chewy chocolate mint cookies

Two Baked Sunday Mornings posts in a row: I'm on a roll! And these cookies were crazy good, so I'm really glad I made them!

They remind me of the chocolate cream cheese snacking cookies we made last summer in that they are soft and tender but... refreshing. And I totally didn't expect that. The mint, and there's a lot of it in this recipe, took them to a whole other level.

Instead of the chunks called for in the recipe, I used callebault chocolate chips and I didn't roll them in sugar before baking. These only bake for 10 minutes and stayed nice and soft after cooling.

I had plans to turn these into ice cream sandwiches but I was assured that they wouldn't last long and they didn't.

For the recipe, and to see how the other bakers enjoyed their cookies, click on through to the Baked Sunday Mornings blog.

vanilla bean malt cake

This morning's recipe for Baked Sunday Mornings is one that I made last fall, then again, at xmas time, one of the first recipes I made from Baked Elements.

I'm not a big fan of malt, but really liked this recipe. It produces a really nice and moist vanilla cake that doesn't scream malt but has that little something extra.

I had first tried to make little acorn cakelets but I overfilled my moulds and it made a big mess. The cake is a bit too airy to keep the distinct impression of the mould anyway. But the rest of the batter made for really cute mini bundt cakes! These are about 3 or 4 inches across the bottom and perfect to share!

Love this recipe. To find it and to see how the other Baked Sunday Mornings bakers did, head over to the blog!

boston cream cake

We were celebrating my SIL's birthday today, so I quickly whipped up this easy but quite delicious Boston cream cake.

I kept going back and forth all week trying to decide what to make. I had a ton of egg yolks left over after making an angel food cake earlier in the week, so I quickly decided to make pastry cream out of them before they dried out and went bad.

Pastry cream  

7 large egg yolks
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1/3 cup cornstarch
3 cups whole milk
3 Tbsp unsalted butter
1 Tbsp pure vanilla extract

In a large bowl, whisk together the egg yolks, half of the sugar, the salt, and cornstarch until the mixture is pale, thick and smooth.

In a medium saucepan over medium heat, stir together the milk and the remaining half of the sugar. Continue stirring until the mixture boils. Remove the pan from the heat, and slowly stream the liquid into the egg mixture, whisking constantly. Transfer the tempered egg mixture back to the saucepan and, whisking constantly, bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Boil until thickened to pudding consistency.

Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the butter, and vanilla until combined. Strain throught a fine-mesh sieve into a large bowl.

Once the pastry cream have cooled for about 15 minutes, wrap the bowl in plastic wrap, pressing the plastic directly onto the top of the cream to prevent a skin from forming. Refrigerate until firm, about 4 hours of overnight.

 Recipe source: Baked Explorations

I was still hesitating between a strawberry shortcake style cake, or one with rhubarb and strawberry compote as the filling with the pastry cream but settled on the Boston cream cake after my husband suggested it.

I used a basic yellow chiffon style cake recipe because I wanted the cake to stay nice and fluffy even straight out of the refrigerator.

Great Yellow Cake

3/4 cup canola oil
1/2 cup water
1/3 cup apple juice
2 cups (9 oz.) unbleached all-purpose flour
1 Tbs. baking powder
1/2 tsp. kosher salt
1-1/2 cups sugar
4 large eggs
1/4 tsp. pure vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Spray or butter two round cake pans, each 8 inches in diameter and 2-inches deep, and line the bottoms with parchment.

In a liquid measuring cup, mix the oil, water, and apple juice and set aside. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt and set that aside as well.

In the bowl of a stand mixer with the whisk attachment, combine the sugar, eggs, and vanilla. Whip on medium-high speed until the mixture is thick, has tripled in volume, and makes a fat ribbon that holds its shape for a few seconds on top of the batter when you lift the whisk, about 4 minutes.

With the motor running on medium speed, add the liquid in a slow, steady stream. (The trick here is to incorporate and emulsify the liquid into the eggs without causing the eggs to deflate. Adding the liquid slowly in a constant stream is the name of the game.)

Add the dry ingredients to the egg mixture and mix on low speed just until the batter is smooth and lump-free, about 30 seconds. (Be careful not to overbeat, which will make the cake tough.)

Divide the batter between the cake pans. Bake until the cakes are golden, spring back to a light touch, and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, about 35 minutes.

