My Sweet and Saucy

This past weekend I had the chance to hang out with some good friends of mine and celebrate my dear friend Kate’s birthday!  We thought it would be fun to try out a couple new drinks and have some appetizers, so my friend Matt was in charge of two drinks and I was in charge of one drink and the dessert.  It was my first time trying out drink recipes and I had a lot of fun!  I decided to try a recipe from Elizabeth Falkner’s book Demolition Desserts.  Once I read that this drink had passion fruit juice in it I knew I had to try it…and to make matters even more interesting the title of the drink was “Shagadelic”!  Elizabeth says that this recipe was made to match her “Shag cake” that was quite popular with her customers at Citizen Cake.  

As you can see from these photos this is definitely not my typical food photo shoot, but I still wanted to share these pictures and recipe with you…hope you enjoy them!  

Shagadelic

adapted from Demolition Desserts

serves two 

(I changed some things in the recipe…like the sugar rim instead of a shredded coconut rim and a strawberry instead of a maraschino cherry) 

1/2 c. bottled passion, such as Looza brand

1 T. Cointreau

1/4 c. white rum, such as 10 Cane brand

2 T. coconut rum, such as Malibu brand

Juice of 1/2 lime

Ice cubes

A couple strawberries

Sugar for the rim

Rub one of the cut limes around the edge of the glasses and then dip into sugar.

In a cocktail shaker, combine passion fruit juice, Cointreau, white and coconut rum, and lime juice.  Fill the shaker with ice, cover, and shake.

Strain into the sugar-rimmed glasses and add a sliced strawberry to the rim.  

Like I said earlier, my friend Matt made two drinks for us too…both which were a lot of fun and delicious too!  The first drink he made was a Peach Bellini.  He said you just need a good sparkling wine and a scoop of peach sorbet and presto dingdough your done!  

The other drink he made took a little preparation beforehand, but was really yummy and looked beautiful too!  He infused vodka with strawberries for 2 days or so and then drained the vodka from the jar.  (The strawberries definitely lose their beauty in the infusing process and end up looking more like little tongues, but the end result is worth it!)

Matt added simple syrup (equal parts of sugar and water heated until dissolved), mint, and ice to the strawberry vodka and muddled it around.  Overall, a really great drink!

Sadly I don’t have a great picture of the end result, but take my word for it…it’s a winner!  Thanks Matt!

To end the night off right I thought that I should try out a gift that my husband’s aunt had gotten me…a Skookie Cast Iron Skillet!!!  I had some leftover Peanut Butter M&M Monster cookie dough, so I thought it would make the perfect birthday dessert…and it did!  Here is the birthday girl with her own Skookie aka pizza cookie.

Hope you had a great birthday Kate!  Thanks for being such a great friend!

My husband’s side of the family has an interesting tradition for celebrating birthdays…instead of celebrating everyone’s birthday on their “actual birthday” they like to group everyone’s birthday together for a 3-4 month period and celebrate about 10 people’s birthday all together.  Now this arrangement does have its pluses, but it also has its negatives…try being 24 yrs. old and having enough money for 8 birthdays!!! Well, one benefit of being a pastry chef is using my culinary skills to make homemade gifts that make people forget that I didn’t spend the big bucks on them.  I decided to try out a new recipe for the big party extravaganza!  I took a look through my folder full of cupcake recipes that I’ve been wanting to try out and I kept flipping back to Chockylit’s recipe for Salted Caramel Frosting, so I decided to try it out.  

I used one of my favorite recipes for chocolate cake/cupcakes from Ina Garten.  I also had some extra chocolate rum ganache left over from another dessert that I tried out, so I decided to use it as a filling for the cupcakes.  To make this ganache just heat an equal amount of heavy cream until it begins to boil and pour it oven an equal amount of chopped bittersweet or semisweet chocolate.  Let it sit for a few minutes and then stir in 1 Tablespoon or so of rum (depending on the amount of chocolate and cream you used…it’s all up to you).  Let the chocolate ganache completely cool until it is scoopable and then fill an pastry bag with the ganache and pipe it into the cooled cupcakes.   

