Homemade Cinnamon Rolls

All I can say is yum!

I made these on a whim, to please my hubby and kids. I started them in the afternoon, so next time I would either let them rise overnight or start them in the morning. My kids have been sick and they needed a little cheering up. They loved getting these warm cinnamon rolls, and for a moment had smiles, instead of fevers and coughs!

I remember my mom occasionally making these for us and my dad, and the smell of cinnamon baking in the house just mad our mouths water! This was my first batch, they turned out well, but were a little dry, so I would add more butter next time and more sugar, but all in all were still delicious. 
I used the recipe from Betty Crockers The New Cookbook.

Slot Machine Cake

This was my first ordered cake! A slot machine themed cake for a surprise 70th birthday party! My customer requested buttercream frosting, with chocolate cake and chocolate mousse. I created a great chocolate recipe from 2 different one I found in a few cookbooks. I took what I liked from both and put it together and it came out supermoist, and yummy!
For the chocolate mousse I used Buddy Valastro's recipe, it is just so delicious! It took me about 10 hours to bake all the separate pieces of cake to form the cake, make the mousse, the buttercream and do all the piping. When all was said and done I was very happy with the way it turned out. Of course I did some of my word piping over 4 times because I just didn't like the way it looked!

The most important thing was that my customer loved it and it tasted just as great as it looked!
On Monday after the party was over, she emailed me a sweet thank you saying how everyone raved over the cake. This just inspires me to keep persuing this passion of baking and decorating!!!

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Everyone loves chocolate chip cookies! And one of my favorite things to do is make them with my kids! When our church announced their annual Chili contest and Chocolate Chip Cookies constest, I signed right up. I was so excited to bake them with my daughter Abigail, unfortunately she came down with a bad cold and was not able to help. That should have been my first hint that this was not going to go well.

Now I believe in being truthful. I could sugar coat this blog with all these great desserts and wonderful pictures of everything that came out right, but it wouldn't be an accurate reflection of myself.

So be prepared, these cookies bottomed out! My second hint that it wasn't going to be a successful batch was when I went to pull out my ingredients and realized that I hadn't bought a new box of baking soda. If you are not aware, fresh baking soda is best, and if it has been sitting around for a while like mine was, don't use it for cookies! Go out and buy a new box!

Or was it the baking soda? One way to check how active your shelved baking soda still is, it to add vinegar. I wish I would have known this before. After making my cookies, I learned that I need to cut down on my butter and add shortening instead. I have been making my cookies for years now, and do enjoy them when the come out right but there are some times, not often when they come out like these did. I am not a fan of shortening, so I am putting this out there..

Do you use shortening in your chocolate chip cookies, and/or what tricks work for you that avoid having flat cookies?

Baby Shower Cake in January

This is a baby shower cake that I put together for my church. We were celebrating the birth of a baby girl for one of our members. I baked a vanilla cake and filled it with strawberry mousse and fresh cut strawberries! Let me just say that this was the best tasting vanilla cake I had made yet!

Truth be told, it was cake mix. I know! I feel like I cheated, but because money is tight I cannot always afford to bake from scratch, especially when I am donating the cake like I did here. I always tweak a cake mix to make it more my own, but I still feel like its not real baking. I am an aspiring baker, so my goal is to bake more from scratch!!!! I will create a vanilla cake this year, that is totally my own and from scratch and it will taste awesome! On another note, if someone is paying me to bake a cake for them, it is always from scratch!

I decided to do strawberry, because it was a baby girl cake, and once I had the vanilla cake and strawberry flavor in my mind I couldn't imagine this cake any other way!

One of my favorite sites for cake baking and decorating is cakecentral.com. So when it came to creating the booties for this cake, I turned to this amazing site for help. You can find not only cake ideas and recipes, but templates such as the booties, as well as a plethora of information and all to do with cake. Weather you are into cake decorating/baking as a hobby or like me aspiring business, you can find help with it all at cakecentral.com!

I knew that I was doing this cake in the beginning of the month, but it took me all month to figure out just what I was going to do. The little flowers were a last minute idea, and felt it really worked well with the white fondant!

I made the marshmallow fondant and will post a recipe for it under the recipe page.

Thanks for looking! Next cake is a 70th birthday slot machine themed cake! Also wedding cakes coming up later in the year. Just sat down with both brides to discuss ideas, but seeing how this is a first for me, it is a learning project!

Time to get back on track!

So, I realized that it has been a month since my last post. UGH! Is all I can say, my resolution was to be blogging for this at least once a week. Well, here I go again! I did get a little sidetracked on a baby shower cake for church, and that got me off schedule, then life just happened. Kids getting sick, and the every day stuff. Its not a good excuse, but I do plan to keep on blogging! Stay tuned to find other posts, on the baby shower cake, cookies that flopped and an upcoming slot machine cake I am currently working on! And ohh chocolate!

The Cream Puff

This week I was feeling a bit homesick, and decided to make the Cream Puff. Originally being from Wisconsin I have many fun memories of going to the Wisconsin State Fair. All the animals, rides and exhibits were fun, but getting in line for a Cream Puff with my mom tops them all!

