Doll Cake

This one isn't in my cookbook, but I did use the frosting recipe out of it.

I made this cake for a friend whose daughter was turning 6. I was a little nervous, OK, OK, I was a lot nervous but I think it turned out very well.

I used the Vanilla butter cream Frosting recipe, which was very sweet for my taste. I added the coloring in the mixing bowl to make it easier to mix, since it was all going to be the same color. It worked out pretty good but I did have to scrap the bowl a few time to make sure all the color was mixed and I put it on high speed to make sure it got all the frosting mixed well. I also made the frosting a little bit on the thick side, because I was using it for the flowers on the dress.

I had fun trying to figure out how to do the flowers. I went on youtube and found a great video from a chef who also used butter cream frosting for her flowers. You do have to leave them out at least a day so they can harden and then put them on wax paper so it's easier to get out when you need them.

Once they are hard use your cake spatula to take them off and then carefully apply them where you want them. I only had 2 break on me which I didn't think was to bad.

The dolls hair was a little crazy, next time I will play with the dolls hair a little bit more and try some different styles. I did use the pix that was in the kit, but if you want to use a barbie doll you will have to figure out how to make a taller cake or try to cut barbie off at the legs. lol!!!

Next time I may try fondet, we will see.

Cool Lime Cheesecake

Made this for a get together at church. I think this has been the 2nd cheese cake I have ever made and the first time I have ever used a springform pan. It came out alright. There was a lady there that has made a lot of cheesecakes so I was welcoming her advice, which she had.

It could have used more graham cracker crust then the recipe called for and an easy way to crush up the crust is put it in your food processor and then add the sugar and butter and walla it's done. EASY! If you don't have a processor then you can put them in a Gallon size zip lock and grab a rolling pin and do it that way, which is the way I did it. This was still easier then grabbing a cup of some sort and banging on it, although... this way will help take any stress out if you have any that day.

It needed a thicker bottom and side don't forget to modify your butter and sugar as well.

The cake part it's self was lime tasting for sure, which was refreshing and would be good for the summer time.

I will do this one again with the modifications and see how it turns out.

Peanut Butter Cup Cupcakes

Yummy but a little dry too. The best part was the miniature peanut butter cup in the middle of the frosting. I did use Natural peanut butter so I wonder if that might have made it a little drier???? Don't know. I found myself wanting to hurry up and get to the peanut butter cup. :) I might try it again with non-natural peanut butter but if it still comes out to dry I may try to find a different recipe for a peanut butter cupcake part. All in all it was still good going down, with a big glass of milk.

Frosted Spice Cake

I made this cake for my small group one night, they liked it a lot. One of the little girls that comes to our group is allergic to Milk and eggs and other stuff, the best part about this cake was she was able to eat it. That made me so happy and even happier when she liked it to.

It was very easy to make. I was a little shocked when this recipe called for NO Milk and NO eggs. I read it twice when I saw that I was suppose to put 2 Tbs. of White Vinegar. Yup you read me right. 2 Tbs. of White Vinegar.

The frosting was really simple to. Store bought Whipped Vanilla Frosting and then you add the rest of your cinnamon, stir well and walla, it's done.

This cake was very moist and very light tasting you could easily eat two or three pieces and not think you had much, which can be dangerous...

This recipe also stood up to it's name 'Spice' With 1/2 tsp of ground cloves and nutmeg and 1 1/8tsp of cinnamon it made it a spice cake for sure, but yummy. I will make this again for sure.

Super Behind

To many excuses as to why I don't have any new entryies. However I have baked a lot since my last entry. Not a lot of pictures but plenty of info.

Sorry.

Chocolate Zucchini Cake

I went to the farmers market the other day and they had some zucchini. Love making zucchini bread but even better there was a Chocolate Zucchini Cake recipe in my cook book. Making it wasn't too hard. I have a food processor that I bought a couple of years ago that I love so I used it to shred the zucchini. It took about one of the big zucchini's that I bought to cover the recipe.

Now the custard that you are suppose to put on top of the zucchini could have been a little bit sweeter in my opinion. I tried adding a little more sugar at the end but I don't think it worked out well enough. I would add more when making it from the beginning and oh, when they say use a large sauce pan they mean it. I used a 3qt sauce pan thinking it would be big enough until the custard started to rise and I had to quickly remove it off the stove and over the sink. Don't worry I didn't loose to much. If you don't like custard then you could probably use a frosting or put a little bit of powdered sugar on it, it probably wouldn't have tasted bad with a glaze. I may try that next time some type of light chocolate glaze or a sugar type glaze. All in all it was very yummy. It's no zucchini bread but with a nice cup of coffee it tasted just as good if not a little bit better.