Here are a couple photos of me making the salted caramel for the salted caramel frosting.  You can see the stages the caramel has to go through before you add it to the cream cheese frosting base.  First shot is of the amber caramel right after I took it off the stove. 

This next shot is after I added the lemon juice, butter, and heavy cream.

This last photo is of the caramel right before I added it to the cream cheese frosting base.

After I added the caramel to the cream cheese frosting base I made a couple small changes to it.  I added about 1/2 tsp. more salt to the recipe and about 1 tsp. of vanilla extract.  The little amount of caramel I had left, that I didn’t add to the frosting, I spooned over the top of the cupcakes after I frosted them.  I also had some leftover candied pecans from the last dessert I made, so I topped off the cupcakes with them.  As a finishing touch, I sprinkled a little coarse sea salt on top.  These cupcakes turned out fantastic and were a huge hit with the family!  I definitely recommend trying them out…thanks so much Chockylit for the great recipe!

I always think presentation is key when giving someone a gift, so I thought that I would package these cupcakes in clear boxes from Garnish.  I wish I would’ve had some all-brown M&M’s at home, but I didn’t, so I just used the normal M&M’s to add a little barrier around the base of the cupcake and add some edible decoration.  I tied a cute little green ribbon top to tie in all the colors and the gifts were finished.

Well, I hope all of you had a wonderful Mother’s Day today and enjoyed spending time with loved ones.  Hopefully you indulged in a couple yummy bites along the way! 

P.S. I get all my cute cupcake liners from Confectioneryhouse.com!

Well since I’m trying to eat a little more on the lighter side these days in preparation for one of my best friend’s wedding in two weeks, I decided to make a strawberry sorbet…they don’t have any calories right?  To add some more pazazz to the sorbet I decided to make some brown sugar meringues and candied pecans to go with it.  Overall I thought the dessert was good, nothing outrageously delicious to write home to mom about, but still yummy.  The sorbet really did taste like you were eating a strawberry, not too sweet at all, so if you like things natural then this is definitely the recipe for you.  I had a ton of fun making the meringues and choosing which designs to make with them…a perfect time to involve the kids in the kitchen.  And for those of you who think you’ll never make homemade caramelized nuts think again!  This recipe took about all of 5 minutes to whip together and only involves 3 ingredients!  Even though this dessert had three different components to it, it really was a user friendly dessert.  Each component was extremely easy and fast to make.  The only time consuming part is baking the meringues and freezing the ice cream, but you can be busy doing other things while these things take place.  Also, if you want to plan ahead each one of these could be made ahead of time and then assembled at the last minute.  As you can see by the multitude of photos I got a little excited when playing with this dessert and tried out many, many different ways to style it…hope you enjoy them!  The strawberry sorbet and caramelized pecan recipe came from Alice Merdrich’s book, Pure Dessert. (I also recommend her book, Bittersweet, for anyone interested in chocolate…well who wouldn’t be?)  This book is a winner sure for!  She has so many recipes that I am dying to try and she also takes the time to give you very informative information about everything.  The brown sugar meringue recipe came from Emily Luchetti’s book, A Passion for Dessert.  This book is fantastic also.  She breaks up her recipes into which season they go with the best.  I think this would help a lot of people out who find themselves wondering what exactly they should make and what types of food are in that particular season.  Both of these books would be great additions to any collection.    

Sensational Strawberry Sorbet

adapted from Pure Dessert 

1 # or 4 cups ripe, flavorful strawberries (rinsed and hulled)

1/3 cup plus 2 T. water

1/3 cup sugar, plus more to taste (I added about 1/6 cup more) 

A few drops of fresh lemon juice (only if necessary)

2 to 3 t. vodka, kirsch, or framboise (optional…I used vodka)

Add 1 cup of berries to a small saucepan with a good lid and add 2 T. of water.  Bring to a simmer over high heat and then reduce to medium and cover.  Simmer for 2 to 3 minutes or until berries are fork tender…do not over cook.  

