New Creations

Here are a few new desserts that I have created over the past few months (I know, it's been a while since I've posted anything...sorry!). Let me know what you think!

Donuts, Muffins, Cookies and Biscotti All In One Post!

I haven't posted in a couple of weeks, but I've been busy baking up some treats! Let me know what you think.

Oat Bran Apple Cinnamon Donuts with a Honey Cinnamon Glaze

Oat Bran Applesauce Muffins (a healthy treat!)

I made a combo platter for my doorman. Treated him to a few muffins, donuts and then some fresh apple crisp and vanilla whipped cream (my neighbors got the rest of the apple crisp..I'm well liked in my building) :)

 I made some Halloween themed sugar cookies as a thank you for a coworker. It was a rough week and she helped me out immensely!

These were created on a whim. I decided to play around with my sugar cookie recipe and create a pumpkin spice cookie with brown sugar honey glaze. They got pretty rave reviews, so I will definitely be making these again!

My friends Bee and Erica and I went on a hayride at a pumpkin patch, so to set the tone I made them each some themed sugar cookies. Take me places and you will get cookies! :)

My company is taking part in the JDRF walk that's coming up. To help raise more funds they decided to host a bake sale and I, of course, had to take part! The theme is superheros so I decided to make some sugar cookies that look like our t-shirt logo as well as the JDRF sneaker!

With some of my leftover cookie dough I made football cookies. My sister loves the Giants, my dad loves the Dolphins and my brother-in-law loves the Eagles. I had to be sure to make them all happy!

 These are from a while back, but I never posted them. Just some decorative sugar cookies wrapped up and ready to be packaged and shipped.

Finally, I was in the mood for something chocolatey but still healthy, so I made some sugar-free chocolate biscotti!

I can hear the bells!

I did it! I finished my very first wedding cake! Seeing my cake on display in the elegant ballroom was a bit surreal.

Contrary to what many people believe, making a wedding cake is not simply mixing together some flour, eggs and sugar; popping the mix into the oven; frosting it and stacking it. It is more than that, much much more...

First, there were two trial runs. I mean I wasn't going to let the actual wedding cake be my first go at it (I may be a bit crazy but I'm not a glutton for punishment). Take a look at my first two tries:

Test Cake 1

Test Cake 2

Test cake one has some sugar flowers on top (pretty happy with how they turned out for a first try), buttercream frosting on both tiers and hand piped royal icing on the bottom tier. As you can see test cake one had some funky color issues (yellow was NOT the goal), it was a bit tilted and the tier separation was not done well AT ALL. Needless to say, I was not very happy with this. Test cake two was done to try my hand at working with fondant. The cake is covered in a fondant layer that I painted with gold shimmer to give a champagne color and then the flowers and leaves are ivory fondant with royal icing connecting them to give a lace look. This was going to take the place of the hand-piped royal icing that you see on test cake one. I thought this came out okay, but it needed some work.

After these two tests and doing some online reading and youtube watching, I felt like I was ready. I sat down, created an Excel spreadsheet detailing all of the steps that were going to go into making the official wedding cake, I created a shopping list and I began the process.

The wedding was on Saturday, September 22 at 6:30pm in Middletown, NJ. As I previously stated, I just moved to a small studio in Staten Island, NY, so I thought my best bet was going to be making this cake at my parents house in Sayreville, NJ. This meant more space and a shorter distance to the venue (don't forget, I also had to drive this cake to the reception).

The weekend of the 15th I was in NJ for a Christening, so I decided to do my food shopping then and just leave all of the supplied at my mom and dad's house. On Wednesday, September 19th I took the train back to NJ right after work. As soon as I got back to my parent's house I cleared off the Kitchen table, cleaned up a bit, set out my tools and got to work. This day was dedicated to making the cannoli cream filling and the sugar flowers. Take a look at my work area:

Definitely wouldn't have fit in my little studio!

In the picture you can see my rolled out gum paste for the flowers, and all of the ingredients for the cannoli cream filling. By the end of the night I had 10 flower bases prepared and ready for the next day as well as three large bowls of cannoli cream. And this is what you get after 10 pounds of ricotta cheese, 7.5 cups of confectioner's sugar, 5 teaspoons of vanilla, 2.5 teaspoons of cinnamon, and about 5 bags of mini chocolate chips:

Yummy creamy goodness!