Sorry about the appearance of my cake apparently that side of the cake didn't get enough grease and flouring, either that or I needed to let it cool a few min. longer in the pan.

Birthday cake

I did make a dessert this week it wasn't in my book it was for a friend of mine. It was her son's birthday and she asked if I could make him a cake and I said sure.

It was the first Lightning cake I have done and I did pretty good if I say so myself. It was a little harder then I thought. I know a few things since making this cake. One-I need more cake tips number 3's and number 16's (They seem to be in a lot of recipes) I also need more inserts that go in the frosting bags. If I had at least two to three more of each I think I could have cut my time by about an hour. That's my guess. I also had a hard time making a deep red and I used a lot of coloring too. The directions told me to use brown with red but all I got was brown. I guess that means that it's one more thing I will have to practice with. The frosting is a cream cheese frosting (Not whipped) your frosting needs to be a little bit on the thicker side to decorate with.

The cake was a marble cake which was easier to make then I thought. Go figure aren't most things. haha! Anyway This is the fourth cake that I have decorated and I liked it a lot.

I attached a picture of the finished product which everyone seemed to enjoy. Happy Birthday Hunter.

It's been a while

OK so a bunch of stuff has been going on and I have not been able to update my stuff or bake. I hate it, I will be baking this week for sure. So please come and see me again real soon. Sorry!!!! :o)

Yellow cake w/chocolate ganache w/creamy chocolate frosting

The cake was really good in my opinion. It was moist too, well more moist then the German Chocolate cake I made. The ganache was really good, my husband did say that I should have put more in the middle. It looked like so much when I was putting it on that I didn't use the entire amount. I guess next time I will. The frosting turned out, inspite of me messing it up. It was really good. My husband said it was "very tasty" my kids both ate it without complaint. Well actually my little one ate all the chocolate first and then ate the cake.

I did realize two things today. One frosting takes a long time to make and two I understand why a cake can cost so much. The frosting took me aprox. two hours to make. My husband was wondering if I was ever going to be done. I would have to say I think it tasted as good if not better then the ready made frosting. I do however have a lot left over. I wonder if I can freeze it or how long I can keep it in my frig. I guess I will have to look it up and find out.

If you try it let me know how you liked it. As always I am curious to see how long it take you. From start to finish including bake time and cooling time it took me aprox. three in a half hours. I guess that's what it takes to make it fresh. It was very good in my opinion.

Preparing and baking yellow cake

So I decided to bake a yellow cake. I know doesen't sound to exciting but it was in the book. I did however make a chocolate ganache to put in the middle and a creamy chocolate frosting to frost it with. So I actually did three things out of the book. Heee!! The cake was easy to make the ganashe wasn't too hard but I messed up on the fosting. I was suppose to heat the heavy cream to 180 degrees, remove from heat and then add the chips and put it in a bowl of ice water and stir until cool. I forgot the first step I mixed the heavy cream and the chocolate all once so I had to modify.

Nothing

I am sorry to say that I did not make a dessert this week. So I will be making two next Sunday. That's right TWO. I will keep you posted as to what I decide to make.

Sorry.

German Chocolate Cake

Well it's been a while since I have been on. Sorry, life has been very busy.

So last Sunday I made the cake it was very good, the frosting was delicious the cake for my taste was a little on the dry side, but I was informed that most German chocolate cakes are. I put a little bit of cool whip and that did the trick. My guest that had the cake had no complaints, so I guess that's a good thing.

If you are looking for a quick dessert this is not it. It took a while to make, but I would make it again. So if you have the book I would suggest it, unless you don't like dryer cakes, then don't make it.

If you do make it let me know how it turns out and what you think. Don't forget this is just my point of view you may not like it, don't blame me. lol!!!

Making the cake

Well I have one part of it done. Woohoo!!! I found the cake batter so strange. I'm not use to making cakes from scratch so I don't know if they all look like this one or if it's just because it's a German chocolate one. It almost looked like chocolate mousse It smells delicious and I had to take a small taste off the beater and it tasted wonderful. If you notice on one of the pictures I am folding. Yes, I did it, and no it wasn't that bad after all. Got all worked up for nothing. My cakes are currently cooling and then I will go ahead and make the frosting for it and frost them tonight and put it together so it will be ready to eat for tomorrow. Can't wait!