Scrape berries and their juices into a food processor or blender and add the remaining berries and sugar.  Puree until smooth.  Stir in the remaining 1/3 cup water and transfer puree to a bowl and chill.  Taste the puree and adjust with more sugar or lemon if needed.  Stir in liquor if using.  For an extra cold start, freeze puree for 20 minutes before putting in the ice cream machine.  Freeze puree according to the instructions of your ice cream machine.

Put sorbet in an airtight container and freeze until hard enough to scoop, 3 to 4 hours.

Caramelized Pecan Garnish

adapted from Pure Dessert

1/2 cup sugar

1/8 t. fleur de sel or sea salt (I also sprinkled some on top too)

1/2 cup of nuts (I chose pecans)

Have a baking sheet near by lined with a silpat, parchment paper, or foil.  

Mix the sugar and salt and then spread in a dry skillet.  Set pan over medium-high heat without stirring until the sugar around the edges begins to melt.  Shake the pan to redistribute the liquid.  When the syrup begins to color, stir it with a silicone spatula or wooden spoon, mixing and spreading until all the sugar is melted and evenly colored.  If it starts to color too fast turn down the heat and/or take it off the heat for a little while.  When the syrup looks pale amber add the nuts and stir gently to coat.  You can drop a bead of the syrup on a white plate to judge the color.  When the color turns to medium-dark honey take it off the heat and scrap the mixture onto your silpat.  Spread it as thin as possible, but don’t touch it…it’s extremely hot!  Let cool and then break into chunks.  Place pieces in a seal bag until needed.

Here are some photos of the caramelization process.

I also took some of the hardened caramelized nuts and put them in my mini food processor and gave it a whirl to create a more delicate caramelized nut topping.

Brown Sugar Meringues

adapted from A Passion for Desserts

1/4 cup plus 1 T. firmly packed dark brown sugar

2 large egg whites

Large pinch of cream of tarter

Preheat oven to 225 degrees.  

Sift or push brown sugar through a fine mesh sieve onto parchment paper to remove any lumps.

Using a stand mixer with a whip attachment, whip the egg whites until foamy.  Add the cream of tarter.  Increase to high speed and add the brown sugar, one tablespoon at a time.  Whip the egg whites until very thick and satiny, about 2 minutes.  

You can either pipe the meringue onto a parchment paper lined baking sheet or you can spoon it on too.  Use whatever piping tip you want…I used a #804.  If you want to create room for the ice cream to sit in the meringue then dip a spoon in water and then use it to push down on the meringue and create a hole.   

Bake meringues for about 2 hours, until they easily come off of the parchment paper.  To test if they are done, remove them from the oven and let sit for a couple of minutes.  Then, using a metal spatula, try to lift them off the parchment, if they don’t come off easily, return to them to the oven.

Place cooled meringues in a airtight container.  The meringues can be made several days in advance if store in a airtight container, otherwise they will become soggy.

Here is a photo of the finished meringues. 

Like I said…I got a little photo crazy, so here they are!

I would love for you to leave me a comment and let me know which way you prefer the dessert plated! 

Flipping through the pages of Bon Appetit a while back I found a recipe that intrigued me, so as always I ripped the page out of magazine and placed it on my ever growing pile of “must-try recipes”.  Since I have been on my passion fruit craze lately I decided to try it out, but I wanted to make it my own and change up the recipe.  I love macadamia nuts and graham cracker crusts so I thought I would swap out their regular sugar tart crust for this combo…let me tell you that I am glad that I did!  That was not the only change I made to the recipe…they wanted shredded coconut in the coconut cream filling, but something in my head kept telling me that the mouth feel just wouldn’t be right (at least for me) with pieces of coconut in it, so I decided to just have the smooth coconut cream filling.  I also always like trying my desserts out in different forms so that I can see if they would work as a mini dessert or just an individual dessert size.  I love minis and always try to find recipes that can turn into mini delights.  This recipe performed beautifully with both sizes.  The flavors were amazing and definitely a keeper for future uses! 

