Crumbles

Definitely not called FUN-dant

2009-07-06T09:44:00.005-04:00

Baking and decorating has definitely been a learning process for me. more like a learning JOURNEY, truth be told.... a long, long endless journey.

I say that not because I'm not enjoying myself... but more because no matter what I do, I'm finding ways to improve myself, either in skill, recipe/tools, or process. That's a good thing.

frustrating at times, but ultimately good.

A long time ago, I experimented with fondant. I bought the wilton pre-made kind, and I used it to cover my daughter's butterfly shaped cake for her 2nd birthday. It was fairly easy to work with, but bleh. the taste was GROSS. chewy. and bland.

As I took a bite into the cake i had worked so hard on, I immediately felt disappointed that all of my efforts got covered up by a flavorless chew-toy.

Long story short.. that experience has prevented me from really experimenting with fancy-looking cakes because again... I refuse to compromise the taste of a cake. Cake should be EATEN. otherwise.. might as well make a playdoh centerpiece and stick candles in it, knowwhaddahmean?

So I did some asking around for better tasting fondants. I got a few recipes, and decided to go ahead and try this marshmallow fondant to cover my 4 layer white cake that I had filled with a home-made strawberry buttercream.

I'm guessing that I made the fondant a little too dry, because I had a considerable number of cracks.

and ripples.

*sigh*

(I made a larger one and a smaller cake, thinking I could keep the small cake for cutting and picture taking, and donate the larger cake to the bake sale... but since THAT didn't happen.. I kept the larger cake.)

At any rate... This marshmallow fondant certainly tasted better than the store-bought kind. and with a little bit of piping and well placed roses... you could almost say the cakes look nice.

of course.. the proper camera angle does wonders. cause this picture is pretty unforgiving of the cracks and ripples.

Again. learning process. I have a few other recipes I can try, and I sincerely think that the more I work with fondant, the better I will get.

For now, however... I'm going to stick to a well placed camera, and some pretty gum paste flowers to distract the eye.

of course... making a great tasting cake under all of those cracks can certainly help sway any critics from being TOO harsh.

Hilariously not funny

2009-07-04T15:22:00.000-04:00

So.. if you follow me on twitter or facebook, you'll know that I was busy this past week making cakes for this weekend's bake sale at church.

imagine the HILARITY that ensued when I took the bounty below to church and realized the bake sale is being held NEXT weekend, on account of the holiday weekend.

DOH!

the good news is that our neighbors got a share of cake pops and cakes, and our dinner guests will get obscenely large pieces of cake tomorrow.

yes. I am officially a Yankee Doodle Dumbass.

Happy Independence Day, gang!

Really Rosie

2009-07-02T08:51:00.001-04:00

Last week I tried my hand at making gum paste roses.

I figured it was time to start pushing my personal envelope in the decorating arena. I mean.. I'm doing well in regards to cookies... but my cakes. *sigh* my cakes need WORK.

So.. instead of diving right in, I decided to see if I could master just one little aspect of cake decorating... decorative roses.

I made my own gum paste... which wasn't that hard to do. but like my challenge with Elmo... I clearly needed a LOT more red at this point.

after I had a decent shade to work with... it was all about making little balls, flattening them out, then wrapping them around each other.

I got better with each one I did... or at least got faster.

I also decided to make just a few roses of a yellow shade.... that I ended up using on a chocolate cake.

The thing I think I like most about these roses is that they can be made well in advance of when you actually NEED them. Considering most of my baking and decorating has to happen in the small windows that I am not actively parenting the kids (which.. by the way, during summer is like ALWAYS) I appreciate the whole "set it and forget it" mentality with gum paste.

I still dislike that gum paste has no real flavor, and essentially will break you teeth if you try to eat it... but hey. they look nice. And every rose has a thorn, right? it's only fitting that gum paste roses have a snag factor, too.

stay tuned for my post about the cakes!

Never say "Easy"

2009-06-20T11:43:00.004-04:00

I should have known better. By very nature of my mom's maiden name, Murphy, I SHOULD have known better.

Who would have thought that a simple character-cookie like Elmo would have been such a monumental challenge?

Clearly *I* didn't... because I told Cathy that it would be EASY to do cookies for her son's second birthday.

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

HAH.

I'm not going to bore you with ALLLL of the details... but the highlights of my journey into the depths of believing that Elmo was truly the spawn of Satan include:

not being able to find an Elmo-shaped cookie cutter ANYWHERE, thus having to CREATE one from scratch

not having enough 'red dye' to create an Elmo-y shade of frosting, thus having to stop mid-mixing to go buy MORE red dye to get out of the pink realm.

in new jersey, because I was at my parents' house.

waiting 12 extra hours, unable to do anything while I waiting for the 'it's about time it's finally red' frosting to harden. only to find out that it NEVER DID, thus causing me to have to...

THROW AWAY entire first batch of cookies and re-create, roll, cut, bake, and apply new first
coat of "oh dear lord I have to make red again" frosting.

before 9am, because that was the day I promised to take my kids down the shore.

Re-attack the final detail pipings so they have a chance to dry before being packaged up and sent off to the birthday boy.

only to find out the post office did not offer 2nd day air, and had to ship them overnight.

*sigh*

don't get me wrong. This project was a GREAT experience, and I was so so sooooo happy to do it. but MAN! issue after issue! Here's a look at the final results:

Elmo- take two... but with a NICE shade of red

They may look like they're smiling, but they're really laughing at me

Elmo heads together with the centerpiece cookie

From paper to product-- using clipart and the invite for inspiration

all wrapped up and ready to go

Ultimately, I think that this was a great reminder that I shouldn't take anything for granted... and like baking itself... the slightest variation with technique, ingredients, and/or location can create exponential differences in the final product.

There was no question ever I wouldn't get this project done. Cathy is a wonderful woman whom I've met through the internet. She has a heart of gold and is just a KIND person in general. Of course... having a 2 year old myself... there is absolutely NO WAY on this green earth that I would send her son anything that didn't look like Elmo. There was absolutely no room for failure in this project... and I feel pretty confident that Cathy and her birthday boy, Liam, were pleased with the final results.

I know my daughter Rhena was.

kid-tested and Elmo Approved!

Happy birthday, Liam!!

Little Boy Blue

2009-06-06T07:58:00.003-04:00

Back in the beginning of the year, I was sitting in a playdate with some friends, and the conversation subject got around to working.. pre-and-post motherhood, that is.

I, of course, told my tale of engineering days gone by, to not working, to thoughts about becoming a teacher, then to the present, which is trying to make a go of Stepford. Right around that time, my husband Troy had finished putting up the first draft of a website for me. It was exciting step for me in this small business journey, so of course I wanted to share with my friends.

One of my friends saw a set or two of the onesie cookies I have done in the past, and asked if I would be able to make something for her sister's shower, which was to be held in June.

I rarely turn down an offer to make cookies for someone. I've found that not only the experience itself of making and decorating the cookies, but the actual PROCESS of working with a customer is completely invaluable. Naturally, I eagerly said yes, and set her date in my calendar.

Although I had done onesie cookies in the past, this project presented some great learning points for me. The location in which the shower was being held was a Tea House, and while completely adorably quaint.. space was limited. I was now challenged to find a vertical way of displaying the favor cookies, but yet would still be under the umbrella of Stepford-classy.

My client and I tossed around several ideas, and as a result, I am now the owner of a few cupcake display stands. Thanks to her and this project, I now have a way to creatively display the favors, should a client want that. I know that for some folks, this step may be a given, but it was a great lesson to me in that my product still has to look good after it leaves my hands.

Outside of that, and a few swallows of time-management lessons, this project was an easy one. Well, ok, EXCEPT for when, the night before the event, I completely scrapped about 20 some-odd cookies because the blue frosting I made dried more int eh teal family, and nowhere like the baby blue that the invitation boasted. oops.

Invitation-inspired colors

All in all, however, the project came out great, and I'm pleased I was able to do it.

all set up at the Tea House

Up close and personalized

detail view of favor tags and 'cake topper'

That's a wrap!

I need votes!

2009-06-01T15:47:00.002-04:00

so the voting period has begun for the ice cream cupcake challenge!!

I would SURE love it if you took a minute to go HERE or HERE to vote for my Coconut Creme Identity Crisis cupcakes!!

The GOOD news, other than me totally being your bestest friend for voting.. is that every voter gets entered in a drawing to win some cupcake cards! how cool is that???

(very cool. trust me on that!)

so please. don't make me beg. (at least not TOO much)

go HERE and ignore all those other delicious looking ice cream cupcakes, and vote for my Coconut Creme Identity Crisis cupcakes.

please.

cause I'll love you forever like that.

The Coconut Creme Identity Crisis

2009-05-31T15:37:00.005-04:00

I love to bake. y'all know that. But it hasn't always been this way. Long time ago.. back in the days of me being gainfully employed, I would have EASILY told you that I preferred cooking to baking.. because baking was so.. PRECISE. a little too much of this or not enough of that, and you're looking at floppy, vanilla-scented pancakes that taste like paper plates. (not that I'd know ANYTHING about that... or maybe I would. hmmm.)

However, since 'retiring' from my life as an engineer, and consequently assuming the life-long role of 'mommy'.. I have found I have a real JOY for baking. like.. REAL JOY. like.. my house is imploding from hostile laundry-takeover and the kids are jumping to and from the couches well over 4 feet apart. on hardwoods. and yet... this happy HUM comes over me as I hear, smell, and taste my way through another baked creation. JOY, I tell you.

But I'm an engineer! not a baker! no.. I'm a mommy! but the baking! ohhh the baking.... SO yeah. so what if I'm in my upper thirties and just now figuring out what I want to be when I grow up? chalk it up to a good old fashioned identity crisis, right?

At any rate, I've really been making a concerted effort lately to dig in and get to know others that operate (either by hobby or profession) in the trade of baking. I've begun following new blogs, connecting with other Twitters (twitterers? tweeters? twits??)... anyways.. I've been meeting new folks. and this is GOOD! cause WOW! the TALENT that exists out there is AMAZING!!!

One of the best things that has come of this new venture into discovering me is that I found out about a contest. Now y'all KNOW I love a good contest! I'm always trying to score stuff from Erin Cooks, and that Bakerella's always hosts contests I can't pass up. But THIS, people. this is different.

THIS.. is a CHALLENGE.

Can you BELIEVE I've never entered a baking challenge before? I KNOW! so with my new ice cream maker attachment in hand.. I knew it was a sure sign I had to pop my proverbial cherry and enter.

