Mini chocolate cupcakes with mint hershey kisses baked into each one

Mini Mint Cupcakes

February 11, 2012October 16, 2015Leave a comment

At the supermarket around the holidays, this bag of Mint Truffle Hershey’s Kisses just jumped into my cart. When I got home, I decided to make cupcakes with them to keep myself from eating them all.

I made a regular chocolate cake recipe and filled mini cupcake lines with the batter.

The kisses were plopped on top and pressed ever so slightly.

And I just baked them normally. The cupcake puffed up around them beautifully.

Using a regular (and delicious) chocolate buttercream, I piped spikes on top and asked my sister to toss a few green jimmies and some white nonpareils on to make them even cuter.

Don’t you love the carriers?

Each box was only about a dollar (and they’re reusable!) and it did an excellent job protecting the cupcakes while I was on route to the delivery site. In fact, these pictures were taken after a bumpy car ride and even the peaks still look beautiful.

Sugar Cookie Recipe

February 3, 2012September 29, 2015Leave a comment

I suppose it’s time to share my sugar cookie recipe. One of my mother’s colleagues e-mailed her the recipe in 1998 and we’ve been using the same scrap of paper ever since with some slight modifications. This dough is AMAZING. I tried other recipes last year, but this is my only sugar cookie recipe now and I’m never going back.

See this piece of paper?

It gets pulled out every time I make cookies. Like once a week. I’ve changed it a bit, but there’s only so much you can do to a perfect recipe.

This recipe is incredibly easy. Wanna see how to make it?

This is my new mixer. We’re pretty tight.

Cream butter and sugar.

After I use a vanilla bean, I toss it in with my sugar because there’s nothing wrong with extra vanilla.

I was making a quadruple batch here, so I used 4 eggs. Crack the egg in a separate bowl and dump it in to the fluffy butter and sugar. Why do you need to crack the egg into a bowl first? Well, maybe it’s just me, but the last time I tried to crack an egg directly into the mixing bowl while the beater was running, I accidentally dropped the whole egg in. It was pretty unfortunate.

Once you get the egg in, add the vanilla and a pinch of salt. Beat it a little more for good measure.

Oooh, yummy.

Turn the mixer off. Dump in flour the flour all at once. Yes, I know it’s scary, but it’ll be okay, I promise.

Turn the mixer on very low, being careful that it doesn’t start suddenly and spew a flour cloud across the room. Not that I’ve ever done that.

Once it’s combined, stick it in the fridge for a bit until you’re ready to use it.

And beware: the dough is irresistible, so don’t even bother trying to avoid eating it.

Soft Sugar Cookies

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
1 cup sugar
1 egg
2 cups flour
2 tablespoons cream (or milk works fine, too)
Vanilla extract (I usually use about two teaspoons of vanilla bean paste, but the same amount of vanilla extract will work great as well)
Pinch of salt

In the bowl of an electric mixer, cream the butter and sugar on high until light and fluffy. Add the egg and keep beating, then blend in the salt and vanilla. Dump the flour in all at once and mix on low until just combined. Refrigerate for a few hours, then roll it out and enjoy! After rolling on a lightly floured surface and cutting your shapes, freeze cookies for at least 15 minutes before baking to preserve crisp edges. I like my cookies thick so I bake them for about 9 minutes at 375, but check your cookies at about 6 minutes so you don’t over bake them if you made ’em thin. Makes about 2 dozen thick cookies.

Happy baking!

Notes:
*I always make the dough the day before and refrigerate it overnight, but if you’re short on time you can stick it in the freezer immediately after you make it for about an hour and it should be ready to roll by the time you’ve finished cleaning up and getting your royal icing ready.

* If possible, freeze the cut, unbaked cookies for an hour or even overnight for maximum spreadage-prevention, but if you don’t have time to freeze and bake them immediately, don’t worry about it. They’ll spread a tad, but they’ll still be very pretty and even more delicious.

*I leave out the baking powder because I want to preserve the shapes and prevent them from rising.

James Bond Cake, Bond car. 007. Aston Martin DB5 cake

Bond. James Bond. The making and demise of a glorious Aston Martin DB5 cake.

January 24, 2012October 5, 2015Leave a comment

We had a James Bond party. Movie marathon, themed arts and crafts, guests in cocktail attire, spooky villain’s lair decorations, the whole thing. Of course, I made cake. And chocolate tuxedo strawberries. Also some cake pops and chocolate gems. But let’s start with the cake, shall we?

