Then and now

This week, my friends Jimmy and Amanda have birthdays. They are also getting married on Sunday - busy week for them! I realized when I was baking Jimmy's favorite carrot cake (recipe here) that it was last year on his birthday that I decided to take cake decorating lessons because while my cakes tasted good, they looked like a Kindergarten project!

I have to credit the classes at Michaels because a year makes a big difference!

I also realized that I have been blogging for over a year now so a lot of recipes are repeats. People need to start branching out with their birthday requests so I can try new recipes!

Oh, and guess what my friends did for me last week? All 25 or so people from my two community groups got together and sent me flowers at work! They said, "You make us feel special on our birthday's all year long, we wanted to make you feel special today, we love you!" Isn't that soooo sweet? I get to do what I love doing all year long and get flowers out of the blue for it! It totally made my day. I love my friends!

Cancer Cupcakes

That title got your attention, didn't it? Well, tomorrow at work we are having a bake sale to fundraise for Breast Cancer. One of the girls I work with is a Breast Cancer survivor at 36, she has a pretty crazy and amazing story and she is quite an inspiration. My reputation as a baker has leaked out at work so I was asked to contribute. I decided to make cupcakes, three kinds of cupcakes: chocolate with cream filling, vanilla bean with chocolate/hazelnut filling, and red velvet. I have been baking all day long and just finished. I ended up making 6 dozen cancer cupcakes, now hopefully they will sell. 

The first recipe I made was red velvet. I won't re-post the recipe since I have made them before and posted it here but I will show you a picture because I used adorable little heart sprinkles and I think they turned out super cute! 

I also made the chocolate cream cupcakes that I tried last week. This time I nailed it. The frosting turned out right and I squeezed more cream filling in the middle of the cake so it is nice and full. Again, I won't repost the recipe since it is already here but I will show you some pictures of what they were supposed to look like. 

To fill the cupcakes I go into the top since it will be covered up with frosting anyway so it doesn't matter if it looks messy:

Once they are filled I dip them in the chocolate frosting and they look beautiful!

I was going to write "hope" across the top but writing a word in frosting and having the look good rather than like a 3 year old wrote it is harder than it looks so I just went with the standard "Hostess Loop".

I cut one open to make sure I got enough cream and indeed, I did. Look at this - yummy! Now that is what I was going for. 

The last recipe I made was the vanilla bean cupcakes. I have an ongoing quest to make vanilla awesome and I was pleased with how these cupcakes turned out. I don't think you can see it well in the pictures but the frosting has tons of flecks of vanilla bean in it. They look so good. I haven't made these before so I will post the recipe here. 

Vanilla Bean Cupcakes with Chocolate Hazelnut Filling

Cake:

2 cups vanilla sugar

2 sticks butter, at room temperature

2 eggs

1 Tbs. vanilla bean paste

2 1/2 cups cake flour

1 tsp. salt

1 cup buttermilk (or 1 cup milk w/ 1 Tbs. vinegar)

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. vinegar

Preheat oven to 350°F.
In a mixing bowl, cream the sugar and butter, beat until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time and mix well after each addition. Sift together flour and salt. Add flour mixture to the creamed mixture alternately with buttermilk. Blend in vanilla. In a small bowl, combine baking soda and vinegar and add to mixture. Pour batter into two 8" round greased and floured pans. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Remove from heat and cool completely before filling.

Filling:

1/2 cup butter, softened

3/4 cups Nutella

1 pound powdered sugar

1 tsp. pure vanilla extract

1/3 cup heavy cream 

In your large mixer bowl, beat together the butter and Nutella until well combined.  Slowly add in the sugar and mix until combined.

Add in the vanilla & half of the cream, beating until well mixed.  Add more cream, a bit at a time, until you reach your desired consistency.  Continue to beat until light and fluffy. Fill cupcakes.

Frosting:

2 sticks butter at room temperature

5 cups powdered sugar

4 Tbs. milk 

1 Tbs. vanilla extract

1 vanilla bean

Mix the butter until creamy and smoothed out. Add 1 cup of the powdered sugar and mix until creamy. Add the remaining sugar and mix until creamy. Add vanilla extract. Add milk.  Add the scrapings from 1 vanilla bean and mix until evenly distributed.

