Cake~Pops

Well well well….I got the Cakepop bug!  I went over to Bakerella’s site, and I fell in love with her creations.  I have been thinking all week about making these pops.  I just knew I could do it!  CAKE DRAMA!!  For some reason it seems harder for me to work with cake mix, than to make items from scratch.  I started my weekend by baking a Red Vevlet cake using a box mix.  I followed all of the instructions from Bakerella’s site.  I placed them in the fridge overnight, and they were still too smooshy to roll in the chocolate.  Well I was done, I was so upset!  Dried the tears, and started again.  This time I went with just yellow cake mix.  My taste-tester had to come and help me, with the second round.  This time we used less frosting and we did not use a spoon.  We put our cake balls in the freezer, this made them sooooo much easier to work with. I also attempted the cupcake pop, I was unable to get the shape using the cookie cutter!  If anyone has any tips that would be great!  Ugh!

My Cake-Pops

Cake pops Pros & Cons

• Fun, fun to make
• Almond Bark very hard to locate in NJ (Walmart)
• Cake Pops are so cute, and you can use your imagination and go wild!
• Almond Bark super sweet
• Candy Melt does not spread very nice, you have to use a lot and just dip the ball into it
• Cupcake Pop – For me seems very hard to master, I just can’t get the cupcake shape even with the right cookie cuter

My goal, is to continue making these pops and trying to be very creative!  No one does it like Bakerella, she is da bomb@ (slang for very good at her craft) lol lol

Tags: Bakerella, Baking and Confections, cake, Cake Pops, Chocolate, Cupcake

~Nutella Fudge Brownies~

Wow!  What a weekend!  I will explain in my next post how frustrating it has been baking this weekend!  I have been obsessed with making Cake~pops all weekend.  Well there was some CAKE DRAMA there!

I have been in and out of blogs all weekend looking for something yummy to bake!  Well I found it.  Nutella Brownies, yes I have an obsession with Nutella!  Savory Sweet life posted a recipe that only needs 4 ingredients!  That is what I like sweet and simple!

If you like brownies, easy, Nutella, this is  thing for you.  I won’t post the recipe here.  But let me tell you more , when I say 4, I really mean 4.  Flour, egg, Nutella, and Hazlenuts!  Make sure you have a mini cupcake pan or at least mini cupcake liners.  I would also suggest you use a small ice cream scooper to fill your pan.  It calls for 12 mins in the oven.  It seemed really gooey at 12 mins with no crumbs, so I let it go a little longer.  I think I should have stopped at 12 mins.  I would suggest using two 6 cup pans, and get your timing right with the first 6.

If you are looking for the recipe, no fear, click here!

Tags: Baking, Fudge, Hazlenut, Nutella, Nutella Brownie, Nutella Cupcake

Blue Velvet Cupcakes

I ran across the recipe for the Blue Velvet Cake on the Food Network website, Paula D.  I did not want to make a cake, I wanted to make them as cupcakes so I googled it, and I found Sprinkle Bakes .  So I decided to try my hand at Blue Velvet Cupcakes!

Batter with the blue & Violet coloring

(Check me out in the bowl!  lol)

If you are interested in making them I suggest you check out her site for step by step instructions.  I have a few notes to share.

I was not happy with the outcome.  I am not sure if it was the cups I used to bake them in, but they did not seem to cook just right for me.  They were crispy around the edges, but moist inside.  The cream cheese icing, I would add a little lemon to it next time, to give it an added extra kick!  If you are familiar with the candy cups, that some people use as cupcake cups, don’t use them for this cupcake.  I tried some in regular old cupcake liners, and they turned out much better!

The stars!  Is that a neat little decoration or what??  Sprinkle Bakes will show you how to do that as well.  I had so many cupcakes that I was not proud of, I had a bunch to make stars out of.  If I had time making royal icing to outline them in, would have really given them the pop they need!

Also, if you are like me and you hate a mess!  Be aware!  This dye just gets everywhere.  But it is really easy to get off your counter tops and off your spatulas.

*The Best Blue Velvet Cupcake of the Day*

Blue Velvet Cupcake Dressed up

So all in all, I would make this again, hoping to get them just right.  If you make them or have any questions please let me know.  This was a learning experience.

Tags: Blue Velvet, cake, Cream Cheese icing, Cupcake, Food Network, Red Velvet, Sprinkles Bakes, Stars, Wilton Color

SMS~Mom’s French Pancakes

Today after a long weekend in Atlantic City, I came home and baked my first Sweet Melissa Sunday recipe! I was very excited to make French Pancakes (Crepes).

Frenchie Pancake in the Pan

It was really strange the way you create this, (in a blender!!!)  but I won’t give away any other details. You should head over to Good Eats ‘n Sweet Treats for details on how to create this yummy snack.

Nutella French Pancakes

I will say that I did not use kosher salt, I used sea salt and I am not sure if that threw anything off.  They were ok, and very yummy with the Nutella filling.  But it has too much of a dough taste for me.

This was really fun to make!

Tags: Crepes, Nutella, Pancake, Sweet Melissa Sunday

Wednesday Quote

I have no special talents.  I am only passionately curious.

