Oh Happy Sunday

It's no secret that I haven't written in months. Sorry about that. I got a little discouraged with my baking after a few not-so-pretty cakes all in a row. But, we win some and we lose some. So now I'm back on the up and up, and I'm ready to bring you some new sweets! BUT...not just pictures and bragging rights :) I aim to provide you with RECIPES to what I post, save for my cheesecakes. (my cheesecakes, my precious...)


So on this very happy, overcast and rainy Sunday, I bring you this BRILLIANT and EASY recipe I found for STICKY BUNS!!! *cheering*

Hmm...my picture messed up in the upload for some reason, but you can still see the ooey gooey goodness. Sorry for not taking a picture BEFORE me and JZ got our hands on these lovelies. Yes, yes, I know you're drooling. But I can't take credit for the amazingness behind this new Sunday morning tradition of mine. Hannah of the All Things Delicious blog posted this recipe, and I'm hooked. You can see her post HERE.

As JZ and I said this morning through mouths full of sticky bun, "This is like an improvement on cinnamon rolls!" And as I sit here typing, I'm avoiding the urge to eat one of the last remaining pieces....they call to me...

So, friends, I must leave you now. It was wonderful to see you again, and I will make sure not to wait nearly as long before our next meeting :) Have a wonderful happy Sunday!

Touchdown!

Today Eric, Jr and Preston celebrated their first birthday. Happy Birthday! I was given the honor of making their first birthday cake. It was a Redskins themed party, and they wanted a Redskins cake. So we decided to go with a cake decorated to look like a football field, with the twins' names in the endzones. Is that supposed to be all one word? Endzones....end zones....*shrug*

I know little to nothing about football. Some guys put on a bunch of padding and uniforms and run with a ball towards a goal post...that's about the extent of it. So at first I was a little nervous about doing the cake. But the more we planned the more confident I felt. And so, I give you Preston and Eric, Jr's first birthday cake:

It was a chocolate cake with Butter Vanilla buttercream. **THIS IS A COMPLETELY FONDANT-FREE CAKE** Even the Redskins logo was made out of buttercream. Here's a close-up:

So now I know what I'll make if I ever have a Super Bowl party!

Real Time Baking

Groceries are unpacked, dishes are put away, counters clean, and my eggs, butter and cream cheese are setting out to soften. That's right, my friends, today I am blogging WHILE I'm baking! I am bringing you into my kitchen to experience this brand new cheesecake recipe with me. So tuck those elbows in (get it...? because we're all cramped in here together...?) and get ready for some excitement!

Today's subject is a Hint of Mint Cheesecake with a Lime and Vanilla Wafer crust, and a Strawberry Limeade syrup to garnish. Very summery, right!? I'm pretty excited about it.

As I believe I've said before, cheesecakes are kind of my niche. I create my own recipes, and I constantly surprise myself with what I am able to pull off. I also never turn down a cheesecake challenge. While I'm too proud or stingy or paranoid to share my recipes with you, I will gladly offer tips along the way, and perhaps even some pictures of the process.

My first tip is this: use parchment paper.

As you can see by the above picture, I have trapped a piece of parchment paper in the springform pan. This will make it WAY easier to remove the cheesecake once it has been refrigerated, and to move it to a cake board. If you are just eating your cake at home, I would still use the parchment as it will protect your pan from knife marks.

I'm going to go ahead and give you another piece of advice before I get started - get a cake tester. In many recipes I've had to use a cake tester to separate the cake from the sides of the pan. Using a cake tester instead of a knife will save your pan a lot of unwanted scratches, but it will also be less likely to shave off pieces of the cake itself.

Okay, on to baking! *music plays*

Alright. The crust is in the oven. I don't like a very thick crust, nor a very heavy one. So I don't use as much butter as many New York Cheesecake recipes will call for, nor do I push it up the sides of my pan. I think my husband likes even less crust than I do. To us, crust is just an accent to the cake.

And so, on to the cake....

*music plays*

When I'm making a new recipe, I tend to kind of wing it. And on some aspects, I don't even measure my ingredients (I'm trying to get better about that). So I have no idea how much of anything I just put in my crust, lol. And I'm roughly estimating how much sugar I put in the cake batter.... And the Strawberry Limeade topping...yeah, don't even ask me.

