Top Secret Operation Step 2: Cake Carving and Crumb Coat

After the Vegan Cakes were made and frozen, I need to carve them to the right shape, and put on a crumb coat. In order to keep this Top Secret, I can't reveal yet which shape I carved it to, but let's say the people in this house can tell what it is without being told! I used a template printed from a google image search, and traced it with a knife onto the top layer, and then began slicing away pieces until my two layers resembled the shape I wanted.

Once that was done, it was time to make these cakes decidedly un-vegan with some Buttercream Frosting. I just made a simple buttercream, with butter, shortening, confectioners sugar, and a splash of milk. I put a generous bit between the two layers, and then began a thin "crumb coat" around the whole cake and sides. The point of the crumb coat is to catch all the crumbs from the cake so it won't ruin the look of the finished cake. Once the thin crumb coat is on I put the cake in the fridge for an hour or so, to really let it set.

The rest of the house has been enjoying the cake remains and extra frosting, pretty tasty!

Top Secret Operation Step 1: Vegan Chocolate Cakes

There's a top secret project going on over here, it was started yesterday. I baked some vegan cakes. They weren't intended to be vegan, although to be honest most of my baking is vegan these days. The first snag in baking my normal cake recipe was the lack of flour in my house. However, I found some cake flour I forgot I had. But then, there were no eggs. So I tried a new-to-me chocolate cake recipe. It was totally easy, and smelled delicious.

Cake Ingredients

1 1/4 cups flour (I used about 3 Tbsp extra because I was using cake flour)
1 cup sugar
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup warm water
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 tsp distilled white or apple cider vinegar

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Mix all the dry ingredients in a bowl, add water, vanilla, oil and vinegar and stir to combine. Pour into greased pan(s) - the recipe said 8x8, I used two 8 inch rounds. Bake for 30 minutes, or until cake tested come out clean.

Admittedly, my two layers were a little thin at first, but they rose a bit and seemed ok when they came out of the oven.

For my top secret project, I let these cool, wrapped them in plastic and aluminum foil, and put them directly into the freezer.

Next step, cake carving....

Vegan Mocha Fudge Cake

My first vegan cake!

This cake was. . . delicious. The recipe came out of a cute little cake cookbook that my mother in-law gave me for Christmas called 500 Cakes. The original recipe is simply called Chocolate Fudge Cake, but I made it with the mocha fudge cake variation, one of five takes on the original. Both the cake and the frosting have instant coffee in it. And if you like chocolate and coffee as much as me then you should go make this right now. Jenni, are you drinking coffee yet? 'Cause ya should.

Chocolate Fudge Cake

(for the cake)

1 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 tsp. baking soda
4 tbsp. unsweetened cocoa powder
2/3 cup granulated sugar
2/3 cup water
4 tbsp. vegetable oil (I used canola)
1 tbsp. white wine vinegar (apple cider vinegar would also be fine, or even lemon juice)

(for the frosting)

2 tbsp. vegetable oil
2 tbsp. unsweetened cocoa powder
2 tbsp. boiling water
1 cup confectioner's sugar, sifted

Preheat oven to 350. Grease an 8-inch round cake pan and line the bottom with parchment paper.

Sift the flour, baking soda, and cocoa into a bowl, then stir in the sugar and make a well in the middle. Pour the oil, vinegar, and water in to the well and stir together quickly. Immediately pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for about 25 minutes until risen and a skewer inserted in the center comes out clean. Turn out onto a wire rack and let cool completely.

To make the frosting, put the oil, cocoa, and boiling water in a heatproof bowl set over a pan of simmering water. Stir to combine, then gradually stir in the sugar and mix for about 2 minutes until thick and glossy. Add a drop more water if too thick. Pour the frosting over the cake and let it set for a few minutes before serving. [I just whisked it all together, didn't sift the confectioner's sugar or bother with the double boiler, and it was fine. . . ]

A few variations:

Chocolate & Orange Fudge Cake: Prepare the basic cake recipe, using orange juice instead of the water, and adding the finely grated zest of 1 orange with the oil and vinegar. [Note: If you make this you must invite me over to sample. Holy holy.]

Mocha Fudge Cake: Prepare the basic cake recipe, adding 1 tablespoon instant coffee dissolved in 1 tablespoon boiling water with the oil and vinegar. For the frosting, dissolve 1 tablespoon instant coffee in the boiling water before mixing with the sugar.

