It's Christmas!

So its Christmas and I'm spending my afternoon decorating cakes, but I don't mind so much because I love making cakes. Today I'm making a Mario and Sonic cake for a birthday as well as a cake of choice to bring to my grandparents house for Christmas. To make life easier for myself I decided to make the cake and fillings the same flavour so they are both vanilla cake with italian meringue buttercream and homemade raspberry jam. Both were delicious. I am really happy with the way the mario cake turned out. For my grandparents I made just a buche de noel since its easy, could be done quickly, and doesn't take a lot of thought. I added real greens just to make it look prettier. Anyways hope you all had a Merry Christmas and a happy and healthy new year!

My Birthday!

I'm back in Canada for Christmas holidays and just two days after I got back I had to make a cake for my birthday party seeing as my mom threatened me that I either make one or she was going to order one from the Portuguese bakery. I didn't have alot of time to make decorations and such..and I was so lazy that I even bought pre-coloured fondant but it turned out being chocolate flavoured not only chocolate coloured so that was interesting. I made a simple devils food cake since I had an order for a chocolate cake the next day so I killed two birds with one stone. It was layered with caramel and masked with Italian meringue buttercream. It was my first time doing a quilting pattern on fondant which is surprisingly a little harder then it seems to do.

Yummie Banana Cinnamon Muffins

These muffins are super delicious and super simple! So moist and soft with a little crunch in the muffin top. The perfect handful of warmth to come home to on a crisp cold day.

Banana Cinnamon Muffins

1 1/3 cups sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
4 eggs
4 mashed very ripe bananas
2 teaspoons vanilla
3 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375°F. Line a muffin tray with paper baking cups.
2. In medium bowl, beat sugar, oil, and eggs with wire whisk. Stir in bananas and vanilla. Stir in remaining muffin ingredients just until moistened. Divide batter evenly among muffin cups (makes 24 muffins).
3. Bake 20 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Immediately remove from pan to cooling rack.

White Chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake

For my first American thanksgiving I decided to sway away from the norm by making a cheesecake instead of a pie. It was really delicious and I urge you to make one! To jazz it up i added a milk chocolate ganche, which I let drip over the sides as well as some rosettes made from a quick frosting that I mixed extra raspberry sauce from the cheesecake into. Sorry about the low quality of the picture but I had forgotten to bring my camera so I took them on a phone :(

White Chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake

1 cup of graham cracker crumbs
3 tablespoons white sugar
1/4 cup butter, melted

1 (10 ounce) package frozen raspberries
2 tablespoons white sugar
2 teaspoons cornstarch
1/2 cup water

2 cups white chocolate chips
1/2 cup half-and-half cream
3 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup white sugar
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

16 ounces milk chocolate, chopped
1 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup unsalted butter

Directions

1.  Mix together cookie crumbs, 3 tablespoons sugar, and melted butter. Press mixture into the bottom of a 9 inch springform pan.
2. In a saucepan, combine raspberries, 2 tablespoons sugar, cornstarch, and water. Bring to boil, and continue boiling 5 minutes, or until sauce is thick. Strain sauce through a mesh strainer to remove seeds. 
3.  Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. In a metal bowl over a pan of simmering water, melt white chocolate chips with half-and-half, until smooth.
4. In a large bowl, mix together cream cheese and 1/2 cup sugar until smooth. Beat in eggs one at a time (this is a very important step!). Blend in vanilla and melted white chocolate. Pour half of batter over crust. Spoon 3 tablespoons raspberry sauce over batter. Pour remaining cheesecake batter into pan, and again spoon 3 tablespoons raspberry sauce over the top. Swirl batter with the tip of a knife to create a marbled effect. 
5. Bake for 55 to 60 minutes or until filling is set (when pushed there should be very minimal “jiggle”). Cool and refrigerate for 8 hours before removing from pan.
6. To make the ganache melt all ingredients over a double boiler. Remove the cheesecake from the pan and pour ganache over the cheesecake letting it run down the sides. Let it set up in the fridge for about twenty minutes.
7. At this point you can decorate how you choose. I drizzled the extra raspberry sauce over the top of the cheesecake and added some raspberry flavoured icing rosettes.

Orange Marshmallows

Everyone loves marshmallows...but making them flavoured or colouring them makes them just that much better. Marshmallows are surprisingly easy to make but you must have a thermometer and a watchful eye. I decided to make orange flavoured marshmallows and colour them peach but you can make and flavour and colour you desire. How about banana...maybe peach....maple? If you want a plain and simple regular marshmallow just use vanilla extract.

