melted and then add another. Cover and refrigerate your curd for up to a week.

To cover the cake I made a white chocolate ganache with 1 cup cream and 1 1/2 cups white chocolate, just to thicken it a bit. I didn’t frost the cake, but rather let the ganache fall over the top. Photographically, it was not the prettiest. But it tasted really, really good. Next time, more ganache to cover the cake well.

 

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Happy Birthday Mom! Love you!