King Arthur Four May Bake Along: Berry Blitz Torte

I'm not sure why this particular recipe caught my eye. It's probably because the folks at King Arthur Flour and facebook kept bombarding me with images of this cake and the advertisement for the King Arthur Flour Bake Along. Wish they had done so earlier because now I will be going back through the past months challenges!

I really love fresh berries and this recipe requires a variety. I lucked up and found every berry I needed at Aldi. If they look a little past there best by date in the pictures that's my fault. I forgot about them in my fridge. Sadness. Lucky for me they still taste fine!

I'll be honest. This recipe is a little strange and has quite a few steps. Some you can make ahead and some that require some advanced baking know how. This recipe requires a pastry cream, a meringue and a sponge cake! I sort of felt like I was on an episode of The Great British Baking Show. I kept looking over my shoulders for Merry Berry and Paul Hollywood but, alas, I was alone.

The King Arthur blog post for this bake along challenge provided step by step photos and very detailed instructions.  I couldn't imagine successfully completing this cake by just looking at written recipe with no pictures. I've never seen anything like it!

I didn't take very many pictures of the step-by-step because it's not my recipe. I made no changes and a much better tutorial can be found on the King Arthur Flour Blog post. When I did snap a picture it was because it was just so darn pretty and really to document to myself what I had accomplished.

I think the biggest challenge of this recipe is getting over the fact that the meringue and sponge cake are bakes on top of each other. It just doesn't seem right for some reason. The other challenge is trying to put all the pastry cream and whipped cream and berries on the layers without it looking like a 2 year old helped!

The end result is totally worth it though! It's so pretty! It has a very slight cinnamon flavor and the nuts get a little crunchy and it just looks so fancy! I can't believe this came out of my kitchen. 

If you want to give this recipe a try head on over the King Arthur Flour website: http://blog.kingarthurflour.com/2017/05/01/berry-blitz-torte-bakealong/

Let me know in the comments or on my facebook page if you try it out. I'd love to see you're pictures too!

Alicorn Cake

I really love looking at cake decorating blogs and have really really gotten into baking and decorating. I'm just all around crafty! I recently moved into a house and now have a spacious kitchen and room to leave huge messes everywhere. So when I saw a neighbor requesting a baker for a birthday cake I pretty much yelled, "Pick me! Pick me!"

I was a bit scared when she told me what she wanted! She sent me this picture: 

Obviously what she got was a bit different but the color was definitely inspired by this cake! I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to get those huge wings and unicorn body to stay upright and stable. I have never sculpted anything this complicated before! But I digress. Can we talk about the color scheme some more?

I was quite worried I wouldn't be able to find the requested purple sprinkles and I was almost right! Going to the local craft stores and the neighborhood grocery markets were dead ends although I did find the pearl dragees and purple confetti shaped sprinkles I ultimately used to create what you see above.  I thought I would end up using just color mix sprinkles but then two days before the cake was due I stumbled upon a hidden gem just 5 minutes away from my job! A cake supply store! Yay!

I also bought these from the same supplier but I cold have bought them at Wal-Mart or Joanns. I sued these to cover up where the cake meets cake board. They are giant six-lets! So cute!

I just used a little buttercream to adhere them to the cake/cake board! I really wanted to make a fondant covered board but I ended up just using a cake board covered in tin foil. 

Covering an entire 8-in cake in sprinkles was a lot easier than I expected. And messy! I followed the tutorial from The Cake Blog: DIY : RAINBOW SPRINKLE CAKE

I was worried about covering my top tier in fondant but after watching several YouTube videos on the process I'm happy to report that I was able to make my own marshmallow fondant and apply the fondant with no mishaps!

Here are the completed tiers. I really hate that huge gap between the cakes. I don't think my tiers were quite level and I'm sure that the sprinkles did not help the situation!  I just smeared some of the butter cream icing that was colored to match the fondant in that crack and the space disappeared!

