miss.cupcake.face

tschüs

miss.cupcake.face — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 20:24:58 +0000

So, some things have come to a head & well, I need to deal with them.

I’ve decided the easiest way to do that is to take a blogging break.

I’ll be back eventually, I just don’t know when.

Hope to see you then,

? Love,

Nikki Jean

Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Cookies

miss.cupcake.face — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 17:00:55 +0000

Sometimes, when there’s something I want or want done, I bribe Josh. That makes me a bad person, doesn’t it?

I can’t remember what it was that I asked him to do but I bribed him with peanut butter cookies. The only problem was that I didn’t have any peanut butter chips. Oops. I knew I couldn’t go back on my promise so I decided to sub in some chocolate chunks. I also added cinnamon [which I thought was awesome, but Josh said it overpowered the peanut butter]

The funny thing is, I enjoyed these cookies a whole lot more than Josh did & I ended up eating the majority of them! The other peanut butter cookies I make for Josh are too peanut buttery for me, but these were perfect. I could taste the peanut butter, but it wasn’t overpowering!

[printable version]

Chocolate Chunk Peanut Butter Cookies

adapted from The Sweeter Side of Amy’s Bread

4 oz (about 1 cup) baking chocolate (or chocolate chips)

1 3/4 cup all purpose flour

2 1/2 tsp salt

3/4 tsp baking soda

1 tsp cinnamon

2 large eggs

1 tsp vanilla

2/3 cup smooth peanut butter (mounded)

3/4 cup unsalted butter, slightly softened

2/3 cup brown sugar, packed

2/3 cup sugar

Preheat oven to 350°F and line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

Chop the baking chocolate very coarsely (or use chocolate chips). Store them in the freezer while making the cookies.

In a large bowl, sift together flour, salt, baking soda & cinnamon. In a small bowl, combine eggs & vanilla.

In the bowl of an electric mixer cream together the peanut butter, butter & sugars. Add the egg mixture. Slowly add the flour mixture and beat until everything is well combined. Take the chocolate from the freezer and mix into the cookie dough.

With an ice cream scoop, dish out the cookie dough onto the prepared baking sheets. About 12 per pan.

Bake for 16 minutes, rotating the pans halfway through baking. Let cool on the pans then transfer to a cooling rack.

Macarons pt. 2

miss.cupcake.face — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 17:00:28 +0000

After my first shot at macarons, I was feeling pretty confident. I decided to try ‘em again!

This time I went for a vanilla macaron recipe, which I stole from Helen. The only thing I changed was my process (I followed Aran’s process) and didn’t add any violet.

They didn’t turn out as well was my first batch, but they were still pretty good.

For the filling, I used my cream cheese icing recipe.

Coconut Jam Bars

miss.cupcake.face — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 17:00:47 +0000

Remember when I got the pans for the wedding cake? I was excited. I actually had huge square pans. I’ve wanted gigantic square pans for the longest time and I finally have them. But guess what… I had nothing to do with them after the wedding. What was I actually going to make in them? Sure, I might make another wedding cake someday. But, when?

So, when I saw these jam bars, I decided to triple, yes, triple the recipe! It made a TON of bars, but I actually got to use my gigantic 14 inch square pan! But don’t worry, I’ve given the recipe for the original size pan, an 8inch square.

[wanna know the sad part? almost all of the bars were eaten. how bad are we?]

The original recipe called for sliced almonds instead of coconut, but I didn’t have any almonds and I had a ton of coconut. It ended up tasting fantastic!

I highly recommend you guys making these soon! { & I won’t judge you if you use a 14inch pan }

[printable recipe]

Coconut Jam Bars

adapted from Martha Stewart

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp baking powder

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup white sugar

1 large egg yolk

3/4 cup coconut

1/2 cup jam, I used peach

Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter an 8inch square pan, line it with parchment paper and butter the parchment paper.

In a bowl, sift together the flour, cinnamon, salt & baking powder.

In an electric mixing bowl, cream the butter and sugars on medium speed until light & fluffy. Add egg yolk. On low speed, slowly add flour mixture. Once everything is combined, add coconut and mix well.

Gently press half of the dough into the pan, making sure there aren’t any holes. Spread the jam over the dough leaving a 1/4 inch border. Drop the rest of the dough on top & press it into place.

Bake for 25 - 30 minutes or until top is golden brown. Cool completely & cut into bars.

