Ok, I'm Back with Some Yummy Things...

I got married. It is the only excuse I have for not blogging in 6 months!

I took some time off from baking and blogging while we planned and successfully executed our wedding!  It was the best day ever and we are still floating on cloud nine from it even two months later!  The planning was easy but still exhausting and so we took a nice, long two week honeymoon to Iceland and the Netherlands! I didn't want to come home... 

Now we are settled back into every day life and I am back baking like a feign.  

My first project back from my little hiatus was a 2nd birthday for my coworker's daughter.  He said "give me something girly with pink" -- easily done!! I decided on butterflies of different sorts with a pink and purple theme.  I individually wrapped them and they handed them out to their family and friends as a party favor!  

Next up were my favorite little baby heads for my friend Liz's gender reveal party! Every time I make these little things I can't help but smile.  Each one comes out with it's own personality...and I always add a few criers in there--gotta give the soon-to-be parents a taste of what they're in for, right!? 

Next was a delicious lumberjack cake for my cousin Nick's 29th birthday!  What I thought would be a major challenge ended up being pretty easy.  This was vanilla bean cake with brown butter vanilla butter cream (say that five times fast!). When I googled for inspiration for this cake, I saw a lot them had been done with fondant and I wanted to stay away from it.. but I ended up texturing the buttercream into bark with a butter knife and I was super happy with the results! I also ordered a super cute ax lollipop mold and used chocolate to make the ax for the top! The entire cake was devoured in about five minutes! 

Also thrown into the mix this month was a simple and pretty blue wedding sampler for a couple who I have the pleasure of catering for in two weeks!

Lastly, some delicious cupcakes for my friend Becky. I had fun with these and discovered that pulverizing Oreo cookies in the food processor and then folding them into fresh vanilla buttercream makes for the most delicious butter cream in the entire world!  These were ice cream sundae, cookie dough, cookies and cream, and peanut butter crunch.  YUM! 

Working on two orders this week that I am excited for and can't wait to share! 

Elena

My Rosette Birthday Cake

What a weekend!  

I started the weekend by finishing up some Valentine's Day orders! Cupcakes and cake pops for people who love other people and what better way to show it!

My good friends Kyla and Danny came for the long weekend and stayed with Louis and I! We got snowed in and spent Valentine's Day together and had a blast! The guys played video games, and Kyla and I just snuggled on the couch, chatting and drinking wine and reminisced about college. It was so nice to have them here to do nothing but relax!

Sunday we celebrated me turning 26. I am officially closer to 30 than 20 now.. But I am not scared! The amount of fun things happening in my life right now, and the amount of even more amazing things to come make me so truly excited for this age! I really can't complain.

To celebrate, a bunch of people I love came over and we made our way to my favorite chinese restaurant where we drank and ate.. Then went back to the apartment where the drinking and eating continued mixed with some dancing and a ton of laughing.  It was a blast! 

I celebrated by making my own birthday cake. Odd I know.. But I really wanted a delicious cake and the best way to get that is to make it myself. 

Holy hell, was it good! I took some maraschino cherries and chopped them up and along with their juice I mixed them into a 3 layer chocolate cake. YUM! Topped that off with cinnamon butter cream and it was truly heaven.  I had been wanting to do a rosette cake for a while! The difference with this style of piping is I used a closed star tip as opposed to an open star tip like I did with my original rose cake. The result was a more romantic rose with more whimsy. I like whimsy! 

I think these fun party plates and tablecloth from Target was the perfect addition to the cake! 

All in all it was a beautiful weekend! Louis completed it for me by having me open my gifts which were a gorgeous pair of  6-diamond stud earrings, and a new UE portable blue tooth speaker for my private dance parties! 

26 is so much fun already!  

-Elena

Let's Go Golfing!

Last weekend I took a page out of my brother's book and I grew grass. 

It was lusciously green and thick, perfectly manicured on a golf course. 

Butter cream grass!

My parents' neighbor asked me to make a golf themed birthday cake and cupcakes for their grandson's 3rd birthday, and this turned out to be the cutest cake ever! 

Thanks to my wilton 233 tip, I was able to grow sugary green grass along the nice smooth putting green, made of fondant!  Added some vanilla cake pop "shrubs," a pond and a sand trap to complete the theme! My favorite part was the little golf cart I found on Amazon! It was one of those that you pull back and it just goes! So adorable for the 3 year old boy to play with after the cake is eaten, as he is very interested in golf right now. 