Let the cakes cool in the pans for 40 minutes, then invert onto a wire rack. Remove the parchment and let cool completely.

Recipe source: Sweet Cream and Sugar Cones (Bi-Rite Creamery)

I had a hard time deciding on the glaze, but went with a modified version of the glaze I had made for the Mile high cake, just cutting out some of the cream so the glaze wouldn't be too soft.

Milk Chocolate Glaze

5 ounces good-quality milk chocolate, coarsely chopped
5 ounces good-quality dark chocolate (60–72%), coarsely chopped
1 cup heavy cream
2 tablespoons light corn syrup
1 ounce unsalted butter, at room temperature, cut into ½-inch cubes

Place the chopped chocolate in a large heatproof bowl and set aside.

In a small saucepan over medium heat, combine the heavy cream and corn syrup and bring just to a boil.

Remove from the heat and pour over the chocolate. Let sit for 2 minutes, then slowly blend the chocolate and cream together, whisking from the center, until the chocolate is completely melted and the mixture is smooth. Whisk for another 2 to 3 minutes to release excess heat from the mixture. Add the butter and whisk again until the butter is completely melted and incorporated. Leave the glaze at room temperature for about 3 hours, until slightly thickened (it should drip thickly when poured slowly from the spoon).

Spoon teaspoonfuls of glaze up to 2 inches apart around the top edge of the cake, allowing glaze to drip down the sides of the cake. Spoon the remaining glaze over the top center of the cake and smooth with an offset spatula, covering the top completely. Chill the cake until the glaze sets, at least 1 hour.

Recipe source: Baked Explorations

I split each cake into two layers and filled each layer with 3/4 cups pastry cream. Once all my layers were stacked, I left the cake set in the refrigerator over night. The next morning, I made the glaze first thing, and finished the cake around noon. A quick trip into the refrigerator to set the glaze, and that was it!

I think the pastry cream between the layers helped the cake stay moist and gave it a really good texture. The glaze consistency was just right, and the flavor spot on. I had lots of leftover glaze, but I'm sure we'll find a way to use it up :)

brown sugar shortcakes

Last year, I had the pleasure of testing some of the new recipes in Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito's newest cookbook: Baked Occasions. All were awesome, as expected, but of the recipes I tested a few of them really stood out, including these brown sugar shortcakes.

They are soooo good! We used to buy shortcakes from the strawberry farm where we go pick berries every year, but no more. This is THE recipe. So delicious, and the texture is perfect.

Can't share the recipe just yet, but be sure to pre-order the new book so you can make these shortcakes, and other insanely delicious recipes when the book comes out in October. I can't wait to get my hands on this one!

carrot cake with cinnamon cream cheese frosting

For the past couple of years, I always plan to make Easter treats for the kids at school, but then life gets crazy, and I don't. Last year, I felt especially bad, so the Easter bunny share some of his stash of carrots with the kids so that we could make carrot muffins to bring to school after Easter break.

I would have totally forgotten about that had my oldest not mention this "new tradition" the day before Easter. A quick trip to the store and I knew exactly what we were gonna use the Easter bunny's carrots for!

Except I didn't share this with the kids at school. I even had omitted the nuts thinking I would send this to school. We kept it to ourselves. This was very good cake. We especially liked the addition of cinnamon in the cream cheese frosting.

For the recipe, and to see how other Baked Sunday Mornings members enjoyed this cake, click on through to the Baked Sunday Mornings website.

classic crème brûlée

The Baked Sunday Mornings Bakers made Crème Brulée this morning.

I wasn't sure I was was going to get around to making it this weekend but dreaming about work woke me up early, so I had plenty of time to steep a vanilla bean and seeds into some cream while setting up the rest of the recipe.

Egg yolks are whisked into sugar and a bit of salt and then the mixture is tempered with the still hot cream before being strained into a clean container.

According to the book, the recipe yields 4 servings but a half a cup of cream per serving seemed a bit much to me, so I poured the cream and egg mixture into 8 smaller containers. The custard is baked in a bain-marie in the oven until the edges are set and the center still soft.

The custards need to cool, then chill for 4 hours before sugar is added to the top of them, and melted with a blow torch. Usually, white granulated sugar is used to make the glass-like top of the crème brûlée but in this case, dark brown sugar is used to give it a more pronounced caramel flavour. Brown sugar does not spread as nicely as white sugar, so I had a hard time melting the sugar evenly since it was bumpy.