Coconut Macadamia Nut Tart with Passion Fruit Cream

Crust:

1 cup macadamia nuts

3 1/4 cups graham cracker crumbs (about 30 crackers)

1 Tablespoon sugar

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, melted

pinch of salt

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.  Toast macadamia nuts a baking sheet for 7-9 minutes or until golden brown and aromatic.  Let cool and then coarsely chop.  

In a large bowl, mix together all of the ingredients for the crust until evenly combined.  Spray tart pan with non-stick spray.  Press the dough evenly into the bottom and all the way up the sides of your tart pan (Whatever size you choose).  The crust should be 1/4″-1/2″ thick.  To make minis you can bake the tart in a larger rectangle or circle tart pan and then use a small circle cutter to cut the mini tarts once they have baked and cooled.    

Filling:

2/3 cup sugar

2 large eggs

2 large egg yolks

1 t. grated lime peel

1 cup + 1/3 cup whipping cream

1 cup canned sweetened cream of coconut (such as Coco Lopez)

6 T. fresh lime juice

Whisk first 4 ingredients in a large bowl for 1 minute.  Stir in whipping cream, cream of coconut, and lime juice.  Transfer to prepared crust.  Bake until set in the center (baking time depends on your size of tart shell…check mini’s after 5 minutes, individual size after 12 minutes, but could take up to 20 minutes).  I didn’t try to make the tart in a large 9″ size, but I think it would turn out just fine…the only thing that worried me was that the crust might be too cooked, so I just made individual sizes and cut mini’s out of them…let me know if anyone tries the larger size tart and how it turns out.  Just a note: the larger tart would need to cook for 30-40 minutes probably.  Let cool and refrigerate until needed.

Passion Fruit Cream:

1 1/2 cups chilled whipping cream

1 cup sugar

2/3 cup sour cream

10 T. passion fruit pulp or puree

Whisk the cream, sugar, and sour cream until thickened.  Add passion fruit pulp or puree and whisk until peaks form.  Pipe or dollop on cream onto the top of the tarts.  Enjoy!

This is definitely a recipe must for everyone!  I am not a drinker by any means…the only kind of drinks I like are girly, fruity ones and I still find those hard to drink since they have calories (and loads of them) and I figure that I could have a dessert instead, BUT this drink/dessert is the perfect combo for me!  This recipe is from David Lebovitz’s book, The Perfect Scoop, a book soley devoted to ice creams, sorbets, granitas, and sweet accompaniments.  He describes granita as “a shaved ice, made from a lightly sweetened fruit puree or another liquid.”  Even though I have drooled over many recipes so far this was the first one I’ve tried.  The simplicity of the recipe is amazing, which lends itself to the pure and simple fact that you have no reason not to try it.  Well, if I haven’t convinced you already hopefully the photos will!

Mojito Granita

adapted by David Lebovitz’s, The Perfect Scoop

Makes about 1 quart

2 1/2 cups water

1/2 cup sugar

2 limes, preferably unsprayed

1 cup lightly packed fresh mint leaves

1/2 cup freshly squeezed lime juice (from about 6 limes)

3 Tablespoons white or light rum

Add the water and sugar to a small, non reactive saucepan and then grate the zest from the two limes directly into the saucepan.  Turn the heat to high and bring to a boil, so that the sugar completely dissolves.  Reserve 5 mint leaves and then add the rest to the saucepan and take it off of the heat.  Cover the pan for 8 minutes so that the mint infuses the liquid.  Then uncover and let liquid come to room temperature.