Chocolate Rum Cake: [I want this one too] Prepare the basic recipe, adding 1 tablespoon rum with the oil and vinegar. [Why stop at 1 tablespoon?]

German Chocolate Cake!!

About a month ago, I made my first German Chocolate Cake and it was delicious!! I mean, chocolate, coconut. . . hello?! Heaven! I topped it with a chocolate ganache just to make it even more chocolaty. Note: the recipe above is the same as the Betty Crocker recipe, so if you know Betty at all, you know it's a winner. Also, the pecan filling is not traditionally used on the sides of the cake. It's very goopy and hard to spread unless you let it cool in the fridge for a little while.

Graduation cake!

In June, I made a graduation cake for one of my students and her cousin. I had a hard time tracking down the plastic graduation caps cake toppers I've used in the past, so I figured out how to make it one (or rather, two!) out of fondant! I found some pictures online of other two-dimensional graduation caps, was able to draw it from the screen onto a piece of paper, cut it out, and then sort used it as my own homemade template and traced it onto the fondant. (I should probably mention here that I used white fondant, colored it with black food/icing color stuff, and just kneaded the color into it). I then cut the fondant out with a sharp knife and made it extra black and shiny by lightly rubbing some water on it with my finger. I also used a tiny bit of water on the back of it to stick it to the cake. I outlined the caps with yellow decorator's frosting and used a very steady hand (three tries for this one!) for the red tassel.

I used an ivory food/frosting color for the diploma, rolled it out, cut it in a rectangle, rolled it up, and tied it with a bow!

I'm baaaaaack (again!)

I love that we have this blog, Jenni (and Michelle. . . hello, Michelle? Are you out there?) and I really do need to get back into contributing to it. It's so much fun so I don't really know why I can't consistently keep up with it! Anyway, let's pick up from where I left off. . . post-Easter.

I made a super cute cake for a little friend of mine who was turning seven. It was my first time making people on a cake, and though I did "borrow" this idea from some pictures I found online, I'm still proud of it and I think it came out nicely! The party theme was a "sleepover party" though none of the kids actually slept over. . . the party was during the day and the kids were all six and seven years old, kind of young. I believe that they wore their pajamas to the party though!

Happy June Birthday(s)!

I made a cake, but there's a story behind this cake.

A few months ago a friend of mine went for a job interview (which she eventually got, and then moved millions of miles away for!) and while on this interview she met people who held many roles in her future department. One was the Dean of Science. What a cool job title, I would love to be the Dean of Science. She also interviewed with someone who was the Cake Chair. Hello, Cake Chair?! I didn't know this could be a title, but it's certainly one I want!!

Recently I've been part of a small group of students in my department who have started a new organization, the Psychology Graduate Student Association, whose main goal is to get the large department to mingle and mix in a more social manner than we do now. This is a group that is desperately needed in our department, and something I'm very excited to be a part of. Of course, the first thing I suggested was a monthly birthday parties - I love birthdays, I love parties, I love baking cakes! I figured what else would get everyone out of their offices and chatting with each other, cake. So we decided that the last Friday of every month would be the monthly birthday party for that month. And we started as soon as we could, with June! And, in my mind if no where else, this makes me the Cake Chair!

For the first Monthly Birthday party I wanted to go with a simple (flavor-wise) cake, so that no one was disappointed. I choose Martha's Butter yellow cake, which was delicious (and my new favorite yellow cake recipe). I chose the Dark Chocolate Buttercream from the same book, but I was slightly disappointed. It was really a lot more solid than I expected. I made it the night before, and put it in the fridge, and it was a solid tub of chocolate in the morning. I had to microwave it slightly to even get it spreadable for putting on the cake. And once one the cake, it solidified pretty quickly too. It tasted great, but it was just - not what I expected.

Because they were June birthdays, I decided to decorate it with some piped chocolate butterflies. Which, in reality should have been piped days ahead of time, but I mostly forgot we were starting this and I piped them at 9pm the night before. But the first batch of butterflies were not up to par, so I ran to the store for more chocolate, and piped a replacement batch at midnight.

I used Mel's recipe for decorator's icing, and normally I fight with this so much. But, something happened right this time (maybe I finally got the HEAPING of the shortening measurement right), it was a PERFECT consistency. I also went back to a manual bag and tip for the decorating. I wanted to write on the cake, but cake writing is one of my biggest fears. I think it came out ok. I ran out of room a little, if I had my way it would read Happy JUNE Birthdays. But, I won't be picky.