I thought the crème brulée had the perfect texture with a nice crunchy top. And it looked so cute in the little teacups! Loved it!

For the recipe, and to see how my fellow bakers enjoyed this recipe, click on through to the Baked Sunday Mornings blog!

antique caramel cake

My fellow bakers at Baked Sunday Mornings made this Antique Caramel Cake a few weeks back. I didn't because.... I got lazy and didn't have a reason to make it. But after reading all blog posts, I jumped on the occasion to make it for my sister in law's birthday.

And it got great reviews! The cake was nice and moist, and the caramel frosting was delicious. Like going on the list of my favorite frosting. (Note to self: Build list of favorite frosting recipes.) Some of the BSM bakers complained of the frosting being fussy, as it's made with cream cheese and is quite soft. I made sure to frost the cake in a cold spot in the kitchen (not hard to find these days, but I actually opened a window while I was frosting.) I did manage to get the cake frosted without too many problems but it did start to droop after sitting at room temperature for most of the afternoon.

I was kinda surprised when I made the cake that it didn't call for salt, vanilla or baking powder. Just baking soda dissolved in vinegar, added in at the very last before baking. The flavor of the cake was just fine without the salt and vanilla. The sides baked up nice and straight and it didn't dome very horribly.

The original recipe can be found here, and makes two 8-inch layers. I double the recipe, and made 3, 9-inch layers. This is one I'd make again in heartbeat!

Brown Butter Snickerdoodles

Still hate to bake cookies. Made the dough on Sunday, thinking I would bring them to a potluck at lunch, but didn't read the line in the instruction that said to let them chill in the fridge for an hour. So I stashed the dough in the fridge and didn't manage to actually bake them until Thursday. And then, all of the sudden, the friggin cookies all disappeared.

Loved these! They baked up nice and thick, and are super chewy.

I only wish I had scooped them before putting them in the fridge. When I got the dough out to bake them, the dough was super hard and it was a huge pain to scoop the cookies and roll them into a ball. Always, always, scoop first, then chill.

For the recipe, and to see how the other bakers enjoyed these cookies, visit the Baked Sunday Mornings webpage.

mile-high chocolate cake with vanilla buttercream

This cake popped up on the Baked Sunday Morning schedule just as I was planning my baby's third birthday. Seemed like a perfect occasion to make a six layer chocolate cake filled with an Italian meringue vanilla buttercream and topped with a chocolate glaze.

The last time I had made the standard Baked chocolate cake, my layers felt really delicate and had sunk a little in the middle. So I was really dreading splitting each one in half to make the six layers required for this cake. I had good luck this time around, and my layers baked up nice and flat, and felt sturdier than I remembered. I left them to cool on the counter overnight before slicing them the next day.

I have made the standard Baked roux based buttercream quite a few times recently (coffee one, and caramel one, just this month) and was ready for a change, so I was happy to see that this cake called for a different buttercream. I have not made Italian meringue buttercream very often, but it came together very nicely. A good thing too, cause I made finished this cake at the very last minute. No way I would have had time to make a different frosting for it! I did finish the buttercream by beating it with the paddle attachment of my kitchenaid, just to make sure it was nice and smooth.

I didn't have much time to let the glaze cool, so it wasn't as thick as it should have been, but it still worked out in the end. I did have a lot of glaze left over though, probably because it was too thin to stay on the cake as it should have.

I topped the cake with a little Peppa Pig and a little heart banner spelling out my kid's name. I don't have much experience making fondant figurines, but I'm having a blast giving it my best shot! And the birthday girl actually recognized the character, so mission accomplished!

Everyone loved this cake and the Italian buttercream. The leftovers were thoroughly enjoyed by my coworkers and didn't last long!

 For the recipe, click on through to the Baked Sunday Morning blog.

lime tarragon cookies with white chocolate lime topping

I loved these cookies! And I totally wasn't going to make them, because when I first spotted them on the Baked Sunday Mornings schedule, I thought they were slice and bake cookies, and I just have no patience for that. (And I don't think I like slice and bake cookies.) But a couple of weeks back, I saw these cookies featured on the National Baking Society blog and was super happy to see that they were in fact drop cookies. And it's totally possible to simplify the baking process of drop cookies, so I did just that.