Macarons pt. 1

miss.cupcake.face — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 17:00:55 +0000

Before I discovered the world of food blogging, I had never heard of macarons. {gasp!} & since then, I’ve drooled over every picture of one. Especially ones done by Aran & Helen.

I decided that before I took on baking them myself, I would do my homework. & I have! A few months ago I decided that I was ready to take on the task, but alas; I had no almond flour. And, after last years Daring Bakers Challenge, the one where we had to make the Opera Cake; I knew I would never ever ever make almond flour from scratch. It was just too much of a pain. So, when my grandma gave me an Amazon gift card for my birthday, I knew I was going to use it to buy some almond flour.

For my first shot, I used Aran’s chocolate macaron recipe and filled it with Deb’s white chocolate ganache filling.

Did they turn out? Well… yes, for a first shot I think they turned out pretty good.

Were they good? Yes. They tasted fantastic!

Since I know some people are very scared to try making macarons at home, I figured I’d share my resources!

http://www.davidlebovitz.com/archives/2005/10/french_chocolat.html

http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2007/10/how-to-make-macarons-recipe.html

http://www.seriouseats.com/2007/10/introduction-to-french-macarons.html

The Wedding Cake

miss.cupcake.face — Mon, 25 May 2009 18:10:32 +0000

is done. Yep. It’s done and has been eaten!

I feel a huge burden has been lifted, one I didn’t even know was there. I have been stressing this wedding cake for the longest time. What if it falls apart? What if it tastes nasty? What if, what if, what if. Sigh.

I knew I could do it, I’ve done a cake like this before [though not a wedding cake] and it turned out awesome. But this was a wedding cake. For someone’s wedding.

It ended up taking 4 days to do the entire thing. That’s a long time!

Wednesday & Thursday I baked and baked.

On Friday night I frosted and frosted.

Saturday morning I decorated and decorated.

And on Saturday afternoon I rode in the back of my grandma’s van with a huge *ss wedding cake as we drove to the wedding.

I took the risk and assembled the cake before it was delivered. Now that’s a gutsy move. Of all the things I learned at Publix, it’s that wedding cakes are very very tempermental. If you’re running late, your cake will fall. It’s Murphy’s Law.

The cake arrived pretty much intact. Just a few bruises from the jostling. Josh was the only one who could lift it. Yep. While I walked behind him watching every little move. He estimated that it weighed about 50 pounds. Now that’s a lot of cake!

Boogers didn’t make it through the ceremony.

Recipes coming. I promise.

Wedding Cake Update

miss.cupcake.face — Wed, 20 May 2009 00:08:27 +0000

Guess what came today!

The rest of the wedding cake supplies that I ordered.

It was like it was my birthday.** :) hehe

I got a box for the top tier of the cake

I also got some boards for all the layers, drums for the cake, and dowel rods.

I also got some tips that I needed.

Then Momma of the Bride brought over all of the groceries I needed to make the cake.

3 dozen eggs

2 boxes cake flour

sugar

10 lbs of it!

baking powder

a whole tub of crisco

9 lbs of butter, yes 9

1 lb of cocoa powder

flour

25 lbs of that

So for the next few days I’ll be baking baking & baking.

**it is my birthday

Pineapple Dream Cake

miss.cupcake.face — Wed, 13 May 2009 23:12:31 +0000

Okay, so I lied. I said I’d bring you something for Mother’s Day, but I didn’t. I’m sorry.

I made my mommy a cake, a very yummy cake. But before I could document it, it was eaten. Yes, it was that good. And also, I was preoccupied by this little booger.

{ain’t he cute?}

Anyway, I made another cake. I was inspired by this. [yes, click on it]

It’s called a Pineapple Dream Cake. Yellow cake with pineapple cream frosting & topped with maraschino cherries. Yum.

I will definitely be making this cake again. I’ll probably get a request as soon as this one is gone.

I used an instant pudding mix in the icing because I didn’t feel like making pudding from scratch, but you certainly could. You could also use a box mix cake, if you wanted.

Pineapple Dream Cake

[printable recipe]

Buttermilk Cake

[adapted from Sky High: Irresistible Triple Layer Cakes]

3 3/4 cup cake flour

2 1/2 cup sugar

1 tbs + 2 3/4 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

2 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature

1 1/4 cups + 1/3 cup buttermilk

5 whole eggs

2 egg yolks

2 tsp almond extract

1 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 325°F. Butter three 8 inch round cake pans, line the bottoms with parchment paper & butter the parchment paper.

