The Hydrangea Cake

My mom said cake.. the lemon rosemary cake I made her for her birthday with the almond buttercream... that is what she wanted me to make for Easter Sunday. No question!

This cake is work.. you have to be so careful with the mixing of the egg whites and the meringue and making sure not a spot of oil is ANYWHERE in the kitchen so the meringue rises and then folding it into the batter. It's carefully executed, like a science experiment. 

She wanted me to make the rose bud cake again and I really wanted to, so gorgeous and lovely, but I wanted something brighter. Bolder. Whimsical.

I had seen a post about a hydrangea cake on one of my favorite blogs, I am Baker, and fell in love instantly.  I needed to try it! I obsessed over it actually, sneaking looks of it every day, creating the process in my head of how I was going to execute this thing! Finally I just went for it.

I added more rosemary this time around to my cake batter and the kitchen smelled like herbacious, lemony heaven as they baked. I held back a bit on the almond extract for my buttercream, so it was a bit more muted but still delicious. It crusted like a dream, which is super important when piping things like flowers.

To create the hydrangea petals, I used a 2M tip normally used for drop flowers.

When I piped, I added a lot of pressure, twisted, and released.  When you cram each one in, it starts to look like hydrangeas! This is one way of doing it.. Another would be to use a 104 tip and pipe each individual petal, which would take forever and is a bit methodical. I wanted this to be crazy, and fun, sort of all over the place.

The key to the multi-tone petals was to first, add a thin layer of white to my piping bag with a knife and spread it all around the outside, then add my colored buttercream on the inside.

I love how some of the flowers folded over, to give an authentic look. 

I was nervous about this one, but once I started going, it was super easy.. Icing on the cake! 

A little piece of confection perfection!

My little cousin Katie was enjoying the cake pops from yesterday's post! Little cutie!

I hope everyone enjoyed their Easter, a sunny day spent with family is always good!

-Elena

Easter Sweetness

I always loved Easter as a kid.. Growing up in two religions meant two Easters most years! So my brother and I always got two Easter baskets.. double the chocolate, double the fun! It also meant two masses (candlelit Midnight mass at the Greek church was always my favorite) and two Easter dinners!

Ham and chicken with cookies and cakes for Catholic Easter, and lamb with roasted potatos and sweet bread for Greek Easter! I was lucky growing up with such strong influences from my two heritages-- French food and Greek food.. just can't go wrong! 

Anyways, both Easters fall on the same day this year so it means lots of food and of course, dessert. I made a giant hydrangea cake (I will be featuring it on the blog tomorrow!) but I also made some adorable pastel cake pops!

I used these mini cookie cutters to shape my cake pops.

Oh how charming!

I hope everyone enjoys their day tomorrow with family and friends! I know I am looking forward to it! 

-Elena

Peanut Butter Babies

I started this lovely week off with some baby heads!  My mom’s coworker is having a baby girl and what better way to celebrate than with some bright, cheery little girls mixed with spring flowers!

  

Aren’t these baby girls just the sweetest with their little flower headbands?

I found this scrapbook paper over the weekend in my travels and fell in love.  The brightness of the pattern just evokes the feeling of happiness!

For these little girls, I did two types of cake – classic chocolate, and peanut butter!  I have recently tried a few recipes with PB, however this one just knocked it out of the park for me.  Baking with peanut butter will leave you with a very heavy, thick end result.  This cake is NOT fluffy and soft like a vanilla meringue would be… it’s dense, but moist at the same time! And the creaminess of the PB makes the cake roll beautifully and my secret when making cake balls--- mix the cake with half buttercream, and half peanut butter to get even more of a peanut butter taste!

Everyone has their own preference when it comes to PB—Skippy, Jiff, the natural stuff, chunky, creamy… I grew up on Skippy and don’t mind it (yea I know it’s “fake” pb), however I have grown to love fresh ground peanut butter from Big Y or Whole Foods.  I like the chalkier, crunchy consistency with less of a sugar taste! That is what I used for this recipe but really you can use whatever you’d like.  I also cut down on the fat a bit and subbed almond milk for milk, and coconut oil for vegetable oil but if you don’t care about these things, go for the original recipe!

Creamy Peanut Butter Cake

2 Cups All Purpose Flour

2 Cups White Sugar

1 Tsp Baking Powder

½ Cup Milk

2 Eggs

1 tsp Vanilla Extract (I use vanilla paste, find it a Homegoods!)

½ Cup Butter

1 Cup Water

½ Cup Vegetable Oil

½ Cup Peanut Butter

1.       Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Grease a baking 9X11inch baking pan. (This cake is thick, don’t use anything smaller than this).

2.       Whisk flour, white sugar and baking soda together in a bowl.

3.       In an electric mixer, beat eggs, milk and vanilla into flour mixture on low until smooth.

4.       In a sauce pan, combine water, butter, vegetable oil and peanut butter and heat over medium heat until mixture is smooth (not boiling!). Should take about 5 minutes.

5.       Stir peanut butter mixture into flour mixture and mix until combined.  Pour into baking pan.

6.       Bake until a toothpick insterted in the middle comes out clean, about 20-25 minutes. Keep an eye on it!

Pair this cake with a peanut butter or chocolate buttercream and YUM!

Now for a 4 day work week which means I get an extra day to work on all the Easter goodies I have planned! 

Enjoy the sunshine! 

-Elena