(Photo by Duncan Ballentine)

I studied so many pictures of car to make sure this was absolutely perfect. This was also my first carved cake – very exciting.

The insides are chocolate/strawberry marble with swiss meringue buttercream inside. I baked two 9×13 and one 9×9 cake, then plopped them on top of each other.

I attacked it (carefully) with a big serrated knife. I spent a couple hours staring at the form and tweaking it. At this point, I was jumping up and down because I couldn’t believe it actually looked like a car.

I called a few of my friends to explain:
“I’m making a car cake and it’s really hard and guess what it looks like? … It looks like a CAR!”

Then it was time to cover it in buttercream. I made sure to use the frosting to help emphasize my carving and build up on areas where I was a bit overzealous with the knife. Yes, big mess. What else is new?

I then covered it in one huge piece fondant and started pressing in details with the back of a paintbrush. I didn’t have any idea what I was doing because I don’t ever work with fondant, but it seemed like a good idea, so that’s what I did.

It was spray painted with edible silver paint (gorgeous stuff), I added details, and it magically became a car.

JB007. Get it?

I painted the windows on with a paintbrush and a bottle of black food coloring.

Even the little mirrors are in the right place and the trimmings were painted silver with a little vodka and silver luster dust mixture.

I tried to add in tons of details and make it as lifelike as possible. This cake took me 3 days, I fell in love with it, and you know what?

They made me cut it!

(photo by Duncan Ballentine)

It took about 10 minutes to bring myself to slice it and I’m still crying on the inside about my poor dead car.

This is me killing my cake. But it really was delicious.

Now, what to do with all the scraps leftover from carving?

Cake pops! These are bowler hats. I was very sick of cake by the time I made these, but they were still fun and they came out alright.

And here are some white chocolate gems because a James Bond party requires treasure and jewels. They’re shiny.

Since we asked the guests to dress up in the spirit of the event, I thought it would be appropriate to make sure the strawberries were similarly attired.

These aren’t nearly as hard as they look and there’s a great guide here.

I’m so happy with how everything came out, but you won’t see me working with fondant anytime soon. I’ve never had so much trouble destroying a cake and cutting this one just made me feel too destructive. Maybe it gets easier, but I’ll take my difficulty slicing it as a sign that it’s my best cake so far. And I’m definitely okay with that.

Oreo Cheesecake

January 5, 2012September 29, 2015Leave a comment

Vanilla cheesecake covered in oreos and chocolate ganache with a cinnamon graham cracker crust.

You really don’t want to know how many days in a row I ate this for breakfast.

It baked a bit funny in the middle, so I dumped oreos on it and everyone was happy.

Let’s all just pretend that I didn’t eat this for breakfast for an entire week, okay?

I know the cinnamon crust sounds kinda weird, but it gave it a great bite and was really tasty.

Am I the only one who thinks this slice looks like a little mouse?

Yum!

Doughnuts!

December 30, 2011September 29, 2015Leave a comment

If you tell me there’s anything better than warm, homemade donuts, you’re lying. These little guys were a great way to start a lazy Sunday morning and not nearly as hard to make as they look. I used this recipe from the Los Angeles Times and they came out beautifully.

Pipe them out

Cut the (well-oiled) parchment paper into squares to make them easier to deal with

And slid them into the hot oil.

Let them cook for a while, flip them over and they magically become donuts!

Ta da!

Now it’s time for the fun part: dipping! We made a vanilla-bean glaze, a lemon glaze, and a chocolate glaze.

There were tons of sprinkles and dozens of sticky, messy fingers.

I made everyone wait and drool while I insisted on taking pictures for you.

And let me tell you,

They were incredible!

Almost more fun to make than they were to eat.

We made a bit of a mess, but about 15 minutes after this picture was taken almost every donut was gone.

Everyone went home very, very happy.

Happy Chanukkah!

December 27, 2011September 29, 2015Leave a comment

Happy Chanukkah!

These cookies were made for a big family party, so we made about 100 of them so there would be plenty to go around, especially because they’re pretty tiny.

I love the sparkle from the edible glitter, even though it makes a big mess and sticks to you like glue. I’ll probably be finding it all over my face for the next week!

They were a big hit, but I made a few too many and have a ton of leftovers.

These pretty silver dragees (the little silver sugar balls) can’t be found in California, so I bring them with me from Boston.

