Silver Balls and the Nutty Torte

I did not think I would be posting again in 2010 but I realized I forgot to wish you a Merry Christmas! And what better way to do so than with a post about balls and nuts... all baking related, I assure you!

A while back I caught wind that the shiny balls I always loved on holiday cookies and fancy cakes are actually outlawed in California (I also learned their proper name is actually "dragee"). I cannot find any law to prove this, but I trust my fellow bakers on the interwebs. Apparently these shiny balls can be dangerous because they contain trace amounts of silver which the food and drug administration has deemed non-edible, and a good-for-nothing lawyer actually got the state to ban the poor little things. In other states, the FDA requires dragee makers to label their balls "for decoration only" which apparently wasn't enough for mr. party pooper. Perhaps he is a vampire.. we will never know.

I acquired some of these balls in Italy last September and vowed only to use them on special occasions. Christmas seemed special enough for me! I made a red velvet cake and placed a few on top to give it a festive, classic holiday look. I had to explain the balls to my guests, and next time I probably won't do that because the word "illegal" doesn't really help sell baked goods.. unless you're running a fakery.


I also made Martha's Linzertorte for our lady's secret santa gift exchange. The recipe called for hazelnuts and almonds in the crust and a raspberry jam filling. I used my flavorite raspberry jam recipe (not Martha's) and it came out tasting fab. It was my first time making a torte AND working with hazelnuts, and I was super pleased with the outcome:

I also got some good news today that Iron Cupcake SF was featured on Cupcakes Take the Cake and I got a shout out as the winner! My blog was linked and I got about 100 hits in one day (that's a lot for me!!) What an awesome Christmas gift and exciting way to end the year!

Iron Cupcake December CHAMPION!

Last night was the Iron Cupcake SF grand finale of the year. Baker's were invited to bake their signature cupcake a.k.a. the cupcake they are known for- a very special treat because normally we have to bake something related to a theme or key ingredient. We were promised fabulous prizes and exciting announcements about the challenges coming in the new year. I had skipped a few of the more recent challenges but made it a point to attend this highly publicized annual extravaganza.

I arrived with little time to spare but fortunately got one of the prettier tiered trays which was very large and shiny. I baked my signature raspberry chocolate cupcake- my favorite cupcake on the planet and a recipe I can pretty much call my own: chocolate cake with a punchy raspberry filling, raspberry buttercream, and topped with a dark chocolate dipped raspberry. I named it "Chocolate Raspberry Rapture"- this photo does not capture much of the chocolate half of the raspberry, but you get the idea: I was positioned at #12 out of 16, not bad considering my tardiness. As soon as I was identified as a baker, the organizers told me I had to wear a santa hat and kindly let me pick my color- I chose an emerald blue* number and placed it on my head like a beret because let's face it, I have an enormous dome and that hat was not fitting properly.

My crew arrived shortly after I did and we had a good time chatting and laughing which helped to cut the nerves. I could tell I had some stiff competition.. I was surrounded by a bunch of bakers who brought the best of their best to the table.. and they were all easily identified with their Santa hats on:
Tasting was, as always, a TON of fun. A lot of people come up with cute ideas for decoration, and flavor ideas that never cease to surprise me. I liked the wreath decorations the best, and was most excited to try the chocolate fig and apple cupcake that shimmered curiously (front). Some girls even took the "signature" quite literally and piped their names with frosting and chocolate!:

However, after tasting, there was a clear winner, and my girls and I weren't shy about sharing our opinion!
Our opinions didn't matter much unless we voted. Brooke and Jean were on it when the text in polls opened:

I walked around to take some photos and realized I never took one of my display. I arrived in time to notice only my large display cupcake remained.. but all the minis had been gobbled up. Shortly after this photo, one of the girls in the background stole the large cupcake.. which was sad and a fabulous compliment all at once:

The polls closed and we all sat around and waited to hear the winners. I was nervous because although I knew mine was delicious, my last experience with text in voting didn't go so well.. I didn't place at all- a hard knock coming off a 3-in-a-row winning streak. But this time around, we were allowed to vote for three different winners, so I felt better that at least one of those three votes each person sent in included my cupcake. As the winners were announced one by one, my girls and I all started to get a little more anxious. Brooke had lowered herself into a nervous crouch and swayed to and fro while the 1st place prizes were announced. As soon as first place was announced and my name and cupcake number came out of the announcer's mouth, the girls all screamed like banshees and I noticed Brooke was steadily elevating her scream along with her stance. I tried to hand her my camera for photos but she was caught in the moment, so I let it ride and excitedly made my way up to the front of the room to collect my prizes. Cameras flashed and people congratulated me.. it was one of those moments that don't seem real and nothing you do is free of the cheese that comes along with winning a prize you worked so hard for. I posed with my winnings, which included a custom glass plate hand made by local artists. I was so excited to also win cash I couldn't resist trying to count it immediately:


But then I realized I needed to calm down so I took a more tame photo for the grandchildren to see someday:


It really has been a wonderful year for me and baking. Winning the final Iron Cupcake of 2010 was a huge boost and motivation for me. I cannot wait to set some new goals in 2011 and see them realized!!

Thanks for reading.. see you next year!

*a typo too hilarious to cut out.. i did indeed mean to write "sapphire blue"

Non-flat Christmas Cookies!!

It's the holiday season! Which means more baking than "normal." And I love it!

I had a few friends to visit this past weekend and I was excited to give them all a little bit of home baked goodness as holiday gifts. I decided on cookies because they are easy to transport and share.. and.. I like cookies. Especially the ones I chose to bake: raspberry thumbprint cookies and chocolate chip.

I made raspberry thumbprint cookies last Christmas for coworkers and the came out more like raspberry frisbees. One coworker even asked, as serious as can be, if they were pancakes. She had never seen such a flat cookie and didn't know what to make of it. Needless to say, this year I did some more research. The first thing I learned was to refrigerate the dough after the cookies are shaped, thumbprinted, and filled with jam. The second thing I learned was thumbs should be avoided.. actually, a chapstick cap used in place of a thumb to make the necessary indents was the recommendation that seemed to be most popular. These two news flashes helped me make some of the most perfect looking razzthumb cookies I have ever encountered:

check out these molds!!

yes, we do look fab!

As I mentioned, I also made some chocolate chip cookies. A while back, I had that flat cookie dilemma. I realized shortly after my whole ramblog (rambling blog) that my problem was the butter. I have my little tricks and forgot this one, whoops. But all is well now that I remember. I would tell you, but I'd have to $collect$, you understand. And hurrah! Not so flat this time around!

Okay they look pretty flat in the photo, but trust me, there were nothing like the pankcakes and crispy discs I served up over the past year. I need to start writing this stuff down! Oh wait.. tee hee, I am!

Tomorrow, get ready for the big win blog!!!

Cupcakes for Jailbirds

Everybody could use a cupcake.. friends, coworkers, bratty kids, even the ladies in county jail. Tomorrow, I will be donating cupcakes to the county jail's women's facility. I'm not sure how many birds are locked up, but I made 72 cupcakes especially for them.. two dozen each of chocolate chocolate, vanilla vanilla, and red velvet cream cheese. The cupcakes and the ladies will be attending a holiday party of sorts, but not me. I will be in my own private jail, aka work, all day. I will sit back and think of all the crimes they may or may not have committed and imagine them eating my little creations. I'm hoping a few have mullets. I'm hoping more than a few smile and remember that the holidays are as much about eating cupcakes as they are about giving your very best to fellow community members- no matter who they are.

