Gingerbread House Holidays

My mom and I make a gingerbread house every single year! SO when I heard the daring bakers challenge was going to be this I was excited! I then read on to find out we had to make it from scratch....not so fun. I guess that's why it's a challenge right?

Anywho..Thank god my gingerbread baked up nicely...otherwise I would have quit haha. Overall, I think it turned out cute!

I also had some fondant left over from a cake I made a few days earlier so I used it to make a mini snowman! Isn't he cute??



AHH I love that snowman!!

Oh and I thought I would just include a picture of my vegas cake...pretty good considering I had just a days notice! I got paid big bucks from this one! yay!

The December 2009 Daring Bakers' Challenge was brought to you by Anna of Very Small Anna and Y of Lemonpi. They chose to challenge Daring Bakers' everywhere to bake and assemble a gingerbread house from scratch. They chose recipes from Good Housekeeping and from The Great Scandinavian Baking Book as the challenge recipes.

Look-A-Like

Beside the fact of having a MAJOR chocolate attack,my first ganache, and that I have never made a cupcake with filling, what more excuses did I need to make these? So I saw them on MyBaking Addiction and thought how perfect!

( I'm pretty sure my mom would kill me if she knew I put a cupcake on her piano! lol )

So I spent my Saturday night ( haha I'm such a lame college student) making some cupcakes. I was fairly surprised at how easy they were to make. They weren't too bad tasting either! I'm not so sure they tasted exactly like a Hostess cupcake but they were awfully close. I have to admit I do prefer the fake (Hostess) stuff! Okay well I have lots of homework to do so Got to go. Hopefully I can find another day this week to bake!

Also, I can't wait to get a better camera haha!

Tart n' Sweet Black Cherry Cupcakes

I actually had a break from my homework and school today. Shocker I know! Calculus and now Physics...what happened to summer? Anyways, I decided what a day to bake right? Well I found a recipe on MyBakingAddiction.blogspot.com for some Strawberry Cupcakes. By the way...I love that blog! It's one of my favorites! I think she is great and always has the most scrumptious food!

So The cupcakes looked so good so I had to try...but when I got home I realized we had no strawberries :( I was so dissapointing but I had to improvise, so I took some cherries we had in the fridge, pureed them up, and crossed my fingers.

They were so awesome! The frosting was the best because it wasn't to sour and not too sweet. Just perfect. I'm sure the strawberries would have been better but it got my baking fix out of the way for a few days at least.

I let my dad " Certified Taste Tester" try these out and he seemed to love them. Usually it's just one bite for him..but I think the tartness of these hooked him enough to eat the whole thing.

Cupcakes (edited from the Sprinkles cupcake recipe)

Cherry Buttercream

1 1/2 sticks of unsalted butter

1/2 cup of cherries(pited & food processed)

1 tsp vanilla

1 lb of powdered sugar

Cream butter, add vanilla and cherry puree, then add 1/2 cup powdered sugar at a time until light and fluffy

I'm thinking Blueberry Pancakes for my next endeavor...or maybe some Hostess inspired cupcakes...mmmm I'm making myself hungry

Another Aggie...

Once again...an aggie baked good... haha they are hit around here! This was for the owner of the company I work for. He was turning 78! A very old ag' :) So I did a chocolate WASC cake with buttercream and a Buttercream Transfer for the aTm seal!

This took a couple tries and few lessons learned but finally got it down... not perfect though :/

I was very happy with it even though I felt like it was a caketastrophe between the buttercream not coloring to maroon correctly and a couple tries with the transfer ...it wore my evening out for sure!

All in all....I'm happy with it and even though he doesn't like celebrating his birthday, I hope he enjoys my hard work! Thanks and Gig Em'!

Under The Sea....

Remember the days where you wished to be something like a mermaid? or an astronaut? I mean those were they days for sure! This was for a little girl in my family who turned 5 and she wants more than anything to be a mermaid! it was by far the cutest thing in the world. I wish her luck on her venture towards life under the sea! haha

My favorite part of this cake was the sand! It was Nilla Wafers and brown sugar dumped in the food processor...SO GOOD!

I also had to make some cupcakes for all the little kids that were coming to...18 kids +18 doses of sugar= good luck to the host! haha

Strawberry Birthday!

I recently baked a Strawberry WASC for an employees birthday! I really wished I would have put a cream cheese frosting but I topped it with a pineapple frosting instead. Still turned out Yummy!

I added strawberry puree in with the batter with a strawberry cake mix! It was amazing!
Man...I so need a better camera. This picture does not do this justice! Take my word...it was yummy!

Baby

I recently got volunteered to do a cake for a baby shower and she wanted it to resemble the invite. I tried by best and my frosting was getting a little runny near the end so my dots on the side don't look that great :/ oh well. I just hope everyone gets to eat some tomorrow! YAY!

I'm not sure if I've emphasized how much I LOVE WASC(White Almond Sour Cream) Cake....

Buttercream Love...

And when WASC and Buttercream Love come together :)

Finished Cake


Cake and the invite
So yummy!

Georgia Peach

So I found a recipe for Peach Buttercream and couldn't resist :)

Although this cake looks good and tasted good I did forget eggs...my bad! But it actually just made the cake REALLY moist, which everyone loves, so all is good!

The ingredients for the AmAzInG Buttercream( that's peach puree in the glass by the way)

My beaters broke on me half way through and plopped powdered sugar everywhere but I went with it and got my spoonula( the best tool ever).

Pretty cake that I didn't feel like decorating


WARNING!

May cause EXTREME Drooling!

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The cake was so moist there was a little batter that wasn't cooked( probably because there were no eggs) but no reason to worry about it not being good for you

I will definitely make this cake again! It was easy, fast, and VERY good! Here is the recipe for the Peach Buttercream and the link so you can buy a spoonula Its so worth it!


SPOONULA


Peach Buttercream

3/4 cup butter

28 oz powdered sugar(buy a 32 oz bag but don't put all in because its super sweet)

2 peaches, peeled, chopped, and pureed.

Cream butter and alternate adding puree and powdered sugar.

Swirls

This was a cake I did a while ago. I made it for a friend's mother (any excuse to make a cake) haha. It is WASC (White Almond Sour Cream) Cake with Butter Dream and MMF( Marshmallow Fondant). YUMMY!! All homeade, all good! I am just in love with this cake because I spent so much time on the swirls and got a very sweet thank you card from my friend's mom and she now knows me as "the cake lady" haha its funny because I love to get that title!

Anyways....Recipes below!

White Almond Sour Cream

1 box of white cake mix

1 cup of flour

1 cup of sugar

3/4 tsp salt

4 egg whites

1 1/3 cup water

2 Tbls. Vegetable Oil

1 8oz container of Sour Cream

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 tsp almond extract

Mix all together and Bake at 325 for about an hour