It's leftover night

After the Gaga birthday cake, I had all this left over frosting and I hate to waste it all, especially when there is premium butter, cocoa and Ghiradelli chocolate involved. There I am rifling thru all my cookbooks and oh, a cupcake I have never baked...Peanut butter cupcake! Mind you the PB is hard as a rock in the fridge, since it's natural and so is the butter, and the eggs are really cold. I read that you are able to bring the eggs to room temp pretty fast by putting them in a bowl of really warm water for about 10 minutes. The recipe said I would get 30 cupcakes, not sure how...is that like loaves and fishes?...
I only came up with 23. *sigh*

I went thru the "black and white" butter cream (it's vanilla meringue butter cream with chocolate syrup), then the vanilla butter cream and then the dark chocolate butter cream. I didn't want to do another complete bag set up so just filled the nearly empty bag up. I loved the effect of the one you see pictured here, and won't be able to recreate it for, say a batch of 24, but you can see the progression of what was happening in the pastry bag.

My lucky "guinea pig" friends at Scott Honda had these for breakfast this morning. Hope they enjoyed chocolate and peanut butter with their cups of coffee. Not too bad of a start on a Monday morning, don't you think?

Birthday Cakes, anyone?

Who knew that when I took the latest order that I would be writing with icing? This is a 6 layer dark chocolate cake filled with vanilla pastry cream and raspberry jam, covered with vanilla meringue buttercream and B&W meringue buttercream. Or that's what I call it since it was a light handed addition of dark chocolate syrup (thank you, Ina Garten) for color. I LOVE an all white cake, but thought that the outside should somehow reveal the surprise inside?

Anyhow, then there's the writing. I have been a calligrapher for years and love pen and ink. This was something new and completely different. I made a dark chocolate buttercream and loved the contrast in colors. I even practiced my lettering on 2 large sheets of parchment paper after tracing a circle on it. I thought, omg, if my writing was too big and did not fit the top of the cake. There are no erasers or starting all over- it was a one shot and that's it.

My husband reminded me that I had to move me or the cake to a better spot to have the best angle to write. I chose to leave the cake where it was AND perched myself on my kitchen stool "above" the cake. As it was, one of the "p" closed up and had to wait an hour for the thing to harden up in the fridge, so I could surgically removed it with a paring knife and icing palette knife. (Oh, said husband said I should always have toothpicks around to help with the extraction process or unclogging the round tips since they get clogged IF the icing is too thick...seriously with a pound+ butter , that buttercream should flow like thick olive oil!)  so there it is...letters are still a bit wobbly, but all in all not too bad for the 1st time out.  
And I think I will do more practising, since I love to write in Chancery cursive, instead of modifying roundhand...I'll try to remember to post these adventures later on....

Remember I have the hardest time trying to remember to take pictures :-)

PS. I don't know who "Gaga" is...it's not Lady Gaga, for sure.

In a hole

I have been in a "hole" in the last 9 days. The house we are living in needed some tender loving care for a water leak, a surprise repair, a new appliance. Things needed some attention and all is good again.

Baking is still at the forefront for me. Helping friends with baking and baking for friends. I had an order on Saturday morning that was started at 9pm on Friday night that kept me going till 2am on Saturday morning. BUT don't they look pretty...the order was for 36 and I made 40 yummy, delicious treats.

I made "healthy" muffins for a friend who teaches 2nd grade. There are kids who are still coming to school hungry due to family circumstances. Share Our Strength is currently running their campaign that no child should be hungry! I agree, no kid should ever be hungry. It's hard enough being a kid, and how can you study at school when your tummy is growling that it is empty.

Thank goodness, it's Saturday!

It's been a busy week. I had my car serviced for it's 15K scheduled maintenance, only to be asked if I have a price for the "kaab el ghzal"- the gazelle horn dessert cookies that I made for a friend who is celebrating/observing Ramadan. Of course, I stumbled over my words, not knowing what that would be.