Vanilla & Chocolate


Chocolate & Red Velvet

Fail Blog

Yesterday was a little insane. Brad and I had our engagement photo session and I took the entire day off in order to feel less stressed- I could have just left work at lunch and made it to our appointment on time. I'm glad I didn't.
It started the night before, when I forgot I was taking the following day off. I left a conference call with some folks in China to run out of work at 5:30 in order to make our catering tasting by 6. I told my coworker I would follow up on a handful of things the following morning. On my way to the tasting, I realized that was impossible because I wouldn't be at work the following morning! I had tried to make the most of my day off and scheduled Jeepers' vaccinations for 8:30am. So I resolved to come back into work to finish things up after the tasting. I returned to work at 8:30pm and wrapped things up at 10.. was in bed by midnight.. then..
Took Jeepers to the vet at 8:30 (somebody tell me why the vet always takes at least an hour.. with 30 minutes of waiting despite being the first appt of the day??), ran home, got changed, got a manicure at 10, had a makeup trial at 11:00, got my hair blow dried at 12:45, made it home at 1:50 to a barely dressed Brad, and showed up to our photo shoot at 2:06 (6 minutes late!), had a blast pretending to know how to take good pictures, then at 4:30 we visited with Brad's sister who is in town, and then made it home in time to eat a TV dinner, and get started on 24 strawberry cupcakes and a chocolate cake at 7:30pm.
I was so tired I almost just went to bed, and maybe I should have. I offered to make strawberry cupcakes for my dear coworker's birthday and was excited to do it. I tried out a different Martha recipe despite having used another one of her strawberry cupcake recipes with some success, but not any fantastical memories as it was basically a white cake with strawberry chunks baked in. I guess I was hoping to get a really pink moist cake this time around. FAIL. I should have known, because the recipe I got was Martha's version of Sprinkle's strawberry cupcakes. In summary, they came out like dense, flavorless, sickly brown muffins. I attempted to fix this by coring out the cupcakes and filling with a fresh homemade strawberry sauce, and it seemed promising. I planned a vanilla swiss meringue buttercream, but had few eggs, and I wanted to try out using pre-separated egg whites, the kind in a carton. Big mistake. Huge. The egg whites did not fluff up at all, they just turned into a white liquid goo. I had to toss it and go with a basic buttercream, the crunchy kind Edith likes, but with no shortening. The end result was nothing more than a concoction and it made me so sad. I couldn't even decorate them cutely. The goofy decor on top was a sweet gift from Brad, but looks a little odd out of context.. it was part of a whole love and peace hippie motif:

I still had a chocolate cake to make, so I moved on. Brad's sister was coming over the following night to celebrate her birthday with us. Thank god I had boxed- it's what Brad and his dad like, and let's get real, it's good. But it still took time and it meant I wasn't in bed until about midnight again after cleanup, etc. I was beated!
Then, on my way to the car with all the cupcakes this morning, I lost my grip on the pan and the cupcakes went flying down and landed with a crashing boom thunder bang. Brad hollered from the bedroom, telling me how awful whatever just happened sounded. I grumbled at him and surveyed the damage. Fortunately, only a couple flew the coop onto the floor.. unfortunately, several had done a flip and landed sideways or upside down in the pan. I salvaged what I could and decided there's no use crying over spilled cuppies. They had been refridgerated so they didn't lose much frosting and looked decent.
People seemed to like them, but they'll eat anything. I'll never make them again.. and I would recommend you avoid the Martha/Sprinkles strawberry cupcakes recipe. But it was a learning experience and I do have good ideas for future strawberry cupcakes! It's all in the sauce...
Oh, and Denice loved her chocolate cake, which Brad ended up frosting. We only had one can of frosting and he had trouble making it spread over the entire cake.. adorable. We all loved it though! No pictures, but a brief video just for fun:

Wedding Cake

Brad and I are engaged and doing all the exciting/crazy things people do/have to do when they are preparing for a wedding. So far we have booked our wedding ceremony and reception sites, I bought my dress, and we booked a photographer. We have pretty much decided on the caterer because they have a contract with the reception site and we have heard great things- all we need to do is the tasting and pick a menu. Next up on our list is DJ and Florist.

By now, most couples would have started going to cake tasting appointments. Brad and I have not discussed it and I find it hilarious it hasn't crossed our minds to engage in this very special rite of passage, which is probably because we both knew from the beginning that I would be making the cake. This decision is not meant to shock or excite people.. in fact, I figured it would just be me and a couple of my geeky baker friends who would be excited or even care. Not so.

The reactions have been from mild shock to people downright arguing with me about how it will not be fun and I will not have time and will be too stressed out (even a potential photographer! thanks, Brad).

Okay, now the brat comes out. Let me ask.. when has it ever been appropriate to not do something you absolutely love, simply because something might go wrong or it might be a little time consuming? NEVER! Why punish yourself with fear? The amazing thing is if something goes wrong, life actually does go on (unless of course you love skydiving and your chute doesn't open). Seriously.. I cannot believe the number of people who are actually trying to talk me out of making my own cake with the argument that it will not be fun. Um, making my own dress wouldn't be fun because I don't know how and don't have a passion for clothing design or sewing! Making my cake WILL be fun because I love to bake. It will still be fun if something goes wrong because I would have tried to do something challenging in the process. And come on.. it's cake!! If it doesn't come out right, so be it. We will cut into a Costco sheet cake at the reception and laugh for the rest of our lives. The point is, we will make it work.

Back up plans are great and all, but I am super confident about this cake. Willful will be helping. It will be delicious because we are making our favorite cakes. It will be gorgeous because we have a simple, bright, and elegant design planned. It will be fun because when Willful and Collie get together.. everything is fun! We also work well together, swapping the role of whiner and leader effortlessly until a job is done. If we could find the Trevi Fountain on a gloomy day with an ill-planned map, we can do anything. Ha! I am really excited.

I still think it's funny Brad and I haven't gone to tastings and would very much like to correct this. I'm interested to try some cakes and see what Brad likes.. he tends to have favorite things that are cheap.. like boxed cake, russel stover chocolate, etc. Even in Italy his favorite gelato was this generic tasting chocolate flavor he got in Padua that tasted like Thrifty ice cream..you know, the square scoops? Hilarious.

Yay for cake!

Apple Pie

I love making apple pie.. but I've always cheated on the crust. Why? Because every gosh darn recipe out there says to use a food processor to make your dough. I don't have one! Or a pastry cutter thingy! And shortening don't live here.. so any crust that is made with it is not eligible either. The prospect of making crust always seems doomed.

Alas, my former boss had a birthday last Friday and I signed up to make apple pie since she is not a cake person. A while back, she actually bought me the most neato thing ever for peeling and coring apples. Anyhoo.. since we had Thursday off, thank you Veterans, I decided it would be a good first go at making my own pie crust.