And seriously. cupcakes? and ice cream? together? booyakasha! I was SO down for that!

Now, the PLANNER in me had a TON of flavor combinations I wanted to do... but the PROCRASTINATOR in me waited til the VERY LAST few days to even begin creating something to qualify as an entry. So... upon finding the super-easy-my-kid-could-do-it ice cream recipe, I decided to go with something of the coconut persuasion.

I am SO HAPPY I DID.

First of all.. this recipe I found for Coconut cupcakes is AMAZING! I'll do a full post on the cupcakes soon, but go ahead and check it out (when you're done reading this post, of course! no need to hurry off now, ya hear?) NUTMEG! using nutmeg added such a GREAT layer to the flavor of the cake... oh! seriously the best coconut cake I've had in like.. a LONG time.

it took me a few dozen cupcakes to REALLY figure out the proper amount to put in the liners (so as to leave enough room for the ice cream, and the ALL-important crunch layer) Turns out this a mistake I did not mind.

Oh.. and I had NO LUCK with my silicone flower pan. I thought I'd be cute with a flower-shaped cupcake? nope. wrecked the first two trying to release the cakes. then decided to eat the others out of spite. oh.. the things I put up with for the sake of art!

Now that I had the cupcake portions made and the ice cream made.. it was time to make the magic happen. Now, I COULD have just slapped the two together and called it good. or GOOD-GOOD cause coconut cupcake? GOOD. coconut ice cream? GOOD. But this is my first challenge, and I wanted to do it right. and besides.. what's a ice cream cake without a crunch layer? that's right.... these cupcakes needed some crunch.

So even though y'all KNOW I can make my own graham crackers.. I went ahead and used some good ole Scooby Bones. and how could I not? I mean.. just LOOK at Scoob! Even HE seems to be giving me a secret smile letting me know I'm on to something good here.

I crushed the 'bones' up, mixed with sugar and butter, then baked the pressed-down mix in the oven. cause YES.. I wanted the crunch layer even SWEETER and BUTTERIER (is that a word?) than the regular grahams.

Topped the cupcakes with the crumbled graham cracker crust, then topped that with the coconut ice cream. (yes, a few are missing from the pan, since I wanted to test the cupcakes. I wasn't sure if baking such a small amount would dry out the cake.. but I was pleased to find out that even that little layer of cake was moist and delicious!)

After those set, I topped with a simple whipped cream. store-bought, at that, cause you know.. deadlines and all. I used my piping bag to make up for the lack of home-made, if that earns me any points back!

once they had time to freeze a little more, I began the picture taking.

Ladies and Gentlemen.. I give you...

The Coconut Creme Identity Crisis

It's a cupcake! no, it's ice cream! but it's got a pie crust! and whipped cream! Do I eat it with a fork? a spoon? my hands? aaaah!! I'm so confused!

Yes.. to pay tribute to my very own identity crisis... I offer you an identity crisis in food form. and GOOD FOOD FORM IT IS!

My husband Troy tried them, and agreed with me that these are in the "holy Mother#*&%er these are Mother#*&%ing GOOD" category. but we like coconut. we could be biased.

YOU, however, my readers, are not! (ok.. maybe one or two of you are, and that's totally cool with me!) ACTUALLY, I'm counting on a FEW of you to be biased and tune in later this week so you can VOTE FOR ME so I can win this challenge.

If you're curious, you can check out the blogs of the co-hosts of the contest... Cupcake Project and Scoopalicious. then, of course, tell them how great I am. and that I deserve to win. or.. you know.. maybe just vote for me once (or twice or like 20 times. )

At any rate.. this was SO MUCH FUN to do!! SO glad I took on the challenge of a challenge, and I totally look forward to doing another one. but maybe next month or something. I'm so full of coconut right now, it's a little hard to move.. much less bake.

Screamin' for Ice Cream

2009-05-31T14:21:00.004-04:00

So anyone who follows me on twitter or facebook already knows that I did indeed get an ice cream maker attachment for my kitchen aide. (enter MUCH rejoicing here!)

Unfortunately, in my attempt to thank my folks for buying me such a wonderful toy... well.. I kinda bombed!

I HAD tried to make a cheesecake ice cream for all to enjoy during the last day of their visit last week, and I THOUGHT I was on to something. I even made a graham cracker crust to crunch up and swirl in!

Unfortunately, the recipe itself just didn't pan out. You see, it called for using a pudding mix.. ad while it DID provide a DEAD-ON comparative taste for cheesecake... it never really gave that 'ice cream' texture. it was, for all intents and purposes.. frozen pudding. bleh. even MORE bleh?? 10 minutes after sitting on the counter because I didn't want to finish mine? it still had the pudding texture. it just wasn't as cold. boo!

So now, you can probably imagine... I'm feeling the pressure. determined to get a good batch from this $100 toy... I researched some recipes and went to bat again. I was gonna make it work if it killed me this time.

(now in case you were wondering if I'm really that crazy-psycho-perfectionist... ok.. maybe a little... but I'm really not. I was just under the gun to create an ice cream to go with my entry for the ice cream cupcake challenge I was entering. Fear not.. I had already source a store that sold a hearty version of the flavor I needed in case I botched up yet another batch.)

So here I am... ready to make some coconut ice cream happen.

I got all my ingredients... and yes.. I was sure to get CREAM OF COCONUT.. not coconut MILK.

whisked it all together and poured it in the maker. well.. ALMOST all. I was a little sloppy, and there were some coconut flakes that went AWOL... but not so many that you'd miss them.

so just like those lame late-night commercials that beg you to 'set it and forget it'... I did just that. I let the machine churn its fatty-goodness contents, and I got us a nice batch of coconut ice cream.

The taste was so good! and I'm not just saying that cause I didn't screw it up. I really did like the ice cream! and it's going to be great for using in my entry for the ice cream cupcake challenge. but I'd for sure do this again (maybe add some pineapple bits a la pina colada? or chocolate chips? mmm... yeah. I'll do this again!)

eventually I'll take on one of those crazy ice cream recipes that calls for you to boil egg yolks and make custard and such before chilling then adding to the machine... but I'll save that for one of my 'I've had too much coffee' kind of days.

even though I linked to the recipe above.. I'll re-type it here for you. cause I'm feeling generous like that. (and it's all of what... 2 steps?)

Coconut Ice Cream (as listed on All Recipes)

INGREDIENTS

1 cup milk
1 (14 ounce) can cream of coconut (DO NOT USE coconut milk!!)
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
1 1/2 cups sweetened flaked coconut (*optional, and see my notes below)

DIRECTIONS

Combine the milk and cream of coconut in the container of a food processor or blender, and mix thoroughly. Stir in cream and flaked coconut.

Pour into the container of an ice cream maker, and freeze according to the manufacturer's instructions.

* NOTE!! the flaked coconut I used was very long. well not VERY, but a bit on the long side. i would, should you choose to add the coconut flakes, either chop them in a food processor or cut them up a little with a knife before adding in. it'll make for more even bites, and decrease the likelihood of you getting a long flake stuck between two teeth, which could cause social embarrassment or slight pain. either way.. you're welcome. I'm only looking out for YOU here.

My First Big Gig!

2009-05-29T08:54:00.000-04:00

I had my first BIG gig!!!

Well.. it turns out all my bake sale contributions have finally paid off. A woman at my church happened to come across a batch of my Cordially Cherry Happy Janes, and she was smitten. SO smitten, in fact, that she commissioned me to provide her with 25 DOZEN of them for a volunteer appreciation party she was charged with hosting.

(insert big huge smiling Carrie here!)

This project was a true exercise in time management, as well as a chance to create invoices and receipts for my budding business. I'm PROUD to say that the creation of and delivery of this job was done seamlessly. like.. I was done before 9pm the night before seamlessly. (I KNOW!! awesome, right??)

signed, sealed, and delivered!

In hindsight-- I COMPLETELY undercharged this order. I have no shame in saying that because it WAS an event for church, and it WAS my first big order. But yeah... The church got a GREAT deal on these... I probably averaged about $4/hour BEFORE my costs were taken out... MAYBE 25 cents/hour profit.

but that's GOOD. all part of the lessons learned!

In addition to those things, I feel I have a better understanding of ground rules and expectations when it will come to ordering and payment. I was a little bummed that it took about a week AFTER the event to be paid for the work, and when I was, the check was made out to A Taste of Stepford. (which meant I was unable to CASH the check because at the time I did not have an account set up under the fictitious name of Stepford)

But everything is a step forward in this journey. I do find it slightly meaningful that it was an order from church that forced me in the direction of above-board business practices such as proper account naming and licencing... but that's just me.

The bottom line is that I accomplished my biggest order to date with timeliness, style, and a great product.

and I got PAID.

Whe-hoo!

WINNERS!

2009-05-15T10:53:00.004-04:00

Thanks so much to all of you who participated in my "Fan Appreciation Day" Contest! there were a number of first-time commenters, as well as my loyal readers who honestly... make this whole blogging aspect worthwhile!

so THANKS!

Now, I know I said I was only going to have TWO winners for every fifty comments, but I decided to let the random number generator choose THREE comments. (honestly? I made a big batch this time, and I have to get rid of them before *I* eat them all!!)

so thanks to the random number generator...

I can happily say a hearty congratulations to:

1. DIANA

2. CATHY

3. NANCY

I will be contacted you each very soon to make sure I have your correct mailing address! THEN, I'm off to the post office to mail your prizes!

Thanks again to each of you for playing as well as all of the promoting that was done! I've got a few more Jane Flavors I've been thinking about, so you never know when I'm going to do another contest!

xxoo!

Fan Appreciation Day - A CONTEST!

2009-05-14T14:55:00.002-04:00

I really should have cleaned today. or did the laundry. or prepped dinner so I'm not left scratching my head in a mad scramble trying to feed everyone when we get back from my daughter's dance class.

instead... I made a new Jane. And while I will have a full post describing the newest Happy Jane up soon... I thought I'd make the introduction short and sweet.

meet the "Fanna Banana"

There's no monkeying around with this Happy Jane... She's got a banana cookie base (which happens to be egg-less, by the way), a white chocolate and banana cream center, and then she's topped with a generous coating of extra dark and bittersweet chocolate.

These Janes were inspired because both my husband and son are fans of bananas (get it.. fanna banana = fan OF banana??) and every now and then I like to make the guys in my life happy. Then I figured.. why not make some READERS happy, too?

