Boss Day, smoss day...

My dad asked my mom to make cupcakes for his boss, for national boss day (which is today). My mom made the cupcakes and icing, and I offered to decorate them since I know how to do the swirl. Well the icing didn't turn out the greatest, it was literally sliding off the cupcakes! So I tried my best, and even then they looked a little worse for wear.

I think these are perfect for a kids party!

I knew I had to decorate them to hide the imperfections, so I went in my sprinkle drawer (I hide my sprinkles because everyone eats them on me!) and I remember someone DID eat all my sprinkles. But don't worry! I found a leftover bag of reesses (sp?) pieces! As well as some miniture m&m's in the kitchen closet.

I started out with the m&m's, and they looked super cute on the cupcakes, adding some color to the boring white icing. Then I used the other candy, and that look cute as well.

Then I remember my mom bought some mini oreo bags for trick or treaters. I secretly stole a bag (or two) and crumbled the oreos up, and sprinkled them on the cupcakes. I love how the oreos looks on the cupcakes! and I'm sure normal oreos would work too.

Then I still had some leftover cupcakes, so I continued my search in the closet (this is kind of like treasure hunting, hmm...) and I found some mini marshmallows. I though the marshmallows looked a little to plain on the white icing. So I decided to crumble up some honey graham crackers, and sprinkle that over, then add the marshmallows. Plus I found some mini (notice a theme going?) chocolate chips and add that to the cupcakes to make a smores cupcake. I also broked a fourth of a cracker in half, and placed that on the cupcakes. I have to say the smores looked the cutest and most yummy out of the bunch.

And of couse I had to do a few "adult" ones, since most of the cupcakes looked a bit childish. So I added some chocolate shavings, and white chocolate chips.

Enjoy your boss day everyone!

Healthy Recipe!

I'm going to start posting my healthy recipe, just to show everyone what I actually eat. I haven't made this salad in a while, but it is super yummy.

The homemade dressing is really creamy and low calories, especially if you use 100 calorie yogurt. I pour it over fresh off the grill chicken breast. The heat from the chicken and the yogurt in the dressing create almost a glaze, and it's delicious! The apples complement the strawberries, and create a wonderful and easy salad.

The dressing is for two (or more) servings, I make it and refridgerate the rest. I cannot say the exact measurements for the salad because I only make a single serving, and never measure it.
Dressing:
1 containers low fat or low calorie strawberry yogurt
.5 cup sliced strawberries
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar


Salad:
Romaine lettuce
Chicken grilled and cut into slices (I use about 3 ounce)
Strawberries sliced (I use about 5)
Apple slices (I use about half and apple)

1. In a blender or food processor combine the yogurt, 1 cup of strawberries, and red wine vinegar. Blend on highspeed untill smooth, about 15 seconds.

2. Arrange remaining ingrediants on a plate, and pour dressing of chicken, and salad.

Here's the original recipe.

Note: I can't find ANY pictures of my strawberry dressing, so I posted pictures of an orange glaze dressing. It's the same recipe, but it use vanilla yogurt, a little orange juice, and jest of an orange. Also minus the strawberries.

Shoo Fly, don't bother me!

Shoo fly pie anyone?

On Saturday I made shoo fly pie, I had a couple recipes to choose from, but I chose the only one with an egg. I thought the crumbs were a bit to many, but my mom didn't have a 9 in pie pan, so I had to make 10 in pie. Which might be why the filling probably spread out, and the crumbs took over. Either way it was delicious!

This was also the first time I made a pie, and it was easy! I can see where the saying "easy as pie" comes from.

Cupcakes!

My one sister is having her second baby, and my family threw her a small second baby shower! I was recruited to make cupcakes, and on my sister's request, I made golden glow cake, with peanut butter icing. All of these recipes are different then most people cakes and icing, but they are our trusted recipes. The icing is made with vegetable shortening, confectioner sugar, and milk and of course peanut butter.I'm not sure of the measurements, because with the peanut butter it's tricky.

Onto the decorating. I ordered a cupcake decorating kit, mostly for the 1m tip. And I love doing the swirls! I swear it's easier then normal icing cupcakes! I also have some leftover gum paste I made. So I dyed some of it blue, and made flowers! I suggest if you make cupcakes often (or not) to get the 1m tip from Wilton! It's awesome for decorating.

A little late, Daring Bakers Dorbo's Torte Challenge

I made this back in August but I never had the chance to post it! It was my first challenge, and I though it was pretty fun! The torte went over well with the adults (my parents and grandparents), but my sisters (still adults, but with kid taste buds:-P) said it had an adult taste. Meaning it wasn't sweet enough for their liking. I think I mess up on the appearance of it, but when I cut it, it looked amazing! Especially with all the layers!