And here is the finished collection of cupcakes for tomorrow's bakes sale. I feel very accomplished. 

Tax Time!

I used to HATE taxes. A lot. They were never easy and I never got anything back. For years I worked for a non-profit organization, so that was a bit complicated. Then I was a self-employed nanny - self employment tax is outrageous! And then my student loans made things a bit complicated. I always seemed to mess it up somehow. And did I mention that I never got anything back? The year that I finally worked at a normal job and taxes were going to be simple and I was actually going to get a refund, I discovered that I accidentally claimed too many dependents and I owed the government several hundred dollars. Foiled again!

This year, I finally got it right. I set it all up properly and everything was in line for taxes to be uncomplicated and actually pay off. Tax time was fun this year! I finally got a refund - YAY! I decided to treat myself to a new bedroom set. Over the last few years I have been slowly furnishing my apartment and getting rid of all the hand-me-down stuff that I had. My bedroom was the last thing to be done, mainly because nobody sees it but me. My inner designer was cringing at the "college-dorm" look that my room had and my 30+ body was starting to rebel at the cheap twin sized mattress that I got off of Craigslist six years ago.

So here it is, my lovely new bedroom. I am now enjoying a few perks of the single life. 1) Being able to pick out anything I wanted for my room without worrying about it being too girly or whatever. 2) Having an amazingly comfortable queen sized bed all to myself. If I ever get married I will have to retrain myself to share I suppose, but I will worry about that then. Right now, I plan to sprawl. And the last few nights in my new bed have been amazing! I love pampering myself. :)

Double Chocolate Cupcakes

I made chocolate cupcakes yesterday for my friend, Danielle's, birthday (yes, my friends have birthdays every week!) Since it was the day after Valentine's Day I was still in the mood to make something Valentine-y. I have been wanting to try these cupcakes that I saw on Pinterest. 156 people pinned them after me so apparently a lot of people want to try them!

So cute, right? They are a homemade version of cream filled Hostess cupcakes. I had some glitches with mine so I will have to try again but everyone loved them anyway so I'll call it a win.

I started with a basic chocolate cake recipe (this one made 20 cupcakes)

Chocolate Cake:

1 cup boiling water

2 cups sugar

1 3/4 cups flour

3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

2 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. salt

2 eggs

1 cup buttermilk (or use 1 cup milk mixed with 1 Tbs. vinegar)

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1 tsp. vanilla

Heat the oven to 350°F. Prepare cupcake pan with liners. Bring some water to boil and keep it simmering while you make the batter. In a large mixing bowl, combine the sugar, flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Add the eggs, buttermilk, oil and vanilla and beat with an electric mixer for 30 seconds. Add the 1 cup boiling water and carefully stir until the water is mixed in; beat for 1 1/2 minutes. Pour 1/3 cup of batter into the each cupcake tin (batter will be thin). Bake at 350°F for 30 minutes or just until the top springs back when lightly touched.

Then you fill the cupcakes with cream filling. YUM!

Cream Filling:

2 tsp. very hot water, not boiling

1/4 tsp salt

1 jar marshmallow creme

1/2 cup shortening

1/3 cup powdered sugar

1/2 tsp. vanilla

Dissolve salt into hot water and set aside to cool. Whip marshmallow creme, shortening, sugar and vanilla until fluffy. Add water once cool and whip well.

Fill a pastry bag with cream filling. Once your cupcakes have cooled completely, Take your pastry bag full of cooled filling and insert the tip of the pastry bag into the center of the cupcake's top.

It's alright if a little filling is still on the top, that'll get covered with the ganache. But go back in there and clean up what you can so they don't mix and you have a clean finish.

Make sure that you squeeze a generous amount into the cupcake. I cut one of mine in half and this is what I saw... pathetic! Next time I will make sure to squeeze harder!

Then you top the filled cupcakes with a chocolate ganache.

Ganache:

4 oz. semi-sweet chocolate

1/2 cup heavy whipping cream

Place the chocolate into a medium bowl. Heat the cream in a small sauce pan over medium heat. Bring just to a boil, watching very carefully because if it boils for a few seconds, it will boil out of the pot. When the cream has come to a boil, pour over the chopped chocolate, and whisk until smooth.
Allow the glaze to cool slightly, spoon a little bit of the cooled ganache on each cupcake, and spread lightly. 

