A Sweet 31 Party

I decided to host a small party with my favorite things:  sweets and champagne.  I made chocolate cupcakes with a beer buttercream (made with Deschutes dark IPA), chocolate covered strawberries, brownie bon bons, cookie pops, & my favorite peanut butter cookies topped with chocolate chunks. 

I invited a few friends, put on a pink dress, popped a few bottles of champagne and it was a sweet success!  Thanks to all that came over and celebrated with me, I wish I could have invited more people but unfortunately I have about a 4 person max occupancy in my teeny house!

My Son really liked my dessert themed birthday

The peanut butter cookie and chocolate cake recipe I posted already but the brownie bon bons are AWESOME and super easy:

You can make your own brownies, or buy a box mix, (if you decide to do the box option I highly recommend Ghiredelli's).  Make the brownies and let cool.

Scoop or cut out about a tablespoon worth of brownie, or larger/smaller depending on how big you want your bon bons.  Mold into a ball, brownies are so moist you don't need to add anything.  Just stay away from the edge pieces, they won't make a very smooth ball.  You'll have to think of other ways of disposing of those.....there's a slim (OK, maybe extremely likely) chance I ate mine.
Cover in chocolate.  For mine I melted semi-sweet chocolate chips with about 1 tablespoon of butter per bag of chips, and a little less then 1/4 cup heavy cream.  I wanted the chocolate to set up pretty good, so I didn't add as much cream and butter as I usually would for a ganache.

Set on waxed or parchment paper to dry, but while wet sprinkle with sprinkles, nuts, or whatever else you want to decorate with.  I did mine some with colored sprinkles, some with a chili/chocolate sugar, and some with a citrus sugar. 

Refrigerate until party then devour!

Happy Father's Day!

Guys don't generally like sweets or flowers, but you know what they do like...bacon!  So here's a flower I'm pretty sure any man would like to get for Father's Day.

Yup, bacon roses!

They smell great, taste great, and are pretty much the coolest thing ever!

Happy Father's Day to the best Dads I know!  Love you!

Here's how ya do it:

You need:

Package of bacon, I found the longest looking strips I could

Mini muffin pan, if you can find a disposable foil one I HIGHLY recommend getting it (easier for clean up and set up)

Fake roses

Pull off fake roses from stem

Drill hole in bottom of each cup (here's where the easier set up comes in with the disposable ones, you can just poke a hole with anything sharp and don't need to get out the power tools)

Wrap bacon around each cup, starting on the outside/widest part of the cup.  Use the cup as a mold, and just swirl the bacon around till you get to the middle.  Sorry if that's confusing.  When I found this idea online, ya that's right, sadly I did not come up with this awesome idea on my own, but the site that I found instructables.com said to roll the bacon up and place in muffin tin.  These turned out too tight almost like rose buds.  I found that if they where rolled looser and the edges almost folded out, they looked like real roses, so I used the muffin tin cup as a mold. 

I put my muffin tin over a cooling rack and put the cooling rack on a cookie sheet (lined with foil for easy clean up), that way the grease that dripped out the bottom would drain onto the cookie sheet and the bacon roses could drain and not just sit in the oil.  I would occasionally pick up the roses to help the draining process.

 Bake in oven until your house fills with smoke and can take it no longer (about 45 minutes)

I think a deep frier would come in very handy for this project, if you ever feel the need to mass produce.

Once cooled just stick on rose stems that you have taken fake roses off. 

Kodiak Cakes: A Hawaiian Baby Shower

Kodiak Cakes: A Hawaiian Baby Shower: "I finished a cake today made for a Hawaiian themed baby shower. I was asked to make a cake by the soon to be (and very excited first time) ..."

A Hawaiian Baby Shower

I finished a cake today made for a Hawaiian themed baby shower.  I was asked to make a cake by the soon to be (and very excited first time) grandparents.  They were throwing a huge Polynesian party complete with roasted pig and asked me to make something fabulous. 
I wanted to make her a cake that was simple, sweet and beautiful.  She gave me a picture of a Hawaiian themed wedding cake that she liked, and this is my version of it for a baby....

The baby is made out of fondant, the flowers gumpaste (I did not make these, I chose to take the short cut and buy them pre-made), my friend and I painted them after only a few trial and errors (thanks again Crystal my crafty friend:), the shells are chocolate and the sand is a graham cracker crust crushed up (yummy!)

I also made some mini cupcakes, some vanilla/lemon/carrot cake, vanilla pudding filled & topped with cream cheese frosting, then rolled in the graham cracker crumbs to again look like sand and topped with a little umbrella .

Congrats again to the Pickett family!  Thank you for letting me do you cake, this might be one of my new all time favs!

Bunny Buts!

Happy Easter!

Carrot Cake cupcakes, with cream cheese frosting, from scratch of course!

