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.

I bought these adorable vegetable cutters in the shape of flowers from a cheap Japanese market. I don't really eat vegetables, but they were so cute that they inspired me to make sugar cookies. I have never been a fan of sugar cookies. The ones you get in elementary school during random holidays that were crunchy from sprinkles always come to mind. Not. Delicious. :/ Great fortune though! I found a fantastic sugar cookie recipe that is easy to make, works well with cookie cutters, and tastes great. I made icing for the first time as well. I really like the color and shine that came out.

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. (: