Candied Orange Zest

We had too many oranges at home :-)

Step 1. Cover (loosely) he bottom of a pie dish or baking dish with caster sugar.

Step 2. Wash your oranges really well and dry. Use a citrus peeler, thin or thick, up to you and peel anywhere between 1 to 5 oranges.

Step 3. In a small sauce pan bring 1 cup of sugar, a half cup of water and 3 tablespoons of Cointreau (optional) to a slow boil. Stir to ensure all the sugar has dissolved.

Step 4. Add the orange peels to your boiling syrup and wait until they start to look a bit translucent. Then wait a bit more, for good meaure.

Step 5. Drain (do not rinse!) and toss in the dish with sugar (I used chopsticks for this). Let it set for 5 minutes and toss again. Repeat as many times as you like.

I plan on using it as a topping for delicious baked goods.

Red Velvet

Last week I met with the ABCD (artists, bloggers, crafters, designers) group of gals of which only a couple I had been following online prior to the meeting.

I'll admit, as lovely as everyone was, I felt out of place because I was literally the only one who wasn't trying to grow a business or make money out of their website. Still some of them however encouraged me to try and come up with a business idea, and said that I should make cakes for people.

Now of course I have thought about this before, but I simply don't feel like I can easily compete with so many amazing pastry chefs out there, or differentiate myself from others who like me, learned their own way to patisserie. Disclaimer: I don't really know what I'm doing when I bake a cake, I follow recipes, not write them, and I often imitate cakes, not create them.

But anyway, after that meeting I just felt like my blog needed one more cake :)

Red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting is a classic, rich, opulent cake, and more importantly, red = awesome.

This time I'm going to walk you through my creative process.

First you need an idea: I should bake a red velvet cake. Check.

Then you need a recipe. I used this one. Check. Then bake the cake, in as many layers as you'd like (I did 3), the general rule is you bake the batter until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

I usually take a very sharp knife to cut the top of the cake and make it flat. Then I flip the cake upside down so that the flattened surface is the bottom. If you use a bread/serrated knife you will have crumbs everywhere.

After you make the frosting, you need to frost the cake. The cake must have cooled by now, otherwise the frosting will turn into a watery sugary mess, it is CRUCIAL that the cakes and frosting remain cool at all times. If your kitchen is hot, you might have to put the frosting in the fridge for a few minutes at a time.

Start with the "crumb layer" this is just a thin layer of frosting that gives shape to the cake and keeps it from crumbling too much. I use an icing offset spatula that I got as a present one Christmas.

I also use a decorating turn-table from IKEA, $15. This makes life *way* easier.

After each layer of frosting I put the cake in the fridge for 5-10 minutes to make sure the frosting sets (hey I never said the process was quick).

Next comes the decorating bit! This is the fun part :)

For my inspiration I used the ruffled cake from the Sweet and Saucy homepage. If only I could buy ALL their cake stands.

Anyway, I experimented with a few of my tips and settled on Ateco's No. 46. Then started piping away...

After the fact I decided that I shouldn't have done the top part, it looked a bit bulky. I much prefer the look of the first photo above.

So anyway, then you're done! I took some flowers around the house and slabbed them on top.

Mmm. Cake.

Why you should get an electric mixer if you bake

I have been using my new electric mixer from Christmas and I can see and taste the difference especially on the quality of buttercream icing.

Check out this buttercream I made using a whisk, by hand:

See how it is all grainy and sorta chunky? Well I'm guessing that the power I am putting in with my arms  must be around 40 Watts (tops), and I can only do it at full power for a few seconds at a time (go ahead laugh, but try it yourself).

Now compare it to my new 220 Watt electric mixer:

It is *perfectly smooth*. It makes for a much more pleasant experience in your mouth, texture and flavor wise since all the ingredients are blended much better and are less likely to separate should the temperature rise a bit.

These are strawberry champagne cupcakes by the way. I made a couple dozen today to bring to a BBQ tomorrow celebrating Australia Day.

The recipe is from a blog called Love & Olive Oil, which I use often because the cupcake recipes there seem to be pretty reliable, none have failed so far. A down side is that some of the recipes are lactose free or vegan  (no butter, no milk, no eggs, etc.) due to personal choices of the author. I don't mind at all, but I suppose some people would.

