4 Dozen Cupcakes and a 60th Birthday Cake!

Whewie, was this week a busy one!  Just moved into a new apartment, went camping with a team from the middle school, and had a BBQ with my own team.  Oh yes, and I also had to make over four dozen cupcakes and a gluten-free 60th birthday cake.

So, this is what my Wednesday started out as (following 1 trip to the store to find gluten-free flour and 1 more, different trip to the store to find strawberries and good butter for buttercream).

You've already seen the chocolate chip cookie dough-filled cupcakes before, but after my students heard about them, I think I would've been run out of town if I didn't show up with them.  "You must bring the cupcakes, Ms. Kovaliv."  "Did you remember to make the cupcakes Ms. Kovaliv?"  "I have to talk to you about cupcakes.  [Enter brief anticipatory pause.]  You're bringing them, right?"  Well, I had no choice.  So, I made 53 cupcakes.  This, after another trip to the store, because I needed 7 cups of powdered sugar, and lo and behold, I only had about 2.  Oh, and vanilla.  I'd run out of vanilla.  (3 store trips, thus far.)

Then, when that was all done, I tried my hand at my first ever gluten-free cake.  My dad keeps telling me that I shouldn't "experiment" when I'm baking on a deadline.  But, I haven't learned my lesson, and I had a minor panic attack when my strawberry gluten-free cakes turned out of the pan like this:

Yes.  That's approximately 3/4" high.  Some cake to celebrate a fabulous 60th birthday, eh?  So, store trip number 4 to buy more gluten-free flour mix.  I usually am a little Martha Stewart in my use of store-bought mixes (i.e. I am admittedly unnecessarily snobbish about my desire to make things from scratch), but when it comes to gluten-free, I trust those mixes more than myself.

Hooray!  A much more acceptable cake structure.  Time to frost and decorate!  But no!  I've run out of eggs!  Store trip #5, ladies and gentlemen.

But here it is!  An entirely gluten-free strawberry and vanilla cake with lemon buttercream frosting and a dark chocolate butterfly to top it all off.

Dungeons and Dragons!!

So, thanks to grad school, my cake-making has been on a long hiatus.  This week, however, I came out of it to make a cake for a teacher from school!  It's her husband's 40th birthday, and when I asked if she had anything in mind for the cake, I got this: "He's really into Dungeons and Dragons."  ...  this is a no-judgement zone, people.

This is the first cake for which I ever had to do RESEARCH!  My students were instrumental in helping me figure it out, and I learned that a) there are dragons in the game, and b) that 20-sided dice are instrumental, downright crucial for the game.  And thus, this, my re-entry to the cake-making world, was born.

The cake was a simple vanilla with a swiss buttercream frosting.  And my GOODNESS does quality butter make a difference!  Mmm mmm MMM!

Happy 2D20, Adam!

Happy 2nd Birthday, Brie!

My adorable niece turned 2 on March 10.  To quote the little love, "March 10's my birthday. I be 2!"  Her Mom and Dad asked me if I could make an owl cake, or cupcakes, for her party, and I was so excited!  I had so many ideas, it was hard to pinpoint just one! 

The cupcakes were vanilla cake, recipe from the back of the King Arthur Cake Flour box, which might be my new favorite vanilla cake.  And the frosting was the swiss buttercream with which I have fallen completely in love!

I still don't love the idea of using fondant, since I don't care for its taste, but have tried my hand at melting chocolate.  It's not a universal switch, but it can be pretty useful!  For the idea of the owl cupcake display, I wanted the owls to be elevated above the letters.  I had seen a post on a blog seen on tastespotting.com a while back about making cupcake stands from chocolate, so I thought I would try to make "tree" stands to hold the owls.

 And it worked!  I fell in love with the goofy little free-form owls.

So when the big birthday party came, I set up the display.  I was pretty happy with the fact that the thought I dreamed up actually came together!

So long, Mr. Executive Director!

My executive director is moving on to bigger and better things, and it was kind of a rushed event, so this is a rushed cake!  Simple in design, extremely simple...but I must say it was delicious!  I used the chocolate cake recipe off the back of my Ghiradelli chocolate and added a special ingredient: chocolate milk!  Easy substitution, but great results!  Then I sprinkled some Bailey's on it and frosted it with my new favorite swiss buttercream frosting!  

The little balls are made of royal icing and are intensely sweet, but I'm thrilled at my new purchase of edible glitter!!  It's so sparkley!

Best of luck working with our new governor, Chris!

Happy Birthday, Jill!

This week, I had the pleasure of making a birthday cake for Gwen's sister, Jill.  She gave me complete creative reign over the cake; all I knew what that she would like a white cake and that she liked the sunflowers I made on cupcakes earlier.  I've struggled to find a white cake recipe that I really enjoy, but I found a Vanilla Buttermilk Cake that is divine and definitely a go-to for white cakes!  

I also discovered swiss buttercream frosting, and let me tell you, THIS is the frosting for which I have been searching for years! (Sounds over-dramatic, but seriously, it has been years).  I had this delicious frosting on my mom's friend's son's wedding cake years ago and I haven't been able to find it since!  Someone suggested buttercream, but the neither the Wilton buttercream recipe nor the store-bought cake buttercreams even come CLOSE to the taste I remembered.  Well, I found it, and swiss buttercream is amazing!

So, here it is!  Jill's birthday cake!

A Grace-ful Birthday

Joe's parents are in town this weekend, and it's his mom's birthday tomorrow!  A woman after my own heart, she's a chocolate fiend, and more importantly, she's a dark chocolate fiend!  So I tried my hand at a La Bete Noir Flourless Chocolate Cake.  Turns out it is more of a chocolate torte, and dense!  My goodness is it dense--think 18 oz. of bittersweet chocolate in the cake itself plus another 8 oz. (give or take) in the ganache on top!  But oh, I can't wait to try it!

I was also pretty excited about how these leaves turned out!  Happy October birthday!

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!

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!

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!