Random Musings

This week is going to be one that could make or break me. On-top of the gym, doctor's appointments I have the cake for a 1 year old birthday. You may think that is not a big under taking but I am a perfectionist and for me it is. I am building a cupcake stand, doing rainbow cupcakes with chocolate butterflies on them as well an 8 inch cake on the top of the stand. Plus a little cake for April to shove her face into. But I will make it through without a scratch. I maybe covered in cake flour by the end but who cares! Not me!

Other notes, I've decided to post one thing that I love and one that I want! My first is the thing that I love is my spatula's. They are amazing. Two Christmas' ago I received a set of utensils and with 1 lonely little spatula. It had no bend to it! Nothing! It made it impossible to scrape any bowl and after my husband got tired of me complaining about this poor little spatula he brought me home a gift.


I thought I was going to pass out from excitement and couldn't wait to bake something. They are so flexible and just fantastic. I love my husband for bringing me little pieces of joy like this. Just last night he brought home an OXO angled pasty spatula for me. It makes me squee!

Now for what I want. It really should come as no surprise to anyone. No real description is needed.


There is nothing worse than making cookie dough with a hand mixer. Nothing!!! *happy sigh* One day, it shall be mine! Links to follow!

*All Images From Bed,Bath & Beyond*
Spatulas
Kitchen Aid Stand Mixer (Artisan)

Happy Baking!

Baklava Rangoon!

As you may have noticed I didn't post this yesterday but I am doing it today! I know, epic fail. Anyways, thanks go to Jessica for the ingenious name for these lovely little baklava bits of joy. I saw this recipe on Everyday Italian with Giada De Laurentiis when she was doing Greek inspired food. They were a slightly different way to make baklava and I thought what the heck, let the amateur baker play with tissue paper thin phyllo dough. I had so much fun making these and I think if you decide to try it you will too. Let's start with the recipe.

1/2 Cup Almonds

1/2 Cup Walnuts

1/4 Cup Plain Bread Crumbs

2 Tablespoons Sugar

1 1/2 Teaspoons Ground Cinnamon

1/4 Teaspoon Ground Cloves

1 Stick Butter, Melted, Divided (2 Tablespoons for the dough)

3 Tablespoons Honey

Pinch of Salt

12 Sheets of Phyllo Dough

1/4 Cup Dried Apricots (Optional)

For this you will need 2 mini muffin tins and several mixing bowls. Preheat your over to 350. Take your almonds, walnuts, cinnamon, bread crumbs, sugar, clovers, salt and apricots (if using) into a food processor. Personally I have one of those bullet mixers so I just used the chopper attachment. Once finished set it aside in a bowl and melt your 2 tablespoons of butter in the microwave for 15 seconds or until it is mostly melted. You can stir it a bit to make it melt the rest of the way.


Tada! Chopped yummy goodness ready for the butter and honey. I should have used something other than a yellow bowl for the butter in this picture. Oh well, lesson learned. Pour in your honey and butter and gently stir them until it forms a soft mixture. Set it aside for now and pull your phyllo dough out. Be sure to pull your phyllo dough out and let it come to room temp before trying to use. Lay it out flat on a cookie sheet and place a damp cloth over it to keep it from drying out. It will do nothing but rip and tear if you don't keep it moist. Start with a clean and dry work surface, lay one of the sheets down on the surface and dip your pastry brush in the melted butter. Gently swash the dough with the butter all over and lay another layer of it on-top. Continue to do this until you have 6 layers.


Now take a sharp knife and cut the dough into 3 rows length wise and 4 rows width wise. It should make 12 pieces, enough for 1 of your muffin tins. Take the pieces and carefully press them into your muffin tin like such.


Time to fill them! Place a spoonful of your honey nut mixture into each one of the little phyllo cups and press the top of them together so they look kinda like the top of a sack or crab rangoon. Either one really. Place them in your oven to bake for 20-25 minutes. Mine took right around 22 minutes. Cool and then eat! They turned out fantastic! Once they cool, the flavor sets in more but it tastes even better if you place it in the microwave for 15 seconds just to give it some warmth.


Here is the link to the original recipe and there is even a video of Giada making it. It is amazing how my experience making them was just like her video. *insert sarcasm* Happy baking!

Hey Look A Rainbow!

What better way to kick off a rainy day then with some baking and what could be more fun than rainbow cupcakes. The entire thing may seem complicated but it really isn't. This is what you need...

Box White Cake
Food Coloring
Patience of a Saint.
(Don't you need this with any baking?)

First things first, prepare your box white cake as per instructions on the back. Which includes preheating your oven to 350.


See simple right? Now divide you batter into however many colors you would like your rainbow cupcakes to be. I chose to do five, purple, pink, blue, green and orange. Now don't make the same mistake I made and divide your batter as even as you possible can.



