Kryptonite

Superman's looks like this:

Mine looks like this:

In case you can't tell, those are cocoa beans. Not coffee beans.

Anyway, as you all know, if you expose the caped wonder to a hunk of kryptonite, this happens:

Well, expose me to this:


...and you get a similar reaction. I lose all my power, too...er, willpower, that is.

This is chocolate in what, I would argue, is one of its best forms: chocolate cake and chocolate buttercream.

Yum.

And it gets better; check out the middle: White chocolate mousse and fresh strawberries--just enough lightness to balance the intense chocolate flavor.

Sigh.

Cupcake Towers and Tiny Italians -- when friends get married

What could possibly be better than a spring wedding involving people you love? Not much. April 1 my dear friends Hans and Julia were married, and they're now chilling in Hawaii for their honeymoon. (Where it's warm. And there are beaches. And palm trees. And drinks with little umbrellas. And, yes, I'm jealous.)

Julia was arguably the chillest, most NON-bridezilla bride I've ever known, both in the weeks leading up the wedding and even during wedding week and wedding day. Seriously. The wedding was beautiful. And I had SO much fun working on cupcakes for one of her bridal showers and the groom's cake for the wedding.

The shower (a couple of weeks before the wedding) was a fun time for the ladies at church to hang out and...er..."shower" Julia with love. And kitchen appliances. Here she is with her new food processor:

Here's the cupcake tower. There were two kinds of cupcakes: key lime with blackberry filling and key lime frosting, and banana with Nutella filling (heck, yeah!) and cream cheese frosting (yum!). There were regular-sized and minis.

Here's a wider shot of the table: cupcake tower, chocolate fountain (yes, I said chocolate fountain), and a plethora of items waiting to be dipped in the chocolate...I'm getting hungry just thinking about it again.

Lovely.

THEN there was the groom's cake, which I had an absolute blast working on! Hans requested an old-school Mario Brothers cake, and I was more than happy to take on the challenge. This was crazy-good nostalgia for me (ah, the days of original Nintendo...Mario Brothers...Duck Hunt...good times).

The cake was a two-tier round, butter-rum flavor, with butter-rum buttercream. I also tried my hand at making my own homemade fondant for the first time...and discovered that it is SO much better than the store-bought Wilton stuff. Much better to work with, much cheaper, and much tastier. (Thanks for the recipe, Brianna!)

I colored all the fondant and hand-cut every individual piece of decor. Yes, it took forever. But it was a blast. How cute is this?

Okay, so I didn't make EVERY piece. Mario and Peach I ordered...though I did make Peach's bridal veil. And the castle came from Michael's--all I had to do was paint it (with nontoxic paint!).

Here's the final product:

Pictures from the wedding (and these are WONDERFUL pictures; the photographer did an excellent job!) are here. There's even a shot of my cake (a much better shot than I took!).

Congratulations, Hans and Julia! Love you guys!

So We Don't Stagnate...

One would assume, from the not-updated-in-forever state of this blog, that I haven't been doing much baking lately. Incorrect, folks. Apperances and deception and all that. I've been doing quite a lot of baking lately...just not so much taking PICTURES of said baking. And that's regrettable; I had some great items from over the holidays.

Ah, well. It's not like there won't be more. Besides, there's always the archives to pull from, right? Right.

So...for the sake of not letting this blog get too much more stagnant...into the vault we go.

This is a cake I made back at the end of the summer. Maybe the bright colors, baseball theme, and whatnot will make us all feel a bit more summery in this cold, cold weather.

One cake, two cake, red cake, blue…well, you know

I made the mistake a while back of buying a buttercream-scented air freshener for my car. Those durned Yankee Candle people are too good at their job; the thing smelled so real it made me ravenous for cupcakes every time I went anywhere. (I wonder if this would work with bacon-scented air freshener?)

Once the buttercream smell wore off, I went with a safer option: “Ocean Breeze” or something like that. It’s nice. Except that I’ve been baking and transporting so many cupcakes the last few weeks, the car STILL smells like frosting—the real thing this time. Oy. Seriously, I think the interior may just about be permanently infused with the scent by now. (Want to come ride with me? Ha.)

It’s been quite the variety, too—cupcakes in every shape and color and size: baseball team cupcakes, wedding cupcakes, birthday party cupcakes. I admit, I enjoy the diversity; it’s fun putting my “creative” hat.

Anyway, because it’s been a while since my last post, and because I’ve got quite a few pictures to show you, I’ll get to it. Thus (drumroll, please), I present to you…cupcakes. A lot of them.

This first set was something new for me: cupcakes for a baseball team. They requested the team logo in edible form, so I busted out the fondant and went to work hand-cutting the little suckers. See?

The cupcakes were basic: yellow cake, classic buttercream. It was the hand-cutting that really took a while. But I was happy with the outcome, and so were the boys (though I have to say, I think their team logo looks oddly like the starship Enterprise…but that could just be me).

