Holiday Baking!

Gifts of time and love are surely the basic ingredients of a truly merry Christmas.  ~Peg Bracken

So, today we had a pre-Christmas dinner party with some of our closest friends. It was wonderful... and a little bit stressful. Being the perfectionist I am, 45mins before our friends were to arrive I tore all the lights off the Christmas tree because they were annoying me. Now, that would be fine if dinner was in the oven, the table was set, and the house was clean- unfortunately none of these were done yet. and now I had the daunting task of putting the lights back on a half decorated tree. (I remember decorating the tree as a child and it always seemed like such a happy time... as an adult I really need to suppress throwing the darn thing out the window!) 

By the grace of God, it somehow all managed to come together before our guests arrived. Dinner was served a bit later then intended and the tree looks a bit wonky, but amongst friends it was acceptable!! Anyway, I thought I would quickly blog about tonights dessert before heading off to bed.  

I was really happy with this decorating idea I found over at Kraft Canada and then I through in a couple of my own twists. Basically the cake took about 35 mins in all to do. I think the design is super festive and cute (if I do say so myself) and then the show stopper inside is definitely worth the 35 mins of invested time.

Essentially it is a Red Velvet cake, with buttercream frosting , and the snowflake design is just made  out of melted white chocolate. 

If you have 35 mins I would definitely give this a try for the holidays!!

Quick how-to: 

-Melt 1/2 a cup of white candy melts, or white chocolate bar in microwaveable dish. Once completely melted, transfer into ziplock bag. Once the chocolate has slightly cooled, snip the tiniest hole into the tip of the ziplock back. 

-Go crazy creating your own 'snowflakes' on a piece of wax paper on a baking sheet.

-Once you are done your snowflakes place wax paper on baking sheet into freezer keep there until last step.

-Prepare your frosting, put in fridge.

-Once you  have your prepared red velvet batter, pour equally between two 8inch, greased & floured pans.

-Bake @ 350 for 30 mins.

-Remove from oven and after 10 mins transfer to a wire cooling rack.

-Once cooled, level both cakes. Place one on serving dish. Frost the top of this cake. Place second layer. now crumb coat entire cake.

- Add a second layer of frosting.

-Last step, get your snowflakes out of the freezer... use a spatula to carefully remove them. Decorate your cake!

Special thanks to my awesome helper today, Eliya!

And now, just wait until you cut that cake open!!!!!

:)

Chocolate "Butterfly" Cupcakes

Nothing would be more tiresome than eating and drinking if God had not made them a pleasure as well as a necessity.  ~Voltaire

In the past couple of months I've made a couple of desserts and  haven't had time to blog about them. I'm trying to catch up with a couple of posts today, so that in the up coming weeks I can post about the treats as I'm working on them! 

So, I made butterfly cupcakes sometime in the early summer. They were for a friends birthday (and basically just an excuse to try out something new). To date these are my fav cupcakes, I got the idea from a cupcake book and have been wanting to try them forever. They are not so easy to make however... take a look!

So right off the bat, i'll say that these were a lot more complicated then I thought they would be. First of all I must have been doing something wrong when working with the chocolate "butterflies". It was a disaster! Next up, placing them ON the cupcakes wasn't as easy as advertised, they kept sliding off and sinking into the cupcakes.

If you want to make these all you  need is:

                                                                   

 -Your fav vanilla cake recipe or a box mix.

 -Your fav vanilla frosting recipe or can of frosting

 -Dark chocolate wafers

    -Orange chocolate wafers

 -1/2 cup of chocolate frosting

Once the cupcakes are made, cooled, and iced (tinted with a bit of yellow & red gel coloring). You need to make a simple butterfly wing template with a sharpie, preferably between 2-3 inches. Then melt your dark chocolate wafers and orange wafers in two separate ziplock bags. Once they have cooled off a bit, cut the TINIEST hole in the corner of the ziplock bag. Place a piece wax paper over your template, trace the outline a couple of times in  dark chocolate, then fill the center with the orange. Give the wax paper a shake, the two chocolates will blend together, then take a toothpick and drag it from the edges of the wing into the center. Next, sprinkle (if you have some on hand) some nonpareils onto the top corners of your wings.

When you have aprox. 6 pairs of wings, place your wax paper in the freezer to dry. Use a piping bag or a ziplock with a small hole cut in the corner of the bag, pipe out a straight line of chocolate frosting in the center of the cupcake. When the wings are ready use the chocolate frosting as a glue to keep the wings in place on the cupcake.

Unfortunately, this is a really bad shot but it gives you an idea of what it looks like when the butterflies are "in-flight". It is not easy to keep the wings vertical, my tip is  to cut very narrow slits into the cupcake below to help anchor the wings in place.