It seems simple enough.. mix some flour with butter and cold water. Don't be fooled, it is a science. You want to get the butter incorporated and have the whole thing look like crumbs while the butter is still cold. This means no touching and working very fast so the butter doesn't get warm and melt all over the flour. Still without a food processor or pastry cutter, I used this handheld half-moon shaped knife thing to cut the butter into the flour, chopping like a maniac for at least 5 minutes. It worked out really well! I didn't even have any trouble balling up my dough to refrigerate, which required touching. After about an hour of chilling, I was vury vury scurred to roll out the dough so I could mold it into my pie shell.. it was the moment of truth. But it rolled superbly! My recipe told me to roll it out on a lightly floured piece of parchent paper- I really think that made all the difference. The apple peeling, coring, and slicing was a breeze. While the pie shell continued to chill, I mixed the apples with sugar and spices and excitedly piled them into my shell. Then I covered the top with a second dough I had rolled out, pinched up the corners, cut steam holes, brushed on an egg wash, and baked my pie up. **I'm aware I look very cross-eyed in the picture on the left!

I had almost forgotten one of the major reasons I dislike making my own pie.. the dome issue. The top crust forms a dome from all the apples, and when the pie bakes, the apples bake down, but the crust stays domed. This equals an air pocket in the middle, and awkward cutting later. I googled this later, and learned a little trick, in which you cook the apples first then bake them in your pie.. apparently they don't shrink twice! I will try this next time.

Sadly, I never got a picture of the finished pie, only one of it going into the oven. It looked the same as below, only brown. The crust was delish.. but, the apples were too tart. I guess I didn't add enough sugar!

If you like pie, you might check out Wilfull's hilarious apple pie entry on her blog, Cooking on the Farm.

Water for Elephants, Cupcakes for Book Club

I joined my first evar book club recently, which I am extra excited about. But I completely failed to read the first book, Life of Pi. I just couldn't get into it. This month's book was Water for Elephants.. a novel I completely avoided reading because I'm a brat and don't like reading hyped up books (unless of course I happen to read it before it gets hyped up). Whatever, I'm not the only one. :P In the spirit of trying new things, I put on my big girl pants and mustered up the courage to read a popular book.

Water for Elephants, a book about a young man who runs away to join the circus, was a fast enjoyable read. There was little depth to the characters and more raunch than I expected, but the story flowed which is always nice when you're reading a book in a short amount of time (yes, one month is short for me). I expect it will translate really well to the screen and can't imagine how anyone could screw it up. However, Robert Pattinson and Reese Witherspoon are cast.. and without spoiling, I'll only say I just don't see how that will work for Reese, bless her heart.

I wanted to help out the hostess of our meeting, so I offered to make dessert. Upon finishing the circus tale, I decided playfully decorated cupcakes would fit the mood. I went with chocolate because it is my fave, and had two frostings: cream cheese and chocolate. In the end it worked out well.. the alternating colors resembled the liberty horses in the book.

I had to make them when I got home from work.. at 5:30.. and have them out the door.. at 7:15. When I got home, I was a machine.. it was a beautiful thing. I took care of boiling water and mixing with the cocoa powders to start, melted the chocolate chips for the frosting, threw together the cupcake batter, put 12 cupcakes in the oven, busted out the rest of the chocolate frosting, put 12 more cupcakes in the oven, threw 12 minis in the oven with the extra batter I had, did all the dishes, took the cupcakes out, busted out the cream cheese frosting, did more dishes, piped all the cupcakes, decorated, took pictures, packed them up, and was out the door only three minutes late at 7:18. That's my kind of marathon!!

I think they came out super cute, too. The majority had dum dums sticking out the top which looked like balloons (thanks Halloween), and they all had sprinkles. Only 5 of us showed up to book club. The hostess made the most delicious chili, and we all scarfed down at least two cupcakes each. But I still have extra.. any bidders???

no flash

flash!

Longest Break Evar! + Spice Cupcakes

Dear friends,

I have missed you! I took a break from the baking blog to start an Italy travel blog, then took a break after Italy that lasted way longer than I expected! Italy was so much fun, I guess I needed a while to recover :)

While we were there, we saw lots of bakery shop displays. One thing that was expected but still surprising was that none of the shops had cakes or cupcakes, they mostly had biscotti, pastries, and other sweets all on display, lined up perfectly. I think it's where the term "eye candy" came from. Imagine a whole storefront display covered in all different kinds of sweets in every pretty color imaginable. And the packaging is to die for. In Florence, especially, they used special Florentine paper to wrap things up, and everything was tied with beautiful ribbons. The less fancy stores just had pastries galore, and I had the best "brioche" of my life at one of these places. It was a giant croissant type thing with a chocolate/hazelnut filling, kind of like nutella but better. I know, you must be asking, is that possible??? YES! Drool drool drool. I would weigh 400 pounds if I had my way and ate one for breakfast every morning for the rest of my life. Fortunately, they're tucked away on a tiny street in Vernazza and out of reach.

Back at home, I've been a bit lazy. It took me a few days to even remember that I had to do dishes and chores.. I was so used to only worrying about a back pack and how to navigate the Italian trains and streets. It took even longer to remember that take-out is easy but not necessary, and that I liked to bake for fun. Bizarre how two weeks away from home can totally change everything!

My first opportunity to bake came when I was about to see my new favorite triplets for the first time. Mom mentioned spice cake the night before my visit (hello, why didn't I think of it! Italy induced zombieness!!). I had to pick a recipe based on the ingredients I had on hand, and ended up going with Martha's recipe which she passed on from her mother. It seemed easy enough and I whipped them up pretty quick, but it was obvious about 10 minutes into baking that these weren't the best cupcakes. Sure enough, they came out a bit rubbery and super spicy. The recipe called for an icing, but that bored me. I would have rather topped with a cream cheese frosting, but didn't have any cream cheese, so I went with vanilla buttercream. They came out cute but sadly, they were nothing special. I felt bad bringing them to such an extraordinary hard working mother of three newborns, but decided she wouldn't mind and probably wouldn't notice they weren't the best because she'd be a zombie, too. :) And besides.. when I got there, it was all about the babies! They're adorable!!!

I had another request for spice cupcakes for a coworkers birthday, and was determined to get it right this time. I am a huge fan of buttermilk cakes, so I googled a recipe for buttermilk spice cupcakes and found a total winner. You make them like you'd make a chiffon cake, with egg whites whipped in at the end, and they came out super moist and fluffy. Martha's cream cheese frosting on top is the perfect compliment. I brought them in for the coworkers birthday/halloween potluck and they were a hit. Cream cheese frosting makes any cupcake outstanding, though! This time I remembered to take a photo:




Happy belated Halloween and hurrah hurray for Thanksgiving and Christmas coming up!!

xo
Collie

Flat-a-tat-tat

I was craving frozen yogurt the other night, so I decided to make chocolate chip cookies. Doesn't make any sense, I know. I guess my brain said "give me sweet!" but I didn't feel like driving so I thought of what I could make with what I had on hand. Also, we had just finished watching Food Network's Challenge show, and the challenge was chocolate. Brad kept saying how much he wanted chocolate while I kept thinking how tasty some froyo would be. Chocolate won, as usual.