The same principles went into creating the cupcakes too! Both the cake and cupcakes were vanilla bean flavored with french vanilla butter cream on top! To die for! 

This week I am working on a top secret project that I am a bit nervous to attempt but I think it's going to be great!!!

Enjoy this gorgeous fall weather everyone! 

-Elena

The Rose Bud Birthday Cake

Even though it is still a little chilly, and I am feeling a bit under the weather, it still does not change the fact that I am yearning desperately for spring.  I want to put the uggs and jackets away and slip on my capris and a light sweater and not worry about being cold! I want the sun to shine and the flowers to bloom and have it be warm enough to run after work everyday without a scarf and gloves!

With my mom's birthday in sight, I knew I wanted to make a cake that evoked the feeling of spring. I wanted to make something fruity and sweet, fresh and aromatic to celebrate her special day. As I perused some of my favorite food blogs, I found a recipe for a fluffy lemon rosemary cake, and I knew this was it!  My mom absolutely loves lemon cake, and the thought of using my absolute favorite savory spices in a dessert was super exciting.  I love rosemary. I go to Whole Foods and buy a few twigs of it, dice it up and mix it with butter to pour over purple potatoes and it's the best side dish EVER.  However, I would never have thought to use it in a dessert!  This cake has proved how versatile this spice is, and now I love it even more.

Adding 100% fresh ingredients to cake batter gives your senses something more-- you're feeling and tasting these ingredients while creating a visual in your head of what you're eating. I love that.

First, the dry ingredients-- flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and sugar.

Then the wet ingredients--melted butter, buttermilk (I used almond milk + lemon juice), oil, vanilla, lemon zest, egg yolks and then the minced rosemary.

The great thing about this cake is it is made with a meringue! My mom LOVES meringue! I am not a meringue fan (I dislike eggs, a lot) but it is mixed in with all the ingredients at the end of the mixing phase, so it adds a fluffiness to the cake without eating a large layer of meringue on top like a lemon meringue pie.  With that said, then you make your meringue by mixing egg whites and sugar until stiff peaks form. 

 After incorporating the meringue into all the other ingredients CAREFULLY (don't want to deflate all the air you just whipped into your meringue, that's what gives the cake its fluffiness), you bake for 25-30 mins at 350 degrees!  Once the cakes were done, I cooled them, wrapped them and threw them in the freezer until I made the butter cream which was today!  This is when it gets fun-- carving the cake and icing it! 

So I carved away... Due to the meringue they baked a bit unevenly on the top but I did not worry, as you always cut off the top part and the sides of the cake before icing!  I decided on an almond butter cream which I added some fresh lemon juice to.

Filled the middle with butter cream, then added some lemon zest shavings for an extra lemony flavor!  Usually I would take better care in cutting my cake edge and cake round but due to my plan to ice it, it did not matter if it was cut evenly.

Once the middle was filled, I put the second cake on top and did a crumb coat. This crumb coat was a bit thicker than I would usually do, but again, my plans for later meant I needed to do a thicker coat.  I then put it in the refrigerator to set.

Of course, my displays mean just as much to me as my actual product does, as you eat with your eyes before your mouth, so I wanted to choose a cake plate that would be simple but gorgeous, and leave the cake to really shine on its own.  So I chose this vintage glass plate that my Grandma Pauline gave me! I absolute love it and I know my mom will too since it is her mother's plate.

In terms of icing the cake, I have been waiting to try and make a rose bud cake. I think it is such an elegant but again, simple design.  So I attempted, using my Wilton 1M tip.  Just start in the middle and twist as you make round "roses" that sort of overlap each other. You don't want to see the cake underneath. 

And here we have the finished product!  I did two layers of roses on the side, and three in the middle, with the outer layer sort of on top and on the side to blend and give the cake a more "rounded" look.  

Adding yellow and silver sugar pearls on top gave it a more "romantic" feel. Plus my mom loves silver!  And the yellow hints at the lemon flavor!

God I love beautiful food!

My mom loved it and we all devoured a piece as we sat around the table, sniffling and coughing because we're all under the weather! The almond butter cream was so smooth and complimented the lemon cake beautifully! I can't wait to make the cake again, and experiment with different sized tips to make different roses. It was very fun to make and I'm happy my end product was amazing.


-Elena