Cake Doughnuts

I have had the urge to make doughnuts numerous times, but I've always been turned off by the need for a deep fryer or a vague set of directions  When I was in Target trying to find the right mix of heinous amounts of candy for various valentines, I came across a special seasonal baking section.  And they had a doughnut pan!!

It just so happened that this pan had very simple-sounding directions for baked cake doughnuts. So I bought it.

The doughnuts were exactly what the recipe said they would be- cake doughnuts. They were perfectly fine, but I must admit they were nothing special. Now that I have a pan, I feel more comfortable trying out other recipes or changing this one up.  For some reason not having a pan was the sticking point for me- I just couldn't shape the dough into doughnuts like the recipes all directed because cake doughnut dough is like cake batter; I'm not sure how you shape something with that consistency.

The nice thing about these doughnuts was that  they were very quick to make (5 min per batch) and the icing recipe was fantastic.

-Beth

Wedding Cake

After months of practicing and planning, I finally got make my cake a reality.  A picture is worth a thousand words, so here's a few:

I used over 16lbs of sugar start to finish.

1 gallon of butter cream

2 of the 4 fondant batches I had on hand

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There definitely wasn't much room left for anything else.

The cake topper was used on my grandmother's cake, as well as my mom's and my aunt's.

Turtle Bars

This was a shower recipe I received from Jessica Mattson.  I will edit the post to include the recipe when I'm posting from my home computer.

At first glance, these bars were not much to look at, but there is much more to them than what meets the eye!  You see a rather tan looking bar with maybe some chocolate it it, but you are really getting a chocolatey, nutty, crunchy caramel bar that's so loaded with butter and other diet-forbidden ingredients that you can't help but give in and have a few squares.

I brought these to work at the office and they were DEVOURED in a very short time.  Several unnamed people took several.  These even sparked one of our departments professors to not only write a thank you note for bringing them in, but to stop by and only half-jokingly suggest that I start a department-funded treat of the week to boost morale.

I would highly recommend these for any occasion.  Thanks to Jessica for sending me the recipe (to be posted soon)!

-Beth

Turtle Cheesecake

As I may have mentioned before, one of my bridal showers was baking-themed.  One of the really neat things that was incorporated into it, was the use of recipe cards as part of the RSVPs.  The result is that I have some 40-50 recipes from a large variety of people.

One of the recipes was for a Turtle Cheesecake.  I was skeptical at first because it calls for pecans or walnuts to be mixed into the cheese cake batter, but I would make this again in a heart beat!  The crust was crush Oreos, I used pecans as my nut of choice, marbled with caramel, and added more caramel to top after it was baked.  It was delicious! The nuts added such a nice texture an otherwise standard cheesecake.

It was one of the best-received baked goods I had ever brought to share at work (when I worked the grade school a few months ago).  It was gone well before lunch.

Over the next year or so, I plan to explore the recipes I received from my shower.  Where I can get the go-ahead, I plan to post the recipe and who it was by, so be on the look out!

-Beth

Rolled Suagr Christmas Cookies

For as long as I can remember my mom has been making this rolled sugar cookie recipe for Christmas.  It has always been one of my favorite things about Christmas, in no small part due to the fact that we always enjoy them with family and friends, but they do represent themselves with their own merit as well.

When my new office co-workers decided to have a cookie exchange, these were the first thing I thought of.

Typically, my mom contents herself with simply frosting them with a sugar icing, but since I don't have 8 children demanding my time and attention, I decided to dress them up just a little bit. 

All in all, these are very simple to make, but you do have to plan ahead.  Most rolled sugar cookie recipes require you to refrigerate the dough over night, as mine did.  For me, the decorating wasn't planned so much as it was an opportunity to use the odds and ends I have around my kitchen.

The snowmen ended up being my favorite.  I used brown cake sprinkles for the eyes, mouth, and buttons and an orange pumpkin sprinkle for the noses (why yes, these were Halloween sprinkles...).  When I brought them to work, I noticed that they were not being eaten.  When I encouraged a friend to have one, she replied "Oh no, they are too pretty to eat".  Whether or not that was what was keeping people from eating them, my family had no such hold on their appetites.  I brought approximately 4 dozen cookies to my family Christmas party that weekend and they vanished in 4 hours.

While you can't really beat an old favorite, I would like to try these with butter cream frosting instead of sugar icing sometime.  I feel that I would have a much easier time decorating with the stiffer texture butter cream has.

-Beth

Clover buns

This recipe was a variation of a plain white bread recipe I've made many times.  Instead of a loaf pan, I used muffin tins and placed three small balls of dough in each well. 

I made these to go with a pot roast, so I wanted them more savory than sweet.  I cut the sugar in half, brushed the tops with olive oil, and sprinkled with sea salt. 

These were amazing warm- I could stop eating them.  I really hadn't thought to put salt on bread before, but it really ended up adding something great. 

They pulled apart nicely at the "seams", which made them very easy to butter and enjoy.  The next time someone asks me to bring dinner rolls or buns, I am going to make these instead of the sandwich style buns I've made in the past.  There really wasn't anything I would have changed about these.

-Beth

Fondant covered cake bites (Petits fours glacés if you will)

Somewhere in the middle of starting a new job and planning a wedding, I decided it would be a good time to use the cake tops sitting in my freezer (to make room for the ones that would come from my wedding cake was the reasoning, I believe). I had left-over fondant from making the practice wedding cakes that I wanted to use as well.

I made the same cake-icing mixture that I discussed when I made cake pops, but instead of putting them on a stick, I rolled it out onto wax paper and used a shot class to cut out circles.

Using a cookie cutter, I cut the rolled fondant into larger circles and wrapped each cake bite individually.  Other than being a bit time consuming, it was a very easy process.  To wrap, I put each bite onto a flower nail, placed the fondant circle on top, and wrapped the edges under.

At that point, I figured I might as well make them pretty, so I whipped up some butter cream and made drop flowers.  If I did this again, I would probably use less icing in the cake mixture so that they weren't quite so sticky and squish-able.  In the end though, I was very happy with how they turned out.  They looked cute and tasted very good.  I will definitely be experimenting with these in the future.

-Beth

Guinness Bread

Oh man, I have so very much to update.  In the flurry of wedding preparations, I have definitely lacked the time to blog, but since baking is cathartic, I have been making time for that.  I will be posting several updates from the past few weeks- and then very soon I will post on my wedding cake!  Chris and I were married on 01-21-12 and I just received the cake photos!

So, here I will back up to the Christmas holidays.  Chris and I spent Christmas with my family, but a few weeks beforehand we spent some time with his parents down in Rochester, MN.  When we visited, I brought with a trial from my "100 Great Bread Recipes" bread bible. 

This particular loaf is made with Guinness.  I chose to make it in mini-loaf pans since we were traveling with them.  The bread was very heavy and had a salty, yeasty flavor.  I thought it was good with butter, and then we paired it with a spinach cream-cheese dip and it was excellent. 

As far as my bread baking experiences have gone, I feel this was the closest I've gotten to a store-bought bread texture.  It was dense, smooth, and almost spongy.  I've been trying to find a recipe that will have those qualities in a white or wheat bread with varying success. 

All in all, it was a good snacking bread that turned out great, but I probably will not be making it to be consumed on a regular basis.  There is no question that it contains a fair amount of beer, and not being a huge beer fan, that was a turn off for me.  That being said, nobody seemed to dislike it.

-Beth