The Sweeter Side

After the wild success of my great baking weekend of February 2016, a month later I needed another challenge. I wanted to make another layer cake and try out a new technique of baking a cake in a half sheet and cutting out the layers. Easter and a writer's critique group provided the perfect occasion. I'm a huge fan of Stephcookie from raspberricupcakes. She had a great robin's egg cake I used for inspiration. I saw the sugared egg nest from a tvshow and thought it would be a spectacular and easy decoration to do. I'm much faster this time around with the frosting but I'm still learning how to make the buttercream smooth and crisp. This cake had 5 alternating layers of chocolate and white sprinkle cake. I had a nutella frosting in between and then covered with a robin blue vanilla butter cream. The speckles were the best part to do! Super fun and unfortunately messy.

Despite not being a romantic person, I enjoy Valentine's Day. There's pretty bright decorations everywhere and the world encourages you to eat chocolate, cake, sweets, and indulgent foods. It's all about love for me obviously. Another reason why I love Valentine's Day is my memories of handing out sweets and cards to everyone in my class when I was little. I still do a something like that now that I'm older but with cookies and cupcakes. I personally call these cookies, "Heart Cookies of Death", because these took almost 8 hours to make. The recipe is very time consuming and requires a lot of attention to detail. The cookie was delicious, very delicate and buttery. The recipe came from Eugenie Kitchen. Instead of a rainbow heart, I wanted to do Valentine's Day colors instead. I also had left over cake from another project so I made cake pops.

So I was watching the latest episode of Master Chef and was struck with inspiration. There was a challenge where the two contestants had to make 3 different souffles. The judges kept going on and on about how nearly impossible the task was and that definitely piqued my interest. I'm sure it's hard to do, but this chocolate souffle was a lot easier than I thought it would be! It came out just right. (: Again, excuse the awful picture and the dirty ramekin. D:

I really haven't been updating this blog at all. Lots of things were happening in my life and I wasn't in the mind frame to really be diligent with recording my hobbies. Anyway, here is a picture of some Mint Chocolate Cupcakes I made with my nephew. (:

I signed up for a cupcake decorating class at a nearby bakery! It wasn't anything I didn't already know, but it was nice just learning from an actual person instead of a web page for once! (: I think they came out super cute!

I made this for a family Christmas party. I overbeat the whipped cream, but the flavor combo was BOMB!

I tried to start off the new year by adjusting my sleeping schedule so that I would wake up at 6. My hopes is that I would end up being more productive waking up so early, and so far I have been right! School didn't start yet so I had to fill my time with something...(: The Chai cupcakes came out really great. The flavor wasn't as weak as I thought it might've been cause I didn't have a lot of Chai tea to use. I am really proud of these because of the chocolate designs I did. They were really last minute touches so I'm relieved they came out well. Hopefully they go over well with the staff at the Multicultural Center, where I am now accepted back into as an intern! :D I'm so incredibly excited. Happy New Year Everyone! (: Don't hesitate to ask for recipes. I got these from my cupcake book.  " Don't Chai to Resist" Cupcakes Organic chai flavoured cupcakes with honey, topped with vanilla whipped cream and milk chocolate.   Milk Chocolat...

I bought a HUGE jar of Nutella, which is more than I definitely know what to do with so I tried to use it in a cupcake recipe. The cake itself is a box cake, but I spaced out for a bit and mixed it for longer than it said by 1-2 miinutes and the batter turned out a-mayyy-zing~! It tasted like I made it from scratch, fluffy and moist. I have tried making a buttercream frosting but it has never turned out this good before. I added a lot more cream than the recipe called for and it made the texture a lot lighter. I ended up putting way too much nutella because I made the Boyface taste it instead. All in all, definitely an easy and solid cupcake. Everyone enjoyed it a lot. Nutella Cupcakes Yellow cupcake topped with a Nutella buttercream.

I didn't end up taking a picture of my cake as I was very disappointed with the whole thing. But! I did make these yesterday. I found the recipe in my roommate's cookbook and just decided to substitute the melted chocolate you use with Nutella. This was actually very simple to make and there are a lot of recipes just on line if anyone is interested in finding out how to make them. I think it worked out pretty good, but it really doesn't taste any different than if you just took a spoonful of Nutella and ate that. Haha, but that's fine, the presentation still awed people. Nutella Truffles Topped with Roasted Coconut and Hazelnuts.