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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Busy Birthday Baking

I know it's been a long time since I posted anything, and except for a delicious batch of brownies I made from scratch, I went quite a while without baking. But with my dad's surprise 60th birthday party in the works, I knew my no-baking streak would come to an end. And I did enough baking in two days to make up for the couple of months I spent out of the kitchen!

I knew I had to make my dad a great cake, and I don't feel that I let myself down with this one. In fact, I think it's my best effort to date. I was a bit afraid of trying to make a stacked cake large enough to feed all the guests, so I decided to stick with a comfortable sized cake and add a batch of cupcakes to make sure there was enough to go around.

The cupcakes were pretty standard, except I cooked them on a rack that was too low down in my oven, and the bottoms got a little too done. Luckily, I didn't have that same problem with the cake.

Since my dad is a huge UK fan (and that was the theme of the party) I decided to make him a UK-themed basketball cake. I had never done a shaped pan before, and it scared me at first because the cake took way longer to bake than the instructions said. I used my bake even strips around the outside of the pan to make sure the edges didn't get too done, and after a little online reassurance, I baked the cake for around and hour, and it turned out fantastic. Thanks to the cake release, it came right out of the pan with no problems.

I decided to do the main body of the cake in buttercream stars, like the illustration on the pan shows. I couldn't find the terra-cotta icing color that it suggests, so I went with just plain orange and used the color sparingly. I liked the way it turned out. Piping all the stars wasn't too bad, but the icing does tend to get soft holding it in my hand for so long. I bought a large tip with 3 stars in it to make filling in the icing go faster. It worked well, except for trying to do detail work around the edges, so I ended up having to use a single star tip as well.

After piping the body of the cake, I cut the UK logo out of blue and white fondant. This was a little harder than I imagined, because the fondant wanted to move with the knife instead of holding its shape. But after a couple of tries, I got a result that I was pretty pleased with. I used my new alphabet cutter set to make matching UK's for the cupcakes. And my 8-9 hour baking spree was complete.

The birthday boy seemed to enjoy the cake, and it apparently it tasted so good that there was none left at the end of the party! I was nervous about taking all this on but very pleased with the results.

(PS: Stay tuned - my next post is in my kitchen drying right now!)

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Birthday Cake

I'm a bit late in posting this, but last weekend and this week have been pretty busy! Last Saturday, my old department from John Wieland got together, and I was asked to make a birthday cake for a former coworker's wife, whose actual birthday was that day. This was the first cake I've made for anyone outside the family, so I was pretty nervous.

Last week's practice cake turned out so well, that I decided to stick with that basic design. I only made a few changes - yellow cake and buttercream icing instead of chocolate. (I wasn't sure what flavors the birthday girl preferred, so I played it safe.) I used up a lot of my pink and purple fondant on the practice cake, so I had to throw some yellow in too. And lastly, I had to write "happy birthday" on the cake.

Overall, I was pleased with the results again. My handwriting needs a little practice, but I didn't think it was too bad for freehanding it. (I didn't want to pay the extra $10 for the lettering kit at Michael's.) And I still need some work on getting the icing smooth, but I suppose that will come in time. I was in a hurry on this cake, so I didn't get to spend quite as much time on smoothing things out as I wanted. Time was running a little short on me, so I was glad I'd practiced the week before. I knew exactly what I needed to do and cranked it out pretty quickly.

The cake was well received. I was nervous that the birthday girl might not like the design and colors that I had chosen, but they fit with the overall party decor, and everyone seemed okay with them. It tasted great! :) By the time I left, the cake was almost gone.

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