Orange cake

1 box yellow cake mix powder + 12 oz orange soda

Mini pies

Blueberry, apple, and banana caramel mini pies

Marshmallow reindeer

Halloween birthday cake

Pumpkin cake I made for the kids birthday

Maple cream cheese pumpkin bread

Loved it.

Black forest cake

Black forest cake I made for the daycare

Thanksgiving dinner cupcakes

"Peas and carrots", "chicken leg", and "mashed potato" cupcakes I made for daycare

Hot cocoa cookies

First time making these. Very yummy. Will definitely be making them again. http://www.rachaelraymag.com/Recipes/rachael-ray-magazine-recipe-search/dessert-recipes/hot-cocoa-cookies

Funfetti cupcakes

Funfetti cupcakes with multicolored cream cheese frosting

All american cake

Double layer funfetti cake with triple Berry filling.

Rice krispie sushi

I made super thin rice krispie bars in a cookie sheet. After it cooled, i cut it into 4" sections. I put a strawberry twizzler and a gummy worm along the side of a section and rolled it into a tube. I rolled the tube in a fruit roll up. With a really sharp knife, I cut the roll into 1"-2" sections (sushi rolls!)  Very sticky and a bit putsy but I love how they turned out. The recipe said to put a Swedish fish on top but I couldn't find any at the store.

Quick pies

I don't know if I can really call it baking but....I made 3 pies for a local fundraiser to sell. I ran out of time and used frozen crusts and canned pie filling (which I never usually do...always scratch) 

I made an apple, blueberry,  and cherry pie. I added spices to the crusts for flavor.

They did sell out at the bake sale right away and I've been told they were yummy. So I will call these a success! :-)

Harry Potter "Butterbeer" cupcakes and Pink Lemonade Cupcakes

I made Harry Potter Butterbeer Cupcakes and Pink Lemonade Cupcakes last night. I will post links to the recipe below. They looked so good, I just had to try and make them myself.

The Butterbeer Cupcakes are a delicious combination of cream soda, butterscotch chips, and butter. I made the cream soda cupcakes and then made a butterscotch ganache out of butterscotch chips and whipping cream. After the cupcakes cooled, I squirted the butterscotch ganache inside the cupcake and frosted them and squirted more ganache on top. It smelled amazing in my house. These cupcakes were a scratch recipe (no cake boxes used)

The pink lemonade cupcakes were super easy to make. A box of white cake mix with pink lemonade frozen concentrate mixed into the powder.  Topped with frosting that had the pink lemonade frozen concentrate in it too. These cupcakes are super tart but I love it.

Lesson learned for next time, I should have at least doubled the frosting recipe. There wasn't enough there to pipe the frosting on there pretty like I like. Plus more frosting is always good :) Not enough frosting to try the dual colored piping so I just made different colors in the mixing bowl and swirled with a knife to create a slight marble effect for the lemonade cupcakes.

Here is where I found these recipes and also ended up coming across a few more cupcake blogs I'm excited to read in the process!
Butterbeer cupcakes: http://amybites.com/?p=623
Pink Lemonade cupcakes: http://www.ericasweettooth.com/2010/04/pink-lemonade-cupcakes.html

Chocolate Cake with Penuche Frosting

I made homemade chocolate cake with penuche frosting. No cheating with a box cake mix this time.

For the cake I mixed the normal cake ingredients (flour, sugar, cocoa, eggs, eta) I baked it in two 9" round pans.

For the penuche frosting I mixed butter, brown sugar, milk, and powdered sugar.

Layer it together and done :-)

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.9

Ideas

I've had quite a few people ask where I get my cupcake/cake ideas from....sometimes it's just a twisted vision I get in my head but most of the time I either google image search cupcake ideas or I have these three amazing books that I love! *highly recommend them!*

Apples and Pie

This week I made 2 different kinds of cupcakes.

First I made apple cupcakes with sour green stems and a gummy worm on top.  These cupcakes were  yellow cake mix, 2 eggs, tablespoon or two of water, and a can of apple pie filling. Its the first time I've made that combination and it was amazingly moist. I used regular canned vanilla frosting tinted pink/red and then I rolled the tops in red sparkle sprinkles. I got some short green sour licorice for the stems and stuck a regular gummy worm on top. I really liked how these turned out.

Then when I was done with that....I took the exact same cupcake flavor (apple pie filling and yellow cake mix) and made cherry and blueberry "pies".