Once liquid is cool, strain the mixture into a flat container that is approximately 8 to 12 inches across, with a 2 quart capacity.  Make sure to squeeze all the yummy liquid out of the leaves and then discard them.  Stir in the lime juice and rum and then finely chop the remaining 5 leaves and add them to the liquid (I choose just to use them as garnish).  Place the container in the freezer and freeze for one hour.  Once the edges begin to freeze, take a fork and break up the frozen parts and rack them toward the center.  Return to the freezer and then check the mixture every 30 minutes and continue breaking up the ice particles until the mixture almost completely frozen or completely frozen (depending on your preference).

Here are some photos of the process…infusing the mint and then the stages of ice formation.

David suggests that you can serve it over any ice cream or sorbet (maybe mint ice cream), top it off with whipped cream, or simply pile the granita high in its own dish and enjoy it by itself…that is what I did!

I have to confess that my husband and I were so addicted to this delicious granita that almost every cup ended up like this one!

Well, I am so excited to announce the winner of my first cookbook giveaway!  Thanks to all 35 people who participated in this little contest! When I put the info into the random number generator on my computer it said that the winner was….#2!!! Congratulations Landa from the All-Purpose Girl Blog! Your new Martha Stewart Cookie Book will be on its way shortly!Now onto the cakes!  This past weekend I had two events…one wedding and one birthday party. This was actually my first official wedding cake and I got to deliver it to the Queen Mary. The bride and groom were from England, which made it even more exciting, and came over to the U.S. just for their wedding. They were having a 1920’s theme wedding and so they sent me a picture of what they wanted the cake to look like. I put my own little twist on it and overall I was pretty happy with the outcome. The cake was carrot cake with cream cheese frosting and the top and bottom tier were covered in fondant, while the middle tier was covered in modeling chocolate. I used a technique called brushed embroidery to decorate the cake. First I made royal icing and colored it gold. Then I piped the design on freehand…basically I just looked at the photo that they sent me and tried to make a design similar to it. When piping I worked in segments…I piped on the royal icing and then used a small, wet paint brush and brushed the royal icing. I then let the icing dry. To get the glittery gold effect I used gold luster dust mixed it with a little vodka and painted over the piping to make it shimmer.  Lastly I piped a simple border of royal icing around the bases of the cake.

The second event I had this weekend was a surprise birthday party where I made the appetizers and the cake.  The appetizers were Salmon Cakes with Lemon Dill Sauce, Bruschetta on Garlic Crostini, and Hot Parmesan Artichoke Dip with Pita Bread.  For the cake I made a chocolate cake with white chocolate whipped cream filling (see recipe below) and fresh strawberries and covered it with chocolate mousse buttercream.  As you can see from the photos of the cake, I have been getting more and more into using fresh flowers with my desserts.  I have the most adorable flower shop near my house and I love looking at their new flowers they get every day.  The theme for the party was “Tequila Sunrise” and so they wanted a cake with the colors pink, red, and orange.  I colored some vanilla buttercream I had red and piped a dot border around the edges of the cake and then used the same buttercream to pipe the birthday message.  To get the flowers to stick in the cake, I wrapped a skewer around the stem of the flower and secured it with floral tap.  Once I got to the party I was a little worried about the cake since we got a massive heat wave here in CA and it was around 90 degrees on Saturday…not so good for buttercream.  Thankfully it survived though!

The recipe for white chocolate whipped cream is quite easy and only uses two ingredients: white chocolate and heavy cream

White Chocolate Whipped Cream

adapted from Fran Bigelow’s book, Pure Chocolate 

Makes 3 cups

6 oz white chocolate, finely chopped

1 1/2 cups heavy cream, chilled

Melt the chocolate in a microwave safe bowl, at 30 seconds intervals, stirring each time.  Let cool slightly.  Whip the cream to very soft peaks.  Working quickly, with a hand whisk add the lightly whipped cream all at once to the cooled melted chocolate.  (Don’t reverse the order, or chips will form.)  Whisk until thoroughly combined, but don’t overwhip or you will lose the smooth consistency.  Chilled until needed.