Orange Marshmallows

2 tbsp 2 1/2 tsp unflavored gelatine
1 cup cold water
2 cups granulated sugar
1/2 cup light corn syrup
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 large egg whites
1 tablespoon orange extract
red and yellow food colouring
confectioners sugar for dusting

1. Oil a baking pan and dust with confectioners sugar.
2. In a large bowl sprinkle gelatin over 1/2 cup cold cold water, and let stand.
3. In a heavy saucepan cook granulated sugar, corn syrup, second 1/2 cup of cold water, and salt over low heat until it reached 240°F (make sure to watch carefully, it can over boil very easily). Remove pan from heat and pour sugar mixture over gelatin mixture, stirring until gelatin is dissolved.
4. With a mixer, beat mixture on high speed until shiny, fluffy, and thick.
5. In separate bowl, beat egg whites until you achieve stiff peaks. Beat whites, extract, and colouring into sugar mixture. Pour mixture into baking pan. Sift confectioners sugar over top. Chill marshmallow until firm (around 3 hours). A pizza cutter is a great way to cut the marshmallow sheet into cubes.

The Best Carrot Cupcakes

So I figured out the best way to make carrot cupcakes without having that weird stringiness texture of shredded carrot in your mouth. It’s not the most brilliant idea in the world, I'm sure its been thought of before, and it is truly simple. Pureed carrots people! Plus a little special touch of shredded coconut makes a delicious cupcake :) These cupcakes are full of flavour without the greasiness of traditional carrot cake. You can also add cream cheese frosting!

Amazing Carrot Cupcakes

3 cups all purpose flour

3 cups granulated sugar

1 tablespoon baking soda

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 cups vegetable oil

4 eggs

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

12 ounces of carrots

1 1/2 cups sweetened shredded coconut

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Combine the flour, sugar, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt into a large bowl. In a blender add the oil, eggs, vanilla and carrots (remember to chop them up a bit to help with the blending process. Stir the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients. Fold in the coconut.

Bake until golden, about 30 minutes.

Oh, I also finally bought a hand mixer so I'm able to bake more things now. Watch out for my next post which will be orange flavoured marshmallows! I'm so excited :P

Halloween Treats

Its that time of year again! My favourite day of the year when you get to dress up as whatever you want and have the pants scared off of you! Being away from home I had to think of some Halloween treats to make that don't require a lot of equipment because I have yet to purchase even a hand mixture so I'm really out of luck when it comes to a majority of recipes. My all-time favourite chocolate bar is Crunchie, which is essentially sponge toffee covered in chocolate. Since they are so hard to find here in the US I decided to make some sponge toffee myself because I know how easy it is to make.

Sponge Toffee

1 cup of sugar
1 cup of corn syrup
1 tablespoon of vanilla extract
1 tablespoon of baking soda

1. Before you do anything I caution you to prepare your pan VERY well to hold this concoction in. If you don't grease the hell out of the pan or lay some parchment down you will be standing over a sink for hours on end. So line a 9x9 baking pan with oodles of parchment and heck spray it with some cooking spray as well.
2. Combine the sugar, corn syrup, and vanilla extract together in a saucepan (NOTE: make sure the saucepan in double the size of the ingredients when mixed together because once you add the baking soda the mix will puff up like crazy). Cook the mixture on medium heat until it reaches 300 degrees F or hard crack stage. Remove from the heat and quickly stir in the baking soda with a wooden spoon. Only stir enough to dissolve the baking soda, you don't want to deflate all the bubbles.
3. Quickly pour the mixture into your prepared pan and let set for 30 minutes before breaking it into pieces. At this point you can eat them as is or dip them in chocolate; either way its delicious.

A new favourite chocolate bar of mine since arriving in the US is Almond Joy. I love anything coconut and whoever has had an almond joy knows that there is a lot of coconut involved.

Almond Joy Bars

8 oz of sweetened condensed milk
12 oz of shredded coconut
1 1/2 cups of powdered sugar
1 tablespoon of vanilla extract
30 almonds (approximately)
16 oz of chocolate couverture

Note: If you don't know what couverture is or you can't get your hands on some you can melt down 16oz of semi-sweet chocolate chips with about half a cup of butter.

1. Prepare a 9x9 baking pan by covering it in saran wrap and spraying with a bit of cooking spray.
2. In a bowl, mix together the condensed milk and the powdered sugar until creamy. Add the vanilla extract. Stir in the coconut a little at a time making sure a get a stiff mixture that is still workable. Spread the mixture in your pan, pressing down firmly. Freeze for 15 minutes.
3. In the meantime temper your chocolate couverture. Pull your coconut base out of the fridge and cut it into bars about 1 inch x 2 inch rectangles. Glue on two almonds to each bar with a little bit of chocolate. Put the bars back into the freezer for another ten minutes.
4. Making sure your chocolate is still tempered, take the bars out of the freezer and dip them in chocolate. Place them on a silpat to harden.

Mind my feet :P

TA-DA!

Happy Halloween! :D

MIB: Missing in Baking...

So I just realized that I haven't posted anything in a very long time in comparison to how I posted before so I feel like you guys deserve an explanation. I've moved away from home to do some more schooling. I'm currently in Austin, Texas studying. I know what you are thinking, but she already went to school?!! Yes I know but I wanted to look at a different side of the industry so I can cover all my bases. This degree will come in handy one day when I decided to open up a business of my own. Also being here in the music capitol of the world there is surprisingly alot of food business going on here. There is currently a movement of food trucks. You find little parks of them here and there where they have set up permanently for business. There is even one that makes just cupcakes, but I have yet to try one. The only thing that Austin is missing is a churro food truck which I would open personally if I could and name it the "Churro Burro".