These area lot of fun to make and look great when bring them to a friends house.

What are some of your melted chocolate tips for me?

Hope you get surprised with something delicious today

  

Pie? Or Cupcake?

One of the very nicest things about life is the way we must regularly stop whatever it is we are doing and devote our attention to eating. ~ Luciano Pavarotti and William Wright, Pavarotti, My Own Story

This past summer my husband and I were all about the summer BBQ's with friends. And being invited to a BBQ only means one thing... bringing the hosts creative cupcakes!! I debated with myself for about 10 minutes in the aisle at the grocery store on Sunday morning. I had a bbq to go to in the afternoon. I really needed to come up with a dessert idea. I was already making  a rice dish and roasted potatoes & sweet potatoes. I thought of a variety of frozen desserts like some of these, which would be perfect for a bbq, however they needed a minimum 3-4 hours of freezer commitment- time I didn't have! So without thinking I picked up the ingredients to bake a cake and a can of pre-made frosting. I didn't know then that they would materialize into faux mini pies, I just thought i'd throw something together. So getting home, I started to make my other dishes while the cupcakes baked in the oven in little foil liners. After 20 minutes I pulled them out and set them to cool on a wire rack. I took this time to run and get changed for the party. By the time I got back to the kitchen, they were cool enough to decorate. Decorating only took 12 minutes. It was soooo simple too! However I cannot claim the idea as my own- I got the idea from a cupcake book. When the book said they were EZ I could have never imagined they would only take 12 minutes.

I chose the above picture, because as you see- I forgot to flip one of the M&M's upside down. :P Also, up close the the pies don't look that "nice" but once your done and they are all together on a serving dish, the end result is amazing!

Making them is a cinch, and I wish mine looked a little cleaner... but I was pressed for time! I guess the most difficult (creative) part is trying to adjust the color of the "crust" icing, which is simply a bit of yellow icing coloring and about a tsp. of coco powder. You can play with the amount of the cocoa powder make it look more or less cooked. once you get the icing color sorted, all you need to do is add a dollop of frosting to the top of the cupcake and spread into a very fine layer on top of the cupcake this will act as a glue to the M&M's. 

You can make all your faux pies with red M&M's or red and blue (Strawberry and blueberry) If you want to get funky with them you can try Orange (peach pie like I did above)  or mixing pink, red and purple like a wild berry pie.

Overall these were a big hit, the cupcakes flew off my serving tray less then 3 mins after I arrived! Best feeling ever!!!

             Until next time, deliver something yummy to someone you know.

Cupcake Bouquet!!

"When you look at a cupcake, You've got to smile."

         ~Anne Byrn

So, I last left you after Mother's Day with the promise to return and tell you how to make cupcake bouquets!

The baking and the decorating is probably the easiest part of this whole thing. Baking vanilla and/or chocolate cupcakes take 26 minutes if you use a box mix. Frosting them takes about 15 minutes, with the right tools and equipment. However, assembling them is tough!

Here's what you'll need:

• 12-18 cupcakes (in my experience 12 was plenty for two bouquets)

• 12-18 cupcake liners

• about 3 cups 'stiff' buttercream icing here's the recipe 

• 1M tip (Or N˚ 2110)

• any 2 icing colors, contrast is nice, so pick two bold colors!

• 20 tooth picks Or very thin wooden dowels used for kabobs. (Must have a pointy end!)

• half a styrofoam ball OR styrofoam cube

• planting pot OR fancy watering can

• ribbon for decoration

 Before we begin, here's some Do's & Don'ts that I wish I saw on a blog before this adventure:

☺ Do make this ahead of time, give yourself at least 5-6 hrs. It seems simple, but the assembly is annoying. 

☺ Do make 12-18 cupcakes, even though you  think you'll need anywhere between 3-6, in the assembly process... some will break. That's when things get annoying.

☺ Do wait for the cupcakes to cool before icing.

☺ Do try to find green cupcake liners.

And ☺ Do wait for decorated cupcakes to dry before trying to assemble.

☹ Don't use floral foam instead of styrofoam!

☹ Don't bake too dense of a cupcake, try to stick with a box mix, OR better yet, angel food cupcakes 

☹ Don't cover cupcakes once baked OR decorated. Cupcakes and icing won't get hard enough.

And ☹ Don't get frustrated when it all starts to fall apart, and throw it in the garbage!