~Albert Einstein~

Tags: Albert Einstein, Quote, Quote Garden

Dorie GreenspanChewy~Chunky-Blondies

Dorie GreenspanChewy~Chunky-Blondies

Today I baked Dorie GreenSpan’s CC Blondies!  What a hit.  I have two friends, that were asking me can you make blondies?  So I said sure!  Not knowing what it would take to create them.  I have seen Dorie’s name all of the foodie blogs, so I was hoping she would have a recipe I could try to create Blondies…well she did.  I located the recipe here.  I followed all of the steps, but I did not add the toffee, walnuts or coconut.  For the chocolate, I purchased Ghirardelli Chocolate and chopped it up.  It gave it a really goey rich chocolate taste.  These knocked my socks off.  I had three taste testers this time, and they all fell in love with them.  I now must buy a Dorie book!!!

I would suggest making sure that you follow the instructions on the mixing very closely.

Ingredients:

2 cups all-purpose flour

3/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 sticks (8 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature

1 1/2 cups (packed) light brown sugar

1/2 cup sugar

2 large eggs

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

6 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped into chips, or 1 cup store-bought chocolate chips

1 cup butterscotch chips or Heath Toffee Bits

1 cup coarsely chopped walnuts

1 cup sweetened shredded coconut

This is a must bake!!!

Tags: Blondie Recipe, Blondies, Brown Sugar Brownie, Brownies, Dorie GreenSpan, Ghirardelli

Fresh from the garden

Here are the eggplants that we grew in our yard…. not sure what we will make with them.

Tags: Cook, EggPlant, Fresh Vegetables, Garden, Garden Veggies

Saturday Bake +champagne(Rum)-savarin

Today has been a very busy day.  I don’t think I took a break except to eat lunch.  Today we started working on our second bedroom.  We have been in our home for years and we still have yet to make more out of second bedroom than just a storage room.  We are now in the process of ripping up carpet and getting it ready to create a guest bedroom/office.  God I hope we don’t give up this time and the vision becomes fruition.  So, after we packaged up a library load of books, we drove them to Goodwill.  So we did something “good” and guess what?  On the way home we stopped in a tile store and they had a better tile that we liked for the bathroom and it was the same price!!  Now I’m excited. ~ But we will leave bathroom talk for when we really get started.  OK, so you are probably hear to read about my Champagne~Savarin cake.  I found the recipe via Chowhound at BakingBites.

I blog the good, bad and the ugly…..

This is my first time using a recipe where you need yeast.  So excited to watch it rise.  I think I will need to make this more than once to get it just right.    BakingBites, uses  Champagne I used rum.  For full details on how to make the cake please click here!

Where it went wrong.  So I let the cake cool, when I attempt to remove it from the pan this is what happened.  Oh yeah….

And then again…..

Problems:  I think I sprayed the pan with too much of the baking spray.  I got a little carried away.  I also think 1 cup of rum was just too much.  My taste tester does not think they could drive after eating a slice.  Joking but almost true!   If you make this cake please leave a comment for me and let me know what you do.  I think I may have just rushed it.  If I ever try this again, the cake is staying in the pan over night.  Pluses: Very moist, it had a nice sweet taste, but not overly sweet, Taste Tester Review:  “It was good….”  I will take that because after this nightmare, I thought the verdict would be worst.  Should I just stick to cupcakes???  Ugh!

And on a better note,

Ingredients listed below.  For directions please check them out at Baking Bites.

Champagne Rum  Savarin
2 cups all purpose flour
1 tbsp active dry yeast
3 tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
2/3 cup milk, warm (100-110F) (I did not check the temp, I heated milk in the microwave)
6 tbsp butter, very soft
3 large eggs

Champagne Rum  Soaking Syrup
3/4 cup water
1 cup sugar
1 cup champagne or prosecco Rum
1/2 tsp vanilla extract, optional

Tags: alcohol, cake, Rum Cake, savarin

*Organize This*

OK, this is super embarrassing  but my cabinet was a mess.  Tupperware, Glad-ware,  Take Alongs, and Ziploc containers all over the place.  Oh yeah and let’s not forget the containers that I reuse from the Chinese restaurant.  So I was inspired when I started reading the posts on organizing over at Sherbert Blossom.  So of course I had to start with the scary cabinet that throws containers at me every time I open the doors.  Here are my before and afters.  I did this after work and it took me less than an hour.  Why have I been sitting on this for so long???  I feel so much better, out with the clutter.  I hope I can keep this up, I think blogging about it will give me the extra kick in the butt I need to do this through out my entire home.

OK, don’t judge

The Before

The After

Be sure to check out “Just Something I made”.  There are neat Organize tags that you can print out and use.  I could not use them for this project but I have one coming up that I plan to use them for.

Tags: Gladware, Personal Organization, Sherbert Blossom, Tupperware, Ziploc

Baking and Breaking

Hello people!  I am ready to whip up something in the oven soon, but I have no idea what I should bake!  Please give me some ideas, post them in the comment section.  The receipe or idea that I select, I will be giving away baking tool!  It is something that I know cupcake lovers will cherish!  Please get them in by Sept 5th!  I will give you a shout out, send you a gift, and bake your suggestion!

Tags: Baking, blog, Blog Giveaway