Sadly, the butterflies didn't make it. The 5 minute walk from my car to school in the morning had them melty and droopy. They looked like sad hurt butterflies to me, but everyone else seemed to think they were "cute" - maybe because they hadn't seen them when they were beautiful!

Happy June Birthdays to all of our BIFL readers.

Cake Pops: A tale of triumph over disaster

This all started last Wednesday when I saw something awesome on the internet. Cake Pops. The idea is simple. Bake a cake. Crumble it up. Mix in frosting. Form it into balls. Put it on a stick. Dip it in chocolate. The result, essentially heaven on a stick. My options were clear. Make the Cake Pops.

Luckily, for me, I was invited to a triple birthday bash over the weekend, what a perfect venue for me to unveil these guys. I should have known, anyone who "experiments" in the kitchen knows that trying something new for a particular event is never going to end well. This would be no different.

I baked Martha's Yellow Butter Cake, which may have ended my quest for a good yellow cake recipe. It was pretty tasty. When it was sufficiently cooled I crumbled it up into a bowl, and put that in the fridge. Then I started in on Martha's Strawberry Swiss Meringue Frosting. I've fought with this particular recipe so many times. It sure requires a LOT of mixing. And this time, I nailed it. The frosting was perfect. And delicious.

I started adding the frosting to the cake, and here's where the fails began. I added too much frosting, so it was a little too gooey. I should have stopped, but I didn't really know until I had gone too far. Unaware of the potential disasters lurking in my future, I rolled the cake/frosting mixture into 1 or 1.5 inch round balls. Then I threw them back in the fridge.

I melted the chocolate in the microwave, following the package instructions, and after putting the candy sticks in the cake balls I was ready to dip. No dice. The balls were so gooey, and began to fall apart in the warmed chocolate. When flipped upright to harden, the chocolatey ball of goo just slid off the stick. I tried a few, and each one was worse than before. So I stopped. With only an hour before the party, I "cleaned up" by putting 40 balls of cake and frosting on cookie sheets in my fridge, and ran out the door.

Two days later, I was trying to figure out what to do with the cake balls when I realized they'd firmed up a lot more. So I tried it again. Success. They are not pretty, I have no idea how anyone made them look like little chicks - mine are clearly lumpy blobs. I guess, you have to start somewhere. You can follow the whole process here (note, there are a lack of pictures of the mess, who knew that it would be resolved and warrant documentation). Without further ado, I introduce you to my first Cake Pops!

Week 1 (Mel): Sour Cream Coffee Cake

This recipe came from my favorite chef, Ina. Now it's not every Monday evening that I decide to whip up a cake (though I SHOULD. . . wouldn't that make Mondays so much better???) but I had a special occasion coming up Tuesday morning. I was getting together with two old friends from high school -- one who I haven't seen SINCE high school and the other since our five-year reunion. So this was like our eleventh year reunion, which wouldn't have happened if it wasn't for the magic of everyone's favorite, F*cebook. Well back to the cake, it's certainly not low-fat, but it IS indeed absolutely delicious! The only snafu I came across was not having a tube pan. I didn't think it would make a difference since I DID have a bundt pan. So after the cake was in the oven, I was thinking about it, and it dawned on me that the "top" of the cake (which was really going to be the bottom because of the design of the pan) is where I was suppose to sprinkle most of the streusel -- and I did. Except after it's cooled, you invert the cake of course when you take it out of the pan, and then drizzle the TOP with a galze. . . the TOP being ON top of the streusel. So now I had the streusel on the bottom and the glaze on the top. I decided to just go with it, slice it up, and not actually serve it as a whole cake but rather in pre-cut pieces to distract the eye. I think it worked.

But now I ask you, does this really mean I have to buy a tube pan or could I next time put the top layer of streusel on the bottom of the pan? Will that make it less crunchy since it will have cake batter on top of it while baking? What would you do?

when nerds decorate cakes...

Here it is, our second guest submission. This is from a my friend VC, and the text is her own description. My conclusion, dear VC, is that you guys are awesome as hell. (and, totally hot, if I might add!)


"it was my advisor's birthday today, and we decided to up the nerd-
factor by taking advantage of the following un-funny items:

1. a carrot cake in honor of CARET imaging analysis software
2. red-hots to represent cortical activation
3. a mars bar in honor of MarsBaR timecourse analysis software (now!
with timecourses drawn in icing!)

in conclusion: we are lame as hell."