I always use the Ghirardelli Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe, found on the back of the semi sweet or milk chocolate chips they sell, with great success. The only worry I had was that Ghirardelli's chips seemed to have doubled in size since the last time I made them. Seriously, they are huge.. it's almost comical. I got over my initial shock to make the dough as usual, bake as usual... then.. I took the cookies out to find they were flatter than pancakes. I was bewildered. Why so flat! I've noticed a trend lately in absurdly flat homemade cookies (no offense, Lala). Even the cookies in the image on Ghirardelli's website show flatty acid cookies!! The promo image on the right is exactly how my cookies came out.

The cookies ended up tasting just fine, but they were just way too thin and breaky. I prefer a more substantial cookie that's got a bit of a crisp around the edges with some chew, then soft and dreamy in the middle, almost cakey. I used to achieve this with the Gharardelli recipe. Not this time. I even refridgerated some of the dough overnight and baked it cold the next day.. and still.. flatties. I'm thinking it could be the size of the chips.. or maybe the fact that I used fancier flour (King Arthur since I had it on hand from the brownies). In the end though, this is a disastrophe that I will happily do-over.

Oh, and Brad loved them :)

Brownies and Bananas

Friends, it's been so long! I have missed you.

Alas, my real life has gotten in the way of my fantasy baking life again. The theme of August was the letter B: BUSY!, bonkers, bouncy, brownies, and bananas- and not just the fruit! But this is a baking blog so I'll stick with the last two items on my list, brownies and bananas.

Not too long ago, Willful kindly recommended the world's best brownie recipe, found on the back of King Arthur All Purpose Unbleached Flour, or here, on their website. Upon first glance my instinct was to nix the espresso powder and chocolate chips, and Willful enthusiastically agreed, saying she omits those things as well. Willful actually made these brownies a couple of weeks ago and added a cheesecake swirl... awesome idea, and one of my favorite brownies. I was feeling a bit creative as well, so I did a quick google for a few different peanut butter swirls and found one I liked. Basically you combine peanut butter, butter, powdered sugar and vanilla, drop them into the brownie batter-filled pan, and swirl in. Easy! But, Brad isn't into "complicated" desserts, so rather than make all of the brownies con peanut butter, I made one pan of regular brownies, and used my mini cupcake tin for the rest, dropping and swirling the peanut butter mixture into each little cup. I had never done this before so I was eager to see the results. The regular brownies were ready first, and boy were they perfection- chewy and shiny on top, just how I like them. Next, the peanut butter brownies came out. They had slightly caved in the middle, but I tried them, and even fresh out of the oven piping hot, they were fantasmical. Even though I had sprayed the tin, the brownies clung on to the pan for dear life, so removing them was a challenge. I ended up having to spoon them out and reshape them a bit.. but it was worth it. I packaged several up and sent them over to Willful in the land of enchantment, and received rave reviews. Thanks!!! Even Brad LOVED them, his only complaint being they went stale quickly and he suggested that I tell everybody to seal them up tight so they stay fresh. This recipe is definitely a keeper and highly recommended!!

On to bananas- the best way to describe the August Iron Cupcake in SF. I baked my version of a Kokomo Joe, based on a smoothie from Yumi Yogurt (detailed in another post). A banana-coconut-cinnamon cupcake with pineapple cream cheese frosting and cinnamon coconut on top. The banana cupcakes came out great. The frosting was a different story. Super runny this time around and I had trouble saving it and turning it stable. Also, rather than toasting the coconut, I shredded it extra fine. In order to keep the frosting still, I had put very little on and then pack on the finely shredded cinnamon coconut. JoAnna put it best when she said they looked like Twilight cupcakes.. the coconut was so finely shredded that along with the cinnamon, it glittered in the sun. Haha! The result was a very banana and not very coconut cupcake.. which was bad, considering they were being submitted for a coconut competition.
I didn't let this bother me much, until I arrived at Leland and saw the competition was extremely stiff this month. People went bananas on decorations.. one woman had fancy palm trees topping hers, another made a replica of those pink hostess coconut treats, other people had extra sweets to sample, the majority had fancy signs. It was insane! I missed last month, and apparently the new game is decoration!! So intense.. double rainbow ALL the way.
Not only that, judging changed entirely. Instead of rating each cupcake individually, we now had to text in one vote for our pick for most creative, and one vote for our pick for best taste & appearance. This confused a ton of people, and worried me because I usually like more than one cupcake and for different reasons.. how could I pick just one that should take home the "cake"?? We tasted and after that, things went pretty quickly and before we knew it, we had our winners.. and this is where the claws come out. First off, I did not win and I was very okay with it- I knew why and resolved to have a great time anyway. But the people who did win should not have won, with the exception of our second place winner- she had the best cake, frosting, and coconut overall (she should have won 1st). 3rd place went to someone everybody at our table had marked as "0" all around- not good, didn't look good.. it was just a bad cupcake. First place and most creative prizes went to the palm tree lady- okay, she made flippin' palm trees out of those chocolate filled tube cookies and basil for the leaves, it looked spectacular. But we all marked her "2" for taste- she just missed the mark. Needless to say, I was very disappointed with the winners. I could have easily picked 2 other cupcakes- not even mine, tear- that should have taken the top spots.
Text in voting sure has proven to be faster, but it troubles me for a few reasons: 1) people could confuse the numbers assigned to each cupcake and vote for the wrong one on accident, 2) it could turn into a popularity contest, and 3) it's just not as fun as going through and scoring each cupcake individually. Also, combining taste and appearance could mean that people with adorable yet spit-out cupcakes take the top prize, and that's just frustrating for the majority of us who take the baking seriously. I applaud the IC people for all of their hard work and dedication to finding a method that improves efficiency, but I think they might have missed the mark on this one. Well anyway, IC is still tons of fun and I'm sure they'll find a method that works! We will see at the October Challenge.. spice here we come!!

MMMM (more minis and Mad Men)

August is almost over and I don't have much to show for it (baking wise). I can't say I have been so busy and not able to bake.. mostly I just don't know where the time goes. Maybe I should ask Fairport Convention? Something tells me they don't know either..

Well, since we last spoke, I realized I gained 10lbs. No joke. Perhaps that's where the time went.. the gym. I haven't thought much about baking because for some reason, merely looking at dessert seems to ensure I gain a pound or three. I'm trying to control it, so baking has taken a back burner.. (ha!)

However, I am so spectacular baker girl that I am still in high demand for birthday cupcakes at work. Well okay, it's a self enforced tradition, but I don't think people mind :) We only have one August baby at work- he's the one who introduced me to Iron Cupcake. Right around the time our admin distributed the inner office calendar, people starting nagging him (including me) about his cupcake of choice. He took his sweet time deciding, and after all that time, he chose vanilla cupcakes. BAAAHHH!!! I can't explain my dislike for vanilla cupcakes. First off, it's so white (in more ways than one). Second, boring! Third, how do you make a vanilla cupcake cute for a boy?? I asked him if it would be okay to use vanilla bean because I wanted them to have a little bit of a kick, and he gave an enthusiastic yes.
I used Martha's white cake cupcake recipe for the first time, and added vanilla bean. I was not impressed. They were dry and peeled away from the paper liner. I've never had this problem so bad, but I know it is common with white cupcakes. Some people say it's because there's too much "fat," others say it's from leaving the cupcakes in the tin for too long and allowing steam to build up. I don't know what happened to mine but it was super irritating. I frosted them with a marshmallow fluff vanilla frosting and added vanilla bean there as well. The bean wasn't enough so I had to add some extract as well. All together, the cupcakes tasted fine, but nothing spectacular. Birthday boy was happy, as were all my coworkers who are so cute and excitable the entire week leading up to somebody's birthday. I'm glad they were enjoyed, but I will not be making Martha's white cupcakes again unless I can figure out how to tweak the recipe in my favor. Also, no photo. Why does this tend to happen for work birthday cupcakes?? Shorry.