As for more posts I'll see how much I can do. I have no mixer, and learned that last week you cannot make a meringue without a mixer haha, that was a mess. I have limited resources but I'm persistent and I like to bake, who doesn't love sugar, so I'm hoping to blog about something new soon.

TD Cake

Right after I finished my Best Friends cake, her mom asked me to make a cake for her boss at the bank she works at. She requested the same cake so its the same just obviously different decorations. It needed to say TD bank and she wanted a figurine of her boss. I was going to make him standing on the cake but the proved to be too difficult when the gum paste was drying to keep him upright so I decided to make him sitting down at his desk which allowed me to give him props. In the end I think it turned out more charming then what I had planned to do.

Almost forgot his glasses

Cake Time Total: 4 hours

Cat in a Sombrero

Its my Best Friends 20th birthday and I had to make something special and epic. She adores cats so much that I knew that I had to incorporate that somehow into it. She also went to Mexico recently to study abroad so I thought it would be funny to put a cat in a sombrero. I could not stop laughing while making this cake, its completely ridiculous! The bottom round ended up looking like something out of the Saved by the Bell intro. This is by far my favourite cake to date. This was a chocolate cake with italian meringue buttercream, fresh strawberries  chocolate ganache, and gum ball decorations around the outside.

Cake Time Total: 6 hours

Toronto Maple Leafs

New Cake!!!! This one was done pretty quick, was told about it on Sunday and it was delivered today. This cake was made for my best friends Uncle. He is a HUGE fan of the Toronto Maple Leafs. I made a mini version of him complete with a customized jersey. I had a hard time finding a damn maple leaf cookie cutter even though Canada Day was six days ago haha. Well here it is.

Cake Time Total: 3.5 hours

Yogurt Passion

So I was going through some cookbooks that I picked up at the library this week and came across the perfect recipe in which I could use the passionfruit pulp I randomly bought in Toronto a few weeks ago. In Donna Hay's "Seasons" cookbook, she has a recipe for yogurt and passionfruit syrup cake. I decided to give it a try today and see what happens. Drum roll please! Deliciousness certainly!

Yogurt and Passionfruit Syrup Cake

Ingredients

150g butter, softened
1 cup (220g) caster sugar*
1 tsp of vanilla extract
3 eggs
1 cup (280g) thick Greek-style natural yogurt
2 cups (300g) self-rising flour, sifted**

For the passionfruit syrup:

1 cup (250ml) passionfruit pulp
1/2 cup (125ml) water
1/2 cup (110g) caster sugar

* Caster sugar is also known as superfine sugar, however is is not powdered sugar, its like granular but just a little thinner. If you cannot find caster sugar you can also just take regular sugar and just throw it in a blender.
** If you don't have self-rising flour on hand you can substitute with all purpose flour. For every cup of all purpose flour you need to add 1 and 1/2 tsp of baking powder and 1/2 tsp of salt.

Directions

1) Preheat oven to 320 degrees F.
2) To make the passionfruit syrup, place passionfruit pulp, water, and sugar in a small saucepan over medium heat and stir until dissolved. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and cook for 10-15 minutes or until syrupy. Set aside.
3) Place the butter, sugar, and vanilla in the bowl of an electric mixer and beat for 10-15 minutes or until pale and creamy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the yogurt and beat until well combined. Fold through flour.
4) Spoon mixture into a lightly greased Bundt tin and bake for 35 minutes or until cooked when tested with a skewer.
5) Remove the cake from the tin and place in a serving plate. Spike the cake several times with a skewer. Drizzle cake with syrup while it is still warm.

Beam Me Up Scotty

This week I was given the challenge of making a Star Trek themed cake for a 50th birthday. Ive watched maybe one episode of Star Trek in my lifetime and I know nothing about the show, so this cake took a little research. They wanted something simple but funny. I made a square cake, chocolate sponge and chocolate buttercream. I wanted to make the cake into the shirt that they wear on Star Trek. I also decided to make a little gumpaste Spock with his signature hand gesture. The cake was looking good but needed something else, so on the front went the "Happy Birthday" and on the back "Live Long and Prosper". Tad-da! A Star Trek themed cake is born.

Cake Time Total: 4 hours

Communion Cake

This weekend is communion week at my church. My childhood friend asked me to make her sisters communion cake....but she gave me the challenge of making it all buttercream, no fondant. Masking cakes can be a nightmare at times but I was willing to take the challenge. I had my friend from school Didier, come up from Toronto to help me with this cake since he is an amazing decorator and was really craving to make a cake. We made a chocolate and white sponge (alternating layers) with Italian meringue buttercream and fresh cut starwberries in between. For decorations, a cross, a communion girl, flowers, and a lamb since the name Rachel means "little lamb".

Cake Time Total : 6 hours