Place cupcakes in the fridge and cool for at least 15 minutes

Ganache is kind of finicky and sometimes it doesn't come out all silky and smooth. Mine ended up being totally lumpy and ugly which completely ruined the look of the cupcakes. 

I scrapped my original idea and had to improvise. How to deal with ugly looking chocolate? Cover it with more chocolate! I covered the cupcakes with mini-chocolate chips and called them "double chocolate" cupcakes and no one was the wiser - until now, of course. 

Um, yeah... I meant to do that. 

Valentine's Dessert

Valentine's Day. Dessert. What comes to mind? Red velvet cake of course! I think that has to be the Valentiny-ist dessert there is. It just so happened to be my friend, Lorelei's birthday and she requested it. I won't repost the recipe since I already made red velvet cake and posted the recipe here but I will post a picture of the finished product. I saw this technique on Pinterest and it looked easy enough yet impressive so I figured I would try it. I have to say, this was the easiest way to decorate a cake and it got a lot of compliments. I have decided that cake decorating is 10% skill and 90% tools. If you have the right gadgets it is a breeze! For this look I used the Wilton 1M tip and made "roses" all over the cake by basically making swirls. Simple, simple! Happy Valentine's Day, everyone!

Epic. Fail.

Superbowl party today... yes, I am home early, I really don't care who wins and I have to get up at 3:45 tomorrow morning so I figured I would come home and settle in. Everyone was supposed to bring something to eat and I signed up for dessert (of course). I made chocolate chip cookies last night and even used some vanilla sugar to give them a little extra something. I made a rookie mistake through, didn't add enough flour. I had an inkling but I convinced myself that it was ok. I was wrong. When I baked the cookies they looked a little something like this:

It was sad. I didn't have time to make something else so I bought a package of bakery cookies from Vons. When I walked into the party with them people looked at me like "seriously?" All day people kept asking me what I brought and I had to hang my head in shame and point to the store-bought monstrosity. Then I had to confirm when people asked, "No, really... what did you bring?" It was humiliating, what was I thinking? Stay tuned for next week's dessert when I TOTALLY REDEEM MYSELF!

Birthday Madness!

Dessert, dessert and more dessert. February is the month of birthdays! I have five over the next few weeks! I will be a busy baker! Last night was Trisha's birthday and I must say, she has good taste. She requested flourless chocolate cake. As you can imagine, without flour, the cake is very dense. It is almost like a slab of fudge! I serve it with raspberry sauce and whipped cream to provide some light flavors to offset the rich, dark chocolate. It is so delicious! You will see in my picture that I used a stencil to dust powdered sugar on the top. I got a package of cake stencils from Michaels and they were only like $5. Everybody "oohs" and "ahhs" though. That is one baking tip I offer... it is all about the presentation!

Flourless Chocolate Cake

Cake:

1/2 cup water

1/4 tsp. salt

3/4 cup sugar

9 oz. bittersweet chocolate (60% cacao)

9 oz. semi-sweet chocolate

1 cup unsalted butter

6 eggs

1 tsp. vanilla

Raspberry Sauce:

2 cups raspberries

1/4 cup sugar

Whipped Cream:

2 cups whipping cream

1/4 cup powdered sugar

1 tsp. vanilla

Cake:

Preheat oven to 300°F. Grease one 10" spring form cake pan. Line the bottom with wax paper. Cover the outside of the pan with tinfoil to keep water out.
In a small saucepan over medium heat combine the water, salt and sugar. Stir until completely dissolved and set aside.
Either in the top half of a double boiler or in a microwave oven melt the chocolate. Pour the chocolate into the bowl of an electric mixer.
Cut the butter into pieces and beat the butter into the chocolate, 1 piece at a time. Beat in the hot sugar-water and vanilla. Slowly beat in the eggs, one at a time.
Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Have a pan larger than the cake pan ready, put the cake pan in the larger pan and fill the pan with boiling water halfway up the sides of the cake pan.
Bake cake in the water bath for 1 hour. The center will still look wet. Chill cake overnight in the pan. Invert onto a serving plate. Dust with powdered sugar if desired.