Other than birthday cupcakes, I have been thinking about this month's Iron Cupcake- the ingredient is coconut. I had a couple of great ideas... and tried one of them out tonight. I call it "Kokomo Colada," affectionately named after my absolute favorite smoothie at Yumi Yogurt. Yumi Yogurt was my first job evar.. I dished out soft serve and made smoothies freshman year of high school. I loved the Kokomo Colada smoothie so much, when somebody ordered it, I would fill up their smoothie cup and scrape the extra out of the blender to save for myself. The smoothie has banana, pineapple juice, coconut, cinnamon and vanilla soft serve. DELISH! I modeled my cupcakes after the smoothie: banana coconut cinnamon cupcakes, pineapple cream cheese frosting, topped with toasted cinnamon cocount. OMFG SO GOOD!


These could definitely be winners!!!!

This is what I love about baking- coming up with great combos that work because finally I have the base knowledge to do it. I am no genius, I am not professionally trained.. but I have the basic skills and I know what tastes good.
There is also some part of me that craves being a good wifey. I like making things because I love watching people enjoy my things. Brad isn't always that person, but I still think of myself as a little wifey to him and everybody else I bake for. It's a thought I cherished.. until tonight.
I began watching Mad Men from season 1. Simply put, it's maddening. I actually teared up during the first episode seeing the way women were treated in the early 60s. I've always known of the injustice, but the show really puts it in your face. No wonder women burned their bras! Seriously. And here I am, brought up in a time where it's okay for me to wear pants to work.. and I go home and willingly put on an apron to make my man dinner or bake up a storm. Fortunately I'm not a "secretary" and Brad isn't an Ad Exec in the 60s and he appreciates my efforts, but honestly, this was a wake up call. I've noticed this huge domesticated-house-wife type renaissance among women my age. We buy into the cutesie cupcakes, aprons, kitchenware, bakeware.. and the kicker is the trend is to do it all with a vintage 50s/60s flair. As I watched Mad Men, I thought, WTF have I been doing?? Buying into a culture that was lost for a reason, that's what! Yikes.
Okay, I'm not going to stop baking. In reality I never have felt like baking was giving up my rights as a woman, and Mad Men hasn't changed that. I just feel a bit more reticent about buying into the whole mid century kitsch factor that's been so popular. A perfectly made up woman posing in the kitchen with a pink cherry apron and a bundt cake is pretty, but just not cute when I think of the implications. Still.. if you haven't yet seen Mad Men, you should! So frustrating and good!!!

Toodeloo... ;)

Nutella Cupcakes

Heading downtown tonight to enjoy Movies on the Square with JoAnna. Tonight's movie? Ghost! I couldn't think of a better way to get my ceramic sensuality on than with one of my homemade Nutella cupcakse and some Mexican hot chocolate, courtesy of JoAnna.
Okay so it's actually the first time I've made these little bites of European heaven.. and I made it up as I went along. I added some Nutella to my chocolate cake recipe along with the hot cocoa mixture. The cupcakes came out tasting like regular chocolate, but with a hint of a bit more decadence. I made the frosting by following my favorite peanut butter frosting recipe but replaced the peanut butter with some Nutella and cut some of the sugar. It came out amazing!
I'm looking forward to a very chocolatey night!

Checking In- July Babies, Wedding Cake, Banana Muffins and Iron Cupcake.. oh my!

Lots of people are born in July.. including lots of coworkers. I've set the standard of celebrating birthdays at the office (previously nobody did anything when it was somebody's birthday). Celebrating soon turned into bringing baked goods in. Which is fun, but honestly.. I work with something like 40 people, so it gets tiring! Fortunately a lot of people take their bdays off, so I don't bake too often. But then I run across high density birth months, like July, with 5 birthday boys and girls! I knew I wouldn't be able to bake something and bring it in 5 times this month, so I told all the birthday kids I'd be baking on a specific day and to send any requests my way. I got two requests for German chocolate, and one for chocolate raspberry. I thought it would be best to have at least three flavors, but I didn't want to make two different kinds of cake (lazy). So I went with German Chocolate, Choco-Raspberry, and Chocolate with Peanut Butter frosting. I've said before, it's a bit scary how insane people go for the peanut butter frosting, but it's also fun to watch the lunacy so I bring it in as often as I can.

In all I made 96 mini cupcakes but brought about 80 in, divided evenly among each flavor. For the German Chocolate, I didn't have time to make my own coconut pecan frosting so I used store bought. It hurt to resort to that but it's good I did because I would have been up making cupcakes way too late. To decorate, I piped some homemade chocolate frosting around the edge and filled it with the coconut frosting, then piped a little chocolate star in the middle. They looked super cute. The raspberry and peanut butter were decorated the way you've seen in previous posts.

I brought the 80 minis in the kitchen at 8:30. They were completely gone by 1:30. People who came by to thank me mentioned they loved the German Chocolate the best, but I did notice that peanut butter was the first flavor to run out. Lots of people confessed to eating at least 3! I love it!


Speaking of peanut butter...

JoAnna's groom's cake at her wedding was a Peanut Butter Fudge cake from Icing on the Cake in Los Gatos. I didn't get to try any because it disappeared in a flash, but I heard it was phenomenal. I do not think the bride and groom got a slice either, so they ended up ordering another one when they got back from their honeymoon. JoAnna brought a hugical slice to my house and I immediately dug in. Delicious! The cake was peanut buttery moist with little hints of actual nut, the filling was a creamy peanut butter, and it was frosted all around (tops and sides) with a dark and fudgey ganache type frosting. I really enjoyed it.

However, it had me thinking that I could pull off a way better version. Buttermilk cake (no chewy nuts, thanks), a generous peanut butter frosting filling and top frosting (more whipped than creamy), and a rich chocolate fudge frosted around the edges of the cake. I like to think of this as a fantasy cake.. something I should only eat in my dreams. So if I end up making it, please make sure you only let me have one slice. Thanks :)

Here's why. I consider myself pretty fit.. that is, in comparison to my old self. I've never been overweight by Dr's standards, but I've always hung around the top of my weight range. I started working out about two years ago and noticed a big difference in my energy and strength. Initially I lost weight but then I plateaued, and then I gained a little when I got too adventurous in my eating/baking. But I still feel better than ever so my weight number doesn't usually bother me. Until last night, when I went on the scale. I happened to have some banana muffins in the oven at the time, which I had hoped to fill with caramel and top with cream cheese. After seeing my reading, I went inside and nixed the caramel/cream cheese plan. I had one banana muffin, gave Brad two, and packaged up the rest to bring to Mom & Mike and a coworker. I felt sad but so right. I really needed that reality check.

I do not plan to stop baking. I just need to pretend I'm a real baker and not eat every single thing I bake- it just isn't beneficial anymore. I know what I make tastes good.. I don't have to try it to prove it. Or if I do taste test, leave it at a taste.. not 3 cupcakes! Hahaha!