So here goes, gang---

I'm going to give away TWO sets of 6 Fanna Banana Happy Janes for every FIFTY comments I get on this post. All it takes is a comment telling me what YOU are a fan of. (well, that, and the random number generator picking your comment number!)

(wait.. back up.. what do I mean 2 sets of 6 for every fifty? Did I not drink my coffee today or something?)

so it goes like this: If I get anywhere from 2-99 comments on this post, the random number generator will pick TWO comment entries to each have a half-dozen happy Janes mailed to them. if this post sees 100+ comments? then FOUR winners will be chosen. 150+ comments? SIX winners. you get the drift. I will, however, limit the number of winners to 10. not that I can even IMAGINE this blog post getting more than 250 comments (snort! hah! maniacal laughing like you can't imagine going on!) but in the CRAZY chance that I DO get more than 250 comments, I'm going to keep the winner count at 10. otherwise I'd be in the poorhouse trying to ship these girls to all the winners! That's fair enough, right?

so while I'm at it.. here's a FEW other little tiny rules:

1 comment per person with a valid e-mail address so I can contact you, please!

do NOT forget to say what you're a fan of! Keep with the theme, people!

Winner must reside in the continental USA. (I don't want them spoiling or melting before they have a chance to even arrive!)

ALL COMMENTS must be received by 9am EST TOMORROW, FRIDAY MAY 15th.

BONUS ENTRIES! want to be able to leave another comment/get another entry? Here's TWO MORE WAYS TO ENTER:

OPTION A - Link to this contest on Twitter! afterwards, come back here and leave a comment with the URL of your tweet. (URL can be obtained by clicking the timestamp below your tweet)

OPTION B - Link to this contest on your blog! afterwards, come back and leave a comment with the URL of your blog post linking to the contest.

Not bad, eh? Three chances to enter, and since I'm going to say that a person can only 'win' once... the odds are pretty good on the spread.

Good luck! now spread the word, so I can spread some appreciation!

_____________________

Thanks so much to all of you who entered! I'm certainly a fan of people who enter my contests!

Speaking of contests... this one is officially CLOSED!!! check back later for the WINNERS!!!

The Secret Lives of Cupcakes

2009-05-12T15:12:00.002-04:00

Cupcakes remind me a LOT of people. Cupcakes.. much like people... all are different. different shapes, different colors, some good, some bad... and let's face it... there are pretty ones, and there are ones you don't want to be caught in public with.

Consequently.. you just don't know about a cupcake til you get under the wrapper and sink your teeth into one. (please note.. I do not suggest taking wrappers off of or sinking teeth into people. this might not go over very well with people that don't know you very well...)

Today I made a simple vanilla cupcake for my daughter and her friend that came over for a playdate. Then I topped with a very simple chocolate ganache buttercream frosting.

I'm sure the kids were happy enough with the very idea of cupcakes.. and CHOCOLATE frosting.

but I'd be a liar if I didn't say that it made me happy to watch them discover that their cupcakes were techno-blue with chocolate chips inside.

I guess secrets aren't always a bad thing.

Very Simple Vanilla Cupcakes (adopted from the book 500 Cupcakes)

1/2 cup (1 stick) sweet butter, softened
1/2 cup superfine sugar
1 cup self-rising flour (I used all-porpose)
1/2 tsp baking powder
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat Oven to 350F, place 12 paper baking cups in muffin pan.

Place all ingredients ina medium bowl and beat with electric mixer until smooth and pale, about 2 to 3 minutes.

Spoon mixture into the cups, bake for 20 minutes. (I have a convection oven, and took mine out at 18 minutes)

Remove pans from oven and cool for 5 minutes, then remove teh cupcakes and cool on a rack.

Store in an airtight container for up to 3 days, or freeze for up to three months.

yields 1 dozen

___________

Feel free to add in whatever mixers you feel appropriate to show a little bit of YOUR inner self.

We added techno blue food coloring and a gabzillion semi-sweet chocolate chips. (Playdates just seem more fun with a gabzillion chocolate chips.)

getting there is half the fun

2009-05-11T21:30:00.004-04:00

So I've been on a mission lately. Not only have I gotten it into my head that I need to make a cupcake counterpart to every Happy Jane flavor I create... but I also want to enter the Ice Cream Cupcake challenge this year.

Two things need to happen for me to accomplish my goals. First... I need to get an ice cream maker. I was TOTALLY hoping to get one for Mother's day... but I got a lawnmower instead. I'm not going to talk about that here, though.. because I do try to keep from using profanities on this blog. So whatever. I'm still ice cream maker-less. But I'm not too worried. my husband may MAKE the money, but I control the budget. There shall definitely be a belated mother's day ice cream maker coming my way soon.

So the second thing is that I need to figure out how to make a good graham-cracker cupcake. I don't mean a vanilla cupcake with a graham cracker bottom. I mean.. "holy cow.. this tastes exactly like a graham cracker.. but it's a cupcake!"

I found a recipe online that I used yesterday.... but the problem is that it's in grams. gar! So I made some conversions and did my best to re-create this recipe.

The 'batter' ended up being VERY THICK. like "am I making muffins or scones here?" thick.

Nonetheless... they baked up fine. At least by looks anyway. to taste one out of the oven was not what I had hoped for. They tasted a bit... well... bran muffinish. I mean.. they were OK.... but not roll over and find a glass of milk good or anything.

But I thought... let me forge forward. you never know what they'll taste like after I pipe some buttercream in there and cover them with chocolate. Oh wait.. did I say buttercream? Yeah... I did. Marshmallow buttercream, as a matter of fact. thick, sugary, make-your-teeth-hurt marshmallow buttercream. SURELY that would balance the neutral graham taste of the cake.

But wait... because I was looking to re-create my More than S'mores Happy Janes in Cupcake Formation... I needed to get some chocolate. Thank you, Trader Joe's... this ought to work nicely in a ganache layer on top.

and nicely it did. I spooned a little on each cupcake, and sprinkled with a few graham crackers for garnish.

When all was finally set... I excitedly peeled away the paper to see the treasure that would greet me. Looks good, no?

Of course... there's no point of piping in the buttercream if you can't see it in there... so here's a cross-section for you.

All in all... it was... lackluster.

I know!! so sad!!! I was really bummed it wasn't spot on. I even typed out the recipe with the conversions so I could include it here on my blog... but I don't feel right sharing it.. cause it wasn't good enough.

All in all... I need to tweak the recipe a little. I think... because I used an entire portion of graham flour... it was a little on the dry side. next time I'm going to use a mix of the graham and white all purpose flour. and instead of non-fat milk, I'm totally gonna break out the full-fat moo-juice. that little bit of fat helps to make a moist cake.. so I need not to skimp on that.

Also?? I need to pipe in MORE buttercream. The cake wasn't BAD... but with the grainy/branny/neutralnessof the cake, and the dark dark bitterness of the chocolate ganache... you really need a bit more punch of sweet for balance.

So hooray for the pictures... but fingers crossed that I can get this right. I really do want an authentic graham-cracker tasting CAKE... and when I DO get that magic combo down.. I will re-post with the winning recipe.

_________

let it be known that I am currently doing my best to personally get rid of all these 'bad' cupcakes. They may not be great... but I'd hate to see all that good chocolate go to waste. Besides... I figure, with every one I eat, I'm one bite closer to figuring out how to make it better. I better stop messing things up, though... summer is coming, and my bathing suits will not appreciate all these mistakes I'm eating!

Send 'em Some Sugar (Literally!)

2009-05-07T14:27:00.007-04:00

Do you ever see something and think.. oh, that's cute.. I could do that... then forget all about it?

A while back I had seen something in one of the many cake decorating books that I buy about decorating sugar cubes for a party. Cute idea, right? I thought so too.. then promptly forgot all about it.

The other day I indulged and bought myself another book called Beautiful Cakes by Peggy Porschen. It was in a discount bin, so I really couldn't resist. Sure enough, as if by fate.. the very last feature in her book (as well as the back cover art) is home-made sugar cubes.

I figured the baking gods must be screaming at me, cause sure enough.. here we are nearing the end of Teacher Appreciation Week, and a mere few days away from Mother's Day, and I have NOTHING. no gifts, no cards, nothing in the mail on the way anywhere... NOTHING. Ladies and gentlemen.. this is a time to send some SUGAR!

I will say that this was so ridiculously easy that I almost feel guilty giving this as a gift. With some sugar, a half of a drop of neon food coloring, a splash of water to dampen the sugar and my itty-bitty cookie cutters... I was totally in business.

really. if you've ever built a sand castle... you can do this. Take care that the sugar isn't TOO wet, make sure it isn't too dry, and be sure to pack it down.

oh, and wait a few minutes before trying to remove the cutter. otherwise you might end up with a jacked-up sugar shape.

or worse... a real mess.

within an hour or two, the sugar shapes were ready to be handled (GENTLY) to have their picture taken... but I'll be letting them 'dry' over night before I package them up. Nonetheless... here they are ready to sweeten a special some one's day.

Each of my daughter's teachers (and a few of my favorite friends that are moms) will be getting a box of tea and some home-made sugar cubes. While I have them slated for Teacher Appreciation and Mother's Day gifts.. these can certainly work as adorable favors for a baby shower, bridal tea, birthday, princess party, or even a get-well gift (spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down, right?)

Happy Mother's Day... Happy Teacher Appreciation Week, and just Happy Day in general! Now go send some sugar to someone... if they haven't already... they might just do something sweet for you in return.

Grahamtastic

2009-05-06T08:27:00.000-04:00

I've said it before. I'm SURE I'll say it again.

This recipe for home-made graham crackers is GREAT! A certain drawback is that of any other dough I make, I just can NOT help myself from eating this raw. maybe it's the honey, maybe it's the graham wheat flour itself, but all I need is a spoon and a bowl of this stuff. (Just don't tell my daughter... I tell her all the time we can't eat things because of raw eggs. she'd have a hypocritical field day with me if she knew how much I was sneaking behind her back.)

Of course, my main reason for making this recipe is so I can get my little graham cracker rounds for some of my Happy Jane varieties. but every time I DO make them I think... "Why don't I make these more often???"

If you have ever made a sugar cookie or cookie using a cutter with any success, then you can TOTALLY make these grahams. My only suggestion is to be sure to roll them out so they are thin. In the past I've made them thick like my cookies, and the kids just end up looking at me weird. like I'm giving them dog biscuits or something.