Raspberry Sauce:

Put raspberries and sugar in a saucepan. Heat until sugar is dissolved. Blend in a blender. Push berries through a sieve to eliminate seeds.

Whipped Cream:

In a large bowl, whip cream, powdered sugar, and vanilla until stiff peaks form.

Zombies can make cake!

I used to work at 5:00 a.m. every day. It was pretty miserable. I went to bed at 8:30 most nights and pretty much felt like a walking zombie all the time. Then I got promoted to a new position and with it came new hours. Better hours. Normal hours (most of the time). It appears that I am now going to have to work the 5:00 a.m. shift every other Monday. I really shouldn't complain, it is not that bad. However, this is my blog and I will cry if I want to!

Getting up at 4:00 a.m. every day is not fun, but I have discovered that getting up at 4:00 a.m. once a week is actually worse because my body clock is not used to it. I now go to bed around 11:00 or 12:00 so trying to force my eyes to shut at 8:30 isn't easy. Last night I went to bed at about 10:00 and tossed and turned the entire night! Literally, not a wink of sleep all night long. At a certain point it becomes mental, I know I have to get up soon so I will think "Ok, if I fall asleep now, I will get 5 hours of sleep." ummm.... "If I fall asleep now, I will get 3 1/2 hours of sleep." ugh... "If I fall asleep now, I will get a 1 hour nap." and then BEEP BEEP BEEP it is time to get up.

As painful as this was, it actually worked in my favor, rather than being my normal, sluggish, zombie self at 5:00 a.m. I was wide awake and ready to go. I had such a productive work day! Then I came home and made a German Chocolate Cake for my friend, Ellie. My eyes are kind of burning but other than that I am going strong.

All of that whining really means nothing. The point of this blog - the reason you are reading is... cake! I made a German Chocolate Cake and it is perfectly delicious. *secret* It is actually the same chocolate cake/ frosting recipe that I have posted before, I just added the coconut mixture and voila! a completely new dessert! Here is the recipe:

German Chocolate Cake

Cake:

9 Tbs. unsweetened cocoa powder

3 Tbs. vegetable oil

2 1/2 cups brown sugar

3 eggs

2 tsp. vanilla

1/2 cup butter

1/2 cup buttermilk (or 1/2 cup milk w/ 1 Tbs. vinegar)

2 1/4 cups flour

1/2 tsp. salt

2 tsp. baking powder

1 cup boiling water

Filling:

1/2 cup white sugar

1/2 cup evaporated milk

1/4 cup butter

2 egg yolks, beaten

2/3 cups flaked coconut

1/2 cup chopped pecans

1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

Frosting: 

1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

6 Tbs. vegetable oil

3/4 stick of butter

4 1/2 cups powdered sugar

1/4 cup warm water

2 1/4 tsp. vanilla

Mix cocoa and vegetable oil. Cream brown sugar, eggs, vanilla, and butter. Add cocoa and mix well.

Mix flour, salt, and baking powder. Alternately add buttermilk and flour mixture to batter. Mix well. Add 1 cup of boiling water. Pour into two greased and floured 8" round pans. Bake at 350°F for 30-35 minutes.
Cool each cake and fill with coconut filling.

To make the Filling: 

In a saucepan combine sugar, evaporated milk, cup butter, and egg yolks. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly until thickened. Remove from heat. Stir in coconut, pecans and vanilla. Cool until thick enough to spread.

To make the Frosting:
Mix together all ingredients and frost the sides of the cake. Pipe a border around the top to hold the coconut filling. Carefully pour the filling on the top of the cake. 

Strawberry Pear Cobbler

It is a chilly, drizzly day here in SoCal. I LOVE it! I love rain so much, I think I would really enjoy living in Seattle. Being in San Diego, the weather is perfect 364 days a year so maybe that is why I love the rain so much, it is a break from the monotony of paradise (it's a rough life, I know). Today has been a very lazy weekend day. I started off going out to brunch with an old roommate at a local dive in the village. Then I came home and put on my "fireplace". Netflix has a streaming movie that is just a fireplace that burns and crackles for a couple of hours. That thing is amazing! I have a 42" TV so the fire looks big and lifelike. I know it is my head but I can actually feel the heat radiating from the TV. It is pretty awesome. In addition to the crackling fire, smells of chocolate cake are filling my house. I am making a german chocolate cake for my friend, Ellie's birthday (blog to come). I am pretty easy to please but I have to say- rain, a fireplace, whiffs of chocolate cake, hot tea, blanket and a good book is all I need for the perfect Saturday!

