Whoopie!

When I saw this blog post, I couldn't resist making these cute treats for Valentine's Day. I wanted to try something different, and I had never made whoopie pies before. They are all the rage lately, so I thought I would give it a shot.

The recipe was easy enough - some flour, brown sugar, cocoa powder, buttermilk, and red food coloring. The instructions said not to mix the batter too much. I tried not to overdo it, but it did take a good bit of mixing to get the red food coloring incorporated evenly. Maybe that's why my pies turned out a little flat. For whatever reason, they weren't as light and fluffy as I had imagined.

The cream cheese filling got rave reviews. It didn't call for too much sugar, so it had more of a rich, creamy taste to it. Everyone who tried it said it was really good. ("The bomb-diggety" was the exact quote I received.)

The instructions for piping the pies call for using a heart shaped cookie cutter as a template. After searching my kitchen thoroughly, I couldn't find mine. I've used it many times (including several Valentine's past) but it seems to have disappeared this year. So in the interest of time, I had to pipe my hearts by hand. Which ended up in them being a little wonky... but still recognizable as hearts... Sadly, mine didn't look as pretty as the picture in the original blog, but I guess that didn't affect the taste.

I wish I had a picture to share, but they were all gobbled up before I had a chance to snap a shot!

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30, Love

My sister-in-law plays and coaches tennis. It's a large part of her life. So as her 30th birthday approached and I discussed plans for her cake with my brother, we both thought a tennis ball cake would be very fitting. I decided to reprise Dad's basketball cake, just with a different color scheme. This time, it was even easier, because there was no fondant.

I baked a standard yellow cake. This time I knew it would take about an hour in the oven, so I didn't worry. I mixed up a pretty light yellow buttercream, left a little white, and make just a bit of green. After the cake was cooled and leveled, I made the white lines of the tennis ball and then used the 3 star tip to fill in the body of the ball. Tennis balls usually have the name of the manufacturer written down the middle. (I googled lots of pictures of tennis balls to make sure I got it just right.) But I was nervous about trying to write an entire name in cursive - I stopped writing cursive after elementary school. So I decided just to write Leslie's first initial, a large capital L, ala Laverne and Shirley. I debated the border around the bottom of the cake and thought that grass would be fitting. My brother thought Leslie would appreciate the Wimbledon reference. And the cake was done.

I thought the color scheme was really pretty and very appropriate for a spring birthday. This cake was one of my proudest accomplishments yet.

(Maybe it was a little too good, because I didn't bake much for several months after this. Hmm...)

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Peppermint Twist

I have abandoned my blog over the past year - half by accident and half on purpose. I wasn't very good at posting in a timely manner, so I decided not to bother. However, after reading through some other baking blogs for ideas, and showing off my own accomplishments, I have decided that I like the idea of having one place to keep all the tasty treats I've made. (Whether anyone reads or comments or not.) So the next couple of posts will be about catching up on some baking I've done in the past year.

This Christmas, I wasn't sure what I was going to make. I thought about stepping out on a limb and trying something new - not just the cupcakes that everyone has come to expect. Plus, I wanted something that wouldn't be quite as time consuming. Then I had a pre-Christmas lunch with Ginger. And after lunch, I helped her make the cutest peppermint cupcakes for her church Christmas party. I knew I had to make them too.

After stealing the idea, I went shopping. Mine turned out a little different, due to the colors of candy canes and sprinkles that I had available.

I debated whether to make chocolate cupcakes or yellow. I should have gone with chocolate... At the last minute, I decided to try to turn a box of yellow cake mix into chocolate cake - because chocolate and peppermint just sounds good together! I googled different solutions for adding cocoa powder to the yellow cake mix and decided to give it a try. It didn't turn out as well as I'd hoped. I ended up with a slightly brown, less moist cake that didn't really taste like any particular flavor. It was about the same color as a spice cake, and I wasn't able to taste any of the cocoa. I was short on time, and they weren't terrible, so I had to go with it. Next time, I will just get the box of devils food mix.

The icing, however, did not disappoint me. I made my regular Wilton recipe and substituted peppermint extract for the butter flavor. The mint was tasty and not overpowering. In the interest of saving time, I decided that white icing would work just fine and didn't add any coloring.

All in all, they were cute cupcakes for minimal time spent. I might have to try this recipe again with chocolate cake though.

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Today's Special Value

When I started thinking about making my mom's birthday cake, I had trouble coming up with a design theme. I was discussing the cake with my brother and jokingly suggested making her a QVC (the TV shopping channel) cake. He liked the idea and thought I should go with it. When I mentioned it to my dad, he had a good chuckle about it. And so it was decided - QVC it was!