This cookie is kinda reminiscent of a shortbread but not really. It's not a sugar cookie. It's not chewy or crisp or crumbly. It's just different. The ingredients include butter, confectioner's sugar, light brown sugar, salt, tarragon, lime zest, lime juice and flour. They are topped with melted white chocolate.

I chose to bake the cookie dough in a parchment lined 8 in by 8 in baking pan. I baked it for about 30 minutes, if not 40, until the edges were starting to turn golden and the cookies appeared set.

After letting the cookies cool, I cut them into squares and drizzled melted chocolate all over them.

It's a good thing I gave most of these away, as it was way too easy to keep going back to the kitchen to pop just another square in my mouth. I really enjoyed the flavor, the texture of these. I think I might have preferred them without the white chocolate drizzle, but they were still delicious with it. They came together really quickly, and disappeared just as fast.

For the recipe, click on through to the Baked Sunday Mornings site and see how the other bakers liked this recipe!

oopsy daisy cake

We were celebrating my sister in law's birthday today, so I thought I would make the Baked Sunday Mornings recipe for this week, the Oopsy Daisy Cake, a milk chocolate cake with a peanut butter filling and an old-fashioned vanilla frosting. And since my SIL didn't request anything specific on her cake (no dora, no strawberry shortcake or hotwheels!), I was inspired by the title of the recipe and decorated it with daisies.

The original cake makes two 8-inch layers, but because I needed to feed 13 people, I knew it had to be bigger. I though of making one and a half time the recipe, but there are a lot of 1/3 cup measures in the original recipe, and i was too lazy to do the math, so I just doubled everything and baked it in three 9-inch pans.

Looking back on it, maybe the cake didn't need to be 9 inches across and 6 inches high. Just a tiny bit over the top. But I always want to make sure I have enough cake. I probably should have saved a layer for another time.

The cake itself is pretty standard, butter and sugars getting creamed together, then dry ingredients and a mixture of melted milk chocolate, cocoa powder, coffee and milk get added in. Maybe I made a mistake while doubling the recipe, or maybe I over-baked the layers, but I thought the cake was just blah. A little dry, a little bland, unremarkable. On the upside, the layers came out nice and straight.

The peanut butter filling was easy to whip up and tasted great with the chocolate cake and the best vanilla frosting ever! Love, LOVE the boiled milk frosting, and it came together so nicely for me this time around! I didn't add peanut butter to the vanilla frosting because I was sure I'd have some leftover since I had double the recipe, but somehow, I manage to put pretty much all the frosting on the cake.

I did have issues with the decorating... I actually did put everything on the cake as I had planned, but that lasted about 10 minutes, before the bow and the flowers fell off. So I quickly had to come up with a plan B, and put the bow and the flowers on top of the cake, where gravity was less of an issue, and made additional flowers for the side of the cake. Still came out pretty cute, I think.

For the recipe, and to see how the other Sunday morning Bakers fared with this recipe, click on through to the Baked Sunday Mornings website!

breakfast banana cake with banana mousse

I made this week's Baked Sunday Mornings Banana Mousse recipe and used it in a father's day cake for my dad.

As we were going over to my parent's for brunch, I was looking for a cake that was not too rich and heavy. I made a banana cake and stuffed it with a bunch of breakfast-y things.

Banana cake, bananas being a breakfast fruit, obviously. I then slathered nutella on the cake layers. Topped the nutella with a very addicting cornflake crunch, a momofuku recipe that combines cornflakes, milk powder, sugar and butter. And used Baked's Banana Mousse to tie everything together.

I only had a very small slice after a very copious brunch, but loved the different flavors and texture contrasts!

Mousse recipe can be found on the Baked Sunday Mornings blog. And since I know some of the BSM bakers topped their banana mousse with granola, I'm sharing the Cornflake Crunch recipe, via Martha Stewart. This stuff is dangerous to keep around, and I can't wait to eat for breakfast with vanilla yogurt and local strawberries!

Cornflake Crunch
recipe source : momofuku milk bar by Christina Tosi

1/2 (12-ounce) box cornflakes (about 5 cups)
1/2 cup milk powder
3 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon coarse salt
9 tablespoons melted butter

Preheat oven to 275 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a nonstick baking mat; set aside.

Place cornflakes in a medium bowl. Using your hands, crush to one-quarter of their original size. Add milk powder, sugar, and salt; toss to combine. Add butter and toss to form small clusters.