Today is my friend, Dave's birthday (Ellie's husband, incidentally) and I made his birthday dessert last week. He told me to get creative. He wanted a fruit cobbler but wanted me to branch out from my normal blackberry/peach or apple/cranberry (both of which are delicious, by the way) He asked for a pear/rhubarb cobbler. How interesting! I love it!!! I went online and started looking and lo and behold... there are recipes for pear/rhubarb cobblers. Unfortunately, I then realized that rhubarb is not available in January. I am totally bummed out, I have never baked with rhubarb and really think I ought to try. Oh well, I will get to it this summer.  I figured that pear/strawberry cobbler might be a good alternative so that is what I went with. It ended up being very tasty. Thanks, Dave for pushing me out of my box. I love discovering new flavor combinations.

Strawberry Rhubarb Cobbler

Filling:

3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar

3 Tbs. all-purpose flour

1/8 tsp. salt

1/8 tsp. ground nutmeg

Dash of cloves

2 Tbs. lemon juice

6 medium pears, peeled, cored, and thinly sliced

1 quart diced strawberries

Topping:

1 1/2 cup all purpose flour

3 Tbs. sugar

1 1/2 tsp. baking powder

3/4 tsp. baking soda

3/4 cup buttermilk

4 1/2 Tbs. butter, melted

Combine all of the filling ingredients. Cook over medium heat for about 5 minutes, or until hot and bubbly, stirring gently. Remove from heat and set aside.

Make topping. Place flour, sugar, baking powder, and baking soda in mixing bowl. Beat on low speed of electric mixer for about 30 seconds. Add buttermilk and melted margarine. Continue to mix on low speed about 30 seconds, or just until blended.

Pour hot filling into 9”x9” pan. Top evenly with large spoonfuls of topping. Sprinkle with additional sugar, if desired. Bake at 375° for 30 to 35 minutes, or until pears are tender and bubbly and topping is golden brown. Serve warm with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream, if desired.

Oooey goooey chocolate sheet cake

The holidays are over and after a couple of weeks of laying low, I am back in the kitchen! Last night my Community Group had mexican food for dinner and I made dessert. I am so used to taking requests for birthdays that it was kind of fun to just make whatever struck my fancy. I decided to make my Nana's chocolate sheet cake. I loved it as a kid but I have never made it myself so I wanted to give it a whirl. It is actually designed to go in an 11x16 sheet pan and be kind of "brownie-sized". Since I don't have a pan that size I made it in a 9x13 and it was more "cake-sized". Tastes delicious either way, just requires a bit more baking time for the thicker cake.

Usually everyone divvies up the leftovers so I don't have to bring any home but last night I think everyone was so full that I ended up bringing about 1/4 of the pan home. I am not going to lie, I had a piece of chocolate cake for breakfast. I feel delightfully guilty. (this is why you have to take the leftovers, people!)

Chocolate Sheet Cake

Cake:

2 cups sugar

2 cups flour

1 stick of butter

1/2 cup shortening

4 Tbs. unsweetened cocoa

1 cup water

1/2 cup buttermilk

2 eggs

1 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. cinnamon

1 tsp. vanilla

Frosting:

1 stick of butter

4 Tbs. unsweetened cocoa

6 Tbs. milk

1 lb. powder sugar

1 tsp. vanilla

1 cup chopped pecans (if you are feeling nutty)

Directions:

Measure sugar and flour in large bowl. In saucepan place butter, shortening, cocoa and water; bring to a boil. Pour over flour and sugar and stir well. Add buttermilk, eggs, soda, cinnamon and vanilla; mix well and pour into greased 11“x16” pan.
Bake for 20 minutes at 400°F.
While cake is baking make frosting. Bring all ingredients except for powdered sugar and nuts to very hot but just shy of a boil. Add sugar and nuts and stir until smooth.
Take cake from oven and stab many holes in the cake with a knife. Pour hot icing over cake.