My cake pops are up on Etsy! I am donating 10% of all sales to the Dachshund Rescue of North America, because those puppies need love too. Happy Valentines day!
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avocado frosting
Thursday, January 19, 2012
happy new year!
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Last week I was thinking about how I should make some fancy gold and silver cookies for new year’s.. so I was delighted when Linda placed an order for two dozen cupcakes for her New Year’s party…
I amassed a large amount of cutters for Christmas so it was only appropriate to make lots of sparkly fondant decorations. And I found these guys a while back and finally found a reason to use them!
I haven’t made my vanilla recipe in awhile. Good thing my get-in-shape-for-the-wedding regimen starts tomorrow, because there are always a couple cupcakes left over.
All boxed up and ready to go. Hope everyone has a SAFE and HAPPY New Year!
thanksgiving apple pie
Thursday, December 1, 2011
I made two desserts this year and both are worth sharing. The first is Pioneer Woman’s dreamy apple pie, but with a twist. And the twist is rum. What doesn’t rum make better? Any how, here’s the recipe:
the REALLY dreamy apple pie
I’ve never tried her pie crust recipe, although I’m sure its great. I use the one out of the Cook’s Country – you can find that re-posted here.
Ingredients:
for the filling-
- 4 Granny Smith Apples, peeled, cored and sliced into thin, small pieces
- 1/2 cup Brown Sugar
- 1/2 cup Sugar
- 1 Tablespoon All-purpose Flour
- 3/4 cup Heavy Cream
- 1/2 cup spiced rum
- 2 teaspoons Vanilla Extract
- 1/4 teaspoon Cinnamon
for the topping-
- 7 Tablespoons Butter
- 3/4 cups All-purpose Flour
- 1/2 cup Brown Sugar
- 1/4 cup Pecans (more To Taste)
- Dash Of Salt
Method:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
Roll out pie dough and place it in a pie pan. Decorate the edges as desired. I left it pretty simple and then cut out leaf shapes from the remaining crust to layer over the prepared pie and topping.
Add apple slices to a large bowl. In a separate bowl, mix together cream, 1/2 cup of spiced rum, 1/2 cup brown sugar, 1/2 cup sugar, 1 tablespoon flour, vanilla, and cinnamon. Pour over apples and toss to coat. Pour apples and filling into pie shell.
In the bowl of a food processor (or you can mix by hand) combine butter, flour, sugar, pecans (chop if you’re not using a food processor), and salt. Mix until everything comes together in clumps. Sprinkle topping over apples. This is where I added rings of layered pie crust leaves around the perimeter, leaving the middle open. Lightly brush the exposed crust with heavy cream.
Lay a piece of flat foil loosely over the top of the pie. Place pie pan on top of a foil covered cookie sheet and bake for one hour. The baking sheet is crucial because the apple juices will ooze over the sides and you don’t want them on the bottom of your oven. The foil in between the pie and the baking sheet is crucial because that juice is REALLY sticky and hard to get off your baking sheet. At the end, remove foil and allow to finish baking and browning. You can bake for up to 15 or 20 minutes more if necessary.
Remove from oven when pie is bubbly. You can let it sit for about 15 minutes and serve warm – or it will keep on the counter while you are enjoying dinner and can be heated up in the microwave. And of course, you need a nice helping of vanilla ice cream on the side!
Unfortunately, I didn’t get a shot right out of the oven or before we dug in. So here’s the lonely last piece…
… and my bowl shortly after a quick trip to the microwave and a rendezvous with some vanilla ice cream. Enjoy! I’ll post my rum cake recipe soon! (yes, there was a lot of baking with rum on thanksgiving, nothin’ wrong with that!)
craig and kendra’s wedding
Sunday, November 6, 2011
Yesterday was SOOOOOO much fun. Our friends Craig and Kendra got married in North Beach, MD. They asked me early on to supply their wedding cake for them. She told me they wanted a two tiered cake to cut and save for their one year anniversary and cupcakes to serve everyone. After the lavender wedding, I had experience in this kind of cake arrangement so I was super excited to find out the theme. We threw around decor ideas and Kendra decided on alternating white chocolate and almond cupcakes with alternating light pink and charcoal gray buttercream, topped with sugar pearls. She wanted her two tier cake frosted naturally with texture and then sugar calla’s on top.