Another tip: If you're a beginner, don't do that. Most baking is pretty precise and if you "eyeball" an ingredient it could mean the difference between cake and pudding...figuratively speaking.

The cake is ready to pour into the batter! Yay! First, here's a picture of my toasted crust:

Mmm....so far this tastes really good. I'm excited to try the crust, too. I've never used vanilla wafers for a crust. Now, I didn't put this cake in the oven with a water bath. Using a water bath for your cheesecake really helps ensure that it will cook evenly, and that the sides and top won't be brown while the center is still wiggly. I don't have a large enough/deep enough pan to do a water bath, so I just lower the temperature. My oven cooks hot anyway, though, so I always start my cakes at the minimum amount of time and work my way upwards until it is done. So I'll meet you back here in 30 minutes.

*REALLY long commercial (and dinner) break*

Alright, so it took an etra twenty minutes, but better safe than sorry. So now the cake is out cooling, and in one hour I will remove the sides of the springform pan.

Springform is removed, and cake is continuing to cool for an additional hour, at which point I will put it in the refrigerator overnight. I will update in the morning with how it tastes. :)

Morning: The cheesecake is wonderful. The cake itself is pretty sweet, and the mint is really coming through after sitting all night. The lime in the crust adds a nice little kick to the flavor, and the crust is perfectly light, giving a nice accent to the texture of the cake. The strawberry limeade syrup I made, with the tartness of the lime and sweet of the strawberry, adds a raspberry-like quality to the syrup. This is a really nice contrast to the sweetness of the cake, giving it a really nice balance all around. It's a very light, very summery cake, and I'm very proud to be sharing it with my friends today. :)

Clean Kitchen

My family came in town to visit a few weeks ago, and my mom offered this very motherly piece of advice: "You know, sweetie, it's a lot easier to clean up the kitchen if you go ahead and do it as soon as you get done cooking." So, here I sit, kitchen cleaned, ready to start blogging.

Er...already blogging....

First things first:

That's my very strange dog sitting/laying on the couch in a very...awkward...looking position. I think he has issues.

Second things second: CUPCAKES!

This week I got to combine 2 things I love very dearly. Baking and sewing. Woo-hoo! Two dozen strawberry cupcakes with strawberry icing, decorated with needle and thread. The strawberry on strawberry is a bit too much for my personal tastes, but they smelled wonderful, and the recipient was very pleased. I got to buy new tools (toys) for this order.

I got this really cool extruder thingy that looks like what you used to use to make "tea cookies" out of play-do...except it was actually made for icing. It was only ten dollars, and it has a bunch of different caps you can put on it to create all different shapes.

With that tool we were able to make the needle and thread you see sitting on top of these cupcakes:

Everything here is edible...except of course the box or the paper cupcake liners, but come on people, let's apply some common sense....

Stay tuned, because next you'll see: STRAWBERRY LIMEADE CHEESECAKE! (**yum is the word you're looking for**)

Heat Wave

So, it's pretty obvious that I'm not the best at posting on a regular basis. But I have a smartphone now with a weekly reminder, so hopefully I'll be able to step it up. I know how much you love reading my posts and drooling over the pictures (just go with it...). But as for right now, I'm nestled on the sofa and ready to give you my undivided attention!

Something I haven't brought up in my posts yet is that I have a passion for cheesecakes. My husband and I would even go as far as to call ourselves cheesecake snobs. And I make my own snobby cheesecake recipes that, if I do say so myself, are quite amazing. I'm always looking for new flavors and combinations to experiment with, and this week's post has one of my most unique discoveries so far.

My family came in town to visit recently. And when my family and I get together, it's usually expected that I will have or will soon have a cheesecake to share. I asked around for some new ideas, but nothing was really triggering my "creativity in baking" button. And then one day before they got in town I was craving some good down home cooking and it hit me - can a cheesecake be combined with bread pudding?

But not just any bread pudding, oh no. This needs to be much more intricate than that. Hmm...well my sister and brother-in-law love white chocolate, and my parents love bread pudding with bourbon sauce....why not combine them!? (So I did....)

This, dear friends, is my very proud White Chocolate Bourbon Bread Pudding Cheesecake (say that three times fast):

I apologize for the pictures being a bit blurry...I'm still getting used to using my phone for pictures :)

This cheesecake was SO good. It was smooth and a great consistency. I thought the crust was a bit too sweet, but no one else seemed to mind it. I drizzled extra white chocolate bourbon sauce over each slice as the family ate it - I only ended up getting one piece. I guess that just means I'll have to make it again sometime...

Drooling yet? There's still more to come!!!

HEAT WAVE!

As you may already know, the south has been in a heat wave. Heat index over 100 degrees and a heat advisory nearly every day....oh yeah, summer is definitely here.

These beach inspired birthday cupcakes help me get in the festive summer mood a little bit, while also giving me reprive from the sun...you know...becuase I'm in the kitchen....

We made 3 dozen cupcakes for this birthday party. Personally, I think they're adorable.

FROM THE KITCHEN: You know what the worst thing is about making cakes and cupcakes for other people? You don't get to eat any of them....

Busy as a bee...

Well, guys, I'm exhausted. The last week has been very busy with baking, so here's a quick synopsis of my projects:

1) 2 Dozen Butter Vanilla Cupcakes with Vanilla Icing (called this the "Fireworks" design)

2) 2 Dozen Coconut Cupcakes with Almond Icing

3) 2 Dozen Chocolate Cupcakes with Vanilla Buttercream Icing

4) Chocolate Pac-Man Cake (1/4 sheet cake) with Vanilla Buttercream Icing

5) Chocolate Star Wars Cake with Vanilla Buttercream Icing

And now I will go clean my house to prepare for my family visiting tomorrow...and then SLEEP :)

I Finally Did It!!

I know I've been promising for a while now, and I finally did it! I made German Chocolate Cake! I actually made 42 miniature German Chocolate Cakes, a bit smaller than cupcakes. I'll give you the full rundown in a second. But first, I have to celebrate a few successes from tonight. First, I successfully made my first from-scratch German Chocolate Cake! (Look out Mom, you *might* have a contender) Second, I successfully beat eggwhites until stiff peaks formed for the first time ever!! (Which is actually VERY surprising considering how humid it was in VA Beach today) So, here it is, my first German Chocolate Cake:

These were VERY labor intensive, so if you're looking for a quick dessert, don't do the mini cakes. But I'll tell you how I did it...

I use the Baker's German Chocolate recipe that's on the package when you buy the bar of chocolate (Baker's is the brand name, and it's sold in a green box). It's my favorite recipe for German Chocolate Cake, though the only one I've ever made myself (as made obvious by my statements above). I am taking these to work, so I didn't want a messy slice of cake, and I also thought that full-sized cupcakes might be a little hard to manipulate over a keyboard without leaving gooey coconut and pecan icing everywhere. So I decided mini cupcakes would be perfect...but I didn't like the pictures of them that I saw online. Miniature cupcakes have a slight taper outwards as they go up (like a normal cupcake), which makes it a little more difficult for layering, they don't get very thick, and (to me) they are not very asthetically pleasing. So I decided to use miniature cheesecake pans (I make a lot of cheesecakes so I had a few of these pans laying around). Miniature cheesecake pans have a dozen cups, like a cupcake pan, that are about 1 3/4 inches in diameter - but don't quote me on that.

After pouring the batter into the cheesecake pans, I baked them for 17 minutes each, one pan at a time. If you decide to delve into this little baking adventure, keep in mind that my oven bakes hot, so you may need to adjust your baking time accordingly.

When they were done baking I allowed them to cool - in the pan - for 5 minutes before removing the little cakes from their cups, and then allowed them to cool completely. Oh, this reminds me - don't use any baking cups or parchment paper when you bake them. Just make sure to spray the pan with a baking spray before pouring in the batter.

When they were cool enough to hold form, I sliced each one into 3 even slices (thus the labor intensive part, as there were 3 and a half pans of them to "torte"). I then put each one in its own cupcake liner (I used square liners, for the aesthetic value, but any will work) and put approximately 1/2 teaspoon of icing between each layer and on top. More or less icing can be used according to preference - with this amount I ended up with 8 mini cakes that didn't get icing.

From my husband: "Oh yeah, these are good. Definitely as good as your mom's..."