Happy Valentine's Day 2010!

So I decided to try my hand at sugar flowers this Valentine's Day.  Here's what I came up with:

April Fools!  Oh wait... it's a little early for that (but it sure felt like April today)!  No, these are just the beautiful flowers Joe had delivered to my work.  Aww.


For real, though, nobody's gonna lay a finger on Joe's Butterfinger-themed Valentine!  So, one of Joe's favorite candies is Butterfinger, so I thought I would make him some Butterfinger cupcakes for Valentine's Day!  My concern was how to keep that characteristic Butterfinger "crunch" in a baked dessert.  So, I decided to make some Butterfinger cookie dough balls and put them in the center of chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter frosting.  By freezing the dough balls before hand, I hoped that they wouldn't soften up the Butterfinger pieces on the inside.  Fortunately, I was right!  I made far too many Butterfinger-cookie dough balls, though, so Joe got a few cupcakes and a bunch more Butterfinger truffle balls.

I know you can't see the "truffle" filling, but it's in there.  My peanut butter frosting didn't work out the way I intended it to, but I think it turned out pretty well!  Those are also little Butterfinger hearts on the top.  Aww.

Happy Valentine's Day Eve!

I've been wanting to try lava cakes for a while now.  Warm, gooey chocolate oozing out of a soft cakey shell...it would rouse even the most lackluster of a person, inciting pure bliss with every fork-full.

So, what better time to try it out than tonight, making a Valentine's Eve treat for my fabulous roommates to show just how fabulous they are?!  Topped with some freshly made vanilla bean whipped cream and fresh (ish) strawberries, I must say, this one turned out pretty well.  

  

 It was gooey, and oozy, and cakey.

Happy Valentine's Day, indeed!

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!

'Tis the season!

...for baking blunders to abound!  After spending a wonderful Thanksgiving at home, I returned to Burlington on Sunday evening with the fervor of a holiday baker buzzing through me.  My executive director's birthday was the following day, and my original plan to make a cake fell apart as my hours dwindled.  No problem, cupcakes would suffice.  Vanilla buttermilk cupcakes with an eggnog filling and some sort of complimentary frosting.  Perfect. I expected them to look a little like this:

Well, after discovering that I did not havethe correct ingredients, I decided against the delicious cupcakes and opted for cookies instead.  My office would understand...it is the day after the Thanksgiving holiday, afterall!  So, still on my eggnog kick (inspired by Dad who bought some over the weekend, thanks Daddy), I went with eggnog thumbprint cookies.  Something like this, or so I hoped:

I found a recipe and went for it.  Let the blunders begin...or continue, really.  First, all my butter was frozen, like usual.  So I took out the stick and a half I needed for the cookie dough and defrosted it.  Kind of.  After repeatedly hitting the defrost button, I apparently hit it one too many times and out came completely melted butter.  Oh well, the dough had to be refrigerated anyway, so I thought it shouldn't mess up the cookies too much. (Famous last words).  I mixed up the batter, it tasted delicious, and I popped it in the fridge.  I then needed to defrost the other half stick of butter used for the filling, so I put it on a plate and popped it in the gas oven as that is many degrees warmer than my apartment.  

After a while, I grew impatient waiting for the dough to be "easy to handle" and figured that I'd go ahead and take it out and form the cookies.  That's when I turned the oven on to preheat and merrily went about my way scooping out what I later realized was completely uneasy to handle cookie dough.  With the cookies finally on their sheets, I opened the oven door only to find (and anyone who is paying attention has probably guessed at this point), half a stick of melted butter all over the plate and its wrapper, bubbling away.  Usk.  I moved that out of the oven, slid the cookies in, and decided to attempt making the filling while the cookies baked.  10 minutes later, I opened my oven to reveal the flattest, thinnest, all cooked-together cookies that I've made in a while.  Voila:

So, I frosted them instead of filled them and sprinkled a little nutmeg on.  Turns out, they tasted great, just absolutely nothing like I expected!  They acted naughty, but turned out nice!

Homemade Oreo Cookies!

Ever since that fateful 2008 Superbowl and the signing of the Manning brothers' contract with Nabisco, this faithful Patriots fan has made it her mission to boycott Oreo's.  But what's a girl to do without "Milk's Favorite Cookie"?  Simple: make it herself.


Thanks to SmittenKitchen for providing me with the ammunition to successfully continue my boycott against Oreo's and forge a path towards homemade simply delicious crisp chocolate cookies and smooth cream filling.


These cookies are so light (in weight, not so much in ingredients) and taste almost exactly the same as the "real thing".  Taste-testers stated these were, in fact, better than the real thing.  Probably because Nabisco doesn't use Ghirardelli chocolate in theirs.

Mmmm, cream-filled goodness.

And voila!  Simple, easy-to make, home-made Oreos.  I even made a couple DoubleStuf! :)

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!

Halloween Season is Here!

There are many things I love about fall, and candy corn definitely tops that list.  Since I have no hope of recreating those delicious little tri-colored triangles, I tried them in shortbread form.  Thanks to my aunt for sending this idea to me, and to my Mom for making them with me!!


First, I dyed the dough and rolled it out in logs, stacking the colors into a semi-triangle shape.

Then, I wrapped it in cellophane and shaped the triangle.  I put it in the fridge overnight. Wicked easy to slice, and look how cute they are already!

Voila!  Or, should I say, BOO!  Delightful little candy corn shortbread cookies!

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!