The big spaghetti bowl in the sky

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, might I recommend you read this first.

This is the finished result of the cake I made earlier this month for a friend of mine. I apologize for the delay of posting the conclusion. First, let's discuss the new recipe. I'd try it again, and change something - although I don't know what yet. It tasted alright, but it was a little drier than I'd have wanted. But, it was just the right amount of sweet, not too much really, and it went well with all the sweetness in the frosting.

As for the decorating - why do I always fight with red. I used the gel this time. And still, it was pink. I hate red. I hate it. And why do I always fight with decorator's icing? It was too soft, too runny, you can tell I had trouble with the dots. I was less than impressed with myself.

I made the spaghetti monster out of homemade fondant, which was basically melted marshmallows, and it was fun and pretty easy. I'd recommend it again.

In all, because the spaghetti monster is just so cool, I think it was a success. But, damn the red!! Damn the red!

Gifted

A friend of mine has a birthday coming up, and this can't come at a better time because, 1.) this blog needs something new and 2.) my stress levels have reached a dangerous high that perhaps even baking for others can't overcome. But, try I will. I have a vision, but for top-birthday-secrecy, I will not publish said vision here until it's all done.

Last night was baking night, and let me tell you, I needed it. For this particular cake I was using a brand new (...er, old) recipe. My BirthdayFriend recently lost his grandmother, and when he was home with family after her passing he was thoughtful enough to bring back an old baking cookbook for me. I decided that I would make one of those recipes for this cake! BirthdayFriend requested chocolate, so off I went. I settled on one entitled Sweet Chocolate Cake. (As a side note, this cookbook has some really strange recipes that I'm totally interested to try - a sauerkraut cake?! Really?!) The Sweet Chocolate Cake recipe was interesting because the author noted that she liked using brown sugar. The recipe said it would fill 3 8-inch rounds, which seemed ok because, for the cake in my mind, I needed 2 8-inch rounds and a little something left over. I would need to use my spherical ball cake pan for the left over - as I needed something spherical to add to the cake.

Sweet Chocolate Cake
4 oz. sweet baking chocolate
1/2 cup boiling water
1 cup butter
2 cups white or brown sugar*
4 eggs, separated
1 tsp. vanilla
2 1/2 cups of cake flour, sifted
1 tsp baking soda
1 cup buttermilk**
(all ingredients at room temp, except for the boiling water...which is, of course, boiling)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees, and grease and flour 3 8-inch round pans. Melt the chocolate in the boiling water, and set aside to cool. Cream the butter, and gradually add the sugar. Add in the egg yolks and vanilla, and combine until smooth. Carefully add the cooled chocolate, and mix until well combined. Add in the sifted dry ingredients and the buttermilk in alternating batches, starting and ending with the dry ingredients. Mix thoroughly. Stiffly beat the egg whites and fold into the batter. Pour into pans, about 3/4 full. Bake for 35-40 minutes.

*I used one cup of each, the author was excited about the brown, but I was nervous about 2 cups of it!
**for which I used dried buttermilk (Saco brand, thanks LeahPants!)

I was excited, more than just to be baking again, because I could use something else I was given for Christmas. My mom gave me Wilton Bake Even strips, that make the cakes bake even so you don't have to level them. I have NO IDEA how they work. You first saturate them in water, then you wrap it around the outside of the pan, with the aluminum looking side facing out. You pin it closed, and just bake as normal. I was so excited to try these, it matches the first time I ever used the mechanical pastry bag (and you know how well that turned out!)

It was about here that I got carried away with my new baking gear (see, it HAS been a while since I've baked!!) Also for Christmas, my dad had given me these teeny tiny mini pans. Two tube pans and a springform. Adorable. So with the batter left over from filling my two 8-inch rounds, complete with Bake Even strips, I filled the mini pans from my dad.

It all went into the oven for 30 minutes. And then I realized. The SPHERICAL PAN! I had forgotten. In the glory of using all of my new gifts I had lost sight of the task at hand - BirthdayFriend's cake. So, later this week I will be "sculpting" spherical forms from the mini tube pan cakes!

When the cakes were done I was amazed, they were indeed level. I will not need to trim them - which is fabulous, because I am awful at that part. And, I ate some from the springform pan, it was good. The brown sugar was a good idea, although, I'm not sure I'd have done the full 2 cups.