We were super boring and stuck with squares this time around, but I did let the kids 'prick' the holes in the top and 'help' with the sprinkling of the cinnamon sugar before baking. (notice the HEAVY layer of sugar??)

no joke.. any time of year these are a light and fun snack. and it should be noted that despite my kids' habit of a heavy pour/sprinkle of sugar on top, this treat has FAR less sugar than the majority of store-bought varieties out there. Almost kind of gives you the green light to cover them in chocolate and marshmallows, you think?

Right in the Kisser!

2009-05-02T14:33:00.006-04:00

So I've mentioned before that some the spring time, I like to find inspiration from citrus. Combine the availability of so many fresh fruits this time of year with all of the grass, trees, and flowers in bloom... and my mind kept seeing shades of green. Consequently, I succumbed to the green as well as gave a nod of respect to my days in Florida and bought myself a bag of Key Limes this week.

Of COURSE I was thinking about Key Lime Pies, but then I thought... ooooh... key lime HAPPY JANES. all the taste, tang and creamy goodness of a pie in one uber-decadent bite. SIGN ME UP!

Do you like how nice and neat I started with my bowl of key limes and clean cutting board?

Unfortunately, trying to de-pulp key limes is NOT an easy task. not only did my fingers prune in the prolonged exposure to juice, but man! I made quite a mess!

I tried everything! A peeler, a fork, knife, spoon... considered the food processor... but nothing but time and effort were the trick to removing the pulp (sans PITS!) from the little green meanies.

I strained the pulp and juice, because I was really only wanting to add the lime pulp. I knew too much 'juice' and my buttercream would not set, so I tried to minimize my liquid additions.

Once my buttercream filling was set, I piped it on to some home-made graham cracker rounds. I know I've said this before, but I LOVE this recipe for home-made graham crackers!!! So tasty!! (speaking of tasty... don't these girls look so GOOD??? )

You know the rest! do the dip.... let harden, and enjoy!! (ok, more like.. do the dip, get impatient waiting for white chocolate to set, stick in freezer, STARE at freezer willing sub-zero temperatures to make the shell harden already... THEN enjoy!) I tried to keep to the key lime pie 'flavor' as much as possible, so I stuck with white chocolate.

I joked on Twitter that my husband Troy was going to propose to me again when he tasted these.

He did. (well... no ring was involved.. but he did actually put his dishes in the dish washer, so that's close enough for me!)

Please give a warm welcome to our newest Jane----

The Key Lime Kisser!

Lessons Learned: de-pulping key limes is HARD! I have bought key-lime juice in the past, but man oh man, if I could out-right purchase key lime pulp.... I would totally do it. When I make these again (and I will... these are definitely a high-ranker in terms of flavor in our house, and I see them being made well into and through the summer!) I will try different methods of de-pulping. maybe I'll even try the food processor. you know.. once I figure out if eating key lime rinds is ok.

Holy Orders

2009-04-30T14:56:00.007-04:00

This week I was busy making a BUNCH of cross-shaped cookies for a first Communion this coming weekend in New Jersey. Coincidentally, the class of student *I* teach is ALSO making their first Communion this weekend, AND our church is having a bake sale.

It was agreed that I would make 5 dozen cookies for the New Jersey affair, but I ultimately baked 75 cookies... allowing myself a decent margin should I have any mishaps. I figured any extra I made can be donated to the church for the bake sale... with that many first-time communicants on the loose, I figured the cross-cookie might be an easy sell.

Having learned from my own mistakes, I decided I would stick with a simple (and REPEATABLE) design. I was thinking all-white... with some texturization. given the sheer QUANTITY of cookies I was taking on, I knew my hands would be able to handle only so much piping. the idea of switching back and forth between colors would have probably broken me.

The crosses came out pretty simple looking, but those looks can be deceiving. I completed the cookies in about 5 stages. First I piped the 'outline' of each cross. Second came the flooding. that provided a plain white 'background' for each cookie. I let those sit over night so I'd be working on a nice firm surface the next day. (this would also be the best practice if I were thinking about using colors on top of the white. if the white is not completely dry, you will run a VERY high probability of the colors bleeding. I should know.)

Phase three had me doing the jacquard/scroll pattern on each cookie. I finally hit my 'groove' of this step around dozen number three or four. A VERY important reminder if you do something like this yourself is to go back over these cookies within a reasonable amount of time and 'trim' up the excess scrolling. This is particularly important for stage FOUR... where I once again piped the 'outline' of each cross.

SIDE NOTES:

without the 'trimming', the outlines ended up being either raised up or crooked, period. I also feared that with the raised up edges, they would be the first area of breakage when the cookies would be shipped. the textured cookies are adorable in all the various ways they can be done.. but cracko! first to go every time.

Also? Some may argue that the final 'outline' is not necessary, but personally i feel it lends a polished and profession touch to each cookie. Blame the engineer in me, but I like seeing definitive edges.

The final step for the cookies was to (after one more night of hardening/drying time) was to brush a luster dust over each cookie to give a pearlized sheen. (Note to self-- I NEED to get a bigger design brush.. using the little one took me FOREVER!)

During my 'down time' of waiting for the royal icing to dry.. I worked on the favor tags. I found some great pearlized green card stock that I used as the springboard for my design. (also why I chose to do the luster-dust on each cookie)

I printed the pertinent info on some heavy white card stock, then used one of those fancy-shmancy scissors to cut out and glue on to the green paper. Also? found a bucket of table confetti and glued a flower to each 'tag'. The flower confetti was also pearlized... so it was a perfect match.

Before I knew it, it was assembly time. Bag, tag, tie, pack. repeat 60 times.

I will also take a moment to note that the ribbon i used was squeezabley adorable. perfect color match, and just the right width. and who can resist a polka dot? AWESOME, I say!!

Finally, all 59 cookies were bagged and tagged. (yeah... one broke cause I'm clumsy and dropped it. I was bummed at first, but then I ate it. No sense mailing a broken cookie, and I was running low on energy, anyway. )

The most unsettling thing in this whole process for me is what came next... boxing up. Usually I shrink-wrap each cookie, but I opted for favor bags this time. I have no idea if they will 'behave' differently en route...but I definitely used about $20 worth of bubble wrap.

So that's it! the cookies have been mailed, and should arrive either tomorrow or Saturday. I toyed with the idea of driving them up myself, but my husband vetoed it on grounds of not being safe with the amount of time between MY class' mass and the one in New Jersey. I definitely put enough love in each cookie, so I'm sure the guest of honor will know how much we're missing her on her special day.

Love you, Laney-Bird! I hope you enjoy your cookies!

Citrus Inspiration

2009-04-22T10:17:00.005-04:00

So in the springtime, I like to start thinking about lighter flavors. I use a lot more citrus fruits in my cooking, and consequently, the same holds true for my baking. I've recently become a big fan of these raspberry/lemon muffins, and plan on trying out the BLUEberry/lemon recipe very soon.

At any rate, with my thoughts on spring colors and lighter flavors, I thought it was time that I gave my Janes a fresh look for the season as well. During Lent I had plennnnty of time to think about what flavor combos I would try next, and while I still have 2 more up my sleeve, I wanted to share my two latest creations.

The first one stemmed from all those extra lemons I had kicking around. After whipping up a batch of buttercream filling, I added in some lemon extract and a heaping amount of lemon zest. After that filling sat over night, (I wanted the buttercream to REALLY absorb the lemony zing from the zest) I piped the filling on to some vanilla cookie rounds.

The rest came easy as pie. Lemon meringue pie, that is! Each treat got a dunk in white chocolate, then topped with a few of my 'home-made' lemon sprinkles. Sweet, tart, and refreshing... all in one little Jane!

I call this one "Dang Meringue"

My husband Troy is a big fan of orange, so the next Jane was kind of for him. I *like* oranges... but Troy? forget about it! Orange water, orange soda, sherbert, creamsicles, gatorade... BLEH! he likes all of that!

So I copied the lemon filling concept, but switched it out for orange extract and orange zest. After 'resting' over night... I also piped that filling on the vanilla cookie rounds.

Pretending to be a fan of creamsicles, I colored some white chocolate with some orange color gel, and gave the girls a dunk. A few (store-bought this time.. I got lazy!) sprinkles for garnish later, and another Jane was born.

I had a hard time coming up with a name for this creation. My 4 year old daughter tried one and upon finding out this particular combination was title-less, insisted that I name them "Orange Peels". It's not a bad name.. and for now that's what I'll call them. Feel free to make a name suggestion, though. you never know when I might take a liking to it and send you some of your own Happy Janes as a way of thanking you.

"Orange Peel" Happy Janes

I hope you're all enjoying your springs, as well as the fresh colors and flavors the season offers!

Stay tuned, cause I have some new things with key limes and raspberries on my list of fruit to make bad for you!

Heart-Shaped Genius

2009-04-21T09:06:00.007-04:00

Sometimes, when I'm in the zone of making and creating... I think I come across a stroke of genius. perhaps it's a throw back to the days when I used to work, and part of my job was to come up with engineered solutions to a myriad of things.

I'm really not one to boast... (ok, maybe a little!) but when I get these 'great ideas', I certainly like to share them. Then I blog about them! (ok.. so maybe I am a bit more than a little boastful!) but it's certainly validating to tell someone (or post about) my great idea or creation and get some positive feedback. Besides.. it's not like my kids are all that interested in what I'm doing. At least not process-wise. to them, it's all "show me the cupcakes!"

At any rate.. I HAVE to share my latest "ah-hah!" moment. Granted.. it's not a pretty sight. in fact... I SHOULD make the disclaimer that I swear I am not making any illegal drugs in these pictures.... despite the appearance otherwise.

Yesterday, I made sprinkles. Lemon-flavored, heart (and circle!) shaped SPRINKLES.

Originally, I was going to take some gumpaste, dye it yellow, add in some lemon extract, roll it out, and attempt to cut out some cute shapes so I could apply them to my newest Happy Jane flavor. but then it hit me..... STARBURSTS!!!

They were SO awesome to shape into veggies when I made Danny's birthday cake... why not melt them down and do the same thing here? So that's exactly what I did. Melted, coated with corn starch to reduce the stickiness... rolled them flat, then used my piping tips to cut out some circles...

and used a heart-shaped hole punch to get the heart sprinkles. GENIUS!

I was so happy with the results, I just HAD to blog about it. I mean.. the color was vibrant! the FLAVOR was perfect in this case... and the hole-punch was just too too easy. TOTALLY worth my $5 hunch I had when I bought the puncher. I can't wait to go and buy more shapes now. The cupcakes, janes, and cakes (as well as pancakes!! and ice cream!!) I imagine waiting to be sprinkled now are endless.