Today has been so much fun for me because I had my first cooking class at Prep Kitchen Essentials, in Seal Beach, CA. What a dream place this is to teach in…fabulous food, top-notch equipment, and someone does your dishes for you too! I think I died and went to heaven! I was also so excited to have two of my blog readers come to the class! Well, I wanted to share a couple photos with you and one of the recipes too! In today’s class I taught how to make Buttermilk Cake with Lemon Cream and Fresh Raspberries, Mini Key Lime Pies with Toasted Meringue Topping, and Cream Puffs with Sweet Melissa’s Deadly Chocolate Fudge Sauce! The class was so much fun and I couldn’t help but want to share with you the Cream Puff recipe! This recipe is quite easy and so much fun for everyone. You can make these into profiteroles by substituting the whipped cream filling for a scoop of your favorite ice cream…doesn’t that sound yummy!

Servings: about 16 profiteroles/cream puffs

Pate a Choux:

adapted from The King Arthur Flour Baking Companion

8 oz. (1 c.) Water

5 ¼ oz (1 ¼ c.) AP Flour

8 T. Unsalted Butter

3-4 large eggs

¾ t. salt

Preheat oven 425 degrees

Put the water, salt, and butter in a saucepan and bring to a rolling boil. Remove from heat and add the flour all at once. Return the pan to the burner and start stirring vigorously. Cook over medium heat, while stirring constantly, until the mixture forms a ball. (About 1 minute or so) Remove from heat and let cool for 5-10 minutes, or until 140 degrees. Place the dough in a mixer bowl and beat in the eggs one at a time. Before adding the last egg check the consistency of the dough. Pinch the dough between your fingers and slowly pull apart. If the dough breaks easily, add the last egg. Continue beating for at least 2 minutes after the last egg has been beaten.

Place the dough in a piping bag with a #809 tip. Pipe the dough into small balls onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper or a silpat. If a peak forms, then gently dab it with a wet finger.

Bake for 15 minutes and then reduce the oven temp. to 375 degrees and continue baking for 15 more minutes. The balls should feel like and hollow. Turn off the oven, open the door a crack, and leave the balls to cool for 30 more minutes.

Chocolate Fudge Sauce:

adapted from Sweet Melissa’s Baking Book

7.5 oz best-quality bittersweet chocolate coarsely chopped

¼ c. sugar

½ c. plus 1 t. light corn syrup

½ c. plus 1 t. water

¾ c. unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder

¾ t. instant coffee or instant espresso powder

1 T. liquor (cognac, brandy, Kahlua, etc.)

Melt the chocolate in a microwave safe bowl at 30 second intervals until the chocolate is completely melted. (You can also melt the chocolate in a double boiler set or simmering water.) Keep warm.

In a large saucepan over medium heat add the sugar, corn syrup, water, cocoa powder, and instant coffee. Bring to a boil, while whisking constantly. Once the mixture comes to a rapid boil, continue cooking for 1-2 more minutes.

Remove from heat and whisk in the melted chocolate and liquor.

Whipped Cream:

1 Pint heavy whipping cream

1 t. vanilla extract

Powdered sugar to taste

Whip cold heavy whipping cream with a whisk attachment until slightly thickened. Add powdered sugar to taste and vanilla extract. Continue whipping until soft peaks form.

Once cool, cut balls in half with a serrated bread knife and place small scoops of ice cream or whipped cream inside. Drizzle the chocolate sauce on top and enjoy!

Here are some more photos from the class!

To celebrate my happy day with my blogging friends and readers I wanted to give away a free copy of Martha Stewart’s new book “Martha Stewart’s Cookies“. This is a great resource for yummy cookies and I wanted to share it with one of you! All you have to do is leave me a comment with what your all-time favorite dessert is. I am looking to figure out new recipes to try and I want to know what desserts hold a special place in your hearts. Look forward to hearing your comments!  The deadline is Saturday night!

