And in the fall, we eat pie

I love fall.  Crisp apples, crunchy leaves, bright pumpkins... it's wonderful. Plus, it means I can use baking to warm both my soul and my apartment!  And eat PIE!  


This is my first Mom's Apple Pie of the season with a little additional cloves and ginger.  A couple of my friends and I went apple picking a couple of weekends ago specifically with this in mind.

We got pie pumpkins in our CSA last week, and I was thrilled! This is Paula Dean's Pumpkin Pie.  Can you believe It only has 1/4 cup of butter in it?!  But don't worry, it is a Paula Dean recipe, and therefore also involves a whole cup of half and half...but I used light cream...mwahaha.  I wish this had smell-o-vision.

Update: I just ate a piece of this and it is the best pumpkin pie I think I have ever eaten.  Thank you, Paula Dean.

More Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough

...except this time, it's an ice cream cake!  We celebrated Joe's 25th birthday with a big ol' Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Ice Cream Cake!  The bottom layer was a french chocolate cake, then a layer of cookie dough, then a layer of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream topped with whipped cream frosting and sprinkles!

Sunflowers and Monarchs

Summer wasn't over yet! I made these little treats for an office party.  My second attempt at using chocolate to decorate was pretty successful!  The butterflies are made of melted dark chocolate and orange candy melts with some non-pareil decorations.  They were actually easier than the sunflowers!

The cupcakes were a simple chocolate with buttercream frosting.  I tried to make it look like a field of sunflowers and visiting monarchs!

Cookie Dough Lovers, unite!

I thought I was being quite creative coming up with the idea for Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough cupcakes; turns out tons of people have done it before, but no one I knew had ever tried one.  Thus, these were born.

Devil's food chocolate cake, brown sugar buttercream mousse, and a delightful ball of cookie dough on the inside.  Yah, they were pretty good.

Update: I recently re-made these at my brother's request.  Here's a little sample of what the preparation process looks like.  Just cover those little nuggets with more batter, and you're on your way!

Redneck Party Cake!

My first commissioned cake!  Joe told me it looks like a poker chip, which I'll give that to him, but if you squint your eyes a little or move away from your computer screen, you'll see the intended effect of a buffalo plaid cake.  Think Vermont woods, you get the idea!

Baskets and flowers, oh my!

This is my final cake from cake decorating class number two!  The flowers are all made using royal icing.  Warning: royal icing flowers don't taste that great, especially the purple ones, but they can look pretty!

I felt so inspired by the flowers on the cake above, I tried them again (with buttercream frosting) on an Easter cake!  It sure is a lot simpler to make them out of royal icing and place them where you want to, but this was a good last minute alternative.  Now, if only I can figure out how to make the frosting have that messy but sophisticated effect...

This is a Pink Lady Cake I made for a couple of office birthdays.  I'm still working on the free hand drawing thing... the sugar sprinkes made for a cool effect the next day though.  After they had melted a little, it looked like the center was airbrushed instead of individual sprinkles!

The way to a man's heart...

...is totally through his stomach.  So I said Happy Valentine's Day with Chocolate and Ancho Chili Mini-Cupcakes!

Cupcakes and beer!

My first attempt at creating with chocolate.  It turned out pretty well and stood up like this for a while until my wicked hot apartment had something to say about it.

Family March Birthdays

So I cheaped out and made a single cake for Mom, Nicholas', and my March birthdays (Brie got her own little cupcake because she couldn't have the alcohol in this one).  Black Forest Cakes are kind of a thing in our house, and while Dad knows I should have used more alcohol in the cake, it turned out all right for my first one!

 

White Coat Ceremony!

This was one of the many cakes Gwen received for her UVM Med School White Coat Ceremony!  I learned an important little something with this cake--do not try to write on a cake if you are over-caffeinated and under-fed first thing in the morning.  Hello, shaky hands!

Welcome!

Hi there! My name's Anna, and it's great to meet you.  I'm a pretty big fan of baking--cakes, cupcakes, cookies, pies, the list goes on--and this here is a sampling of what I like to do.  I've got a lot to learn, but the best part about baking is that you get to eat whatever you make, whether it's fantastic or a flop!   

I've recently started to try my hand at decorating, too, as you'll see is the focus here. The following is basically a whole run-down of everything I've done this year.  And in the future, well, I'll try to make this blog thing work!

These are some of my favorite holiday treats: Brownie Bon Bon Cordials

The gooey dark chocolate ganache in the middle almost qualifies as the cherry on top!

This was the first cake I made during my cake decorating classes at Michael's!

...and the second one... for Tess' Very Merry Un-birthday!

...and the third one!

I even learned how to make roses!