Spread cornflake mixture in an even layer on prepared baking sheet. Transfer to oven and bake until clusters are toasted and smell buttery, about 20 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool completely.

chocolate cream cheese chocolate snacking cookies

I had no intention of baking these. From the title, I assumed they were either slice and bake cookies or a dough that needed to be rolled out and cut with cutters. And I'm not the greatest fan of these type of cookies.

But it was my turn to post the recipe on the Baked Sunday Mornings Page, and while doing that, I actually read the recipe and realized that it was a drop cookie. And that it was an easy recipe. And that I had all the ingredients on hand. So I made them. Swaped the regular chocolate chip for mini ones. And drizzled melted chocolate on top.

So turns out, these cookies are amazing. The raw dough is soooo addicting! It's not heavy like chocolate chip cookie dough but not as light as frosting. Weird texture, but so good! Straight out of the oven these cookies are worth burning your tongue for. And cooled, for breakfast the next day? Like crack. They are soft and tender and so delicious! And dangerous to keep around...  

The recipe can be found on the Baked Sunday Mornings site.

black and white cookies

Having not traveled at all, it's not surprising that I have never had a Black and White cookie. Let's just say it's not a common cookie at the grocery store near my house. For some reason I thought the Black and White cookie was a cutout cookie recipe, and I expected a rather crisp cookie dipped in two kinds of icing.

Turns out, it's a really nice and light cakey cookie, flavored with vanilla and lemon, with vanilla and chocolate icing spread on each half of the cookie.

I made two batches of Black and White cookies within the span of 3 days. The first batch I made was a Cake Boss recipe, while the second one is the Baked recipe out of the Explorations book. (Pictures are of the Baked recipe.)

The first, the cake boss recipe, the dough didn't spread very much at all and the baked cookies were very domey. The batter was extremely sticky and did not settle while baking. Could have been a mistake on my part. My ingredients were not all room temperature, and the mixture curdled big time.

The texture of the cookie was fine, but the cookie shape was not what I expected.

The glaze was finicky, but once I got the hang of it (working quickly, while keeping the icing warm, and adding water to thin out the icing as needed) it went fairly smooth. I loved the consistency of the vanilla icing, as it coated the cookie nicely without dripping everywhere or pooling around the cookie and set quickly. I see myself using this icing recipe to make petits fours one day. The chocolate icing I liked less. I had a hard time getting it to the proper consistency and it had an unappealing finish once dried.

The cookie itself was good, even plain. Actually, it might have been better plain, as I thought the chocolate icing was just... not so good. But might have been the chocolate I used. I don't know.

I quickly set out to make the Baked recipe while the cake boss recipe was still fresh in our minds, so we could compare.

The batter was much nicer to work with. I used a small 2-3 tbsp cookie scoop, and got large cookies. I wouldn't have wanted to make them any larger. They spread some, a couple of them running into each other on my baking sheet, yet stayed thick and soft. The baked cookies was barely golden around the edges.

The cookie itself had a more pronounced lemon flavor than the cake boss recipe, probably because it called for lemon zest (which I did not measure, but I couldn't have been very far off what was called for in the recipe). I also used 3/4 tbsp of lemon juice to make the 3/4 cup buttermilk called for in the recipe. I thought the naked cookie was really good.

The glaze is very simply mixing powdered sugar with milk, cream and vanilla. Half of the vanilla glaze gets over 1/2 cup of cocoa powder added to it to make the chocolate icing. That's where I ran into problems. There was no way all that cocoa powder was getting incorporated into the vanilla icing, even with the added teaspoon of water called for in the recipe. I even took out the hand mixer to make sure I had incorporated all the cocoa in the glaze, but in the end, I had to add a lot of milk for the icing to become the same consistency as the vanilla one. Not a big problem, but I suspect because of all the added milk, the chocolate glaze had issues setting up properly. It was quite delicious though! I used a supersoft red cocoa powder and loved the finish of the glaze on the cookies. Both vanilla and chocolate glaze pooled too much around the cookies for my liking, but were easy to spread on the cookie and gave the cookies a nice look.

Overall, I much preferred making and eating the Baked recipe for the Black and Whites. I'm glad I got to play with the vanilla glaze from the cake boss recipe, but the win in this case is strongly in the Baked boys' book. Very awesome cookie that's dangerous to keep around in the kitchen. It's so light that you'd have no problem eating one after the other without even noticing.