Okay, moving on. Cupcake job #2 was also a first: an entire cupcake tower for my friend Marissa’s wedding. I had so much fun with these. (And my dad did an EXCELLENT job building the cupcake tower for me. Thanks, Dad!)



There were all different designs, and both regular and miniature-sized cupcakes (as well as the small cake at the top of the tower). Plus, I made four different flavor combos: butter rum cake with rum frosting, carrot cake with cream cheese frosting, chocolate/chocolate, and vanilla bean cake with almond frosting. Mm.

Aaand, last but not least, job #3 (from just yesterday, actually): mini cake plus cupcakes for a little girl’s first birthday party. Cute stuff. Bright pink, purple, yellow, polka dots…yep, I like it.

There was a classic white cake with white buttercream—a small sized one just for the birthday girl. There also were two dozen miniature white cupcakes with vanilla buttercream, for the kids.

AND for the adults (this is my favorite part): two dozen white chocolate cupcakes with white chocolate buttercream and raspberry filling, and a dozen lemon cupcakes with lemon buttercream and whipped cream and fresh berries inside.

Oh. Man. {{ heart eyes for filled cupcakes}}

I mean, look at this:

I don’t usually eat too much of my own baking (I prefer to force them on give them to my neighbors and/or family members). But this is my exception. Here’s evidence.

And Mom helped.

And, because I haven’t offered any recipes in a while, here’s one of my favorites for you:

Classic Yellow Cupcakes
 1¼ cups sifted cake flour
 ½ teaspoon baking powder
 ¼ teaspoon baking soda
 ¼ teaspoon salt
 ¾ cup + 2 tablespoons white sugar, divided
 5 tablespoons butter, melted and cooled slightly
 ½ cup buttermilk, room temperature
 1 teaspoon pure vanilla
 3 teaspoons vegetable oil
 3 large egg yolks, room temperature
 2 large egg whites, room temperature

1. Preheat oven to 350°. Line a 12-cup muffin tin with paper liners. Set aside.

2. Whisk dry ingredients and ¾ cup sugar together in large bowl. In separate bowl, whisk together melted butter, buttermilk, oil, vanilla, and egg yolks.

3. In a third bowl, beat egg whites on medium-high speed until foamy, about 30 seconds. Gradually add remaining 2 tablespoons sugar; continue to beat until peaks just form, 30 to 60 seconds. (Whites should hold peak but should still appear moist.) Set aside.

4. On low speed, gradually pour butter mixture into flour mixture; mix until almost incorporated (a few streaks of dry flour will remain), about 15 seconds. Stop mixer and scrape bottom and sides of bowl. On medium-low speed, beat until smooth and fully incorporated, 10 to 15 seconds. Stir 1/3 of whites into batter; then gently fold in remaining whites until no streaks remain.

5. Divide batter evenly among prepared muffin cups. Bake until toothpick comes out clean, about 18 minutes. (Cake may still appear damp.) Cool in pans on wire rack for 10 minutes; then cool completely on rack, about 1 hour.

Note: Makes about a dozen cupcakes.

Bakery-Style Buttercream
 ½ cup Crisco
 ½ cup unsalted butter, softened
 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
 ½ teaspoon butter-flavor extract
 ½ teaspoon rum or almond extract
 3 cups confectioners’ sugar
 milk

Beat Crisco and butter until very smooth and creamy. Gradually add sugar and extracts. Beat well until light and fluffy, adding milk (by the half-teaspoon) and/or more sugar as needed to reach desired consistency.

Baby animals and floral inspiration and whatnot

Now that it's finally made an appearance, springtime in Indiana, I've decided, is...amusing. Lovely, but amusing.

Picture this: a million and one days of COLD, and then, practically overnight, spring like they paint it in Disney movies: the brightest green fields and blue skies, flowers everywhere, and fluffy, big-eyed baby animals running amok. (Seriously. We've got bunnies, birds, squirrels, calves...even a pasture of lambs down the road.)

Sometimes I'm half suspicious that everything will suddenly bust out dancing and singing, "Sound of Music" -like. ("Spriiiing! Glorious spriiiing!" -- something like that.)

It's, like I said, very pretty...just sort of bordering on a spring parody. Which, like I said, amuses me.

Anyway...all this springtime-y-ness also means things like graduation open houses (which apparently are a big thing in the Midwest; who knew?) Last weekend I had two open house cakes to bake/decorate. The first one I didn't get a picture of, but it was a pretty basic sheet cake anyway (in DePauw University colors). The second one, though, I had been granted some "artistic freedom" with, and I decided that spring flowers were the inspiration.

Ta-daaa...!

This was a really fun cake to make, for several reasons.

(1) It was white chocolate, with white chocolate frosting, which means I got to make myself sick sampling the frosting. (This is a good kind of sick, IMHO, in case you were wondering.)