I mixed equal parts of yellow, red, and blue food coloring which surprisingly gives you brown. Lesson learned from when I made my easter basket cake. :)

I decorated each cupcake with the brown frosting and then carefully piled on either cherry or blueberry jelly belly jelly beans ontop of each. Then I took more brown frosting and a #104 tip in my decorator and created criss cross frosting lines on each cupcake. Then I took a #195 tip and made the brown edging around the cupcake to create the "pie latice" feel. 

My frosting was a bit too soft even with adding some powdered sugar to it so my latice didn't come out as clean and neat as I would like but the cupcakes were still pretty tasty.

As usual, the best part of baking was sharing these with everyone :)

Cookie Monster Cupcakes

My latest cupcake adventure tonight was making Cookie Monster Cupcakes. I made funfetti cake mix for the cupcakes.

I colored vanilla frosting blue and piped it onto the cupcake with an extra large blob in the middle to build up some height and then smoothed it out. I rolled the cupcakes in a shallow bowl of blue sprinkles.

I cut a little slit in the side of the cupcake and gently shoved a chips ahoy cookie about halfway in.

I put yogurt covered peanuts on top for the eyes and piped some melted chocolate on for the pupils.

Set it in the fridge to firm up and done! The kids had a blast helping me. This was definitely one of the funnest baking experiments.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.8

Sunflower Cupcakes

Tonight I made sunflower cupcakes. Most definitely not a low fat treat but hey, that's how I do. Double chocolate cupcakes with a vanilla fluff filling.

Topped with green vanilla frosting piped with a star tip. That is topped with an Oreo for the flower center and then yellow frosting piped around with a leaf tip.

I really had fun making these. For 24 cupcakes, I used 3.5 containers of frosting.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.8

Triple Chocolate Mousse Cake

I made this cake for today's Easter dinner with my family. Soooo rich and yummy. The bottom layer is 60% cacao dark chocolate, the middle layer is milk chocolate, the top layer is white chocolate. The recipe doesn't call for it but I added a final layer of cool whip too. It looks so nice and layered when you release it from the springpan.

Here's the recipe.
http://annies-eats.net/2010/05/07/triple-chocolate-mousse-cake/

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.8

Kids Birthday Cakes

For her birthday, my daughter asked for a farm cake (including the farm animal cupcakes from a previous post)

My son asked for a 3-D soccer ball cake.

It was a fun family event baking and assembling these cakes.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.8

Peanut Butter Bon Bons and White Chocolate Pretzels

I love my peanut butter bon bons. Peanut butter, rice krispies, and powdered sugar mixed together until "dough-like" consistancy. Dip in melted chocolate and top with a variety of candies, caramel, nuts, coconut, whatever.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.8

A Fun Cake

This one made me laugh. I made the cake from yellow cake mix, cherry pie filling and 2 eggs. The frosting is cream cheese.

I made the 3-D center plum with my 3-D sport ball cake mold. The arms are made from cupcakes. I piped milk chocolate for the writing and details. Fondant was used for the cape.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.8

Valentine's Day Cakes

I mixed a regular cherry chip cake mix (the powder), 2 eggs, and a can of cherry pie filling to make these cakes. The frosting is regular canned cream cheese frosting. I melted white and milk chocolate and piped out words and heart shapes onto wax paper and placed them onto the cake after they cooled and hardened. Very yummy.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.8

farm animal cake

My daughter requested farm animal cupcakes. I loved how they turned out. I made pigs, chicks, and sheep. Sheep had mini marshmallows for fur. Chicks had yellow coconut dyed yellow. Pigs were just pink frosting with spice drop noses.

For my son, I made a normal sheet of rice krispie treats except I used cocoa krispies to create the brown textured football effect. I cut and shaped it into a 10"x8" football and then created the lace details with piped frosting.

A new blog theme

I created a blog a long time ago and realized my last post was in 2009. It was a basic personal blog and i really didnt have much to say. I thought about how much i love spending hours and hours creating yummy baked goods. I post a lot of pictures on facebook but thinking i should blog it! Nice to have a list of all my culinary experiments .

So here is my latest idea. It was a 9" double layer devils food cake. I took blobs of thick dulce de leche canned caramel and swirled them into the batter. Frosted with regular vanilla frosting. I used a basketweave technique with a fork to create the basket outside.

I gave it to the lovely ladies at the daycare who so bravely try each baking experiment I bring in.