Ok, So you have all your materials- Let's go! Once you've baked your cupcakes (and they've cooled) set aside the ones you will be using. All extra can be put in a freezer ziplock (up right, not stacked) and frozen for the next bouquet you make (or for any future cupcake project!) To decorate: Once you've cut a hole in you pastry bag (if you don't have a pastry bag or don't feel like investing in one... a ziplock freezer bag will do just fine!), fit tip into bottom of bag. Fill your pastry bag a 1/4 of the way with frosting. Take your first cupcake, angle it toward you, starting in the centre and using medium pressure start to frost the cupcake. Instead of turning the cupcake, it's a lot easier to go in a circular motion with the hand holding the pastry bag. Make sure to decorate to the very edge of the cupcake so that no cupcake shows.

Once all cupcakes are decorated, wait until the icing is slightly hardened. To assemble: Place the half styrofoam ball into a planting pot (the half ball should not go down more the 1/3 of the way into the pot.) Pre-place two- three toothpicks into each spot where you would like to eventually place the cupcake. Then once the holes have already been made into the styrofoam take them out and insert them into the bottoms of the cupcake in the same pattern you inserted them into the styrofoam (the best way to do this should be in a "wide- stance" tripod pattern!). Once all the cupcakes have been assembled around the half ball, fill in gaps by decorating with fake (or real) foliage and Voila!

Mother's Day Weekend, and I've been BUSY!

 A mother is a person who seeing there are only four pieces of pie for five people, promptly announces she never did care for pie.  ~Tenneva Jordan

So, it was Mother's Day weekend- and I was BUSY!

1st of all my last blog was about vanilla "Teapot" sugar cookies. Oh My! They took forever but were well worth it! They were for a Ladies High Tea party/ Mother's Day celebration. I made over 150 cookies, all decorated by hand. In all honesty, they were long to make (it took 2 full days of work) but was such a highlight of the Tea party!

Here's some progress in pictures:  

DAY 1 :     

       

         (Teapots with just glaze)                 

DAY 2 :

In the end, I was extremely happy with the sugar cookie taste as well as the taste of the Meringue Powder Buttercream, (that I used for glaze) however because of the 1/2 cup of shortening in it, the glaze alone took over two days to harden. I then decorated them the day before the event, and because I needed them to be dry asap I used Royal icing, which dried in a matter of minutes- but isn't super tasty! 

 

So, that was my sugar cookie Teapots- but I didn't stop there... I also made delicious Linzer cookies! It was my first time making them. They are one of the most fragrant, flavorful, and dainty cookies I have ever seen and tasted. The batch only makes about 30 cookies which isn't a lot... but they are show stoppers! Here are some pictures at my 1st attempt at Linzer Cookies!

            

              

                                            

I wish I could say I stopped there and enjoyed the rest of Mother's Day weekend and relaxed! Not a chance. Now it was time to make mom and mother-in-laws gifts.

I got the idea for my mother-in-laws gift from my mom. She had told me earlier in the week she was going to make her mother-in-law a homemade edible arrangements bouquet. It sounded like a lot of fun and everyone loves fresh fruit!

On a scale of 1-10, 10 being the highest  level of difficulty, I found making a homemade fresh fruit bouquet about a 4! It was quite easy and not too time consuming either.

Here's my final result:

                                              

It took just about an hour to put this together, having prepared the cut out fruit ahead of time.

If you would like to make your own fresh fruit bouquet to bring to a  get together (these would be great to bring to friends hosting bbq's this summer! ) or for next Mother's Day, this is what you'll need :

2- Packs of pointed 12" dowels

1- Brick of floral foam

1- Flower pot

2- Bundles of "greenery"

Handful of Raffia

----------------------------------------

3- Cartons of medium sized Strawberries

1- Pineapple

1- Cantaloup

1- Small pkg of Grapes

And putting it together is self explanatory! 

Here's my progress in pictures :

  (Thanks to my husband for all his help!!)

Phewwwwww! After that I was pooped!

But then I took on my final project of the weekend! The one I am the MOST proud of, a Cupcake Bouquet!

I got the idea from this youtube video :

I thought it was such a great twist on giving the traditional gift of flowers or a cake to your mom on Mother's Day! I also thought it would be a great idea since my mom's a cake decorator, she would get a kick out of it! 

Here's what I came up with :

 These are my Rose Cupcakes- I was really happy with the way they turned out!

Here's another picture, this picture shows more of the watering cans I 'Planted' the cupcakes into!

So, all in all- it was a very busy Mother's Day! 

A VERY Happy Mother's Day goes out to MY amazing mom for all her help baking, icing and ideas this week! 

Sometime this week i'll post a blog on how to make the (above) flower cupcakes, the do's and don'ts (that I learnt the hard way) but for now, I'm going to take a much need, much deserved- rest!!!

Until next time, make this week the week you try something new and yummy!!!