I'm sure I will eventually use the gumpaste with color and flavor to match my occasion.. but if starburst makes a color and flavor... you can bet I'll use them in a heart beat. (get it? HEART beat??)

I love it when a plan comes together!

Because "Intense Chocolate" Makes Me Happy

2009-04-19T15:58:00.005-04:00

So thank GOODNESS Lent is over! I have missed baking!!!

Mind you, I have NOT missed EATING this week... I am certainly doing my share of indulging on all the things I fasted from the past few weeks.

This weekend, we had some friends over for dinner, and I wanted to try my hand at a recipe I had done a year ago or so.

It's called Intensely Chocolate Mousse Cake, and it's a recipe I found over on the Kraft website.

I had made this recipe before, as I said.. but this time around, I decided to change up the recipe just a little. For example... instead of just pouring the mousse mixture into my spring form pan... I decided to lay down a chocolate-cookie crust first.

I used some of my un-decorated chocolate butter cookies, but if you don't have those? chocolate graham crackers crushed up would work just as well. Just be sure to mix in some melted butter so it pats down nicely.

Another change I made was to use cocoa powder in preparing my spring form pan. Flour works just as well, but leaves a white residue on the finished product. Take it from me.. if you're making a chocolate cake... use the cocoa powder. it'll look THAT much nicer when you're finished.

I also used my favorite chocolate for baking.. the dark chocolate pound-plus bars from Trader Joe's. if you use YOUR favorite chocolate... stick with about 9 ounces.

I served it up with some nice cold whipped cream, and that was a good pairing, since the title is no lie.. it is a VERY intensely chocolate cake.

just.. don't judge me when I tell you that NEXT time I make this??? I'm totally gonna add chocolate CHUNKS to the mousse filling. huminuh huminuh.. now THAT'LL be intense!

Easter Bunnies are Crumblin' to Town

2009-04-12T15:37:00.001-04:00

Ok... I'll admit it. I enjoy eating rabbits on Easter. you name it.. chocolate ones (solid, hollow or filled!), cookie ones, heck.. I'd even take a Gummy Bunny after giving up sweets for all of Lent! I think it's the ears... the way they stick out? they're just BEGGING to be chomped right off!!!

This year I decided to indulge my affliction for the hoppers in cookie form. (ok.. truth be told, I made too much cookie dough for the going away party cookies, and since it was Easter weekend, I figured I might as well. Besides... I couldn't do carrots again. they're SO last year!)

So from my family to yours... the four of us wish you a "Hoppy" Easter.

Just, you know.. pay no mind to the slightly bug-eyed and buck-toothed rabbits. (that was an attempt at quirky-cute that started to border on creepy/possessed. note the style change with the others, yes?)

Happy Easter!

Going, Going, Gone

2009-04-11T10:24:00.001-04:00

A friend of ours recently moved to San Francisco. ASIDE from being ridiculously talented (I swear, ONE of these days I'll get the new and improved Stepford site up and running! (Annie came up with what will be my new logo and helped with the new layout design.)) again.. ASIDE from being super-amazing and talented.. she's just a great girl, period.

As a little send-off gift for her, I made some cookies for her going-away party.

As with any new design I do... I draw it out on paper before I attempt to pipe. if I can't draw it, there's no way I'd be able to PIPE it!

a progress shot. if you're wondering why the techno-bright colors, I was matching the ribbons I had purchased to wrap the favors with. they were white with multi-colored polka dots. Hey.. the party was a day before Easter.. there weren't too may options to choose from when i went looking for ribbons!

Finished shot of some of the cookie favors. looking back, I think I like the solid-color framed cookies the best. a little less "busy", shall I say?

Once I completed all the round cookie favors, I set off on creating a larger, central display cookie. for that cookie, I wanted to pipe the Golden Gate Bridge to remind the party-goers where our guest of honor was headed.

Although I was happy with how the bridge piping turned out....

I'm kinda mad at my wording efforts. I'll throw you for a loop and do my "LESSONS LEARNED" segment a little early. The "Goodbye and Good Luck" piping was a little uneven. and in my opinion there was too much 'dead space' on the large cookie. It doesn't look so bad when the round cookies were flanking it...

but I certainly feel like I could have done 'more' with the large cookie. At the very least a bigger center design?

Nonetheless, I think the guest of honor enjoyed her special cookies, and it was a pleasure to see her one more time before she left. She will be missed here in the neighborhood, and San Francisco is lucky to be getting her.

Good Luck, Ann! Love you much!

Luck of the Irish

2009-03-17T10:11:00.000-04:00

so my previous post highlighted my FAILED attempt at a new Happy Jane Flavor.

it's been a while since I posted it, but I do recall the gist was that the IDEA was good, but it was just falling short.

I just wanted to let the record stand that I eventually DID figure out how to make the Jane an acceptable member of the family.

I tweaked the recipe so that the 'filling' was thicker (a lot less Bailey's this time, and more sugar. enough Bailey's for flavor, but not so much that the filling was 'soft' like last time, and there was less of an alcohol-y taste.)

I also used a better chocolate. I stuck with my instincts of using Milk Chocolate. I know my folks probably preferred that I would have used a dark chocolate, but the milk chocolate flows better with that creamy-dreamy taste I was shooting for. And let's face it... my creation... my choice of chocolate, right? ;)

So at long last... let's give a hearty welcome to our newest Jane-

"Irish Dreams"

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Stepford's Rejects

2009-02-22T14:10:00.006-05:00

I knew it would happen. I was doing too well with the whole "Happy Jane" train I had going. Good flavors, good reviews... all was... well... GOOD.

So I had been thinking on a good flavor combination that I could present in March, and being the good little Irish girl I am.. I thought it'd be a kick to do something with Bailey's Irish Cream. Also, for personal reasons, I give up sweets/desserts during the Lenten Season for my religion. Since March falls during Lent, I wanted to do my flavor testing a little early.. you know... while I could actually taste it without breaking my fast.

All started off great. Chocolate cookie bases were made, then set aside while I whipped up a Bailey's butter cream for my centers. Piped that on the rounds, and got ready to do the dip.

So I had decided to use a milk chocolate this time around... thinking I didn't want to squelch the taste of the Bailey's. However... the only milk chocolate I had available was in the form of milk chocolate morsels. from Target.

I've used Target brand things before.. and they're FINE. but this time it didn't work. and i had a nagging feeling in my gut when I was melting it down.. as I usually only use my best chocolates for the outer shells... but still... I proceeded.

Unfortunately.. the chocolate never melted down to be smooth or 'wet' enough. It remained a bit gloppy... and when I went to dip my rounds... things just went further downhill. Despite freezing the rounds topped with the bailey's butter cream... the filling just began to melt away under the heat of the gloppy milk chocolate. Adding to my frustration... I just couldn't get a smooth finish for the rounds. they looked like little rats' nests on my cooling racks.

I even tried to 'doll' them up a bit by adding zig-zaggy strips of colored gum-paste. meh. still didn't do it for me.... so I gave up and left the remainder as plain. (plain Bailey's rats' nests, that is!)

After over an hour, noticed the Janes were just not setting... and more so that the centers were beginning to ooze out, since the heat from the chocolate was melting the butter-cream.

finally I just put them in the fridge to set. Once they hardened.. they weren't too bad. As you can see... I still ate a few.

Ultimately... this 'recipe' won't make it to my Stepford site. the TASTE was good... but the appearance was nowhere near up to par for its sister Janes. I will try to re-do this.. perhaps make the butter cream a LITTLE thicker... and either find a better milk chocolate or switch to a dark that I know will melt nicely and form a better shell.

Cordially Cherry Happy Janes

2009-02-10T14:34:00.004-05:00

So as I mentioned before.. I came up with a new flavor of Happy Janes this past weekend. ok.. so the IDEA for the flavor stemmed a long time ago from my husband who, several months ago, begged me to do a chocolate and cherry combination.

well maybe not BEGGED.

he might have done a gorilla-styled "oooh-oooh-oooh!!!" in asking me, though.

not one to disappoint, I declared February would be the month to do it. I mulled around some different ideas.. fresh cherries, dried cherries, cherry extract... white chocolate, milk chocolate.. DARK chocolate.... Finally I decided to go with a chocolate cookie base, topped with a cherry-infused ganache, coated in a dark chocolate.

cherry-infused, you ask?

yeah. so I took some cherries, and added them to my heavy cream during the boiling process of making my ganache. once the cream was boiling, I strained the cherries out. This part was NOT very pretty, and gave the cream a funky reddish-brown color... but I definitely feel there was a certain sweet after-taste that the cherries added.

once my chocolate was fully melted and mixed with the cream, I folded in some finely chopped DRIED cherries. As you can see.. I totally avoided using cherry extract. for one.. because it's crap. but seriously.. it gives things such a maraschino FAKE cherry taste that I can't be affiliated with. bleh! so no extract.

after the piping was done, I coated in a bittersweet and extra dark chocolate blend, then topped with some festive heart sprinkles.

these are truly a chocolate lover's treat.... but I do enjoy the chewy and zingy-sweet element the cherries add. So let's say hello and welcome to the newest Jane in the neighborhood... the Cordially Cherry.

if the description and pictures of the Cordially Cherry Happy Janes aren't enough for you.. take a stroll over to A Taste of Stepford. By the end of March, things will be set up there for you to be able to order your very own batch of Janes.

We have a WINNER

2009-02-09T12:24:00.005-05:00

First off.. I want to say thanks to all that visited my blog and participated in this latest contest!

As I type, I have a fresh batch of cookies in the oven, partially on their way to becoming a tasty valentine treat for one of you.

what's that? oh... you want to know who won???

ok, ok... I'll spare you the agony of waiting any more.

The lucky winner, via the cool random number generator.... is #18!!!

So let's send some big love and congratulations to Jodes!

Jodes, please e-mail me the address to which you would like for your dozen cookies to be sent to, and your personalized batch will be on their way! you can e-mail me at czernikowski@hotmail.com

Thanks again to all who participated... and for my first FOLLOWER! Thanks to Melinda Mey for being my first groupie! (you too can be a follower, btw... there's a place to click along the left sidebar!)

look for some new posts this week... I've been doing a ton of baking! I also came up with a new flavor for my Happy Janes, so I'll be sharing that... and very soon I'll be talking more about my side project, A Taste of Stepford. Then, of course.. you never know when I'm going to bust out with another contest!

thanks again for all who participated.. and congrats to Jodes! Happy Valentine's Day!!