The recipe was very easy to make and went pretty quickly. The challenge was in how I baked these yummy puffs. I had invited my mother and father-in-law over for dinner and decided to roast a chicken in my oven. Timing was my challenger. With the oven being used I had to rely on my toaster oven to bake my puff pastry for the cream puff. I was not sure how it would turn out, but that's the fun of the whole experience!

I used Maida Heatter's recipe in her book "Great Desserts."

The toaster oven got the job done! I had heated it up to 425 degrees as the recipe called, but needed to bake the puffs longer at this temp before lowering the temp to 350 degrees like the recipe called for me to do.

For the filling I made a plain whipped cream with vanilla extract and a touch of almond extract, it was perfect when topped with some powdered sugar.

Before writing this post I did a little research...

The largest cream puff was made just this past year in Wisconsin at the State Fair! August 11, 2011 to be exact, and the pastry weighed in at 125.5 pounds! What else would you expect from the dairy state!

Dessert Ideas Please

Because I am planning on doing at least 52 different desserts in 2012 with this blog, I thought it would be great to get some ideas from those who may follow along with me on my journey!

If you have a favorite dessert, or one that you've always wanted to try, please share! Lets have fun exploring all the possibilities!

Birthday Goodies

I was very excited to start getting in some of the items I ordered off Amazon for my cake decorating!
It feels so great because most of the things are ordered are to help further my skills in this profession.

I finally have a steamer to smooth and shine up my fondant cakes!
and a food scale to help weigh instead of measure out my ingredients.

Next is to save for a more powerful stand mixer, and air brush system and a pasta machine!

Bring on 2012!

Red Velvet Cake with White Chocolate Buttercream

For my first dessert I chose a Red Velvet Cake. Typically it is made with a Cream Cheese Frosting, but I decided to go with White Chocolate instead! I first made this cake last year for my birthday and really enjoyed the flavor as well as the deep red color. I enjoyed it so much that I decided to make it again this year for my birthday.
My husband, 2 children and I went to Whole Foods, and my quest was for my favorite cocoa powder to use in this cake. Valrhona Chocolate. I first heard of it last year during a Bravo channel episode of "Top Chef Just Desserts". It is excellent and is my preferred choice with all my baking! Unfortunately they were out of it, most likely due to the Holidays! So I opted for another brand. It turned out good but not Valrhona. If you are interested in trying this brand, it is excellent and the only place in RI that carries it is Whole Foods, but beware it is pricey.

This year I chose a recipe from "175 best babycakes cupcake maker" written by Kathy Moore and Roxanne Wyss, but I modified it to include the tweaks I had made last year.

The cake itself was easy to make. I made 2 batches of the recipe, 1 batch fills one 8" round cake pan. For the vinegar I used white, but prefer cider if I have it in the house (was all out this time). Also I prefer to use red food coloring gel, but any type of red food coloring will do. If interested in the recipe, refer to the Recipe index to the left of this blog.

The filling was my new creation and had its fall backs, but all in all was my favorite filling with this cake. I made a White Chocolate Cream filling and topped that with fresh sliced strawberries. The strawberries were a huge hit with my kids. They couldn't get enough of them. I used heavy whipped cream, with powdered sugar and melted Ghirardelli white chocolate. My fall back was in the whipping. I'm pretty sure I over whipped. Also the melted chocolate when mixed with the cold cream chunked up a little. I would try this again, but with White Chocolate cocoa powder. I had looked in Whole Foods for this but they did not carry it. I will need to purchase it online in the future!

For the butter cream frosting, I use my staple: but added some of the melted white chocolate. It turned out okay, but because I came up with this on the fly, I ended not having enough  melted white chocolate to really make this butter cream taste like the white chocolate. It ended up with just a hint of the flavor. Next time I would make sure I bought enough. NOTE: the recipe posted has the amounts of chocolate that I believe would be needed to make this frosting the way I had wanted it to taste.

All in all, this cake turned out to be pretty tasty, and would make it again! But would still add some tweaks to the filling and frosting! That's what I love about baking... just keep adjusting till you get the texture and taste you love!

New Year, New Blog and Lots of Yummy Desserts!

I love all the cakes that I have made, and look forward to what this new year will bring! Already booked for 2 wedding cakes and a bridal shower. While I have spent the past 5 years focusing on learning more about different decorating techniques, I now need to add in more baking! I mean more than just cakes!

I hope you will enjoy reading and seeing the different cakes and other desserts that I make and decorate over this year. I promise to post the recipe as well as if it worked or failed and what worked! The unique part about all of this is that, I will also be attempting to lose weight and take better care of my health in the midst of creating 52 desserts!

I figured there is no better way than to start tomorrow, January 2nd, seeing how its my birthday. I will start with a cake and one of my favorites...Red Velvet. This should help me to get into this blog and get creative! Thank you reading, support and comments are encouraged! This should be fun!