Minion Cake and Cupcakes

Red velvet cake and chocolate cupcakes decorated as Stuart the Minion. These were birthday desserts for a 7 year-old's party.

Inspiration taken from this one on the Betty Crocker website. The main change was baking a cupcake for the eye in a silver foil wrapper.

The cupcakes are decorated with frosting, with a necco wafer for an eye to make it a little more 3D.

Flag Cake 2015

Happy 239th Birthday America! I made you a cake.

Flourless Chocolate Cake

I wonder if someone in the Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia company has Celiac Disease or another gluten intolerance because the few gluten-free recipes I've tried from the website have been pretty good. They actually taste like baked goods and not some no-flour concoction. This recipe was baked in a springform pan, which was exciting since I don't use that tool often enough. 

Raspberry White Chocolate Scones

As I've posted before, I'm usually a fan of free-form scones, but these were made with the same recipe as the last post. I used fresh raspberries and white chocolate chips for a nice sweet-tart combination. 

Bunny Cake 2014

I know these posts are very belated, but I thought last Easter's bunny cake was especially cute so I'm posting it. Ditto for the future July 4th flag cake post.

Gluten-Free Fudgy Pecan Brownies

I was looking for a gluten-free dessert for a party and found this recipe on Martha Stewart's website. Although I love Martha Stewart and her omnimedia empire, I've had a bad brownie recipe from her cookbook before so I was a little hesitant to try these.

I'm happy to report that these did not disappoint. The name says it all! These were fudgy but moist and still tasted and felt like traditional brownies. Some brownie recipes that call for nuts don't work without them, but this recipe holds up even without the pecans - I made half with and half without nuts.

Oatmeal Butterscotch Cookies

These cookies were suggested by a patron at a bake sale although she called them by their common name, Oatmeal Scotchies. I used the recipe on the bag of chips (using butter and vanilla not margarine and orange peel.) I made bar cookies because I was too lazy to work with sticky oatmeal cookie dough. I've since made them as drop cookies, which I liked much better. More crunch per cookie.

They were very vanilla-y and surprisingly not as sweet as I expected them to be - about the same as oatmeal cookies with raisins in them.

Sugar-filled Thanks

Apple pie with crumb topping, which was one of my contribution to Thanksgiving 2014.

The other was the Pecan Cake with Rum Frosting pictured on the top right below.

It was kind of a monochromatic palette. It was fall.

Potluck Cupcakes (Tailgate Theme)

I started a new job last October and about a week after I started, we had a potluck lunch. Wanting to impress my new coworkers, I went with an old favorite: Perfectly Chocolate Cupcakes with Perfectly Chocolate Frosting. (ProTip: despite what the recipe says, my cupcakes are almost always done after 17 minutes.) I dusted the cupcakes with orange sugar so that they would be the colors of the Cleveland Browns.

I'm happy that my much vaunted baking skills were confirmed and appreciated. We have potlucks every few months so I'm adding a new label to the blog!

Apple Oat Crisp

I made this classic fall dessert with this recipe's filling and this recipe's topping and followed the baking directions of the second. The best advice on adding sugar to the fruit part of the dish is to do so "according to taste" (you can use either white or brown sugar) and also to taste test the fruit that is the base of the dish. I've also added pecans or walnuts to the topping (about 1/4 cup.)

I have served this crisp with vanilla ice cream or fresh whipped cream (slightly sweetened with powdered sugar.) Either way is delicious.

Darth Vader Cake

I got a chance to implement my newly minted skills with this challenging cake! The cake pan came with directions of what decorating tip to use with each section in order to achieve the various textures and look. My cake was more challenging because I used chocolate frosting (which I darkened with some black dye) which is harder to control than buttercream. If I did it again, I might use chocolate buttercream or regular buttercream dyed black.

I was very proud of how it turned out. I forgot to take a picture before I delivered the cake so I had the party organizer take a picture for me. It's a little fuzzy, but it still looks awesome!

The Wilton Method Course Two: Flowers and Cake Design

I took the second Wilton Course to build on what I learned in the first one. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures from the first three classes because they didn't end with anything worth shooting. Mostly, we practiced making flowers from royal icing and tracing patterns with buttercream icing.

For the final project (class four) we had to decorate a cake with the techniques of our choosing. I made some royal icing flowers the night before but didn't really have a plan for the entire cake. Here's what I ended up doing:

I really like the basket weave white-on-white look, but I'm not sure the cake works as a whole.

I'm glad I took both classes. I would recommend the in-person classes to anyone who likes to bake but isn't innately good at frosting and decorating. It helped to have an instructor guide me through each flower and border. Plus, each class ends with a snack!

Plants vs Zombies

These cupcakes and cake were for my littlest nephew's Plants vs. Zombies themed birthday party. I frosted and my sister decorated with the rolled buttercream fondant made (and dyed!) by yours truly.

Sunflower, Peashooter & Corn Gunner vs. Zombies & Conehead Zombies

My nephew made the paper decorations that topped the game board cake. He is a very talented artist!

Dem Bones

This cake was a commission for a teenager's birthday. I don't think it was part of a larger pirate-themed party, but you could certainly adapt it for that use.

I found a template online and used the transfer technique I learned in my Building Buttercream Skills class to decorate it. I thought it turned out really nice and I heard that the birthday boy loved it!

Flag Cake (Blueberries and Cherries)

The Fourth of July Flag Cake was a little different this year since I used buttercream frosting and cherries instead of whipped cream (or Cool Whip) and strawberries. There was no substitute for the blueberries. I also gave it the right number of red and white stripes, which came out crooked even though I made hash marks. Maybe we'll try it again next year.

Building Buttercream Skills, Class Four (Final Project)

I chose to make ribbon roses for my final project cake. We learned leaves in an earlier class (which are harder than you think!) so I put a few near the roses to give the cake a more "bakery" look. I also practiced my lettering skills and wrote an early birthday greeting on the cake.

Overall, it was a fun class and it made me more confident in using a decorating bag and frosting tips. I will definitely be experimenting with the techniques I learned in this course!

Building Buttercream Skills, Class Three

We could being in any treat for the third class so I made oversized oatmeal cookies. I figured if Little Debbie could add frosting to her cookies (technically creme filling) so could I!

Building Buttercream Skills, Class Two

In the second class, we learned how to torte, fill and frost a cake. I chose strawberry jam to go inside my yellow cake. The cake was a sugar bomb since the Wilton recipe for buttercream icing is so sweet!

Chocolate Roses

I took the skills I learned in class and applied them in the real world. Here are Perfectly Chocolate Cupcakes with Perfectly Chocolate Frosting all dressed up and ready to impress.

Building Buttercream Skills, Class One

I took the first course of the Wilton Method of Cake Decorating, which is called Building Buttercream Skills at my local Michaels store. The course consisted of four two-hour classes over four weeks. At the first class, we brought plain cupcakes, which we decorated with the skills we learned that day. I chose roses, swirls and stars, which were pretty basic, but also just pretty.

  

The cupcakes came from my freezer since I only had to bring in a few. The smaller cupcakes are champagne and the larger ones are chocolate. Unfortunately, these were frosted with the Wilton canned frosting, which tasted really awful.