The cakes are now carefully wrapped and in the freezer, waiting for decorating day!

Yo Fitzo Fitzo! is totally broccoli worthy

And here's another BifL first - a guest submission, although I suppose she didn't know she was submitting it when she sent it to me!

My friend Maureen has a now one-year-old son, Fitz, and for his birthday she made him this wonderful Yo Gabba Gabba! cupcake cake in the shape of Muno.  She seemed to think it was unworthy of this blog, but I beg to differ.  This cake is awesome, Fitz is one lucky little guy!  Thanks for sharing, Reen - we at BifL love your Muno creation.

Let the good times roulade

I admit that maybe I've become obsessive, but the pumpkin roulade was seemingly so easy that I just had to try again.  This time I was inspired by this recipe.  A red velvet cake with white chocolate mousse and raspberries inside.  Mmmmm mmmmm!  It sounded delicious and perfect for our Christmas dessert.  The results fell short of my grand expectations.  I submit to you people's exhibit A:

The problem was after the cake was cooked and rolled and cooled it completely cracked when being unrolled. I was left with about 5 long strips of cake. I proceeded to fill them and "roll" them back up the way they should be rolled. I wrapped it quickly and tightly in saran wrap and aluminum foil and put it in the fridge overnight where I hoped it would heal itself. It did not. I think that some pieces sunk further into the filling, and thus it looks all rolled back up on itself - although I can't really seem to figure out how it should have gone together.

It looked a little better when sliced, I submit people's exhibit B:

And, it tasted delicious!!

I think that perhaps the cake part was cooked too long, I'd attempt a shorter time the next time. It also seemed a little dense, I'd maybe go to 3/4 cup of flour or substitute cake flour instead.

Disco Ball Cake

I'm SO glad that I'm done making this cake! It was a little stressful, but in the end, I think it came out alright. The disco ball looks a little more like Epcot Center than an actual disco ball, but what are you gonna do? That's thanks in part to my limited cake supply resources. . . had I been able to find silver fondant (rather than the white that I used) it probably would've looked a little more like the real thing.

So fondant -- that was a new experience! It was really easy to work with actually. It's stiffer than cookie dough, but doesn't break apart as easily when you roll it out. It's just sort of hard to roll out until you work with it a bit to get it a little more pliable. It got just a little dry toward the completion of the disco ball so I brushed some clear vanilla extract onto it to get it to soften a little and to also help the silver sprinkles stick better. The recipient really wanted a chocolate cake, so I made the bottom, large cake chocolate and the disco ball yellow chiffon. I filled both of them with chocolate mousse and frosted the outside with a simple buttercream (the recipe on the package of Domino's confectioner's sugar, not my favorite because I think it's really sweet, but it's easy to make and was a request). The pink, orange, and green stripes are also buttercream that I just died (instead of decorator's frosting). I figured that it would've been a lot of decorator's frosting, when the taste of it is artificial-like to me (but good as far as your typical decorator's frosting goes). More importantly though, the buttercream spreads more easily so that was the hands-down winner. Now it's late, my feet hurt, and I want to go to bed, so that's all you get. Oh, and a bird's eye view which I think is kind of neat:

a holiday roulade

presenting the pumpkin ice cream gingerbread roulade!
Originally uploaded by with an eye

 

I remembered years ago that my mom and I made a gingerbread and pumpkin ice cream dessert, and I set out to attempt a repeat performance. I found many recipes online, and I read the section about rolled cakes in the Martha Stewart handbook. I decided to combine a few various things, thus making my own completely stolen/original recipe. And, may I add, it was delicious.

The ice cream was classically semi-homemade:
1 quart of vanilla ice cream, softened 15 minutes at room temperature.
1 1/4 c pumpkin puree
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp allspice
1/4 tsp ground ginger

Just put all of this in a medium sized bowl, and mix together with a hand (or stand) mixer and mix it up. When it's all uniform just put it back in the ice cream container. I covered it with plastic wrap before putting the lid back on. Freeze it for at least 4 hours.

I made the gingerbread from scratch, and I was nervous about all the recipes I'd read - but this worked brilliantly. You'll need:

5 large eggs, separated
1/2 cup molasses
1/4 cup dark brown sugar
2 tablespoons finely grated fresh ginger
3/4 cup cake flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon ground ginger
3/4 teaspoon ground allspice
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons granulated sugar

In a large bowl beat the egg yolks until pale (about 2 minutes), and then add the molasses, brown sugar, fresh ginger, and beat until combined. In a medium bowl, whisk the flour, baking powder, ground ginger, allspice, black pepper and salt. Beat the dry ingredients into the egg yolk mixture until combined.