I used modeling chocolate to sculpt the alicorn. I think next time I'd use fondant mixed with some tylose powder because apparently my hands get really hot enough to melt the chocolate and make it greasy even wearing those little food handling gloves! This also took me several days to complete and the modeling chocolate got dry and brittle. 

The wings were a pain in the butt! I drew out a template and then cut out four of the wing shapes and sandwiched a skewer in between using sugar glue to hold it all together. 

I accidentally made two of the same direction wings. I was pretty ticked off at myself and thought I'd have to remake one of my wings but as you can see in the finished product it didn't mater and I think worked out better. From the back it doesn't look that pretty but it doesn't look horrible either.

My alicorn was almost too large for the 6-in top tier! I had drawn a circle using the cake pan and used that as a guide for length so I'm not sure how this thing got so large and out of hand! There was also a lot of gap between the base of the sculpture and the cake. Thank god I had a ton of butter cream icing left! I had planned on having it seated in a grassy meadow any ways so I used a lead tip and piped in some grass. 

So there you have it! My first fondant covered, sprinkle covered two tiered cake! It was a lot of work but also a lot of fun! I really hope I can make some more cakes like this in the future. My husband is begging me for a penguin cake so maybe that is what I'll work on next. I'd love to learn how to make sculpted cakes and a penguin might fit the bill!

Pink Lemonade Cake Donuts

Oops!  I'm a week late and missed National Doughnut Day but doughnuts deserve to be eaten everyday.  Well, maybe not everyday, unless you happen to have an awesome metabolism or great will power because I don't know about you but I can never just stop at one!

National Doughnut Day may have inspired me to make some doughnuts but it was the poor neglected doughnut tin that I bought last year that prompted me to finally make some.  I have quite a few odd shaped bake ware gifted to me that I just need to try out or condemn to Goodwill. 

I also happened to have one or two pink lemonade cake mixes languishing in the cabinet that was purchased on clearance last summer. Is there really a difference between yellow and pink lemonade other than color?  I'm pretty sure there isn't but I could swear that pink lemonade taste better.  Why would pink taste better than yellow?  My head hurts.

I think I avoided making cake donuts because I dreaded cleaning the damn pan afterwards.  But you know what these babies just fell right out my pan (from Wilton). The pan is nonstick but I did spray it really good with cooking spray in between each batch too.  Filling each cavity was a breeze too because I used a plastic zip bag as a piping bag.  Glad I could just toss that thing in the trash when I was finished with it!

At the last minute I decided to add yellow food color to the glaze and sprinkle the cakes with colored sugar.  Not sure if I like the color but they tasted great so who cares?  My stomach sure didn't!

Feel free to use your favorite cake mix to make some doughnuts of your own.  I bet chocolate would be super tasty.  These don't come out dense like traditional cake doughnuts but light and fluffy like a cupcake.  Best part?  They're baked not fried!  So maybe it's okay to eat more than one;)

I'll be linking this recipe to these great linky parties !

Pink Lemonade Cake Donuts 

Ingredients:

FOR THE DONUTS:
2¾ cups Lemon Flavored Box Cake Mix (or use Pink Lemonade if you can find it!)
¾ cup Buttermilk
2 TBS Melted Butter
2 Eggs
pink food coloring (optional)

FOR THE GLAZE:
1 cup Powdered Sugar
3 TBS Whole Milk
1 tsp Lemon Extract (or Vanilla or Orange or Almond...etc.)

 Directions:

1.  Combine donut ingredients in stand mixer with paddle attachment (or combine in large bowl and combine with rubber spatula).  Mix ingredients until all large lumps are gone.  Little lumps are okay.

2.  Transfer batter to a large freezer type zip bag.  Cut off a small portion bags corner to make itinto a piping bag.  Pipe donut batter into greased donut cake pan cavities until 2/3 full.

3. Bake donuts in preheated 425F Degree oven for 7-9 minutes or until toothpick inserted into a doughnut comes out clean.  Allow donuts to cool in pan 2-3 minutes and then remove to wire rack to continue cooling.