(2) I got to play with my "grown-up Play-Doh" (i.e., fondant) to make all the little spring flower cutouts. See (below)? (This was while watching the season finale of The Mentalist. Which could be another post entirely because of its awesomeness...except that it has nothing to do with baking. Though, come to think of it, neither does Chuck Norris, and I DID talk about him recently. Hm...)



(3) I LOVED making the tiny fondant flowers on floral wire to stick out of the top of the cake. It's an easy way to add dimension and height to a cake, plus it has sort of a jaunty, playful feel that I like a lot.




And (4) It was a combo cake and cupcakes, which I find fun, and I used pink icing for the cupcakes--which, yes, is girly, and, yes, makes me unreasonably happy.

They're fun, hm?

Close(r)-up shot:


So, all that to say that spring has...um...sprung. Yay. And congratulations on graduating, Sara and Will. So proud of y'all!

A fishy story...with a sweet ending

Yesterday my dad planted himself in front of me with a solemn look (which nearly always means a joke is coming) and asked, “Remember the tuna fish?” Ah, the tuna...as if I could forget.

Maybe you've already heard this story. Actually, chances are you have, considering how often he tells it. (I swear if I’ve heard it once, I’ve heard it 573 times.) But just in case you haven't:

Imagine me, about five years old. I think that was a fairly cute stage. Oh, actually, I have a picture. Here you go:

Rocking that '80s hair, huh?

Anyway, back to my story. Now, my four-year-old palate is still rather…oh, what shall we call it...underdeveloped? Delicate? (Picky.) On this particular day, my dad is making short work of a tuna salad sandwich, and he gets the brilliant idea that now would be a good time to introduce Little Amber to the joys of tuna. The following ensues:

Dad: “Here, booger, try a bite of this.” (Sidenote: Yes, my dad called me “booger.” Still does. Sometimes “boog” for short. Gross but affectionate.)
Me (eyeing the sandwich suspiciously): “Nuh-uh. I don’t like it.”
Dad: “You’ve never had it. How can you know you don’t like it? Just try a bite.”
Me (whiny): “I don’t like it!”
Dad (annoyed): “Amber Marie. One bite. You’re being ridiculous.”
Me (screwing up my face): “No...it’s yucky!!”
Dad (very annoyed, thrusting the sandwich under my nose): “You WILL take a bite of this sandwich, young lady. EAT IT!”
Me (with a sudden gush of half-dramatic/half-genuine tears): “Nooo!”
Dad: “You WILL eat a bite of this sandwich. Right. Now!”
Me: “MOOOOMMMY!”

Not one of my shining preschool moments. (And not one of Dad’s A-plus parenting moments, either, I think.) From that day on, I vehemently hated tuna fish, and for twenty-plus years I’ve maintained that it’s because of the above scenario.

Now, the interesting thing is that taste buds change. They say you get a new set of taste buds every, what?, seven years or something. I won’t claim to know whether that’s scientifically confirmed or just something “they” say, but the fact is that now, at 26, I’ve discovered that I like tuna quite a lot.

This tells me a couple of things:

(1) Though Dad may believe otherwise (and though I may enjoy making him think so), he didn’t scar me for life with that tuna sandwich. At least not totally.

(2) Dad’s taste in food, while often questionable (ketchup on that? really?), occasionally is spot-on.

For instance, he and I agree on the joys of lemon cake, green tea, and my mom's chicken and dumplings (not, however, all together). We also unquestionably agree on the combination of chocolate and peanut butter. And so I give you the Buckeye Cake.

You know Buckeye candies? The peanut butter balls coated in chocolate? This is the cake version. Here are some pics…and the recipe. Oh, and I warn you: make this one a night you intend to splurge. It’s RICH. But despite the extravagant look/taste, it’s not that hard to make.

Start with one 8-inch chocolate cake, whatever recipe you want. (My recipe makes two, so I use one and put the other in the freezer for later use.)

Bust out the Jif (or, in my case, the grocery-store brand peanut butter)...

And mix up a peanut-butter candy topping (3/4 cup creamy peanut butter mixed with 1/4 cup softened butter, 3/4 cup powdered sugar, 1 teaspoon vanilla, and a splash of milk--just enough so that it's very thick but spreadable). Spread/shape it over the top.

Refrigerate the whole thing while you mix up some super-decadent ganache frosting. (Heat a cup of heavy cream to boiling; then remove it from the heat and stir in a 12-oz. bag of chocolate chips. Let it sit a few minutes, and then stir it until it's smooth and satiny. Refrigerate it until it's at a good, spreadable consistency. Mine took about 45 minutes.)

Once the ganache is spreadable, gloop it on top of the cake (yes, I said "gloop"). Just look at that goodness:

Spread it out nice and smooth...

Then top it with a ridiculous amount of chopped Reese's cups.

Need to see that up closer?

Chill it, slice it, serve it (with milk or ice cream). And then collapse in a sugar coma.

Hope you approve, Dad.