The Baked Black and White cookies recipe can be found on the Baked Sunday Mornings page.

honey banana poppy seed bread

C'est inévitable. When I buy bananas just because, they stay on the counter and get too soft to eat out of hand and of course, at that point, I'm too lazy to bake with them. And when I buy bananas *specifically* for baking, they disappear right before my eyes.

I still managed to make this week's Baked Sunday Mornings recipe for Honey Banana Poppy Seed Bread by going back to the store for more bananas. And just in case, I also bought a packet of poppy seeds, then discovered I had an opened one with barely a tablespoon out of it at home. It's not an ingredient I use very often, in fact, the only time I can recall eating poppy seeds is on an everything bagel. But I enjoyed the slight crunch they imparted to this banana bread.

I wasn't feeling all that great when I made this recipe, so I might have forgotten an ingredient, but this banana bread seemed off to me. The batter seemed thin. My usual recipe rises way more than this one did. And looks more rustic. Once I cut into the loaf, I was surprised to see how dark it was inside. I made sure to bake it completely, but I don't think I over-baked it.

    

I really enjoy banana bread, but unfortunately, not this recipe. It just tasted too... toasty to me. But the rest of the fam seemed to like it, so posting it anyway. For the recipe, click on through to the Baked Sunday Mornings Blog and see how the other bakers enjoyed this one!

sweet and salty brownies

I haven't blogged in forever! I skipped the last 6 Baked Sunday Morning recipes including this week's Lacy Panty Cakes. But I wanted to post anyway, just to see if I remembered how! Seriously, I did bake a lot in the past weeks, but did not have the energy to take proper pictures and write about the recipes, but I figured I could do a recap post, just so I could come back to the recipes I made.

So this weekend was my sister-in-law's father's 50th birthday, and I was asked to do a dessert bar for the occasion. We went with mini chocolate cupcakes topped with peanut butter cream cheese frosting, and a sprinkle of gold luster dust, Corona blondies with a hint of lime, and Baked's Sweet and Salty Brownies, also my contribution to this week's Baked Sunday Mornings. I rounded out the dessert bar with some red licorice, chocolate covered almonds, sour cherry candies and salty and sweet popcorn.

The group had made the Sweet and Salty Brownies back in December 2010, but I never got around to making them. The first step is to make a salted caramel sauce from sugar, corn syrup, water, cream, sour cream and salt. I might have taken my caramel a tiny bit past dark amber, but it was still delicious. The brownie batter is the standard Baked recipe: Butter and chocolate, melted over a pan of simmering water, white and brown sugar, eggs, vanilla, flour, cocoa and salt. Half the batter is spread in a 9x13 pan, then the caramel is drizzled over top, and the rest of the batter covers the caramel. The brownies bake for 30 minutes and need to chill so they can be cut cleanly.

I expected a layer of caramel between two layers of brownies, but the caramel got incorporated in the brownie. The brownies should have been sprinkled with coarse sugar and fleur de sel, but I skipped this step. I cut them into 24 squares, but they revised my plan and cut them in half as I thought they were a bit too big compared to the rest of the desserts on the table.

This last baking project went relatively smooth. Helped that I got almost two weeks to plan and execute it!

Since I last blogged, we celebrated my niece's third birthday with a Dora themed cake. Not a big fan of Dora, but had fun decorating this girly cake! It was a 9-inch cake consisting of two chocolate, two strawberry and one vanilla layer, with homemade honey strawberry jam between the cake layers. It was frosted with standard vanilla american buttercream, a royal icing border and fondant accents.

We also celebrated a coworker's birthday and I made Baked's whiteout cake into cupcakes. The frosting on these cupcakes was a huge hit! It was creamy and fluffy and so tasty! I might have found my new favorite fluffy frosting recipe! I'm pretty mad at myself for not taking pictures as the cupcakes were pretty with their frosting swirl and white sprinkles and non pareil, plus I had wrapped them in pretty cupcake wrappers.

That same week, I made a Skylanders cake for my coworker's son's 7th birthday. Skylanders is a videogame (that I kinda want to play after doing the research for this cake) and the cake was supposed to look like the portal in the game. The cake was an 8-inch chocolate cake filled and frosted with chocolate american style buttercream. If it looks unfinished, it's that they put the Skylanders toys that the birthday boy was getting as a gift on top of the cake.