Speaking of trusting myself. Iron Cupcake was last Monday, theme: alcohol. I tried and tried to get excited about the theme but I just couldn't come up with anything I really wanted to make. Plain and simple, I just don't like alcohol in baked goods- it doesn't taste right to me and overpowers everything else in the recipe. Same with chocolate cake that uses espresso or coffee.. I only taste the coffee, yet the coffee is supposed to "enhance" the chocolate flavor. If I want a mocha, I'll go to starbucks! Of course this is personal preference, so don't get me wrong.. I'm not saying other peoples' preferences are inferior, honest! ;) So, in the end, I decided to skip out on the alcohol challenge. I checked out the winners and noticed they had 5 people who placed! It appeared at least 19 bakers participated on top of about 100 tasters. HUGE! So I guess alcohol cake is popular.. d'oh! But I am glad I trusted my instincts and didn't put myself out there with something I don't necessarily like. Next month is coconut and I have two amazing ideas up my sleeve. The competition is Monday, August 30 in SF.. hope you can make it!

Caramel Cake Bake-Off!

Willful and I both read The Help by Kathryn Stockett and both of us were left with an unrelenting craving for caramel cake. So, Will suggested we do one of her infamous "face-bake offs" using the same recipe. We did this once before with bagels- the technique involved baking the same thing at the same time and posting photos/videos of the process on facebook. Will found the recipe for this bake-off from the annual publication of America's Test Kitchen: Best Recipes and Reviews of 2009. She took the time to copy and snail mail me the recipe and it turned out I actually had the publication already :D

We baked at 2p.m. pst / 3p.m. mt (how do you abbr. mountain time??). Molly came over to help document. The result is the video below.. which ended up being about 8 minutes.. WAY long in my opinion but there are a few scenes in there worth waiting for :) Will even makes a cameo!!

Enjoy :) and... don't mind the video quality.. I exported in the highest quality possible but youtube always turns it to shit so I don't know what to do, and I don't have the time to figure it out at this point.

Rehearsal Cupcakes Photo!

I was convinced a photo of these didn't exist, but Devina got one! Hurrah! Bird's eye view isn't the best for minis, but you get the idea. YUM.

coconut cupcake w/ cream cheese frosting and toasted coconut &

lemon cupcakes with raspberry buttercream and a fresh raspberry garnish:

That's all for now!

New Challenges

I'm going to do this to this.

Super excited for a new challenge. I don't expect to win, but I do expect to learn a lot. Just to compete with some real talent out there is reason enough to enter!

Oh, and Wilful and I are going to have a facebake-off with Caramel Cake, inspired by my favorite book, The Help. Wil read the book and loved it to, and wanted Caramel Cake just as much as I did after reading it. If you have read the book, you'll know why we're obsessed with this cake! Read it!

Monch.

Time Management

These past couple of weeks have flown by. That said, I have to remind myself that time always moves at the same pace. Life is what speeds up and slows down. So, as life happened at lightening speed, I realized I needed to get a better grip on my time management skills.

First there was JoAnna's wedding. I offered to make mini cupcakes for her rehearsal dinner. I asked that we keep it to two flavors, considering the guest count was roughly 35 and I could bake two sets of 48 cupcakes with relative ease. JoAnna loved the idea, but had one condition: no chocolate. Arg. First off, I like chocolate, it's the best. Second, it keeps longer, which means I can make it the day before. I just have a hard time making white and yellow cakes the day before because I know how much they dry out; they're still delicious, but I know in my heart they tasted better yesterday. But, the bride wants what the bride wants and I didn't object. She decided on lemon cake w/ raspberry buttercream, and coconut cake w/ coconut cream cheese garnished with sweetened coconut , and I decided I would make them the day before anyway. Self-rebellion feels so good sometimes.
The night before the rehearsal, she and Sara came over to finish up wedding favors while I baked. They showed up at about 6pm, but before we could get to work, we had to pick up all the booze for the wedding. Then we had to go to Safeway to get what they didn't have at Costco. It took much longer than expected. We got home around 8:30 and I realized I had no mini baking cups. So all I could do was make the buttercream and cream cheese frostings, and as I watched the girls make favors, I concluded I was not in the mood to do anything crafty with paper and bows and candy, so I had a stroke of genius and toasted a bunch of coconut for garnish on the mini coconut cupcakes. Originally I was just going to use regular old coconut, but as the smell filled the house with warm happiness, I knew I made the right last minute choice.
The day of the rehearsal, I made all the cupcakes. I kept running out of things and can't remember what, but it was a race to the finish. I ran to meet the bride and groom for a mani/pedi, and barely made it back in time to curl my hair and put on makeup. I really wanted to find a cute new dress to wear but there was no time, NONE! Everybody seemed to be running behind that day. Sara and I showed up late to the rehearsal, and the bride and groom even later.
Finally it was time for dinner and I got to show off my mini cupcakes. Everybody loved them, especially the coconut. But unfortunately, I was so rushed, I did not even get a chance to take a photo, and neither did anybody else. Tear.
JoAnna's wedding coming and going was so bittersweet. I had so much fun helping her with her plans, throwing parties and doing girly things with my best friends. But I also felt relieved to have life go back to normal, slow down, and have time to enjoy the things I missed, such as gardening, lazy Saturdays and going to the beach.

Then I realized Deema's shower was coming up, and I committed to making the cake.. the weekend after JoAnna's wedding! Ah! I was excited to do it, but just a little burnt out. I thought I had the wedding stuff behind me, ha.
Deema never expected me to bake and thanked me a million times over for even agreeing to do it. She is one of my biggest fans and I love her and baking so much, baking her shower cake could never feel like a chore. It was just the lack of time and energy on my end that slowed me down.
Once again I spent a Friday night in baking. Which is not a problem, in fact, it's amazing, but friends just sometimes don't get it.. oh well. I had Ashley over for dinner that night. We talked until about 9 and I was like, ah, I have to bake! She was excited to watch. I busted out my square pan for the first time evar. Guest count was 25 so I went for a 12" pan. I didn't really know what I was doing, but hoped that one recipe of white cake would do the job for one 12" layer. It ended up being fine, although just a little short- each layer was 1" which meant I'd have a 3" cake. I made note to learn pan size to batter ratio better- really need to work on getting a 4" tall cake!!
By the time I was done with the first layer and cleaning up, it was 11pm. I had an early morning so I opted to go to bed. I started baking again at 9am. I didn't have a square cake board, anything to put it in for carrying, or even a gift for Deema. I don't know what I was thinking. I baked the second layer, made the strawberry buttercream, chopped up some fresh strawberries for the filling, and ran out of the house to pick up the things I needed. I got back home at 12 and the shower was set to start in an hour. ACK!!! I cut the board, frosted the first layer, made a "stabilized" whip cream for the filling, threw on the strawberries, added the second layer, whipped out a crumb coat, and threw the cake in the fridge to harden a bit while I did my hair and makeup. Came back to work on the cake and I was completely flustered. I had 10 minutes until the party started and the damn corners of the cake would not stay frosted. The bar stool was in my way so I shoved it as hard as I could and it hit the wall slightly. Brad began telling Jeepers and Fiona that "Mean Colleen" was here and to watch out. Looking back it was funny but I had to use all my mental strength to ignore him while I struggled. He reminded me that this happens a lot- me frosting at the 11th hour, which of course only made me more upset. But I'm glad he pointed it out because it is true and something I definitely need to work on. Baking is not much fun when you're in a rush.
Due to the lack of time, the decor came out elementary. I'd say I'm embarrassed but that wouldn't help anything. However, please note the pointy umbrella, funky short sleeved wedding gown, sad little gifts, and size 18 ring. They are pretty hilarious.
In the end, I produced a square foot of delicious white cake w/ whipped cream and fresh strawberries frosted with a supreme strawberry buttercream, decorated to unperfection. I'm still happy because this really was about the process... and boy did I learn! As we cut into the cake at the shower, we all discovered that stabilized whip cream is quite the opposite of stable. The layers split apart so it looked like each person had two slices of cake, haha! This is the second time Rose Levy Berenbaum has failed me, so she gets only one more chance before I sell her book on Amazon.