It was time to call it a night. The next day I went to work and took NJ transit back to Sayreville for another night of fun. This night, Thursday, September 20th, I planned on baking the cakes. Well, after 6 cups of butter, 24 eggs, 20 cups of flour, 20 teaspoons of baking powder, 4 teaspoons of salt, 14 cups of sugar, 12 teaspoons of vanilla and 10 cups of milk, I had 8 layers of cake that I leveled off, wrapped up and stored in the basement fridge (I note the basement part because everyone I showed this next picture to asked why we had no food in the fridge...it's our second one and we cleared quite a bit out to make room for the cakes):

This took quite a while to complete. The bottom tier took a long time to bake because it contained more batter than the rest. Needless to say, at 2am I finally got to bed...saying that I slept would be a stretch though. The anxiety of the process began to set in. I was up at 5am the next morning after tossing and turning all night and went for a nice 5 mile run to clear my head. I used a vacation day on Friday, September 21st, so I didn't have to worry about work.

Friday was meant for frosting, assembling and decorating. Sounds simple, right? Let's just say after my run and shower, I started the process at 9am and did not move from the kitchen until about 3pm when I had to make a quick run to the store for more fondant and supplies. I got back at about 4pm, went right back to work, and didn't move again until about 9pm when my mom forced me to eat something, but then went back to work until about midnight. First, I finished the sugar flowers then I moved on to decorating the actual cakes and here is the process:

1. Take the bottom of one tier and pipe a buttercream barrier
2. Let that harden then spread the cannoli cream to fill the layer
3. Place the top layer of the tier over the cream and make sure it sits evenly
4. Refrigerate and move to the next tier (repeat until all 4 tiers are filled)
5. Take out the base tier and cover with buttercream
6. Roll out the fondant and once thin enough, place over the tier
7. Smooth the fondant on top and around the edges
8. Remove any excess fondant 
9. Refrigerate and repeat on all tiers
10. Roll out a small amount of fondant and cut out small flowers
11. Take out base tier and wrap with champagne colored ribbon
12. Put a white pin through one fondant flower and secure the ribbon on the cake with that pin
13. Repeat on third tier (from bottom)
14. Roll out fondant and cut out leaf and flower shapes for lace
15. Combine gold glitter dust and vodka
16. Take out second tier from bottom and cover a portion with the glitter/vodka combo and then place leaves and flowers on that area
17. Continue until entire tier is covered
18. Refrigerate and repeat on top tier
19. Take out second tier from bottom and pipe royal icing between all flower and leaf pieces
20. Repeat on top tier
21. Measure tiers and cut dowels down then place them in each cake (the dowels give the cake support)

Here is the process in photo form for the base tier:

Top picture is the cake with filling, second picture is the buttercream covered tier and the bottom picture is the tier covered in fondant with the ribbon around it.

I decided I didn't want to travel with the cake completely put together, but I wanted to have it in two sections, so I proceeded to cover the base tier and the third tier (from the bottom) with royal icing and placed the next tier on top of them. Then I refrigerated them and tried to forget about them for the night!

I had SOOO much cannoli cream filling left and a lot of excess cake from when I leveled out the layers, so I decided to make cannoli cream cake balls for one of my best friend's birthdays that I was going to on Saturday night...

I also had excess cake batter on Thursday night, so I made cupcakes. For the cupcakes I removed the center and filled them with some of the cannoli cream filling...

Then I made some whipped cream frosting to top them off and a few mini-cupcakes that I made too...

You may ask why I continued baking so late at night after spending the day doing the wedding cake. The answer is that I was so full of anxiety and I there was NO way I was going to sleep, so I continued to bake. 

I finally went to bed at around 1:30/2:00am. Another sleepless night. This time I didn't get out of bed on Saturday, September 22nd until about 8am and decided to de-stress with another run...this run was 5.36 miles.  When I got back, it was time to get ready to take the cakes to the venue.

Luckily, my mom has a SUV so we put a seat down and tried to make as level of a surface as possible. Once I transferred the cakes into boxes and brought them to the car, I decided I was going to ride sitting next to them. Here's a picture of the trip taken by my father:

We got to the venue, got a cart from the front desk and wheeled the cake into the ballroom. Here I threw on an apron and put the top two tiers on the bottom two. I then changed the ribbon to a lighter champagne color (this decision came after a mini-meltdown that I had the night before when I thought the cake was absolutely hideous because the gold dust and the ribbon color were so off). 