4.  While donuts are cooling prepare glaze by combining glaze ingredients in a small bowl.  Stir until all lumps are gone.

5.  Dunk each donut into glaze and place on wire rack glaze side up.  If you want to add sprinkles do so immediately after dunking into glaze.  Allow glaze to harden before serving or consume immediately for a delectable mess and an opportunity to lick fingers;)

Meyer Lemon Pudding Cake

I don't know if I've ever you told you this, but my husband is a weird one.  He won't eat a orange or clementine (even the Cutie brand!) straight up but he'll sit there and cut open a Meyer lemon and suck on it.  He believes we should always have lemons (and limes) just hanging around.  Of course I'll buy some but more often then not they just end up wrinkled and old!

Meyer lemons,sugar (not pictured),all-purpose flour (not pictured),salt (not pictured) eggs,milk,butter

I do have to admit that I love buying citrus.  It's so pretty!  Bright yellows and orange.  They smell delicious too, especially in the middle of winter.  I can eat a whole bag of cutie clementines in one sitting!  My tongue hates me and I get a horrible case of heartburn but I just can't stop eating them.

Sugar, flour and salt in one bowl and the yolks, milk, butter, lemon zest and juice in another

I originally intended to make a lemon creme brulee with these lemons.  Peter has been begging me to make him some ever since I bought some ramekins.  Unfortunately, my eggs were bad.  I cracked them open, separated them and all seemed well.  The I started stirring them up and  OMG!  worst smell ever!  It smelled like rotting chicken.  I've never had eggs go that bad on me, ever.

Add flour mixture to lemon mixture and stirr

I felt bad that my honey wouldn't get his creme brulees  but I just wasn't up to all the egg separating again.  Instead I found this Meyer Lemon Pudding Cake recipe on the back of my bag of Meyer lemons.

Beat egg whites with electric mixer until soft peaks form

Actually when I read the title of the recipe I missed the whole pudding part of it's description.  A minor oversight I suppose but when your expecting a cake and you get pudding and a cake it's quite the surprise.

Gently fold in egg whites into batter

After the cake had come out of the oven a cooled off I was very surprised by how kind of runny it was in the middle and sort of freaked out.  Two baking disasters in one day?  Really?!  So I take a look at my recipe again to trouble shoot and realize that everything is all right because it's a pudding cake and not a sponge cake like I first thought.  Interesting.

 

Bake until puffed and golden

So being the adventurous eater that I am I force my husband to try it out first. He was a bit confused too but assured that I wasn't trying to poison him he took a bite and didn't die.  The cake is very yummy.  I would have liked it a bit more on the sour side but Meyer lemons are kind of on the sweeter side so that might not be very possible.  If I make it again I'm going to add a wee bit less sugar.

Sprinkle with some powdered sugar and dig in!

If your interested in making this pudding cake yourself you can check out the recipe here.  I didn't make any changes and made just as the direction on the back of my bag instructed me to.

Link to Recipe:  Meyer Lemon Pudding Cake

Thanksgiving Recipe Roundup 2012

I don't know what you have planned for Thanksgiving but I can tell you I plan on serving more than just popcorn and toast.

I don't have many recipes for Holiday food on this blog but I do have a very large Thanksgiving Pinterest board.  There are so many delicious looking recipes out there that I just can't decide what I want to make this year!

Here are some of my favorites, from my blog and from around the interwebz:

Pumpkin Spice Cake

I have a glorious 4 day weekend coming.

I plan on cleaning the whole apartment.

Exciting, huh?

Fall Baby Shower Cake

My co-worker asked me to make her daughter's baby shower cake! When I saw the inspiration photos I was so excited. I love fall and pumpkins!