With weddings officially behind me, and a lack of enthusiasm for the next Iron Cupcake (alcohol theme), I have so many options for my next baking adventure! I'd like to work more on the square cakes and really study the steps of baking so I can plan better for my next event.

a square foot of cake:

1st Place!!!!!!!!!!!

It finally happened! I won first place at Iron Cupcake! Challenge: Berries!

The win meant a lot to me because raspberry happens to be my favorite fruit, and the cupcake I made is my personal favorite cake/buttercream/filling combination. Okay, my favorite homemade cake.. I still love funfetti just as much :)
It's no secret that my favorite thing is chocolate and raspberry. I don't know when I discovered this, but I do know I fell in love with Brad our first Valentine's day together when he presented me with an entire pound of See's chocolate raspberry truffles and buttercreams. I ate the entire thing on my own. Suddenly I knew what people meant.. love hurts.
The cake I used for this challenge is a modified chocolate cake recipe I found deep in the interwebs, perfected after several fails in California, and one in the land of enchantment (high altitude). Willful, please do email me for what I believe is the final edition of that chocolate cake. The buttercream is your basic swiss meringue with my own special method of adding raspberry. First I need to add that, yes, swiss meringue is wonderful, but no, it's not always the best choice or more sophisticated. I find it to be a great topping for certain cupcakes but definitely not all. This cupcake, however, cries for it. I think the raspberry takes to it so well because the lack of sweetness in the buttercream allows that special tang we all know and love about raspberries to really shine through. The final component I used was a raspberry filling. The raspberry filling I use is just plain amazing, in my biased opinion. It's basic as can be, but also my secret weapon so I cannot share the recipe, just know it is the punchiest of all punches and will knock you out. Willful probably has the recipe though.. roomies share everything! Except lime green holey tongas...
Anyway, I never attempted this combo in a cupcake before, only in cakes. I tested out my plan on Deema's birthday and it came out so well, I decided not to change anything for Iron Cupcake. I think what really helped was my executive decision to use the raspberry filling in a way most people don't in this competition. Instead of coring out the already miniature cupcake and filling it, I skipped that. Why? Because these cupcakes are shared between four people (blasphemy!) and reducing the amount of cake by that much can really put you in a bad situation when it comes judging time. A lot of judges focus on the cake flavor and if it's not there.. good luck. So instead, I made a dam of buttercream around the edge of the cupcake and filled it with a pool of raspberry filling, then piped more buttercream on top to cover the pool. I toped each one with 1/2 of a raspberry and piped a little green leaf next to it.
At Leland, JoAnna and I had to come up with a name for my little squirts, and it was not easy.

Me: I wanted to name them "Devil's Lady" but they're too cute for that
JoAnna: Yeah they're so tea-cakey
Me: Yeah, I was thinking, "summer at grandma's"
JoAnna: that sounds like torture
Me: HAHA. Okay, "if the devil had a baby..."
JoAnna: What's your obsession with the devil!?! oh, god.. because it's devil's food..
Me: (defeated) oh.. yeah (hysterically laughing) that's embarrassing!
JoAnna: Tea with the Queen?
Me: What does that have to do with berries?
JoAnna: Oh! Queen of Hearts, because the middle is raspberry!
Me: Done.

There were 15 contestants and only a couple of stand outs. I liked one that was peanut butter and jelly; even though the use of berries was questionable, it was still pretty good. I also really liked a strawberry margarita cupcake that was super cute with big sugar crystals sprinkled on top to look like salt. Two people made mini cheesecakes, which I didn't really understand because I was under the impression we were making cupcakes. They were both delicious, but also a stretch. My friends and I joked that for the next competition (alcohol), whoever it is that likes to push the envelope would probably make a jello shot. HA!
Winner announcements came and 3rd place went to a cheesecake maker, second place & most creative to the fabooo strawberry margarita, and first place to me! The announcer got my first name out and suddenly I felt a breeze as loud guttural screams were flying in my direction from the mouths of Brooke, Nicole, and JoAnna. I was in such shock I didn't know what to do.. so I made my way up to the front and accepted my prize shyly. Amid the claps and continued screaming from my fan club, I heard a booming voice yell, "WHICH CUPCAKE!!!!!! WHICH CUPCAAAAAKKE!!" and I said, "#1, #1... number ONE!" As loud as I could, which apparently didn't translate well. It must have appeared I was cheering myself on, when I was really just shouting the actual number of my cupcake, which was the first of fifteen contestants. I get a good chuckle thinking about this. I'm the last person on the planet to toot my own horn, although I think I'm beginning to get a bit better at it in my old age ;)
So there you have it! I WON! So crazy!
Thanks for reading!!!!

Raspberry Pools:

Crazy Piper:

Queens of my Heart!

Babies Shower.. again!

Edith and Joe are having triplets. It makes sense for them to have multiple showers.. three babies, 3x the fun! This time around, I attended as a guest. When I got the invite, I asked if I could contribute anything and the hostess said, "sure! what can you bring?" And of course.. I said, "CAKE!" and of course, she said, "we have two cakes already! feel free to bring more though!" HA!!! So I settled on mini cupcakes, which everyone loves, especially kids, and there would be plenty of those little creatures at the shower ;)
Edith likes chocolate, and Joe likes vanilla. Easy! I made 24 of each variety in mini cupcake form. I wanted to decorate all baby-style but it just didn't happen for me due to time restrictions, so I went with sprinkles and m&ms. They came out pretty cute! And as suspected, the kids gobbled them up. I saw one in particular go back 3 times and run outside with them.

view of the chocolate:

view of the vanilla:

I had some left over cupcakes which I frosted up using the frosting I had just made and some others I had still fresh in the fridge. What to do with them? I had a few options:

-Eat them (yes, no, yes, no! help!)
-Save them for Brad (who loves eating them and then getting mad at me after the fact)
-Give them to friends (didn't want to leave anyone out)
-Bring them to work (see description for brad)
-Give them to my one dear referrer
-Give them to Brad's dad for father's day

I went with the last two options. The lady who has referred me all the business I've gotten this year deserved a thank you. So I packed up 11 extra in a cute box and brought them to her daughter to give to her. She was ecstatic. <3
I packed up the remaining and brought them to Brad's dad on my way to the shower. He loved them. I knew I made the right choices :)

some the "leftovers" I brought to lady and brad's dad:

Deema's Birfdaiz

Wow! I am so behind on my blogging. I bake so much I just don't have time to catch up here! Divide and conquer...