Now, in a clean bowl, beat the egg whites until soft peaks appear. Add 1/4 cup of granulated sugar and beat until firm and glossy. Fold the egg whites into the batter until all the streaks are gone.

Spread the batter onto a 12 x 17 baking sheet, lined with parchment paper and sprayed with Baker's Joy. The batter won't rise too much as you bake it, so load it up without spilling over the sides of the pan. Bake in a 325 degree oven for 15 minutes. It will be lightly browned and a little springy to the touch. Mine was a little bit sticky and I might have been able to leave it in a few more minutes, but it ended up ok.

When it's done, cool it in the pan for 10 minutes or so. Now here comes the big roulade trick. Sprinkle the top with confectioners sugar and run a knife around the edge to loosen the cake from the pan. Lay a clean linen cloth on top of the cake and place a larger baking pan on top of the towel and quickly invert the entire pile, hopefully dumping the gingerbread onto the towel and larger baking pan. Remove the bottom pan (the one that was in the oven) and the parchment paper. Starting at the short end, roll the cake and towel together and place seam-side down on the baking sheet and cool completely in the fridge (about 2 hours). Once I saw the outcome of this cake I had little concern that it would tear or crack when I rolled it - it's very springy and spongy.

Remove the ice cream from the fridge and let it soften at room temperature for 15 minutes. I found it easier to put it into a bowl instead of softening in the carton. You want to get the ice cream to be firm but spreadable, and not super duper melty. When the ice cream is the right consistency remove the roll from the fridge and carefully unroll it. Spread the ice cream over the cake, going completely to the edges. Roll it back up, without the towel this time. Wrap it tightly in plastic wrap and freeze in freezer for 6 hours or overnight.

You can trim the edges after it's been re-frozen, if you want to make them look pretty for presentation. Enjoy!

I've still got about 6 slices left, who wants left-overs?!

Thanksgiving a la Mel

Overall, Thanksgiving was quite successful here at my place. Everyone was really helpful with their contributions, from side dishes to desserts to even cleaning up. Here's what was on the menu (if you'd like any of these recipes, let me know and I can write them out):

We started out with just a couple of appetizers. There was fruit as well as Jenni's famous brie bites that I made with homemade cranberry sauce instead of jelly. The fruit:


Mmmmmm. Thank you, Whole Foods! We had a few beverage options, but when people arrived, they mostly went for the hot beverage: mulled cider. I kept this warm in the crock pot, which was great because it eliminated the need of an additional large pot (my only one was already in use). I get the mulling spices from Williams Sonoma. It's quite delicious! I also made a Sangria with a mulled simple syrup, Spanish rose wine, red port, and triple sec. That was a new recipe, from Food and Wine magazine, and it turned out really great! Definitely a keeper. In addition, there was red wine and the left-over port from the sangria available.

For the meal, we did NOT have turkey because my brother-in-law is allergic (which is great for me because I wasn't about to cook a bird in MY oven!) so my parents brought ham instead. We also had delicious mashed potatoes that my brother-in-law made here with tons of garlic, cranberry sauce (that I forgot to put out with the meal. . . oops), onion tart c/o Michelle that was incredible, stuffing c/o Diane that was also incredible, roasted root vegetables with pine nut pesto that I made (another new recipe from F&W and it was super yummy if I do say so myself!), corn bread, roasted asparagus, and I believe that was it. For dessert, we had apple pie (that my mother-in-law made and has become quite famous in the family), cranberry pie (thanks to Leah!), and I made vanilla bean ice cream for the first time that was really rich but from what I heard pretty good, and pumpkin cheesecake that did NOT crack! Yeah! I was so proud that I took a picture:


Well that pretty much sums up the day! I wish I had taken more pictures, but what can you do. I was a little busy I guess! I'm glad that my new recipes weren't a disaster. I know you're not suppose to test out new recipes for a holiday (so say many chefs on TV. . . ) so while it was risky I have to say, "HAHA, Suckers!" I was suppose to have an additional dessert that was also a new recipe, but I'd like to forget that it ever happened. For those of you thinking about making Linzer Cookies, I have to advise against it. . . even if the pictures on the package are really cute and hard to resist, don't give in. And that is all. I hope your Thanksgivings were as wonderful as mine! Next up, Christmas! You better believe I'm already excited and looking forward to my Christmas baking (and I'm sure you are too, Jenni!) Happy Holidays!