Butter Rum Pumpkins

I was craving some pumpkin or spice cake since it's fall and all and it's my favorite season.  I love the smell of the spices.  It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.  Then I mentioned my craving to my husband and he went, "Bleh!".  And then so did my roommate.  So I did the next best thing and made rum cakes in the shape of pumpkins!  I just knew my husband would not object to any recipe that would necessitate the purchase of rum. Which means many shout outs of "Where'd the rum go?!" randomly throughout the day.  *le sigh*

Goodbye Summer {Strawberry Lemonade Cake}

I spent the last week of summer in my hometown. I so needed a vacation! I missed all my family and desperately wanted to see my Mom and my new niece. I was also craving some fall like weather. 

Game of Thrones Birthday Cakes

My roommate's birthday was August 1st (as is my brother's and his baby girl's!) and I felt challenged to come up with a cake that he would find awesome.  So I asked him what his favorite cake flavor was and he responded yellow.  Which is a color and apparently a legitimate cake flavor.  So what does yellow taste like?  Like cake.  It tastes like cake.  He also like cookies and cream ice cream so I translated that into butter cream icing with Oreo cookie crumbs mixed in.  So that was the easy part, coming up with a theme though...I had so many choices!  We're geeks for heaven's sakes!  Ultimately I settled on recreating the house sigils from the show Game of Thrones.

AHHHHH, yay? {Strawberry Lemonade Cupcakes}

Lately I have been watching a lot of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.  Yes, this a show whose target audience is presumably children but so was the movie Shrek and all those Disney movies/shows.  At least I'm not obsessed with the show unlike my husband a self-described:

BRONY [bro-nee] noun:  A name typically given to the male viewers/fans (whether they are straight, gay, bisexual, etc.) of the My Little Pony show or franchise. They typically do not give in to the hype that males aren't allowed to enjoy things that may be intended for females. Other spellings: Bronie, Plural spellings: Bronies

Female 1: Have you seen the My Little Pony cartoon?
Female 2: Yes! It's so cute and awesome!
Male 1: I've seen it as well.
Female 1: You're the coolest brony ever!

Peter made me watch every single episode available on Netflix.  It would have been torture if I hadn't enjoyed so dang much.  This show is awesome!  

Peter suggested that I should make cupcakes based on the MLP characters and I agreed.  I had an idea involving Kool-Aid flavor packets and the coloring and personalities of the ponies would definitely themselves well to cupcakes/cakes/desserts/cocktails.  I had also bought some sprinkles just because they were sparkly and caught my eye.  I'm such a magpie sometimes and I needed a good reason to justify their purchase.

I decided to make a cupcake based on MLP character Pinkie Pie.  Pink lemonade Kool-Aid?  Sounds right up Pinkie Pie's alley.  Strawberry cake?  Yes, please!  Oh, and guess what I found.  Cupcake wrappers with balloons on them!  See:

source

She is pink and has party balloons as her cutie mark!  *Squee*  I was so excited, my plan was perfect.  IN THEORY.  

Diet Friendly Cakes

Okay!  I promised to post more often.  I have failed.  I try to post every Tuesday and Thursday but when wedding planning goes awry the blog goes to the wayside!  Another thing that goes out the door is my exercise routine.  Also, my healthy eating habits.  This is not good folks!  I have a dress I need to fit into comfortably on my wedding day.  I just need to lose a little.  A smidgen really.  I never intended to have to do this diet to fit into a dress thing but when I ordered my dress it arrived smaller than I expected.  Since the store is all the way in China I figured the safest bet was to lose the weight.

As a part of that goal I decided to research healthy dessert alternatives.  I'm sure you'll agree with me when I say that vegetables are a healthy part of anybody's diet.  It was hard to find cakes made of vegetables besides the traditional carrot or zucchini.  Don't get me wrong those are delightful, but not exactly healthy.

So I present the following cakes for you perusal:  

Asparagus Cake from sweatapolita

The asparagus cake.  It's not easy being green, it's also not easy peeing green.  Well, I mean, it's difficult to look at.  Down right disturbing in fact.  This cake, however, is divine.  Gorgeous and certainly part of a healthy diet!