A Little More Conversation - A Contest!

2009-02-06T10:38:00.007-05:00

Well... on the verge of Valentine's day, and with all this LOVE in the air... I decided it was high time for me to host another contest. Besides... I need to be baking more, and this poor blog has been feeling lonely!

One of the most popular treats you see at Valentine's day are those little boxes of 'conversation hearts'. personally? I can't stand them! Now, that doesn't mean to say that I don't EAT some every year... (what can I say... you never know if/when your tastes may change!) but invariably.. every year... BLEH.

So... out of respect for the item's popularity, but keeping my tastes and talents in mind... I like to make some Conversation Heart Cookies. Below you'll see some I've made in the past.

This year? I'm giving you a chance to win your very own batch.... (that'd be a dozen)... right in time for Valentine's Day! what's the catch? none. well.. you DO have to leave a comment, and you DO have to live in the Continental US. After that... the handy-dandy random number generator will do the work. Oh, and leave your comment before NOON EST on MONDAY, FEBRUARY 9th.

Really. it's that easy. one comment = a chance to win.

ANNNND... since I'm feeling crazy... I'll even give you a SECOND chance to win. Link to this post on your blog, facebook, or twitter feed, and you'll get another entry. Just come back here after you link me, and leave me a comment saying where you pimped me out.

Can you feel the love tonight?

good... now let's give them somethin' to talk about!

_________________

Official Rules:

one comment/entry per person, with one BONUS entry allowable if a second comment is left showing where/how you link back to this post.

All comments/link backs must be posted PRIOR to 12:00pm EST, Monday, February 9th.

Winner will receive 1 dozen personalized Conversation Heart cookies, shipping via USPS Priority 2-3 day Mail.... just in time for the 14th

____________

comments are now officially closed!

And baby makes Three!

2009-02-03T09:51:00.004-05:00

A few weeks ago, I got my first 'gig' doing cookies for someone. A friend was hosting a baby shower for someone who was having their third baby... and she asked me to do cookies as favors for the party guests. It was an exciting event for me, and I'd be lying if I didn't admit that my nerves were on edge the whole week. I mean.. for the first time I was baking for a guest of honor that I didn't know!!!

would the cookies be good enough?

would they hold up well? (shipped to Arizona!)

would they get there in time????

Supposedly all turned out well... I've only had sporadic contact with the hostess since the event. The good news is that no matter what... I was able to get more practice in. and my shrink-wrapping is coming along rather well, too! (especially considering the SHAPE of these cookies)

Poor Susie... when I did the monster truck cookies for her son, Liam.. yikes. the shrink wrap on them was like an INCH thick. hah! and they were CIRCLES! so yeah.. definitely getting better about those.

also got a chance to play with backgrounds for the cookies. I'm finding that fabric backgrounds seem to take the best pictures for the cookies. While the wrapping paper offers great colors.. I always get a shine. and bonus! a friend of mine reminded me that fabric stores always have a TON of scraps for super cheap.... so look for (hopefully!!) some better pictures highlighting my efforts in posts to come.

speaking of things to come... February bake sale is this coming weekend. I had a request to make my biscotti again... and I have a new Happy Jane flavor in the works. Also? can you believe I've never done my cookies for the bake sale??? so yeah. I think some nicely decorated hearts are in order.

Oh, Fudge!

2009-01-24T14:51:00.004-05:00

yeah. so you know those times when you get a crazy idea to do something at 9pm, and the voice of reason FAILS you, so you end up doing it??

well.. I decided, on a whim, to make FUDGE one evening.

first of all.. I have never made fudge before, but I decided it was high time I make some, and more importantly.. EAT some.

let the record show that this was a big mistake.

I didn't even bother taking pictures of it, because for ONE.. I didn't know what I was doing, and TWO... I was too bent on EATING the creation to even think straight.

I feel foolish, as the ingredients for MOST fudge recipes are merely chocolate and condensed milk... but somewhere between chopping the chocolate and sticking my fingers in and licking the ingredients as they melted, things went astray.

In the end.. it was eaten. but it was not so much fudgey as it was a grainy chocolate bar. bleh. I would have been better off just sticking a straw into a bottle of chocolate syrup and going to town, or just eating the baking chips right out of the package.

I'm chalking this up as a hormonal-driven catastrophe. Ordinarily I wouldn't/shouldn't post about hot messes like this.. but I need to document these kind of mistakes so I can learn from them. really. cooking is not always about the ingredients and techniques you use.. it also has a lot to do with your mental state while PERFORMING such tasks as baking/creating/cooking.

I do plan on attempting the fudge again, though. (I won't go down without at least another fight!) I WILL, however.. wait until a better time of the month for my next attempt.. and maybe try it during the day when I'm a little less 'cagey'. just sayin'.

More-than-S'Mores

2009-01-04T15:06:00.000-05:00

Ladies and gentlemen... I'm happy to announce I have created another Happy Jane Flavor.

Meet the "More-than-a-S'more"....

I was going to call them S'mores a Go-Go, but I used that name for a post I did about little S'mores favors I made for my son's first birthday. Who knows.. maybe I will go with the Go-Go name. but not now. Now I just want to share the latest Jane.

So she was SUPER easy to make... did a batch of the home-made graham crackers. I'm definitely loving that recipe that Cupcake Project posted. LOVE IT!

As usual, I roll it out on the thick side, then cut out my rounds. I like the bottoms to be thick because the topping are just SO sweet that the thicker cookie base is needed for balance. otherwise.. why am I not just making filled chocolates, you know?

ANYWAY. after my rounds were made, I had some dough left, so I rolled it nice and thin so I could have some graham crackers for the kids. (for the kids.. THIN is the key. I've made fun shapes for them in the past, using the same thickness as I do for my sugar cookies, and wow.. it's like eating dog biscuits. So for non-Happy-Jane graham cracker making? thinner is better in our house.)

but back to the Janes. I piped a home-made marshmallow butter cream on the rounds, then dipped them in a dark chocolate.

these were very very sweet. ALMOST too sweet for my taste with that marshmallow filling... but again.. the thicker graham rounds help spread out that sweetness so it wasn't a full-on assault of your teeth. (I do NOT recommend eating the toppings off the cookies first. really. TOO SWEET! YOW!)

Nonetheless... I think these will make a fine addition to the Happy Jane Flavor Roster. the best part? no camping required to enjoy them!

Lessons Learned: the marshmallow butter cream is not nearly as thick as some of my other toppings. when in the dipping stage, I find it is far better to dip the cookies and filling right after they have been removed from the freezer so they can withstand the heat of the melted chocolate. towards the end of the batch I had on my tray, I found that the filling was melting under the chocolate, and gave way to a 'broken shell' appearance. Still tasty.. but not as pretty to me.

oops!

Cookie Kits

2008-12-22T09:14:00.005-05:00

One of the biggest indicators of me being 'off my mark' lately is the lack of activity on this blog. Ask me how much Christmas baking I've done this year. It's right about at the same level of how much shopping and Christmas card making/sending I've done.

next to nothing.

oh well.

there's still a few days til Christmas, so I may still get a fire under me and crank some stuff out. I DID, however, put some time aside to make some cookie kits for my daughter's preschool class.

I was lucky to be one of the volunteer moms for her Christmas party last week. Highlights of the party were to include pizza making, a story, and cookie decorating. The other mom said she would take care of the pizza supplies, so I happily said I'd take care of the cookie decorating.

The cookies themselves were no great shakes... I used a simple butter cookie recipe, and made enough so that each child would get one candy-cane shaped and one tree-shaped cookie to decorate. Because these kids are 4 years old, I kept the cookies on the thin side, versus my normal thick style I use for decorating with royal icing.

Inspiration hit to create the 'kits' when my daughter and son were working on a project together. arms flailing, tempers rising, and too much whining while two kids fought over who gets to use what materials are not a good combination when trying to stay on Santa's good list... and I pictured what it would be like with TEN boys and girls trying to reach for the same sprinkles at once.

Hence.. the cookie kits were born.

I hit up my local super-everything-store and purchased some inexpensive plastic containers. At a price of $2-something for a 4 pack... I'd say I got a good deal while staying on point for a budget.

Each kits also received three types of sprinkles, which were put in little plastic condiment cups. Let me tell you.. those cups are FANTASTIC. for storing sprinkles to putting ranch dressing for my daughter's carrot-stick snacks, to individual servings of jello-shots back in the day when my husband and I had more of an industrious social life.... anyways... LOVE them. and the lids... don't forget the lids! seriously.. they are so perfect and useful for SO many things... I always have them in my pantry.

so each kit got the sprinkles, two cookies, a plastic spoon, and some vanilla frosting that I put in the disposable pastry bags, then tied in a knot. no mess, no fuss, no fighting or reaching or germs spreading from one set of sticky fingers to the communal sprinkles. Well.. maybe not so much on the 'no mess' part. they are FOUR, after all.

I rounded out each kit with a splash of color on the top, then individual labels for each child.

really.. this was such an easy thing to prepare.. and so inexpensive... and each child felt special cause it was made especially for them.

So while this project didn't involve a LOT of baking.. I think it deserves to be on here in my baking journal because it accompanies the experience of EATING the baked goods. I will totally do these kits again for one of my children's future birthday parties. From what I could tell, it was a hit with the kids and teachers alike.... so for sure this will be on my list of things to do again. After all.. happy, non-fighting kids equals happy, non-yelling mom.

Lessons Learned: If I were to ever market this, I would definitely include a 'decorating mat' of some sorts, and perhaps a little explanatory note card. Something cutesy and fun like a check-list or decorating ideas... whatever was age or theme appropriate. Best part is that this can be made to suit any theme, and as said previously... was fairly inexpensive to create.

Corny, but Cute!

2008-11-25T08:03:00.000-05:00

ok, ok.. I couldn't resist this one.

Stolen from the pages of Hello, Cupcake YET AGAIN.... I used a bag of assorted yellow jelly beans, a few more yellow starbursts, and some black decorating sugar to replicate their cupcake-on-the-cob.

Theirs, of course, came out better then my first stab over here.. but seriously. this was too easy to be this cute. and like I said.. for my first try.. they're pretty believable.

Next time I try these, I will for sure use less frosting, and work on the spacing of the jelly beans better... try to get it spaced better.