The bride had a monogram "B" to place atop the cake. This was taking the place of the sugar flowers. I was thinking of putting the flowers around the base of each tier, but then I thought that would take away from the lace design. 

When I stepped back to look at the cake, it looked like it was missing something. I decided to take some extra ribbon and make a bow and pierce the center with a fondant flower and white pin. Now, I was satisfied. And after all of the stress and anxiety, I had such a feeling of accomplishment. Here is the finished product. Let me know what you think...

After a few pictures and a little conversation with the assistant event manager, I had the urge to run out of there before anything went wrong! I got to the car and just sat there with a smile on my face. I then went to Monmouth Mall to treat myself to an outfit and then went home, got ready then took the train into the city to go out for my friend's birthday. All-in-all it was a great experience and I would gladly do it again! Anyone getting married and need a wedding cake???? :)

This post would not be complete without a special thank you to everyone who supported me during this process, especially Josephine for sharing her knowledge with me and a MAJOR MAJOR thank you to my mom and dad who not only helped transfer the cake with me, but also had to put up with my frustration and meltdowns. I definitely couldn't have done it without their help. Thank you thank you thank you!!!!!

Who said dessert has to be unhealthy?

As I mentioned in my previous post, I've been trying to eat a little bit healthier but I still need my sugar fix every now and then and this dessert is the PERFECT treat to fulfill that need! Not only is it relatively healthy, it's quick and delicious! This caramelized granola fruit dessert can be as healthy or unhealthy as you want it to be. Here is the recipe for the version that I made, which is pictured below:

1/4 cup granola mixture*
2 T brown sugar
1/4 cup chopped strawberries/blueberries mixture

In a small saucepan spray a little cooking spray and turn to very low heat. Add the brown sugar and continuously stir until it becomes a sticky consistency. Once it is a bit sticky add the granola and chopped fruit. Stir until the granola and fruit are covered in the caramel and begin to stick together. ENJOY!

*The granola mixture is made up of oats, puffed rice, flax seed, oat bran and brown rice syrup

There are lots of substitutions that can be made to this. You can use any fruit you wish. This would be terrific with apples and a little cinnamon (autumn treat anyone?). You can also use any type of granola or oats that you want.

A healthier version would be to just use a little bit of natural honey or natural maple syrup, heating them up until more liquidy and then combing the fruit and granola as stated.

A less healthy version would be to use this as an ice cream topping. YUM!

You will want to let it cool just a little before you eat it because the juices in the fruit will burn your mouth...I learned this the hard way, so be warned! But make sure you eat it when it's a little warm because when the blueberries burst in your mouth, it's divine!

Try this out and leave a comment with your thoughts. I know I'll be making it again :)

More sugar cookies...can you guess what my favorite thing to bake is?

Below are a few more of my sugar cookie creations. These are definitely my favorite thing to bake because you can really get so creative with designs and just have fun with it. Don't worry though, I'm on a low carb diet and have been looking for some ingredients that I can incorporate into my recipes. Check back soon for some low carb sweet creations! But until then, here are the sugar cookies...

There's an Elephant in the Room...and It's a Sugar Cookie!

My sister's birthday was yesterday, August 2. Since she lives all the way down in Georgia and I'm all the way up in New York, I wanted to ship her a special treat to wish her a very Happy Birthday! Her favorite animal is the elephant, so I decided to send her some elephant sugar cookies. I worked with the icing in a different way than usual, so it didn't come out as smooth. What do you think???

I also made some cinnamon biscuit cookies. These are more of a Fall treat...something to have with your coffee. But who doesn't love a little cinnamon cookie in the morning?!

Summertime!

Nothing says summer time like palm trees and flamingos! I had some extra cookie dough left so I decided to make it into a summer treat. Let me know what you think...
I also had some extra cake batter left and cannoli cream filling, so I made cupcakes. They are yellow cake filled with cannoli cream and topped with royal icing.

I also am in the process of working on my first ever wedding cake! It's a big task, but it has been so much fun to experiment. Take a look at these sugar flowers that I made...

That's all for now, but be sure to check back soon because I will be baking up some other treats later this week!