The caramel was fun to make, and easy!

From the recipe I thought it would be super difficult and stressfull to handle the caramel. But covering the top layer was way easier then I was expecting.

I can't remember how the icing went, but it tasted yummy!

Here's the recipe: http://adventuresinamateurbakingandcooking.blogspot.com/

mmm... Devils Food Cake with 7-Minute Frosting

Hmm... What to say about this cake? Besides the fact that it was delicious in every way, easy to make, and looks delectable? This is my new favorite chocolate cake! My sisters each have their own favorite chocolate cake, and while this didn't beat theirs, they did like this cake. I thought this was a perfect combination of my sister's cake. It was rich, but not as rich/too chocolaty taste of the Hershey's cake. It had the light flavor of the black magic cake (that is my other sister's favorite)but isn't as moist. The black magic cake is very very moist, almost too moist. This one was so light a airy it was perfect!

And the icing! the icing was amazing! It did take a little longer then 7 minutes to make, but it was worth it. And it molded so perfectly on the cake! I was able to create swirls and they stayed! I have to admit, while I was cooking it, it tasted like heated fluff. I also added some shaved chocolate on the top. I got the recipe from a 1920's book, I found in my mom's books. I will definitely be trying more recipes from this book!

Apple Upside-Down Cake

Back in the summer I made an apple upside-down cake, but didn't rediscovered the pictures I took till today. I got the recipe from Cooks Illustrated magazine. It wasn't my favorite especially in looks and difficulty, but taste was pretty good. The looks might have been avoided since they said to cool cake on a cake rack, but the cake stuck to the cake rack. I had to have my sister help me transfer it and even then it cracked. But luckily the apples were able to cover the crack. If I ever made it again, I would skip the rack, and go straight to the plate.

Cream Cheese Mini Tarts

As well as making fodant and cake on friday, I also made tarts!

Well... I made the tart shells friday, and made the filling today. I thought it was actually pretty easy. I was naive and didn't know that tarts shrunk untill I was searching around the internet, and found on smitten kitchen an unshrinkable tart recipe. Before then I was good with trying my other recipe I had found, but I didn't want to take the chance and have my shells shrink!

The ingrediants weren't insane either, only thing I had to buy that was extra was dark chocolate. The filling was super easy, I didn't use the bailey like what was called for, but used instead milk and vanilla like what was suggested.

The filling was a cream cheese filling with dark chocolate on the bottom as well as drizzled on top.

And one more drool-worthy picture then the recipe

I used smitten kitchen recipe for the crust, only thing I forgot was to poke the tarts with a fork, but it came out great! I also cook for 12 minutes, then another five but I made the mini tarts. If you make mini's I would watch the time. Another note is if you don't have tart pans, you can use upside down cupcake tins. They didn't look the greatest, but it didn't look terrible either, I use three cupcake tins to make it sturdy.

http://smittenkitchen.com/2008/11/the-great-unshrinkable-sweet-tart-shell/ - tart

http://bakingbites.com/2007/08/fresh-fruit-and-cream-cheese-tart/ - filling

First Time Fondant

What better way to enter blog life with a post about fondant?

Sooooo after a week of buying my materials I was finally able to make my own fondant!

This was the first time I also put fondant on a cake and I wished I looked up more about putting fondant on the cake before I put it on the cake (How many times can you say cake in one sentence?) The day after I fondant-ed my cake I found all these great videos about how to cover a cake with fondant. I didn't do too many things wrong, but I wish I did know to chill my frosted cake before I put the fondant on.

You can't really see in the pictures, that the polka dots have cracks in it. It wasn't a major issue and I think I know how to fix it next time. I also redecorated the cake a bunch of times. I started out with a beaded border, but I thought it looked to childish, so I took it off. I then proceeded to do checked, but I didn't like the lilac checkers. I then did just big polka dots, and then finally ended up with this.

I'm not sure if all fondant recipe use almond extract, but the one I made did. It made the fondant delicious, I might even dare to say that I liked it better then my regular icing. I think, just to say it plainly, I fell in love with fondant. I loved everything about it, the feel, the texture, the taste. I even loved when I cut it open, I loved the smoothness of the slicing. I know that sounds odd, but try cutting a fondant cake and it just feels silky.

Ok onto the recipe I used...

I used a recipe from the cook duke http://thecookduke.com/fondant-recipe/

I'm not sure if I'm allowed to post the recipe on my blog or just the link? So I'm just posting the link for now. The cake recipe I used was just our good old standard cake which recipe I'll post in a few days. I hope this post wasn't to boring considering this was my first post!