I could totally see these as a fun thing to bring to a summer BBQ. or a thanksgiving/autumn treat if I were to use darker jelly beans.. (like making Indian Corn) and try to find something to replicate some husks. but hey.. if you like lemon... these are just a cute way to pay homage to corn!

Piece of Cake

2008-11-24T12:23:00.000-05:00

so I forgot to mention that the cake I made for Danny's party was a three layer cake. I had bought a cutting tool a few weeks ago... the kind that helps you make level layer cuts.

I decided to alternate chocolate cake layers with a vanilla layer, and used a chocolate pudding filling.

While the tool helped to make a very even-looking cake, and the three layers looked really cool when sliced... I have to say the pudding was a little goopy inside, and left the remaining cake and slice a teeny sloppy looking.

perhaps a thicker filling or using a hot knife to make the slice? or having the cake be cold at the time of cutting? maybe it's something that can't be helped... or I just need to learn to cut a slice better. not really sure.. but it's something I certainly don't mind investigating a little further.

Birthday Boy

2008-11-23T12:07:00.001-05:00

Yesterday we had a little party for my son. He turned two this week, and while he doesn't use a lot of words, he THOROUGHLY enjoys singing along to a variety of songs.

One song he particularly enjoys is "Old MacDonald". He loves mimicking the animal sounds and the simple "E-I-E-I-O" refrain. Consequently, we decided to go with a barnyard/farm theme for his party. While I have no problems eating meat, I prefer to think of farms as places where animals LIVE, and we harvest vegetables from... so Danny's cake and accompanying cupcakes focused on veggies.

Now, a while back, I had played with some gumpaste in attempt to practice making fruit/veggie cupcake toppers. as cute as they did turn out.. I was overall left a little disappointed. Gumpaste , while edible, isn't exactly TASTY. and it's HARD. like break a child's tooth HARD. Imagine, then, my delight when I read the book Hello, Cupcake. Not only did it feature a garden-party cupcake for me to replicate.. but the authors suggested taking ready made candies and ingredients to make into the vegetables.

The result? amazing. I used starbursts and m&m candies, licorice, cornflakes and graham crackers in conjunction with some home made cake and frosting, a little melted chocolate and color gels... and I managed to produce the following.

Now, I still wouldn't allow my 2 year old birthday boy (or his 4 year old sister) to eat the starbursts-turned-veggies.... but in a few years I could totally see them eating every little bit of the cupcake, and still having teeth left to brush when they were through.

Lessons Learned: heating the starbursts in the oven worked better than the microwave. Also? best tip EVER??? rolling the 'carrots' in cinnamon after I made the decorative growth lines made the carrots look OH-SO real. and LOVED the idea of coating the cornflakes in green frosting. the 'leaves' looked truly authentic.

I'm not saying I'll never use gumpaste again.. but for basic colors and for items for kids? the reshaping of chewy candies is really the way to go!

Let them eat PIE

2008-11-02T11:42:00.000-05:00

so one of my favorite things about November and December is the ABUNDANCE of cranberries. Fresh, red, beautiful tart CRANBERRIES!

Naturally, when I see them at my grocer's, I can't help myself and pick up a bag or two. then I make a beeline for the apples... and get home to start baking.

My girlfriend made a french Cranberry-Apple pie a few years ago, and I have been smitten ever since. between the streusel-crunch topping and the intermitten tart cranberries, I firmly believe I can not make a plain apple pie ever again.

The recipe she passed on to me was a photocopy from a Williams-Sonoma cookbook, but I have found this recipe online to be identical. If I was in the business of sharing my secrets, I'd tell you I ALWAYS double the amount of streusel topping and omit the nuts.... but the best way to bake (at least as far as I have found) is to taste and see and tweak as you like.

Anyway... if you're looking for a sure-fire hit to bring to a Thanksgiving dinner... this is a winner. enjoy... and let's all give thanks for the cranberry!

Lessons Learned: I have been LOVING the little pie tins. Not only do I increase the number of pies I can get out of one batch of filling, but the SIZE!! so nice! Perfect for hitting the spot when you have a sweet tooth, but don't want to be eating the same dessert all week.

These tins can be found in the grocer's under the label of 'pot pie' tins. They're deep dish, so 1/4 of this pie is a generous portion. try them out... they even serve well to bring to a friend's house for coffee or little thank you gifts.

So cute, it's SPOOKY!

2008-10-30T15:12:00.000-04:00

ok.. I know I've actually had a good month in terms of baking... but it HAS been a while since I got back to basics and decorated some cookies.

On the doorstep of Halloween... I thought it'd be only fitting to make a few ghoulish treats.

I ended up with some ghosts, some bats, and some pumpkins.

Perhaps not the SCARIEST looking cookies.... but that could be a good thing. wouldn't want anyone afraid of sinking their teeth into them.

Happy Halloween, everyone!

LESSONS LEARNED: yes.. even on my basic cookie I learned something. I am NOT good at making bat faces, for one... and another? the ghosts looked FAR better outlined in black, as compared to the white. I went over the white details with black.. and while it stands out more.. I find that my lines look a bit more wobbly, cause the black was balancing on the white.

The Not-so-Perfect Pumpkin Cake

2008-10-22T12:52:00.000-04:00

It's really hard for me to resist making pumpkin things when October rolls around. Usually it starts off with me getting a Pumpkin Spice Latte from Bigbucks... then... well.. you saw I caved and made a pumpkin flavored Happy Jane.

Last week I realized that I don't make many cakes. and that's really a shame... cause people.. I love cake. The idea of a PUMPKIN cake was enough to get me to wear my contacts, get dressed up, and bake a cake... totally Stepford Style.

I found this recipe from the Joy of Baking. hook, line, and sinker. and forget about the idea of adding MAPLE to the cream cheese frosting. I was seriously swooning before I even cracked the first egg.

Now.. I did go into a more detailed description of the events that occurred while I was baking this cake on my other blog... but because my narrative involved many curses, I'm going to let you use your imagination here. (sorry.. I try to keep this blog clean, folks.)

Things started off VERY WELL, though. Dare I say I believed I had made some perfect cakes. I'm a bit of an ego-centric... I'll admit that. But I RARELY use the word 'perfect' to describe my culinary attempts. I like to recognize what I do right, but want to always better myself.. so again.. I don't throw around 'perfect' too much.

but these cakes??? I went there. I even said it out loud. which was probably my downfall... but they were sooo beautiful. and the smell!! again.. SWOON, I say!

It all went to pot when I attempted the frosting, though. it was too runny (probably from my over-zealous addition of maple syrup) and I kick myself cause there was a point in the mixing process that I felt I had the right (read THICK) consistency... I forged ahead with the recipe instructions, and added more maple. GAR!

but I'll spare you all of that and just get to the awful evidence.

Despite letting the frosting sit for a few hours (thinking it would thicken or harden..) it was still a gloppy mess.

hence.. my cake became a gloppy mess.

ooey-gooey, yippy drippy MESS.

Now.. fear not.. it didn't stop me from EATING it. and I will say that the taste WAS superb. and moist. oh MY do I love a nice, fresh, moist cake! Really.. this recipe is fantastic for the cake. the icing? I might say to stick with what you know, even if it means buying a canned cream cheese frosting. The maple did add a nice layer to the frosting... but the thin consistency threw me for a loop.

The second cake I made came out a bit nicer looking. maybe because I used the frosting a bit more sparingly... knowing too much would get the gloppy side effect. SO yes.. the second one came out better.. but very far from something I'd call perfect.

The second cake was donated to my husband's work... and supposedly all who had it were very pleased. Hey.. they're computer nerds... maybe they're not as picky?

LESSONS LEARNED: So yeah. one.. NEVER use the word perfect. call me superstitious, but being that bold = murphy's law to happen = far from perfect results.

I will for sure use this recipe again... but next time I will use double the cream cheese, and single or slightly LESS than single proportions of the liquid ingredients. Next time.. I'll be going for a thick frosting. Like ability-to-pipe thick.

Tricks and Treats

2008-10-13T14:26:00.000-04:00

SO clearly I'm all about the treats on this site. I DO love me some treats!

a good friend of mine, whom I have already named to be my executive talent scout should I ever get too big for my britches. (and by that I DO mean money wise.. not pants sizes. if I LITERALLY get too big for my britches, then said friend will be the one duct-taping my mouth shut and putting my rear back on weight watchers. Cause she and I know I have to look good for that day when our kids get married. Just sayin'. )

ANYWAYS! Susie, in many ways, is my eyes and ears. She finds the coolest stuff, and that definitely includes recipes and fun ways of doing or presenting everyday stuff. A few months ago.. Suser passed on a link to a Martha special featuring a treat called Cake Pops.

I was immediately enthralled.. but I'm ashamed to admit I did not even ATTEMPT those little bad boys until this past bake sale. I was GOING TO... just... life took over for a little.

I thought it would be fun to make some cake pops in a ghoulish theme... I was thinking ghosts and goblins. or at least ghosts and pumpkins.

that's where the 'trick' part came in

On the original site of the cake pops creator... she was coating her pops in candy melts for the round pops... and the 'cupcake' shapes were 'dipped' on 2 different occasions.

I used white chocolate, and it was NOT EASY to work with. it was very gloppy and thick. I found that my ghosts looked a bit more like round and fat mummies. oh, and my food writing markers?? did not work so well on the white chocolate. I ended up using my Wilton dye gels for the eyes.

Look at these poor things... it's like they're BEGGING for someone to help them look better.

and lo and behold.. my 'grand' ideas of doing pumpkin balls got SQUASHED because I didn't have a good way of letting the balls 'dry' without setting them up-side-down. (thus giving them a Frankenstein-esque flat head.)

Thinking fast I dunked the orange 'balls' in theme-colored sprinkles, and chalked it up to inexperience.

All in all I think the treats turned out cute enough, and they tasted fine. (though ENTIRELY too sweet in my opinion. My 4 yr old daughter didn't seem to mind, though.) They seemed to be as dense/fudgy as a brownie coated in a too-thick layer of white chocolate.... just not as rich and heavy as a brownie would be.

I'm in no hurry to try these again, but that's not to say I won't. I think that like anything, practice would make me more proficient at making them... and perhaps using a thinner consistency outer shell (such as candy melts or adding paraffin!!! again with the paraffin!) would make this project a little easier.

or having a stand of some sorts so the pops could harden upright?

overall... I'll give it a "boo!" rating. Really... not my best work. Try me again next year?

