Monday, November 30, 2009

Pumpkin Two Ways

I didn't take a picture of our Thanksgiving dessert table, but here is a picture of the pumpkin pie (add 1/8 tsp nutmeg and 1/2 tsp vanilla and reduce cloves to 1/8 tsp) for which I made the crust from scratch. It's fairly simple and makes a world of difference in taste. It lost some of its flakiness as the days went on, but so does store-bought crust.

Not pictured: Red Velvet Cake, pumpkin roll and pumpkin cheesecake.


My grandmother took the leftover pie crust dough and leftover canned pumpkin and made these pumpkin empanadas. They were delicious cold and more delicious when reheated for 5 minutes in the toaster oven.

Thursday, November 19, 2009

What Are Little Boys Made Of?

I made cupcakes for a birthday party for a boy who turned one. The mom of the birthday boy thought it would be fun to decorate them with the theme of the party, which was, "what are little boys made of?" I guess the modern version of the classic poem is frogs and snails and puppy dog tails so that's how we decorated them.



This one shows off my new cupcake stand, which was a birthday present. It's shiny!

Frogs and dogs


Snails, which were my design. Believe it or don't!

Three for the show.

The cupcake baking cups (liners, papers, whatever) were primary colors, which were a great find. The cupcakes were pumpkin with cream cheese frosting. I accidentally made too much frosting, so I made a second batch of cupcakes the next day (cutting down the sugars to 2/3 cup each). Those got decorated with mellowcreme pumpkins.

Thursday, November 05, 2009

Negative Ghost Cake


Here's the cake I made for a birthday that fell a few days before Halloween and was celebrated on All Saints Day. The cake is yellow and the frosting should have been white chocolate buttercream frosting but was instead semi-sweet chocolate buttercream frosting because I have some chocolate chips that melted and reset while still in the bag and, while still usuable, can't be used for cookies and the like.
I think the eyes and mouth were put on a little low and were possibly too big for the cake, but you get the general idea.