They were a bit rushed so some aren’t as perfect as I would have liked, but I’m still really happy with how these came out and no one but me cares about the tiny details anyways.

Most importantly, they were delicious!

Marie Themed Ice Cream Cake

December 20, 2011September 29, 2015Leave a comment

Another ice cream cake! The birthday girl wanted a Marie themes cake from the Aristocats.

Inside are layers of cheesecake ice cream and strawberry ice cream (homemade, of course) and a layer of white chocolate fudge.

The details were made using white chocolate and then transferred to the cake.

And painted in luster dust for a little extra shine.

I used white dragees and rolled them in pink luster dust before using them as decoration. It’s a great way to save money and get any color you want!

This cake was so much fun to make and I’m thrilled with how it came out.

Frosting a block if ice cream felt strange at first, but the birthday girl always gets what she wants!

Mini cupcakes, truffles, wedding cake, lemon meringue pies, peach tarts, cake pops, cookies, and more!

The wedding! 450 mini desserts and a cake, but I survived to tell you about it.

December 16, 2011October 5, 2015Leave a comment

And now for the one post everyone keeps asking me about! Finally time for the wedding dessert table pictures. These lovely photos were taken by the lovely Stephanie Fishbein. She came over right before I packed everything up and took these shots as I was rushing to get everything into the car.

This project was incredible. My mom and I made 450 miniature desserts and a cake. Everything was drenched in color and so bright and happy. The baking took days and a mind-boggling amount of work, but I’m so glad we did it and the adrenaline rush lasted for days. The wedding colors were purple and orange and it was great to make the treats so bright!

Without further ado:

I made 50 little lemon meringue pies

50 vanilla cupcakes dipped in sprinkles and topped with creamy vanilla frosting. The cakes themselves were orange and if you look carefully you can see a bit of color peeking out from under the sprinkles.

And, of course, topped with orange glitter.

50 of these very popular Oreo red velvet cupcakes dipped in chocolate ganache with cream cheese frosting.

And 50 chocolate mint cupcakes with chocolate frosting.

Dipped in orange sprinkles for an extra crunch and pop of color.

75 beautiful vanilla-bean checkerboard cookies.

Little fruit tarts. These all had nutty crusts, vanilla-bean pastry cream, and fresh peaches. They were topped with an apricot-lime glaze to keep them fresh and juicy.

Don’t you love the heart shapes?

Homemade coffee ganache truffles.

The chocolate, surprisingly, tempered beautifully and these traveled very well and lasted a few days unrefrigerated, so I was able to make them a bit ahead of time. I love the luster dust on top!

Quadruple chocolate cake pops.

These were so much fun to decorate and I went crazy with the sprinkles. The bride and groom supplied the vases and the marbles – I think they’re prefect.

At this point were were running short on time, so I had Stephanie photograph these in their transportation container, not on the pretty white plates.

They still look delicious!

Last but not least, the wedding cake. Inside are layers of purple cake, orange cake, and purple/orange marble cake.

Everything very carefully hand piped, which was a challenge given my lack of sleep and shaky hands. the purple dragees were carefully placed with tweezers.

The monogram topper is made out of white chocolate and edible glitter, propped up oh-so-carefully with bamboo skewers.

And here’s where I messed up. Long story short: everything traveled well, I remembered to bring my camera, but I FORGOT TO BRING THE CAMERA BATTERY. I was so excited to take a picture of the whole display, but it just didn’t happen. Fortunately, the photographer got a shot of the table, so you can get a sense of what it looked like.

My mom and I wore out matching bright pink “I Like to Bake” shirts and kept replenishing the treats as the guests enjoyed them. You can’t see the little notecards very well, but we made little signs telling guests about each treat.

I have trouble communicating the enormity of this project. Everything was made in my little kitchen and it was a great experience to spend so much time working with my mom. My sister helped with the sprinkles, my dad made the white stands, and everything happened perfectly. I prepared for months and learned so much!

Sesame Street Cookies

December 11, 2011October 5, 2015Leave a comment

I LOVE THESE COOKIES! They’re covered completely in glitter. Really, what can go wrong?

I made these Sesame Street cookies for a second birthday party. They were due the day after another huge project, so I got started early and made royal icing transfers a few days ahead of time so I would be able to take my time and make them as perfect as possible.

First, I traced the shapes with black royal icing onto wax paper. I used a picture underneath the wax paper so I could follow the lines.