Let me first start with the grooms cake. When Kendra told me Craig loved peanut butter and chocolate, I got so excited to make a peanut butter cup cake, seeing as how I LOVE reese cups and anything peanut butter too. I started with a chocolate cake and then made a batch of my buttercream.
Then I mixed in a healthy portion of peanut butter (holy yum)…
And then I sprinkled chopped Reese cups over each layer of peanut butter buttercream.
Finally, I iced the cake with vanilla buttercream and covered the top with green colored buttercream. I used my carefully prepared fondant pieces to finish it off:
Next on my list was the wedding cake. Kendra chose a two tier cake, one tier for cutting and one for the traditional one year anniversary. She wanted a textured cake with three sugar calls on top:
And finally, the cupcakes! White chocolate cake with chocolate hazelnut buttercream tinted charcoal gray and almond cake with hazelnut buttercream tinted light pink – both flavors filled with raspberry brandy filling. Yum!
The cupcakes were finished off with sugar pearls.
Here’s the finished product! All setup and ready to celebrate!!
I’m always a tad anxious and stressed leading up to finishing and delivering, but the yummy comments from our friends and the bride and groom make it so worth it! I got so many sweet compliments from everyone 
Thank you, Craig and Kendra, for allowing me to make your wedding cake. It was a beautiful wedding and we had so much fun!
Thank you, Craig and Kendra, for allowing me to make your wedding cake. It was a beautiful wedding and we had so much fun!
photo from facebook
spooky cake pops
Monday, October 31, 2011
My friend Amy and I decided to make some spooky cake pops for Halloween. I wanted to try a new cake recipe so I figured this was a good opportunity (I’ll post that recipe soon!). We crumbled up the yellow cake, added some cream cheese frosting and shaped some candy corns, square monster heads and some ball shapes. Then we melted candy melts in various colors.
Right around Halloween, Michaels carries the most appropriate colors – “spooky green” and “midnight black.”
The key decoration was the sugar eyeballs. Even if you mess up, you can stick two eyes on it and it becomes the perfect monster cake pop!
They were so easy and so fun. And pretty delicious as well..
hokie wedding…
Saturday, October 29, 2011
Gearing up for a hokie wedding? Maaayyybbeeeee…….. stay tuned!
maybe one day…
Thursday, October 27, 2011
I walk past this store front every time I go from work to the Daily Grind weekday mornings. It would be the PERFECT spot for Kara’s Cakery. Fell’s Point doesn’t have a stand-out cupcake/cake shop. I’m secretly hoping I get a call one day from someone with more money than they know what to do with and want to fund my shop. Maybe someday.
black forest cake and pink ribbon cookies
Thursday, October 27, 2011
Last week was a busy week. First, a black forest cake for a work colleague’s birthday:
Believe it or not, this is my first black forest cake. And it was good. Really good. Layers of chocolate cake with chocolate fudge filling, covered in homemade whipped cream and topped with chocolate shavings. And of course, the signature black forest cake cherries.
I think one of my favorite parts of a making a cake is cutting into it and seeing what each slice looks like. Here’s this one:
And here are my pink ribbon cookies for our bake sale. I packaged them up in little cookie bags with a satin white ribbon.
Hope you had a nice week!
like old times
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Today felt like one of those days back when I had orders nonstop every week. I got home from work, took the cookie dough I made Sunday out of the fridge to soften, made two 8” chocolate cakes and then four dozen ribbon – shaped cookies. All before 9pm, phew!
Believe it or not, I actually forgot my sugar cookie recipe. Sad, I know. It look all day for me to find it.
I love fresh vanilla beans. They make all the difference. And good butter. Never skimp on butter.
My office does a Breast Cancer Awareness Bake Sale every October to raise money for Susan. G. Komen. An email hit my box about a month ago… “Calling all bakers!” … why yes? Bake cookies to raise money for a cause? I’m in.
Four dozen ribbon cookies to cool over night before I ice them with pink royal icing.
And two 8” chocolate cakes. These will be torted and put in the freezer over night to firm up before I make them into a Black Forest Cake…. stay tuned.