I used slightly over half of the sugar that the recipe called for in the icing. I often cut back on the sugar because most icing recipes will make my teeth hurt :-) You can cut the sugar and will still obtain a pretty nice texture. I always put the icing in the fridge for 10 minutes before I start piping to ensure the buttercream will be stiff enough to hold its shape.

A few notes on the final result:

• These were the most expensive cupcakes I have made to date because I had to use a whole bottle of sparkling wine (I made double the recipe). Bad idea but too late by the time I realized. The taste of champagne is sort of there but not really identifiable, so next time I will use a more normal/cheaper flavoring.

• There is a hint of strawberry in the cake itself, but not as strong as I would have liked so I will need to experiment more. 

• The cake is lovely, spongy, springy and melts in your mouth. I would not mess with the sugar content here, it's perfect.

Lastly, a shout out to my homey Parisa, who made a sweet looking hot pink raspberry cake!

A birthday cake

My mom's birthday was yesterday and I decided to bake a cake in her honor. This is a layered cake with chocolate and raspberry swirl layers, covered in chocolate ganache and chocolate buttercream.

Mom I wish I coud share this cake with you in person! I promise to make you another one next time we see each other. Happy birthday!

More cupcakes!

We are attending a barbecue tonight which will also be attended by lots of men. And since there aren't a lot of men out there who appreciate vegetables, I decided to take matters into my own hands and make a couple of salads. I made a lot in hopes that there will be left overs and then I can eat them for the rest of the week... But who wants to read about salads anyway, let's talk dessert!!!

I also really wanted to make some cupcakes for tonight because... well who needs a reason for cupcakes?

These are chocolate cupcakes with vanilla frosting. The original recipe is completely vegan, but with mine I used real butter and cream cheese in the frosting instead of vegan substitutes.

Also just wanted to mention that using cream cheese makes the frosting super creamy and requires half the sugar than traditional recipes = creamier and not so overly sweet!

Check out my new carrying case, it holds up to 24 cupcakes. More goodness for everyone.

And on a side note, I was in a rotten mood last Tuesday and was super rude to my boyfriend and everyone who got on my way. Instead of getting angry M got me this:

Best. Boyfriend. Ever.

DIY cake stand

I saw this DIY on a different blog, but for the life of me I can't remember which one. I looked it up and it is actually a semi popular DIY, so no ground breaking techniques here.

What you will need:

• A plate (any plate you like, mine was $0.50 from a thrift store)
• A candle holder (any candle holder you like, mine was $0.50 from the same place)
• Strong glue: I recommend super glue or epoxy

Clean your plate and candle holder and make sure they are dry.

Apply glue according to directions (fast if you can, since it will dry quickly) on the edge where both items will come together. Place the plate on top of the candle holder and apply some pressure. Best it is when you place a heavy book or cutting board on top and leave it for 30 minutes while it dries.

Finito.

By the way we finally got our shipment from Zurich and I was able to retrieve all of my bakeware. Of course I immediately had to make cupcakes to display the cake stand in use. 

These are peach bourbon cupcakes (recipe here) and in my humble opinion they are scrumptious. The perfect hint of bourbon and peaches all in one. The recipe was for 12 cupcakes but my cups were a bit bigger than the norm so only 8 came out.

Sweets

I like cakes. Even more than cakes, I like cupcakes. I love frosting on cakes and cupcakes. Mmm...

I wanted to post some pictures of cakes I made, so that they would be on the web somewhere... And we're  going to start right here.

I made this for my last birthday:

It was chocolate cake with raspberry buttercream frosting. Covered in green fondant and the flowers are made out of marzipan.

This one was for a 4th of July bbq. It's a terrible background, but I was trying to avoid taking shots of the living room this time.

It was a chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream frosting. Red, white and blue fondant was used for decoration.

I once also made a couple of dozens of these little guys:

I called them the mini-moccha cupcake. It was chocolate (ahem, again) with espresso buttercream frosting and some toasted hazelnuts sprinkled on top.

I want to make more. I want to make them all the time.