It was my turn to bring dessert to my Bible study last Thursday night, which was around the same time I was making the cake for the Barbie cake, so I decided to use a little of the batter to make mini cupcakes for everyone.  To make the cupcakes even cuter I decided to use some adorable flower cupcakes liners that I got from Fancy Flours.  I think I have an unhealthy addiction to cute cupcake liners and once I see them…I have to have them!  

I been really into using one of Barefoot Contessa’s chocolate cake recipes and have found that it is my favorite chocolate cake recipe I’ve tasted yet…and believe me, I have eaten a lot of chocolate cake!  I use a pastry bag and fill it will the batter and then pipe it into the mini cupcake liners to make everything a lot easier.  To spice the recipe up even more I added a peanut butter filling from Chockylit’s Cupcake Blog (As she recommends, definitely add more milk to this recipe…just enough to make it creamy). To put the filling in the cupcakes I use a pastry bag with a medium tip and insert the tip into the cupcake and squeeze until the cupcake expands slightly and the filling comes to the top. 

To top off these yummy cupcakes I used a Chocolate Mousse Buttercream recipe from the book Sticky, Chewy, Messy, Gooey, by Jill O’Conner.  This recipe is delicious!

Chocolate Mousse Buttercream

adapted from Sticky, Chewy, Messy, Gooey

yield: about 5 cups

6 large eggs

1 1/2 cups sugar

2 T. Dutch processed cocoa powder

1 t. vanilla extract

pinch of salt

6 sticks (24 0z)of cold unsalted butter, cut into cubes

12 0z semisweet chocolate, melted 

Whisk together the eggs, sugar, and cocoa powder in the metal bowl of a stand mixer.

Fill a large saute pan with hot water and bring to a simmer over medium-high heat.  Place the mixing bowl in the water and whisk the egg mixture constantly until the sugar is completely dissolved and the mixture is thick and fluffy and very hot, 3-4 minutes.  The temperature should be between 120-140 degrees.

Remove the bowl from the water and using the whisk attachment, beat the eggs at a medium-high speed until they are tripled in volume and form very soft peaks.  The bottom of the bowl should be completely cool to the touch, about 10 minutes.  Beat in the vanilla and salt.

Switch to the paddle attachment on your mixer and turn to medium-high speed.  Add the chucks of butter a couple at a time.  Once all is added, turn the mixer on high speed and let it mix until the buttercream comes together and is shiny and smooth…don’t worry if it separates at first, it will come together!  

Add the buttercream to another bowl (not metal…it is too cold and will seize the chocolate) and then add 1/2 of the warm chocolate and stir to incorporate.  Add the remaining chocolate and stir to fully incorporate.    Place the chocolate buttercream in a pastry bag fitted with a #807 tip and pipe your buttercream onto the cupcake.  To get the swirl effect, simply start at one end of the cupcake and pipe in a circle.  Continue piping until you have two layers of frosting.  Stop squeezing the frosting and quickly pull tip away from cupcake.

To make the fondant accent simply roll out your fondant to 1/8″-1/4″ thick and stamp your impressions onto it.  If it sticks add a little cornstarch.  Next use a brush to add luster dust to the fondant.  Then use a small circle cutter and cut circles out of the fondant.  Let the circles dry slightly before adding them to the cupcake or else they won’t hold their shape.   

 And here is the final cupcake creation!

Having so many family and friends that live near me always gives an opportunity to try out new dessert ideas. This past weekend was my little cousin’s birthday party and her mom and I decided that a Barbie Doll cake would be perfect for the party. This was my first time making a Barbie Doll cake and I was excited to see how it would turn out. Overall I was happy with it, but there is definitely some things that I would do differently next time.

Instead of buying a Barbie Doll pan for the actual cake part I just baked three cakes… 4″,5″, 6″ and cake rounds. I split the cakes into two layers each and filled them with vanilla buttercream. I then stacked the three cakes on top of each other and spread buttercream between them.