As you can see in the above picture I decided I needed to use as many mixing bowls as I could. When adding the color it is pretty much a guessing game. I started with 3 drops per bowl but when back and added more to some colors.


Mine turned out looking more pastel-ish in this picture but they were much brighter. In fact when all was said and done I really wished I would have used more coloring. Now go ahead and line your two regular size muffin tins with whatever colorful cupcake papers your little heart desires. Then spoon out layers of each color onto of one another in the cups until your cups are around 3/4 way full.


Not so pretty looking now. Just looks like a blob of purple paint fell on my lovely orange cupcakes. I so could have came up something better to call it but whatever. Anywho, go ahead and stick the pans in the oven and back for between 20-25 minutes. They should look something like this.


See....still not so pretty. The purple blob turned into more of a gray-sludge. Eww! I think it is time to show it cut in half.



Oh look! There's the pretty! I see the rainbow of blob of pastel joy.

So a tips I learned today...

1. Make sure all your ingredients are at room temp.
2. More food coloring = bright color!
3. I need to stop buying mixing bowls. (Pic to follow)

Red Velvet Delight!

Today was a new day and a first attempt at the ever so delightful (as well as my personal fave) red velvet cake. I felt very calm going into this task and told myself not to get caught up in how long it was taking me. I tend to overlook important things when that happens, like softening the butter. It didn't seem that way today. I felt good going into it. Then as I gathered my tools it happened. I have no sifter. My housemates have no sifter. Crap.

*lightbulb*

Yes, I used the backside of the cheese grater and I think it was pretty genius. It caught most of the major clumps and in the finished cake there was no visible flour speckles. Below is the recipe I used.

2 1/2 cups of all purposed unbleached flour

1/2 cup cocoa powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup butter, at room temperature

2 cups granulated sugar

5 eggs

2 ounces red food coloring

2 teaspoons vanilla

1/2 teaspoon butter flavoring

1/2 cup buttermilk

1 teaspoon vinegar


Preheat oven to 350. Grease three 9 inch round pans. Sift flour, salt, cocoa and baking soda together and set aside. Beat butter and sugar in a bowl together for approximately 5 minutes at medium speed. Add eggs one at a time and beat until smooth. Add the food coloring and vinegar, milk vanilla and butter. At low speed add flour mixture a little at a time but do not over mix. Bake for 35 to 40 minutes until your toothpick comes out with a red tinge but not wet. Because lets face it there is enough food coloring in this to make every toothpick come out stained


The cakes before I took their heads off! Mwhahahahaha! HA!

All in all they turned it out well except for 1 thing. It turned out dry. So, my memo to me for the next round with this elusive creature.


a. Use 2 pans instead of 3.
b. Instead of cocoa perhaps use semi-sweet chocolate and a tad of milk
c. Use 1 cup sour cream instead of vinegar


Perhaps that will do it. If anyone has any other ideas feel free to comment and let me know. Until next time.


Peace, Love and Cupcakes


Yes, I used can icing. I have yet to perfect icing. My last attempt at buttercream was ... interesting. This is just Duncan Hines Cream Cheese.

Yummy Chocolate Chip Cookies!

First blog post = Super exciting! But everyone has to start somewhere, might as well be at now! Tonight I wanted to bake something and make it mighty quick. What can I say other than this chica didn't feel up to doing a ton of dishes, so I decided just to whip up a hearty batch of chocolate chip cookies from scratch. Easy to make and the time before this I made them they were gone before the person I made them for could get one. Didn't help matters that that happened to be a day where I was baking 2 types of cookies and a cake. Most of the last batch ended up being made into frozen raspberry mousse sandwiches. I'll be sure to post the raspberry mousse recipe on a later date.

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter - softened

1 cup sugar

3/4 cup light brown sugar

2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 eggs

2 cups all-purpose flour (unbleached)

1 teaspoon baking soda

HUGE bag of chocolate chips

You can also had a 1/2 cup cocoa if you want a basic chocolate batter. First things first is preheat the oven to 375. Beat butter, sugar, brown sugar, vanilla and salt together. Please be certain to let your butter sit out and soften. I made that mistake twice now. (You would think I would learn.) Also, don't put it in the microwave. It turns out all the stuff I learned in college about a microwave being able to cook everything is so not true. In another bowl mix together your flour, baking soda, and cocoa (if desired). Then slowly mix it into your batter. Now is the fun part, adding the chocolate chips. I used an entire bag. However the person I am baking these for loves her chocolate chips.

See! Damn, look good enough to eat.

Next thing I highly recommend is parchment paper. That stuff is fantastic. I want to take up stock. Maybe I could... moving on.

Mmmm...clumps of cookie dough!

Last but not least, bake for 8-10 mins, depending on your oven. Mine was closer to 10, but I think I could have left them in a smidge longer. Alas, not everyone likes their cookies as crispy as I do.


You can't deny it. You want one.

Well that is all for now!