Two weeks ago was my daughter's school's open house for registration and her teacher had asked if I could provide the snack for that day. Not thinking twice about it, I immediately said I could without fully comprehending what they wanted. Turns out, they wanted 100 cupcakes. Thinking about it now, it doesn't seem that bad, but that week, it was a tiny bit overwhelming. So I made 25 chocolate cupcakes frosted with chocolate frosting and decorated like beavers (inspired by these) and 25 vanilla cupcakes with vanilla frosting topped with beaver toppers (inspired by these). I made rice krispies squares and chocolate chip cookies to round out the 100 snacks needed. Also mad that the only picture I took of these was a horrible blackberry picture taken at 9 pm.

Then came Valentine's day, with my daughter's expectation that I would bake treats for her friends, for her teacher, for the entire world. I was pretty caked out by that point, so I made the often repinned rolo-stuffed ritz cracker sandwich and drizzled them with white and pink candy melts. Two to a valentine's day treat bag, I was done in under 15 minutes. And by the way, these things rock. The salty-sweet, chocolate + caramel, crunchy treats? Super addictive.

So that's where we are. And just to round out the month, I have a brother-sister birthday party to bake cupcakes for next Saturday, a 3-tiered Strawberry shortcake cake for Sunday and my mom's birthday cake before the days in February run out!

So the next recipe on the Baked Sunday Mornings schedule is Vanilla Bean and Milk Chocolate Budino, and I really hope I get to make that one and blog about it next week! See you then, hopefully!

banana fritters

So I had bananas ripening on the counter and was debating making banana muffins from the Bouchon Bakery book (awesome recipe, awesome book by the way), and these Banana Foster Fritters because they were on the Baked Sunday Mornings recipe schedule. Upon consultation with my husband, we decided to try something new, and went with the fritters.

Banana Fritters do not photograph very well. Or, I cannot photograph Banana Fritters very well. In my defense, I made them after dinner one night, when there was absolutely no natural light available. And I might have had the oil too high, and they might have looked a bit burnt on the outside. I even tried covering them with powdered sugar... yeah. Not pretty!

But they were easy. A simple matter of mixing wet ingredients with dry ingredients, and setting the mixture aside in the fridge while heating up oil. Or in my case, while going to the store to get oil, and getting it up to temperature.

There was a rum dipping sauce recipe to go along these fritters, but I went with a simple powdered sugar glaze instead. And I still don't have rum, so I didn't include it in the recipe. So the Banana Foster Fritters suddenly became simple glazed Banana Fritters.

Reviews were mixed. I enjoyed them still warm from the oil, but the next day, not so much. My husband did not like the banana flavor/texture, but would like me to try the same recipe with apples next time, as the donut texture was good. Another taster texted me that they were real (expletive) good after tasting them an hour or so after them being fried. So if you like banana flavored baked goods, I suggest trying this one. I mean, it's fried dough... hard not to like!

For the recipe and to see how the other bakers enjoyed these, visit the Baked Sunday Mornings blog!

malted milk chocolate pots de crème

Not big fans of malt in this house. When we have Baked recipes on the Baked Sunday Mornings recipe schedule that call for it, I usually try to get the fam to eat them, without telling them there's malt in there. Sometimes it works (malted waffles and vanilla bean malt cake come to mind) sometimes it doesn't. This time, it didn't.

I thought the pots de crème would be a nice fancy dessert for the nice fancy meal I was planning for New Year's eve (planning would be the operative word here... we ended up eating pizza). I made the pots de crème early in the day so that I could photograph them while there was still natural light coming in the house.

They are not hard to make... Easier than pudding in fact. Egg yolks, sugar and salt get whipped together while the cream and malted milk that will melt the chocolate heats up. All the ingredients then get combined. I did chose to strain the mixutre before baking in in a water bath to ensure that the pots de crème would be absolutely creamy. And they were.

Although we didn't enjoy the flavor of these, the texture was absolutely wonderful. I topped them with whipped cream, but it wasn't needed at all. In fact, I preferred this dessert without, and without the crushed malted milk balls as well, as to not distract from the texture of the pots de crème.

For the recipe, and to see how the other bakers enjoyed this dessert, please visit the Baked Sunday Mornings blog.