In the bowl of an electric mixer combine cake flour, sugar, baking powder & salt. Add butter & 1 1/4 cups buttermilk. Mix on low speed.

In a small bowl combine the rest of the buttermilk, eggs, yolks, almond extract & vanilla extract. Slowly add the egg mixture until everything is incorporated. Beat on medium until a smooth batter forms.

Divide the batter between the three prepared pans. Bake for 20 - 30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Cool the pans on cooling racks for 5 minutes, then take out of the pans & cool until cakes reach room temperature.

Pineapple Cream Frosting

1 can (15 - 16 oz) crushed pineapple

2 packages instant vanilla pudding mix

1/4 cup sugar

2 1/2 cups whipping cream

1 jar maraschino cherries

In a large bowl combine crushed pineapple (juices included), pudding mix, & sugar. Mix until mixture thickens then refrigerate. In the bowl of an electric mixer, whip whipping cream until stiff peaks form. Fold in pineapple mixture. Ice your cake layers with the frosting and top with the cherries. Store in the refrigerator.

Not So Mini Cupcake

miss.cupcake.face — Sat, 09 May 2009 02:36:42 +0000

I’m back! [again] But this time I mean it. I finally have a new computer, and now I don’t have to worry about everything disappearing on me! I gots a new imac for my birthday! I’ve never had an apple before and I’m still trying to get used to it. The really cool thing is that my new computer came with Aperture [a really neato photo editing program] and I also have enough room to shoot in RAW! YAY. So this post will be a little photo heavy.

I have a little riddle for you, but it doesn’t rhyme. {do riddles have to rhyme?}

What do you get when you combine

leftover chocolate cake

plus 6 inch cake boards

plus yellow [& white] buttercream

plus sprinkles

plus cookie cutters

plus pretty plastic cherries

???

give up?

you get a pretty faux cupcake cake

To make your own pretty faux cupcake cake, all you have to do is take some leftover cake, I had an 8 inch chocolate layer. Take your round cookie cutters, I used my 3 1/2 inch one, and cut two or three pieces from your cake. Put your first piece on a cake board and ice the top, add your next layer and continue until you have all the layers you want. Crumb coat your entire mini cake and stick in the fridge or freezer. When your cupcake is nice and firm, take half of your buttercream and tint it any color you want, I used yellow because I wanted it to look like cake. Ice the entire cake with your tinted buttercream. Smooth the icing with a cake scraper or bowl scraper or whatever you have. Then take a piping bag and insert a #807 tip, pipe a fluffy white top to your cupcake cake. Then take a sharp knife and create the lines on your cupcake. Add your sprinkles and if you have it, a pretty plastic cherry topper. If you don’t have any plastic cherry toppers, you could always use real cherries

Just be careful when you’re piping the top icing of your cupcake cake, if you put too much on the sides [like I did], it will eventually slide off. I came home to a nekid cupcake

In other news:

Look what I gots today!!!

What is it??

They’re the cake pans I need to make my cousin’s wedding cake! Woohoo! Wedding is in 2 weeks. All my math is done and now I have a headache.

When I return, I’ll have something for Mother’s Day! [it's on Sunday]

Still Here

miss.cupcake.face — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 00:30:18 +0000

What happens when you have to bake and decorate 4 birthday cakes for a birthday party, are asked to make a wedding cake at said birthday party, then get sick for 2 1/2 weeks, start babysitting an adorable 2 month old and you lose your baking mojo? You don’t blog for over a month. That’s what happens.

This month was… odd. It started out like any ordinary month, we had a family birthday party for all the April birthdays.

At that birthday party I was asked if I would make a wedding cake for an upcoming wedding. (of course I said yes!)

The following 2 1/2 weeks I was sick. Very sick. So sick in fact that I forgot what the rest of the house looked like.

The day I got better I was asked if I wanted to start babysitting my cousin’s new baby.

[yes, he really is as sweet as he looks]

and now I don’t know what to do. I’ve got math problems coming out of my nose [for the wedding cake]; I’m now taking care of a baby during the time that I used to bake and take pictures; and have laundry that still needs to be done from before I was sick.

Oh, and did I mention that my computer died? I didn’t? Hmm. It didn’t really die per se, it’s possessed. It functions fine unless I want to do something with it. So for now, I’m on Josh’s computer.