The cake was a funfetti mix that I thought would be festive with the red logo. Icing the cake was trickier than normal because I didn't realize I was missing a few important tools. My large cake icing spatula had broken in the dishwasher, and I forgot that I hadn't replaced it. I also didn't realize that I was out of 16" bags until I was elbow deep in icing. Because I was already so far into the cake-making process, and because I was a little short on time, I decided to forge ahead. I iced the cake with my smaller cupcake sized spatula and used the cake icing tip with a 12" bag. It was tricky, but I was able to get the job done. The result, however, wasn't as smooth as I would have liked. I then cut the QVC logo out of red fondant. Moving it to the cake was made more difficult by the open portion of the Q, but overall I didn't think it looked too bad. I didn't want to bother with trying to tint red icing, so I used store bought red for the borders. I did a shell border around the bottom, and considering that I hadn't practiced in a while, I thought it turned out pretty good. I didn't have quite enough, however, and had to space out some stars along the top. I was hoping that I'd be able to cover up the messy icing a little bit better, but again, being short on time, I went with what I had.

Mom was surprised, and everyone had a good laugh about the design. Apparently, it was so tasty that the leftovers never made it to her co-workers. :)  Aside from the icing being a little messier than normal, it was a good cake.

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Berrylicious

I was walking into Publix one day, and right inside the door was a bin of fresh blueberries. I had been wanting to make blueberry muffins from scratch for a while now, so I snagged a batch. The same weekend that I made the Valentine's cookies, I made myself some blueberry muffins for breakfast.

I found a recipe that seemed pretty easy. The only change I made was using berry flavored yogurt instead of plain. I thought that would make the muffins have a stronger berry flavor. And I had another chance to use my silicone muffin liners!

The muffins turned out very soft and fluffy. I was very happy with the texture. They were packed with tasty blueberries, but I thought the bread part of the muffins would have more flavor. Maybe they needed more sugar? I'm not sure. But I would make them again.

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Have a Heart

I totally fail at posting things in a timely manner - I really need to work on that! - but these cookies were too cute not to share.

I had told my new co-workers that I liked to bake but hadn't made them anything yet. So I figured Valentine's Day was the perfect occasion to take them some cookies. My snowflake Christmas cookies were such a hit that I decided to repeat that technique. When I found a recipe online for chocolate sugar cookies, I decided to add a twist. Plus, I knew the brown would look cute with pink icing!

The chocolate cookie dough was "interesting". It was thicker than regular sugar cookie dough, so it was easier to roll out and cut the cookies. I tasted one out of the oven, and it was a little too close to cardboard for my taste. I didn't have time to make another batch of cookies, so I forged ahead hoping they would taste better with icing on them.

I made royal icing again but was more careful not to add too much water. The icing turned out better, but I had a new problem this time - when I was piping the icing, the tip kept clogging up, and I had to free up the icing with a toothpick more times than I can count. This royal icing thing seems complicated - I wonder if I'll need to take a class to figure it out better.

I had reserved some white royal icing, and had intended to pipe another white heart on top once the pink icing hardened. But I started to run out of time, so I went with white and brown sprinkles instead.

Overall, I was very pleased with the look. The cookies did taste better with the icing on them, but - except for the other half batch in the freezer - I'm not sure if I'll make the chocolate version again. I think I prefer regular sugar cookies.

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Let it Snow!

I realized that I've been bad at updating my blog and never posted these Christmas cookies that I made a little over a month ago. What better than being snowed in to remind me about my snowflake cookies!

I had a set of snowflake cookie cutters that had been calling out to me for a while, so I decided to make use of them for the first Christmas party of the season. I made a sugar cookie recipe that I have used in the past, and it always turns out well. Cutting the intricate snowflakes was slow and careful, but I was happy with the results.

I also decided that my snowflakes needed royal icing to decorate them, so I attempted it for the first time. I used the Wilton recipe with meringue powder. Since I was going to be covering the cookies, I followed the instructions for thin royal icing, and let me just say that it was MESSY! I'm not exaggerating when I state that my kitchen looked like a smurf exploded. Next time, I will definitely add less water. The thinned icing also made piping more tricky - even though I was only using a #3 tip, the designs came out much wider than I intended, and it only got worse as the heat from my hand on the bag warmed the icing.

Overall, I was pleased but learned some things to do differently for next time. The cookies got lots of compliments, and there were hardly any left at the end of the evening - I consider that a success.

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