I'm also submitting this post to Domestic Sluttery for their baking club Just Desserts. The most recent theme is Fighting for Custardy, so I thought these pots de crème were absolutely fitting!

holiday spice cake with eggnog buttercream

I like to bring treats to the adults taking care of my kids for Christmas. Well anytime really, but Christmas especially. I've done cupcakes in the past, but I find that little 6 inch cakes are also very pretty to give, and they are easy to share.

I chose a recipe from Baked Elements this year, mainly because it was on the Baked Sunday Mornings schedule, but I know I couldn't go wrong with a spice cake that smells like Christmas, topped with an old-fashioned boiled milk frosting.

My plan was to double the cake and frosting recipe, but after consulting a fellow Sunday Mornings baker, we decided I should just make the recipe twice instead. And I'm glad I didn't double the recipe right away! It made the 5, 6-inch cakes I needed, plus a small cupcake so I could actually taste the cake and write up a review!

For some reason when I set out the make the cake I was expecting a straight forward cream butter, sugar, eggs, alternate dry ingredients with wet recipe, but then I realized that this was a Baked recipe... So that meant creaming butter and sugar, adding an egg, sifting dry ingredients together, alternating dry ingredients with ice cold water, then folding in a molasses-spice mixture, whipping egg whites, and folding them into the batter, all the while dirtying a massive amount of dishes. But of course, the dishes are always worth it in the end!

I've made the boiled milk frosting a few times in the past with great success (and reviews!) but I know that the method is finicky. I was very happy to have it come together with minimal issues. The only thing is, I didn't have any rum, so I added a tablespoon of vanilla and a teaspoon vanilla paste to the recipe instead. Because for some reason, I thought the recipe would require eggnog. So that's what I bought, not rum...

I only frosted the tops of the cakes, and topped them with white sprinkles, non pareils and dragees, as suggested by the Baked boys. I even sprinkled luster dust on the frosting. But I just couldn't resist adding a little gumpaste/fondant penguin I had made the weekend prior. Of course, then the cake was too tall for the cake boxes, but it made for pretty pictures :)

The cake itself was amazing. Super moist and light, and very flavorful. It made me feel the same way I did when I first made and tasted the apple spice cake from the 2nd book. Wondering why on earth you would want to make plain jane "white" cake when you can make cakes that taste like this! Although the frosting wasn't as smooth as I would have liked it to be, the texture was fine on the tongue, and very yummy. I wonder if whipping it some more might have improved on the texture, but I was so afraid to mess it up, I didn't dare try. The day after I tasted this, I had a gingerbread cupcake from a fancy schmancy bakery here and it was nothing, nothing compared to this cake.

My kids' teachers, bus driver and babysitter all got cute cakes topped with holly instead of the penguin.

As I'm getting the house ready to host my in-laws tomorrow for Christmas Eve dinner, I would like to wish all my fellow Sunday Mornings bakers a very sweet Christmas. May the holiday season fill you with joy and happiness! I'll probably be skipping the shortbread recipe next week, so I will also wish you the best for 2013. Looking forward to baking with you some more in the new year!

And oh! Am I following you on Twitter? Do you have a FB page I can like? Are you on Instagram? Feel free to leave links in the comments!

Please visit the Baked Sunday Mornings blog for the recipe and to see how the other bakers did!

spicy brownies

I worked late one day last week, and although it was past my regular bed time, I was way to wired to sleep. So I made brownies.

I'm a big fan of Haagen Dazs Mayan Chocolate ice cream, so I was pretty sure these brownies spiced with chili powder, cinnamon and ginger would be a hit.

The recipe calls for freshly ground cinnamon and ancho chili powder, but when making brownies at 10 pm... you use what's in the cupboard. In my case, preground cinnamon and mexican chili powder.

I don't often make brownies, although they are simple enough to make. Butter and chocolate are melted together, then sugar gets whisked in, then eggs. Some flour, and, in this cake, a bunch of spices, and the resulting batter goes in the oven. The recipe says to bake it for 30 minutes, but I baked mine for at least 45 minutes. And it was in no way overbaked. Fudgy in the center, a very thin crisp top. The edges were barely crispier than the middle, so I didn't even have to cut them off to get nice squares.

I really like the flavor. Added a bit of kick to the usual chocolate, but it was in no way hot-spicy. The recipe can be found on the Baked Sunday Mornings blog, and while you're at it, check out what the other bakers thought of Baked's Matt and Renato's Spicy Brownies.