Next I trimmed the cake on the sides and placed the trimmed pieces of the cake back onto the cake so that the shape would be more rounded. I then coated the whole cake in buttercream and placed it on the cake board that I lined with fondant.

I rolled out my fondant to about 1/8″-1/4″ and draped it over the cake.  I just used my fingers to maneuver the fondant so that it created pleats like a dress would have.  I then used fondant to cover the top part of the Barbie and stuck the Barbie into the center of the cake.  To decorate the dress I used royal icing to pipe dots and the girl’s names and I used stamps to make fondant flowers for the dress too.

Lastly I wanted to say THANK YOU to Stephanie over at Stephanie’s Kitchen for giving me this “Bloggin with a Purpose” award.  I absolutely love her blog and was so honored that she thought of me when passing her awards out!  Definitely go check her out and the other nominated blogs!

This past week has been full of baking, baking, and more baking, so look forward to many posts this coming week. The first of many posts is probably my favorite! This past weekend I had the pleasure of making more treats for my friend Karrie’s second bridal shower. This time the shower was in San Diego, CA and it was at Tea Upon Chatsworth. I had never been to a tea house before and had an absolutely wonderful time. Tea and yummy treats…what could be better! I was asked to make about 40 bridal shower favors for the ladies and decided that trying out mini cakes was the route I was going to take. My wonderful friend April from culinary school came over to help me with the project, but when midnight came she had to leave and that left me to finish them…lets just say that my head didn’t hit the pillow until around 4:30am…I don’t think I would’ve finished without April! I do have to say that I still ended up having a lovely day at the shower, even on 2 1/2 hours sleep, and I was pretty happy with how my little cakes turned out. The circle cakes were chocolate cake with chocolate mousse buttercream and fresh strawberries and the square cakes were buttermilk cake with passion fruit mousse and fresh strawberries. I took photos at my house and also at the shower, so sorry for the overload of photos, but I love taking pictures of my goodies…please let me know your favorite photo, so I can see which one I should put on my official website!

To make them I baked the cake in 13 x 9 pans and then used cookie cutters to cut circles out of the cooled cake. I used a serrated bread knife to make the squares out of the other cake. One I had enough cut outs for each cake to have two layers I piped on a outer ring of vanilla buttercream with a piping bag on the bottom layer and then piped in the filling for the cakes and added the sliced strawberries. Next I placed the second cake layer on top and piped buttercream around the cake before I smoothed it down. Piping the buttercream on the mini cakes is easier than trying to frost them completely with only a offset spatula because the cakes are not as stable as larger ones. After covering the cakes with buttercream I rolled out fondant, I prefer using Satin Ice Fondant, and smoothed it over the cakes. (Side note: I am really happy with Satin Ice Fondant and got many compliments on how the fondant tasted…since many people have a mad mindset about it. Also I have tried marshmallow fondant, but found that I didn’t like the consistency as much as regular fondant…so I’m sticking with Satin Ice). After the fondant is on the cake and smoothed I use a pizza wheel to go around the bottom edge of the cake and cut off the excess.

I then adhered different color ribbon around the bottom of each cake with a dab of buttercream. I also piped three small dots of buttercream at the seam of the ribbon and then adhered three silver dragees to the buttercream dots.

For a decorating accent I rolled out some gray fondant and then stamped the flower design onto the fondant and lust dusted the whole mini cake. As you can see in the photos I used three different flower stamps on the fondant. (For more info about these kind of stamps check out my other posts on cupcakes). I then used circle cookie cutters to cut out neat circles and adhered them to the cake with a dab of water. To package the mini cakes I used 4″x4″x4″ clear boxes, which you can get from Garnish, and tied them with different color ribbons. On some of the boxes I cut fresh button mums and stuck them underneath the ribbon.

And lastly here are some more photos from the shower that were too fun not to post…hope you enjoy them!