So far it has taken an hour and 41 min. with cooking time. So take 30min. out of that and that is how long it took me to get it together. Of course the second time around I will probably be faster but that's my time for now. If you have made one from scratch before (Not a box cake) you can tell me how long it took you to make yours I would love to know.

I think that's it for now.

In preperation

So I have read and read and read the directions on how to make my next dessert. I will be making a three layer German Chocolate Cake. It's extremly bad for you but the picture looks great!! I will have a picture when I am done with it. I have gone to the store and got everything I need to survive, I mean to make it.

Needless to say if I was not doing this experiment I would have turned the page already. Why you ask? Folding. Folding what you ask? Eggs. Just to make the cake mixture I have to beet 4 egg whites until stiff peaks form and then I have to fold a fourth of the mixturea and then the rest of the mixture. After it looks like it's all bleanded in I can then put it in my three pans and bake. :) Now I know for all you people who already know how to do this are thinking. What's the big deal? The BIG DEAL!! I have never done this before, THAT my friend is the big deal. I will conquer this folding if it's the last thing I do.

Now I am out of town and decided not to bring my entire cookbook with me so I just brought the page that I needed. Which of course if I would have brought the book it would have told me how to fold. No fear, that's what the internet is here for, to save the day. Although I am not as nervouse now I am wondering how long this cake will actually take me to make. I figure folding alone will take me 20min. (Slight exageration I know) I may just time it out of curiosity.

Anyway I will be making the cake tomorrow and putting it together to enjoy on Sunday. Yumm! I can not wait I am getting so excited!!!

I Scared

So, I finally got a chance to sit down and really take a look at what I have committed too and all I can say is "I'm scared." I will making ice cream, baklava, meringues and a few other things I have never attempted to do because the ingredients/directions intimidates me. :) I'm thinking I may have to recruit the help of my husband with some of these things. Still not sure what I am going to make next, but I'm sure I will find something by Sunday. Who knows it may be a combination of ice cream and something else. Either way I will let you know.

Have Mercy

So Jeff asks me "Did you throw the rest of that cake away?" I told him I did and he was not very happy about it. I told him I didn't think it was a big deal since he didn't really like it that much anyways. Then he asks "What is the next dessert you plan to make?" I show him the cookbook that I was going to use and he proceeds to tell me that out of 41 recipes he only saw 9 that he liked.

So if I am going to do this project he said I had to pick something that he liked. So I have had to change my book, not terrible happy about it, but dessert is dessert. Yumm!!

I am going to be using my Taste of Home cookbook and using two tabs the Cake tab and the dessert tab. I am still excited about it.

Jeff also thinks that I should blog about everything I make that is new. Not sure yet.

More

I finally watched the movie Julie and Julia and just to let you know. I will not be that creative with my writing. lol! My spelling and grammer suck, sorry. The main reason that I wanted to do this is because: I know you wanted to know if not your going to find out anyway unless you stop reading after this point.

I started a healthy life style change October 29, 2008. One of the things that I tried to stop doing is eat sweets. I didn't eat any for almost three months in the beginning and then after that it was on occasion then back to not eating any and so on.

I realized how much I really do like baking and how much I do miss eating what I bake. So I have decided to try something new. Well, alright new for me. Once a week I am going to bake a new dessert and I'm going to eat it. However, In order not to gain any weight that I have lost (40+/-) I need to eat supper good the whole week and exercise too. I know people say that you shouldn't reward yourself with food but if it works then I am OK with that if not well I guess I will let you know.

I am supper excited about this and I hope it works out for the good. I will let you know.

Chocolate-Cherry Cola Cake

Yesterday I made my first dessert. It was OK. The frosting was a little to sweet for my taste but Jacob loved it. Jeff's eyes bugged and said "wow, that is sweet"

The cake itself wasn't bad it was kind of crumbly and when I tried to spread the frosting on it, it picked up pretty bad instead of this beautiful top it was mixed with cake crumbs and frosting. I think I may have chopped the cherries a little too small I had a hard time finding them. Jacob found one and says "Mom does this cake have raisins in it?" I explained that they weren't raisins but cherries. "I love cherries mom" Daniel just ate it with no complaints just crumbs all over his face and hands.

I think I would make the cake again but I would use a different frosting not sure what to do about the crumbly top?