On the day that I first tried the recipe, the kitchen was hot as hell, the dough was so tender, that I could barely assemble 3 cookies and had to return the dough to the fridge to with every try. I think I got 32 cookies that day over hours of working with the dough, and the paste. They were delicious, tho- light, buttery, sweet with a taste of orange flower water. It reminded me of my times in Morocco with Moustapha Sebbeh and Barbara Eigen, so many years ago.

Anyhow, feeling up to a challenge. I went home to find that I did not have enough orange flower water to complete the recipe. Panicked, I started searching on line and racking my brain- on where did I find the stuff in the first place. I called around all the usual places, and finally found a plethora at The Fresh Market in Glen Mills. I bought 6 of A.Monteux brand and Nielsen-Massey. BTW- they are very different. The A.Monteux is flowery, perfumery and light. The NM is full of alcohol, then the notes of the bitter orange. Hmm, extracts/ flavorings is very much like perfumery...

The kitchen gods must have been with me on Thursday! I zipped thru the recipe, the dough worked like a charm ( with some tweeking) and produced 36 beautiful cookies. All the same shape, size, great consistency in design and presentation (if I say so, myself) AND of course, I forgot to take a picture! I had 2 anxious buyers for them as soon as I called my husband, and they were delivered right at the cusp of sundown.

Cereal as a topping?

 

here they are! an homage to the recipe in MSCupcakes...vanilla chiffon cake filled with dark chocolate custard, topped with vanilla meringue buttercream with multi nonpareils, Fruity Pebbles and a cutout butter cookie! Happy Sweet 16!

Here are some of them...

Rich chocolate brownie filled with dulce de leche, topped with brown sugar meringue buttercream dusted with cocoa

• Dark chocolate cake filled with pecan coconut creme, topped with dark chocolate silk frosting

• Dark chocolate cake filled with dark chocolate peanut butter mousse, topped with chocolate meringue buttercream with Dutch chocolate sprinkles

• Dark chocolate cake filled with raspberry spoon fruit, topped with vanilla buttercream and raspberry

Carrot Cake # ?

*sigh* wow, Friday really kicked my butt. I baked and assembled 7 different kinds of cupcakes and baked this 4 layer 8" carrot cake that was headed to West Chester University for the President and VPs. Heard that they loved it all, which did my heart good.

Every carrot cake looks different and I should take pictures of every one that leaves me. Right now, I'm having fun playing with the tips and pastry bags IF the frosting cooperates. I find that I have to frost, fridge, frost, fridge, till the whole thing gets done. I have the AC cranked up SO my poor husband is sitting on the sofa wrapped in on of our wool throws wondering when I'll be done. Soon? He just shoots me one of "those" looks.  I just can't get the kitchen cool enough or maybe because I'm just not working fast enough with the crumb coats, the final frost and decos. I'm hoping that in time ( and if the frosting would be the "perfect" consistency) that my proficiency will be much better.

More tools and living in the forest

Today, we found out that the garage has had small snakes in it. Not sure what kind, thank goodness they were dead and dried up BUT the thought of them being in the garage makes me unhappy. Of course, my husband chimes in with the pest control tech to remind me that there are Eastern Diamondback Rattlers probably in our backyard! I will be screaming with no sound coming out of my mouth if I ever cross paths with those things. I also found out that the deer will eat grapes and green beans today. They pick up their heads to listen to you, but don't really care if you are 8' away tossing food at them. They need those cartoon bubbles above their heads..."oh, look, it's that crazy lady trying to sneak up on us", " oh, now what is she throwing at us?" "you give us grapes, and now you're tossing us veggies, what's up with that?" The joys of living on a mountain.

I picked up "Rose's Heavenly Cakes" today at B&N. It's a wonderful book and I love how Rose talks to you in the book giving you all her helpful hints. So today, I took the plunge and ordered a food scale in an effort and "leap of faith" of weighing all the baking ingredients instead of scoop and leveling. According to Rose, once I try it- I will never go back again. I hope so- the scale weighs as little as 1 gram to 6,000 grams and is coming from OK by the end of the week. Oh, good- one more thing to have on the counters, AND one more thing as a "business" expense.

I hope all my efforts are not in vain. I would really love for my little bakery business to take off and fly. It would be so wonderful, and I would be so happy.