Last week was my coworker Deema's birthday. She's getting married later this year and like many brides, imagines she is suddenly going to pack it on. Hello.. it's called marriage, not pregnancy! So that left me with only one option for her birthday treat: mini cupcakes. She likes my light fruity cakes and buttercreams, so I knew it would be a berry occasion. But I just don't like making mini white cupcakes because it's a dry fest disaster unless you can make and serve the day of (and I'm done waking up at 5am to bake for the time being). But Deema is not only wonderful, she is also is so selfless, she let me use her birthday practice for the upcoming iron cupcake, for which I plan to make chocolate cupcakes with raspberry buttercream and raspberry filling. It happens to be my specialty cake but I haven't had the opportunity to make it in mini form yet.

Everything went really well. I have a secret weapon for the filling which I will not publicly announce because I'm a narcissist and imagine some of my competition is watching me. ;) But chances are if you know me, you already know my plan. You also know that the raspberry filling I make is the bomb explosive! I will be making extras so please do let me know if you would like one on or before June 28.

Back to the birthday. I had a lot of frosting left over from the bridal shower order, so I was able to top my cupcakes with cream cheese and peanut butter as well. I also had some raspberry secret sauce left over and added it to some cream cheese.. yyyuuuuum! I put those frostings atop some regular cupcakes for the more daring coworkers I have. I happen to know one person went back for seconds and nearly thirds- if there had been any left. People really love the peanut butter frosting. It's almost scary. Email me if you would like a recipe :)

Thanks, friends, for reading!!

Cream Cheese & Peanut Butter w/ Decorations:

Raspberry/Choco (prelim decor, will change)

Bridal Shower Cupcake Order.. you want how many?!

Two weeks! It's been that long since I've blogged, shame shame. I have been having fun and keeping busy. First was JoAnna's bachelorette weekend in Guerneville, which was fabulous in so many ways. Then it was back to work.. boo.

Mid week I did a test run of lemon cupcakes for my upcoming order, and didn't have time to blog. They came out okay, but the frosting was questionable. I used a Berenbaum recipe that is naturally yellow due to the use of egg yolks. The process is a little involved, but not worse than swiss meringue buttercream. And the results are equally silky smooth and melt in your mouth delicious. But the butter ratio is so incredibly off. It tasted like lemon butter. Everyone seemed to like them but I did have a couple comments about them being super buttery. Which is what test runs are for! I made note to use 1/3 less butter next time.

So I felt super prepared for my upcoming cupcake order of 108 mini cupcakes for a bridal shower:
-2 dozen red velvet w/ cream cheese
-1.5 dozen chocolate w/ peanut butter frosting
-2 dozen chocolate w/ vanilla buttercream
-2 dozen vanilla w/ milk chocolate buttercream
-1.5 dozen lemon w/ lemon buttercream

THEN the week before the order was due, the lady came back to me saying her friend wanted a dozen of each flavor she ordered, adding 60 cupcakes to the order! 168 cupcakes! Whoah no!!!

I sucked it up.. it was all I could do. I told myself I can bake 48 at a time, no biggie. Saturday night I began the baking marathon that needed to be completed by noon the next day when the lady would come pick them up. I started with the chocolate and red velvet, because I know they keep longer. Mid baking, I had a slight kitchen catastrophe w/ my chocolate mixture I was cooling in the freezer. The bowl hit the edge of the freezer on the way out and it flew out of my hand, sending liquid chocolate everywhere. I was sad and frustrated, but of course, I am me, so I started to panic. Why? Oh, not because I had a huge mess to clean up, or because I had to remake the chocolate mixture. No.. I panicked because it looked like a scene out of Dexter, only with chocolate. I felt like a serial baker trying to get the chocolate out of every crevice and worried that Brad would find the evidence and analyze the spatter patterns when I got home. It was ridiculous. Colleen=spaz.

After the Dexter scene, I was super tired and decided only to make the cream cheese frosting. I made way too much so I had extra. I went to bed with 78/168 cupcakes baked, and only 36 out of those frosted. Bad plan.

Woke up at 6:30 the next morning and began baking again. Everything went to plan but time was running out, and fast. I scrambled to get all the frostings done, washed the same dishes about a million times, and at 11:27, I went into crackhead mode. Like those bakers on Food Network's Challenge show.. I just cranked it out. The decorations came out less than desirable, but still cute, I think. I only got a few shots of the cupcakes because there was literally no time. I threw all the dirty dishes in our god-sent second kitchen sink in the wash room, wiped down the counters, tidied up the living room, threw on a pair of jeans and a clean top, put eyeliner on, and combed my hair (had been wearing booty shorts, a tank, and an apron all morning). I was seriously running in my own house trying to get everything done. Oh yeah and it was 90 degrees out.

The lady showed up right on time at 12 noon, looking super polished and ready for the Bridal Shower she was hosting. She said the cupcakes were cute but she had a confession to make about her friend. I started to freak out inside... WHAT could it BE!!!!!!!! She told me her friend meant to only order 1 dozen, with a few of each flavor. Lady misinterpreted but didn't want to tell me last minute, so she let me bake the extra 48 and she would pay for them. I sighed in relief and actually thought it was kind of funny. That poor friend probably thought we were all going around thinking she was some kind of glutton who could down 60 cupcakes on her own.

Overall, I am really happy with how everything turned out. Next time I'll make the frostings ahead of time, because they keep for longer. I will still bake the morning of, especially for minis because they dry out super fast. I had some sitting in my cupboard and they were all dried up by last night. Might have helped if I covered them.. but still. Nobody wants a day old cupcake. We want moist!!! And moist we shall get.

red velvet and lemon:

vanilla w/ milk chocolate buttercream:

chocolate w/ peanut butter and chocolate w/ vanilla:

Salvateenie Shower

My former Spanish teacher and good friend Edith is expecting triplets with her husband Joe. They're calling the identical twin boys and girl the "Salvateenies," a cute nickname derived from their last names. They have real names picked out, of course :) I'm still in shock about the whole thing, but Edith and Joe are as cool as cucumbers.. which I'm sure bodes well for them and their soon to be exciting family life!

So, JoAnna and I decided to throw a "former students" shower at a tapas bar in SF. JoAnna took the lead on everything and came up with a wonderful "peas in a pod" theme. I wasn't sure what was left to do, so I offerred to make dessert. Yay! Fun!!!

I knew Edith likes chocolate. I knew the theme was peas in a pod. I knew I had a chocolate frosting recipe I had been wanting to try. I also had a craving for peanut butter m&ms. And it all came together.. chocolate cupcakes with chocolate frosting topped with three peas in a pod! Haha.

I used fondant for the pods, a medium I'm still not very good or patient with. The peas, aka m&ms, were a little large. I rolled and cut some green fondant and then shaped them into pods around three m&ms- two of the same color and one different, to signify the three little babays. Well, they came out looking like m&ms in canoes or m&ms in a green jacket. And they were huge! They took up the whole cupcake! Shame on me for craving peanut butter m&ms.. they're so large! But so delicious...

The good news is, nobody seemed to care. They were scarfed down, and three were left for my little Salvateenies to enjoy at home later, via mom, of course :)

Baby Cakes: