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..."

Piece of advice

I was stupid last week. I picked up something heavy, it slipped, and I tried to catch it. Needless to say, that resulted in a back injury, and I haven't been able to get around to making my German Chocolate Cake yet. Best intentions to make it this weekend. I was just daydreaming about baking (literally) and played out some unpleasant baking scenarios, which led me to bring to you some [hopefully] very useful advice:

Stick to what you know, and experiment on your own time.

It is much easier to tell someone that you can't do something, rather than telling them "Absolutely!" and then later having to explain to them why you can't accomplish the request. If someone asks you, "Can you make a butterscotch and bacon cheesecake made with ricotta cheese," and you've never tried it, do this: make a note of the (in this case undesireable) combination, and gently reply, "Unfortunately that is not in my repertoire, but I have several other selections..." Then, when you've mastered this combination on your own time and your own dime (meaning not with a customer's money), feel free to call them back and let them know that their wonderful confectionary invention has been added to your menu. If the customer really wanted that cake, they will be honored (and hopefully excited) that you felt their idea worthy of a place on your menu, and be all-the-more-likely to recommend you to their friends.

I hope this advice helped, in some small way, and I *PROMISE* there will be a cake next time. Oh, and also, tell all of your friends about my blog :) Personally, I totally thinks it's worth the read.

Slight delay...

So I know it's been a while since I've made a post...so sorry! I know you hang on my every word, and I'm so sorry to have robbed you of that weekly pleasure. I guess we have some catching up to do!

Last week I made 2 cakes in 2 days...it was kind of intense. I made a second attempt at my cake from last post, and ran into some more issues. But this time I discovered the issue - my pan. Friends, take this piece of advice from me: DON'T BUY CHEAP CAKE PANS!! However with much determination I was able to make it work. I'll be honest, I kind of called it in on this cake.

When you have laundry to do, a house to clean, a co-dependent puppy to take care of and a cake for a customer to tend to, its kind of hard to dig in and find the motivation to go all-out for a cake for the office (gotta keep those co-workers happy, right?). So, let's all be honest, this first cake is not up-to-par with my potential, but I think we all deserve one of those once in a while...right?

This was a butter vanilla cake with blackberry icing. It needed more roses, but at midnight I was just ready to go to bed. The roses looked awesome, though (in my own humble opinion, of course).

But now, my pride and joy!

My friend Yo-yo was celebrating her 13 year anniversary, and her daughter Lani was also celebtrating her second birthday. So, Yo-yo and I collaborated to make a cake for her family that could tie both together. We decided on antique colors: mauve, ivory and gold. Yo-yo came up with the writing that would go on the cake, and requested a strawberry cake. So I created this:

I know, I know, the writing is off-center and kind of crooked. BUT this is my first attempt at writing on a cake, and I think it's pretty good for my first time. (Here's another piece of advice: wash your tips as soon as you finish using them! I WANTED to use a tip #2, but it was still dirty from the last time I used it, so I resolved to a #4, which resulted in fatter letters and a little bit sloppier looking writing.)

This indeed was a strawberry cake, with a butter vanilla filling. The base icing on the cake was strawberry, and the flowers were butter vanilla.

The cake had edible gold beads, and the border was ivory butter-vanilla "pearls." There were 13 roses on the cake, and I finished it all off with an edible glitter. When I put the cake in the box I almost cried I was so proud of my cake.

Yo-yo texted me a few days later and said she thought this was the best cake I've made so far. Without having a piece of the cake myself, I'd still have to agree with her. Happy Anniversary Yo-yo, and Happy Birthday Lani!

So, now my co-dependent 60-pound dog is trying to climb into my lab while I'm writing this. Be on the lookout for my next post...I'll be making my absolute favorite cake in the world for the first time: a German Chocolate Cake! Yum!

I had a bad experience...

As you may know, my birthday was on Monday. As most of you don't know, I had a horrible day. I won't get into all the details of my day, but there a a few things that are important about Monday. First, I took the entire day off...from both jobs. Second, I was going to make my most awesomely decorated cake so far. Third, I was sick all day and that ruined all my plans and intentions. (So I attempted the cake tonight instead of Monday.)

So on Monday I went to my favorite little cake supply store to buy things to make my awesome new cake. Since it was going to be my birthday cake (yes, shame on me for making my own birthday cake) I decided I wanted the same flavors I used on the last cake - white chocolate cake with blackberry buttercream icing. At the store it was suggested to me that instead of using melted white chocolate baking squares like last time, I could make life SO MUCH EASIER and use instant white chocolate pudding mix. "Hmm...that sounds simple enough." And so, eager to try new things, I went straight to the grocery store to purchase a box of instant white chocolate pudding mix.

Now, maybe I did something wrong tonight, maybe it was too humid today, or maybe I just looked at the batter wrong, but it did NOT turn out to be as wonderful as I was promised. This is how it went down...

First, I mixed my cake batter - so far so good, everything looks and tastes normal. Next I open the box of pudding mix and have a second fleeting thought that maybe I should be safe rather than sorry. But, as fleeting thoughts usually do, it fluttered away and in went the pudding mix. Instantly (funnily because it was INSTANT pudding mix) my cake batter got REALLY thick and kind of....gooey. I thought, "this doesn't look right..." but by this point my oven was preheated, my pan was greased, and my icing was mixed and roses were staring at me. Besides, the batter still tasted okay. So the batter went into the cake pan (against its will it seemed) and the loaded pan went into the oven.

20 minutes at 325 degrees later I check the cake...kind of looks like baked pudding. My oven bakes really hot so I always bake for less time than directed to keep from burning the goods. So I bake it for another 10 minutes. This goes on until the cake has been in the oven for almost an hour, which for this cake is almost twice as long as it should be, and guess what! No, really, you'll never guess. Come on, keep guessing. Okay, I'll tell you...

THE MIDDLE WAS STILL PUDDING!

At that point I took it out of the oven, turned the oven off, gave up and went to dinner. (You win some, you lose some.) The icing was still on the counter, roses staring at the ceiling dreaming of the day when they'd be upgraded to decorations on a cake, and a half pudding half cake monstrosity sitting on the stove cooling and deflating.

So this, dear friends, is what I made tonight:

(The part where cake is missing on the side is where me and my husband taste tested.....)

You can't tell very well from the picture, but its definitely still a puddle of pudding in the middle. It was supposed to be a cake shaped like this:

Covered with red roses:

And topped with a gold horseshoe sculpted from rice krispy treats:

To make a wonderful Winner's Circle Birthday Cake in honor of both my birthday and the Kentucky Derby coming up this Saturday. But, alas, all I was left with is a kitchen that looks like this:

I will try again sometime this weekend, though I *may* take the easy way out and make a boxed chocolate cake mix that I have sitting in my pantry...I'll let you know how it goes!!

My first post!

I'm finally doing it! For anyone who knows me, you know I've been talking about starting a blog for a while now. Well...I'm finally doing it! In this blog I'm going to talk about my adventures in baking...and, yes, I'm open for business. :) So, Hampton Roads, hold on to your seats and enjoy the ride!

First, a little bit about me. I have a good bit of free time on my hands, though I cram pack it with as much activity as I can. I am married and I have a dog who is about to turn one year...so a puppy, really. I have two jobs - one as a technical writer and one as a professional dog trainer. In my free time I like to bake, go jogging, knit, sew, crochet, throw baby showers and bithday parties for friends and, of course, go out to eat. One friend recently asked me if I ever sit still...and the answer is yes. I sit still when I'm knitting, and when I'm writing this blog.

So now on to the interesting stuff, right? Right! BAKING!!!

The first thing I ever remember baking was in the fourth grade I made a dump cake...and then I was hooked. (Mom, why did you let me start this obsession!?!?!?) After that it was pound cake, dump cake, flan cake (a mix of flan and cake that is actually surprisingly yummy), cookies, and a whole world of confectionary delights opened up. I was proposed to on many occasions by friends and classmates in hopes of a bright future of cakes and sugar...no dice.

So then in college I decided to make my first cheesecake. Jackpot! That is my forte and my passion. But, that is not what this post is about. I'm sure I could continue to DAZZLE you with the history of my baking, but I won't bore you with all the gritty details. For another time....

Many successes and many failures later, here I am, sitting on my couch drinking cucumber lemonade (sounds gross but is wonderful) and writing my first blog entry. Tonight, I want to introduce you to my newest melt-in-your-mouth, out-of-this-world, forget-your-own-name cake. This, my friends, is a white chocolate cake with blackberry icing. YUM! After several hours in the kitchen mixing cake, then icing, then cake, then icing again, all in the midst of cooking my first ever tuna steak, I emerge bright and cheerful (though a bit covered in flour) with a beautiful cake imaged with a fluffy brown bear holding roses. On a light purple background, the bear is holding peach roses with pink tips. The roses are my personal favorite part of the cake. And it is bordered with peach dots, or circles, whichever sounds better to you.

As I was making the bear my husband and I both agreed that he looks like he's made out of wheat spaghetti noodles, lol. Maybe not the most conventional way to put a bear on a cake, but I am VERY pleased with the results.

Please offer me suggestions!! I love trying new things, and would love to experiment with new flavors, colors, designs and patterns.