Happy Halloween?

Some of us celebrated Halloween a week LATE because a certain sister (Diane) was sick. The cake was already made of course, hanging out in the freezer, so I just decorated it this past weekend for when we went over to Diane's house to celebrate. It was a wonderful evening. We ate chips, delicious guacamole, and CAKE! We also watched one of my favorite movies: CLUE! So here's the very traditional-looking jack-o-lantern cake that I made:


I should've taken a picture of the middle too after we cut into it, but of course didn't think about bringing my camera. It was a marble cake, and I died the white cake part of it orange. I also added chocolate chips because it didn't look chocolatey enough. It was good! Now I have to wait another year before using that cake pan again. Oh well.

Happy 50th Birthday!

Here's a 50th birthday cake I made for one of the directors at work. The cake, filling, and frosting were the same that I used for Rachel's graduation cake. It luckily all came together in time for the party, but of course there had to be a little drama -- nothing too bad, just a little typical madness on my part.

I first had four flowers on the top of the cake. There were the three red ones you see, but they were separated more and I put them in the cake at a bit of an angle. In the middle, I had a white flower of the same variety. Well it was really obvious to me that the flower display wasn't all centered. . . BIG problem, right? It was also just awkward and empty-looking. I had time to fix it, so I thought about my options. Option 1: going to get more (smaller) flowers to fill in the gaps. Option 2: not using flowers at all. Option 3: taking the flowers out and putting them back in. While it was risky, I chose option three. I had more frosting in the fridge so I could fix the top, and I had time, so I figured I'd give it a shot.

I had the flowers in these little white cones inside the cake (so the flowers go into the cake more easily and can sit in a little water). They were a pain in the BUTT to take out. They were in there really good (nice, Mel) and were now slippery from the frosting (the cones AND my fingers that is). I somehow managed to do it, but certainly not neatly. The whole top of the cake cracked all the way across, cake itself came out through the holes the flowers were in, and it was just a big old mess. This made me a little nervous. . . I was able to fix all of it with more frosting, but that's not to say I didn't have a minor heart attack. I decided this time instead of putting the flowers in the cake at an angle that they would look better if the stem went straight down into the cake and the flowers sat more flat-ish on top. I thought that just three flowers would work and fit better than the four, so that's what I did. And then it was done. And it tasted yummy. And that was all. Happy Birthday.

Ugly Betty

My mom gave me her very old Betty Crocker cook book maybe a year ago. You know the one, like a big orange binder? Well, I may have taken it from her house. . . with some later permission to do so, but anyway, it had been in my possession for a while now and I hadn't used it, until recently.

Of course I wanted the book because of the cake recipes. Old recipes are usually good ones, right? They're classic. They're the ones you want to keep around for a while and share with others (or maybe not, depending on who your crowd is!) I figured if anyone was going to teach me how to make a great cake it would be Betty Crocker. And in my seemingly endless search for a moist yellow cake recipe, that I was convinced needed oil instead of butter, Betty had my back.

I found a lot of recipes in this great book that called for shortening. I think that's just plain gross, so those recipes were out. I mean, for decorator's frosting or even pie crust that's one thing, but otherwise, that's nasty. I kept looking and found Betty's recipe for Two Egg Chiffon Cake. By definition, I've now learned that a chiffon cake uses oil instead of butter. That's what I was looking for! What was also part of the process was separating the eggs. I whipped the whites to a meringue to be folded in later, which makes the cake light and fluffy. So we have moist. . . light. . . fluffy. . . all good things. I was excited!

After some minor issues whipping up the egg whites (humidity. . . ) the cake came out of the oven and luckily looked perfectly fine. The recipe recommended using a Pineapple Butter Frosting to top it off, so I did. It was just butter, confectioner's sugar, and drained, crushed pineapple. It's pretty hard to drain crushed pineapple completely though, so the liquid left in there is why I didn't need any milk. Other than being sweet, the frosting was really good! With the cake though, the whole thing tasted GREAT! Of course with the pieces of crushed pineapple throughout the frosting, I wasn't able to smooth it over and have it look anything close to even semi-professional. . . so I present you with "Ugly Betty. "