Disney Adventure - Jenee & James

This was by far the biggest cake I've crafted to date and I hope its not my last. There was something super satisfying about assembling this massive cake.

Jenee and James wanted a cake to go with their Disney themed wedding but wanted it to be classy not cutesy. My original idea was to add the rose from Beauty and the Beast (their favorite movie) on one of the tiers but we changed this to images of Disney couples so that the cake wouldn't be so specific to one particular theme or movie. We also needed to add an additional tier to the design accommodate all the guest and to make the cake look just a little more grand.

I created custom moulds to create edible crystal mickeys, airbrushed a starry night sky with the magic castle silhouette and sculpted a story book for the top of cake. The cake tiers consisted of Chocolate Chip Cake with Chocolate & Strawberry Buttercream. Confetti Cake with Raspberry & Vanilla Bean Buttercream and finally Lemon Party Cake with Lemon & Strawberry Buttercream.

Do you wanna build a snowman?

I finally got to make a Frozen cake! I was so excited. This was the inspiration, Elsa & Anna when they were smaller because the cake was for a dual sister birthday party. 

I can't say it came out exactly how I envisioned it. All my fondant figures typically take on a cartoon look because they are so tiny. Either way I heard the girls loved it in all its sparkly snowflake glory!

Cookie Debt

The best part of being a good baker (if I do say so myself) is being able to pay personal debts with dessert. Can you do me a favor at work? Cuz I'll make you cookies! 

These beautiful chocolate chip cookies came from a Cooks Illustrated recipe for Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies. You can grab the recipe for free if you download their app. Trust me they are delicious and worth the trouble of remembering your iPhone password to download it here. Be warned the brown butter makes the cookie dough irresistible.

Whole Wheat Pumpkin Bread

We went to Trader Joe's yesterday and it is the land of all things pumpkiny right now. Instead of buying the very tempting pumpkin bread mix, I knew with little effort I knew I could make my own. 

Amp up the whole wheat, replace the butter and cut the sugar in half to make everything a little more healthy and it still came out so moist and delicious. Ok so maybe the extra butter in the photo was not necessary, I scraped it off before I ate it. I swear!

Whole Wheat Pumpkin Bread

 

Whisk or sift together:

2 cups whole wheat flour

1 cups sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

Whisk together until smooth:
3/4 cup coconut oil softened
2 eggs

1/4 cup Water
1 can pumpkin (15 ounces)

Fold wet ingredients into dry until completely combined. Pour into two lightly greased loaf pans (sprinkle tops with cinnamon sugar if you want to) and bake at 325 degrees until a tester comes out clean. 

BTW: You can do this all with a mixer, but it comes out perfect without one so unless you like to lick the beaters don't bother breaking it out. :)

Mini Carrot Bundt Cakes

Mini Carrot Bundt Cakes

Preheat oven to 350. And prep a mini bundt pan or muffin pan by spraying liberally with oil. If you pan is particularly fussy, oil and dust with flour. Makes approx. 16-18 cakes.

  Combine until smooth:
1 c Brown Sugar
1/2 c Granulated Sugar
1/3 c Coconut Oil
1 tsp Vanilla
4 oz. Pineapple Tidbits w/Juice (pureed with the juice)
3 each Eggs
  Sift together:
1 1/2 c A/P Flour
1 tsp Baking Powder
1/4 tsp Baking Soda
1/4 tsp Salt
1 1/2 tsp Cinnamon
1/4 tsp Ground Ginger
1/8 tsp Nutmeg
  Add-in: 2 c Grated Carrots

Cinnamon Glaze
  Whisk together:
1 c Powdered Sugar
1/2 tsp Cinnamon
1 tsp Salt
1/2 tsp Vanilla
1/8 to 1/4 c Milk

Toss the Pineapple tidbits into a food processor or blender and puree until smooth. Grate carrots and set aside. Combine Sugars, coconut oil, vanilla and eggs whisking until smooth. Sift or whisk together dry ingredients. Fold in the grated carrots.

Pour into a well greased mini bundt pan and bake until golden brown and a tester comes out clean.

Whisk together the glaze adding just enough milk so that its smooth and a little runny, you might not need all the milk. If you add
too much just add more sugar until you get the right consistency. Dip in glaze and allow to set.

Recipe tweaked and adapted from http://www.culinarycoutureblog.com/2013/05/carrot-cake-cupcakes.html

Eat, enjoy and remember to share :)

Confetti Cake

Or Funfetti.... but that maybe copy-written by the boxed baking Gods. This is a combination of a few recipes I found online. Since I've never in my life made or tasted the boxed version of this. I don't know how it compares. I just know its damn good. I think just the cake without fetti would probably be delicious too.

 Ingredients:

18.5 oz A/P Flour
1 tsp Baking Powder
1/2 tsp Baking Soda
1 tsp Salt
8 oz Unsalted Butter
13 oz Granulated Sugar
2 oz Light Brown Sugar
12 oz Whole Milk
1 tbsp Vanilla
4 oz Sour Cream
2 ea Eggs
Colored Sprinkles/Jimmies

Preheat your oven to 350F. You can use a stand mixer, handheld or elbow grease, I think they all would work for this. Especially if your doing this with kids, have them burn off some steam with manual labor....

Melt your butter and set aside to cool, if you don't take it too far in the microwave you can use it right away. Sift together the flour baking powder & soda. Whisk together the milk, vanilla and sour cream until its really smooth and has no lumps.

Combine the melted butter, sugars and salt. Mix in the eggs one at a time until thoroughly combined, then add dry and wet mixes alternating between the two until everything is in the pool. Fold in a heavy dose of Sprinkles.

Divide into your baking vessel and bake until a tester comes out clean. Makes 2 dozen or so regular size cupcakes. But I used it for 18 Cupcakes and a 6 inch mini-cake.

BakeOn!