A Cake History

I've done so many cakes in the past that I would like to share without having to make a whole blog about each.  So that's what this is, a bit of my cake making past.  The Baby Shower cake is a whip cream cake that I thought was really sweet.  The farm cake, birthday cake, and Mod monkey cakes are fondant.  I have to give credit to my old co-worker for the farm animals, she was an amazing sculpure artist.  I have since tried sculpting my own figurines, my first attempt: My moose! The doughnut cookies were some of my favorite, so simple yet so cute, sugar cookies with royal icing.  There are more, but that is all for now....

My Moose!



Sideways (:) Monkey Cake



Mmmm, doughnut cookies





A Burger Cake!



Cookie Secrets

Now that I am not owner of the bakery anymore I'm gonna give away all my cookie and yummy treat recipes and secrets, 'cause hey what's the fun of baking if you can't share a secret or two? 
I've been a little obsessed with cookies lately and perfecting my recipes.  I've already shared with you (thousands of readers that you are) my all time favorite peanut butter recipe.  Are you ready to try the chewiest, yummiest chocolate chip recipe?  I like to under bake these so they are extra soft, I'm a cookie dough fanatic so I like them to be a bit doughy still, but bake them for the whole 14 minutes and they are still soft, chewy and wonderful.

The Chewiest Chocolate Chip Cookie

2 sticks unsalted butter, melted

2 1/4 cup flour, bread flour if you have it

1 tea salt

1 tea baking soda

1/4 cup sugar

1 1/4 cup brown sugar (I always prefer light)

1 egg

1 egg yolk

2 tbl milk

1 1/2 tea vanilla

2 cups chocolate chips (I like the 60% cacao Ghiradelli, they are extra large and yummy chips)

1. Melt butter

2. Sift (or as I do the cheating way: whisk together) flour, salt, and baking soda.  set aside

3. Cream together on medium speed: melted butter, sugar and brown sugar

4. Add egg, egg yolk, milk and vanilla.  Mix until combined.

5. Add dry stir just until combined.

6. Add chips.

7. bake 375 until done to your liking.  I bake about 12 minutes (depending on how big they are) and let continue cooking on pan.

8. These, unfortunately for my antsy pants, are much better when cooled and set. 



TV Dinner tray cupcakes!

I've really got to get better about this timing thing.  So, it's a little late for Thanksgiving treats, but maybe keep in mind for next year, or there so dang cute you could just make them anyways.

TV Dinner cupcake tray! 
Saw this in 'Hello Cupcake!' and had to make it.  Took a ton of candy, but was fun to make and it looked so real!  The mashed potatoes and gravy are definitely my favorite.  Here's what you'll need if you want to make, and remember you can always substitute if you don't have something, I always have to supplies are a tough find in Alaska.  Just get creative!

Chicken leg:
doughnut hole (I used macaroons and cut bottoms off)
corn flake crumbs
white chocolate; melt, put in piping bag (or sandwich baggie, cut end off) draw shape of bone with pointy end on wax or parchment paper.  Let dry, wha la a bone!

Peas and Carrots:
skittles and starburst
(or runts and laffy taffy, or anything else you can think of)
green frosting

Mashed Potatoes and Gravy:
white frosting
Carmel sauce
laffy taffy or starburst

Pudding:
chocolate frosting
sprinkles

World's Best Chocolate Recipe!!!!!

Okay here it is the World's Best Chocolate Cake Recipe:

The batter is pretty much gonna look like soup, this is right don't worry!  I've also done it without the buttermilk and it turns out great.

2 Cups Flour
2 Cups Sugar

3/4 Cup Hershey's Cocoa
2 Teaspoons Baking Soda
2 Eggs (I use large eggs)
1 Teaspoon Salt
1 Cup Buttermilk
Remember that you can freeze buttermilk so you have to make another buttermilk chocolate cake recipe.
1 Cup Mazola Vegetable Oil
1 ½ Teaspoons Vanilla Extract
1 Cup Boiling Water

Preheat Oven to 300° F


(This is not a typo! This is a slow bake chocolate cake recipe.)


2.Use shortening to lightly grease and flour the
9 x 13 in. Baking Dish. (It's a one layer chocolate cake!)


3.Place all the ingredients on the left into a mixing bowl, except boiling water. Mix until just incorporated, then add boiling water.


4.Mix at medium or medium high speed until all ingredients are blended and smooth.


5.Pour into greased and floured baking dish


6.Bake for 1 hr.


7.Test by sticking with knife. If it comes out clean, it's done!


8.Allow to cool.

Be careful not to under cook can taste almost gummy.  This cake is so moist you don't really need frosting would be great served with just powderd sugar or a little whip cream.

I'm Back!

I've been m.i.a. for a while working on a project that unfortunately did not work out.  I had an opportunity to purchase the bakery that I had been working at.  I jumped at the chance with out really thinking it all through.  I was in no way ready financially or mentally.  Baking and creating fun treats is my passion I've always loved doing it, but trying to make a bakery survive while also not willing to give up any time with my son is pretty much impossible.  I'm a Mom first and enjoy baking for fun. 
So that's where I'm at, back to baking for fun and experimenting without the pressure of failure.  Can't wait to post some pics of what I've been doing and oh, I finally found it, yup the world's best chocolate cake recipe!  Which I will be sharing with you very shortly!