P.B.E.'s

2008-10-12T21:48:00.000-04:00

I'm sure you're wondering what in heck a PBE is. no.. I assure you it's not the newest blue-collar beer. It's another new flavor of my Happy Janes.

I know.. I have yet to even market these things enough to sell ONE, and I'm coming up with new flavors. ISSUES! But it's all in the spirit of creativity.

If you recall, a while back, I hosted a contest. Well, given that the winner wasn't really a HUGE fan of any of the flavors I was offering, I decided to come up with something better for her 'prize'. I also had a 4-month-late birthday present to send... so all of that coupled with another bake sale at church... and well.. two new flavors were born. I've already posted about the Pumpkin Truffle flavor.

(as a matter of fact, I actually just made another batch of them. my parents were visiting and are heading back to jersey tomorrow, and my mom requested that I make some for her to give as part of a gift basket to give to her doctor. So I GUESS you can say I got my first order. except I wasn't paid for them. Though my folks will tell you that they paid in some free babysitting while they were here. but my first order!!! though it's my folks... and they're supportive like that. oh well. I'm chalking it up as a win-win. I get to practice my skills and get my product to a new mouth without having to pay hand-over fist in shipping. but NEVERMIND!! back to PBE's!)

So the other flavor was made with the previously mentioned belated birthday girl in mind. Erin of Erin Cooks had a birthday back in June, and I had promised to send her some CDs. oops. So, to make up for my tardiness, I tried to make the CD package more than just music for her ears. you see... Erin is a fan of peanut butter. like a BIG fan. A while back, Erin posted a recipe for her own take on a recipe called "Melting Moments". She decided to make it in a peanut butter version. The recipe she posted looked pretty good.. so I used it for inspiration and as a base for a filling for a new Jane.

I made a few changes.. like using crunchy peanut butter, and using like 5x the amount she calls for. but still... it was sweet. and pea-nutty good.

I used a chocolate cookie base... and spooned some filling on each before freezing. (note.. yes, I DID say SPOON. the filling was too thick/crunchy to be piped on using my bags. I mean, I did start to pipe it on, but it came out like little logs, and I ended up using a spoon to round them out... so I stuck with the spoon for the rest.)

You know the rest... dipped them in chocolate, let them cool, and served with some milk!

Oh. it occurs to me I never did explain what the PBE stands for. The PB is easy.. Peanut Butter. duh! but the E? Gotta give credit where credit is due. SO since I used Erin's recipe for the filling... I think it's proper to have the E stand for Erin. But Jane is a vain little cookie... and can't be havign another woman's name in the mix.... so just a plain E will have to suffice. The taste makes up for it, though.. cause there's nothing plain about them.

enjoy!

Lessons Learned: I noticed I may have yet another reason to use paraffin in my chocolate. I'm not quite sure if it was the shoddy sprinkling of gold dusting powder I did on the PBE's, or if it was the EXUBERANT amount of peanut butter I used (hence creating a very heavy oil-base for the filling) but I noticed an odd crystallization happening on the outer shell of the chocolates. (if you look closely, you can see it on the last picture.) It did not affect the taste.. but I'm big on appearances, and seeing those spots bugged me. I really need to look into the paraffin.

Fall into Happy Janes

2008-10-11T08:03:00.001-04:00

Autumn is probably my favorite season, and has been just about all my life. As a child in NJ, I recall the crisp mornings, the hearty foods and bursts of color every where I turned. When I lived in Florida, it was the time of year when we finally got a break from the heat. awwww, heck... I have reasons for every place I lived why Fall is my best season.

In the here and now, however... Autumn is more than a season of weather to me. It's back to school, it's birthdays and socials time, it's holidays, and most importantly.. it's GOOD FOOD.

I once joked with a friend that I only eat pumpkin from September through late January. While I know it's entirely silly to put stipulations of when I eat a particular food... 'saving' pumpkin for this time of year just means it's that more special to me.

Imagine my glee, then, when I came across this recipe for Pumpkin Truffles. pumpkin. chocolate. spices.

my tongue about fell out of my mouth.

At the heels of a bake sale, and eager to get back into the kitchen, I concocted a new flavor of Happy Janes inspired by the Pumpkin Truffle recipe and this SO-EASY recipe for home-made graham crackers.

I set out by making the graham cracker rounds, my signature shape for the Janes. As I said, this was much easier than I expected it to be. I think once you get used to working with cut-table cookie doughs, this falls right in line. (A word of warning, though.. if you choose to make graham crackers.. this recipe was far stickier than a regular sugar/butter cookie dough. I suspect it's from the abundance of honey.)

Then I made the pumpkin truffle filling. I followed the recipe, then made some changes. First.. I only used about HALF the amount of chocolate and heavy cream that was called for, and used about one and a half TIMES the amount of pumpkin required. I did this because I knew I wasn't making truffles as much as I was looking to create a pumpkin truffle FILLING. Also, since I knew the Jane would be COATED in chocolate.. I wanted a nice strong pumpkin flavor to emerge. (oh, and I used CLOVES.. not Gloves, as stated in the recipe.)

After the filling set and cooled... I piped some on the rounds.

Froze those bad boys and dipped in a bittersweet Belgian chocolate, then piped on an orange-colored candy drizzle for decoration.

I was very pleased with the flavor combination. it was like a chocolate covered piece of pumpkin pie. Yes.. I think I actually swooned a little after my first one. What a way to bring in Autumn!

Lessons Learned: I got two big things out of this project. The first is that those graham crackers are VERY POROUS. Within 24 hours, I noticed the cookie began to soften from absorbing the pumpkin's moisture, and by day three, they were a soft crumbly mess. The taste was still there, but texture means a lot to me.. and I was disappointed when they lost the cookie crunch. Some possible work-arounds are dipping the cookie in chocolate FIRST.. to form a protect barrier? maybe. we'll see.

The other lesson I learned is that my husband has very hot fingers. Every time he touched a Jane he ended up looking like a toddler playing with dark brown finger paints. Not so pretty. I may explore the addition of just a bit of paraffin to my chocolates to solidify that outer shell a bit more. This should prevent the messy fingers, as well as prevent the chocolate from absorbing oils of the fillings, and just being affected by things like humidity. Not that I want the Janes to have a shelf life of a twinkie.. just being able to hold their shape, color, and taste for more than 24 hours could open up a lot of doors for me in terms of sending Janes as gifts to friends around the country.

The Ten Dollar Cake

2008-10-09T08:51:00.000-04:00

So we had another bake sale for church. It was good to get back in the swing of things, as I missed last month for family obligations, they had taken the summer 'off', and I was in NJ for the June sale.

One of the items I made was a peanut-butter chocolate layer cake. yeah. sounds good if you like that stuff!

I had some leftover peanut butter filling from a new flavor of Happy Janes. (a post about them is coming, I promise!) And since I was making some chocolate cake for my own version of cake-pops.... I decided to make a small round cake.

SO after the cake was cooled, I smoothed some 'filling', and layered the other half of the cake on top.

Made some chocolate icing, and frosted the cake.

At that point, I decided to 'purty' it up and piped some edging around the base and the top.

It occurred to me that I do not have much practice with icing cakes, so this was a good exercise. I was happy to see that it sold at the bake sale for $10 dollars. not sure *I* would have paid that much.. but it was a fundraiser, and sure enough.. I was there to see a couple buy it. Felt good to see the guy pick it up and pay for it.. as it did to see his girlfriend or wife walk away with a very coy smile. like she KNEW they were gonna knock that bad boy out with a jug of milk that afternoon. (or so I imagined...)

lessons learned... I need to invest in some flat off-set spatulas for a smoother finish. and maybe a leveler.. as the cake looked a teeny bit lop-sided. but overall, the cake was relatively simple to make, and decorate. I may just make some more next time I'm invited somewhere for dinner or coffee. The size was just right, in my opinion. (assuming it's to feed a group of six or less) small enough to be eaten before it starts to get stale.

and the Winner is.....

2008-09-01T14:39:00.000-04:00

Well, the results are in for the Name That Jane contest. I'm pleased to announce that the official winner is:

Coco-Dots!!!!!

This name was submitted by Dara... so CONGRATULATIONS, DARA!!! all that's left for her to do now is to say which flavor Happy Jane she would like to be made and delivered to her this week! (Mint Treasures, Mocha Crunch, Strawberry Shorties, or... Coco-Dots!)

In terms of the specifics... I made up a voting sheet and a large batch of the chocolate-coconut Happy Janes and brought them to a neighbor's house on Saturday for a get-together they were throwing.

Judges were asked to vote for their TOP FIVE choices, and number them one through five. All #1 votes would receive 5 points, #2 votes would get 4 points, and so on down to one point for #5. I collected five completed judging sheets, and the breakdowns were as follows:

Chicka Boom - 3 points total ( one 3rd place vote)

Choco-COCO Jane - 1 point total (one 5th place vote)

Choco-nut Janes - 2 points total (one 4th place vote)

Coco-Bel Bites - 2 points total (one 4th place vote)

Coco-Dots - 20 points total (three 1st place, one 2nd place and one 5th place vote)

Coconut Dreams - 16 points total (two 2nd place, 2 3rd place and one 4th place vote)

Coconut Groove - 12 points total (one 1st place, one 2nd place, one 3rd place vote)

Coconut Wonders - 6 points total (one 1st place, one 5th place vote)
Jungle Janes - 3 points total (one 3rd place vote)

Major Coconut - 2 points total (one 4th place vote)

Secret Addiction - 5 points total (one 2nd place and one 5th place vote)

Tropical Storms - 1 point total (one 5th place vote)

Undercover Coconut - 2 points total (one 4th place vote)

I tried scanning in the tally sheets for each of you to see, but the 'table' format caused all sorts of breaks. I'll be more than happy to snail-mail photocopies of the results to anyone who wishes.

I will say something, though.. the winner is NOT who I expected. PERSONALLY I was leaning towards Undercover Coconut, Coconut Groove, and Coconut Dreams as my top 3... and while two of those WERE in the top three.. that Coco Dots just really took hold and wouldn't let go. At first I began trying to think of a way to get out of using the name... but I stopped myself because there's a lesson to be learned for me in all of this. The demographic in which I would be primarily selling and giving these Janes were the people voting. If they said that Coco-Dots was a name THEY would like associated with what they were eating... then I should listen.

So again.. congratulations to Dara, and let's all give a hearty welcome to the newest Happy Jane Flavor... COCO-DOTS!!!

Let's go to the Judges!

2008-08-29T17:00:00.000-04:00

Well.. I want to thank all of you who participated in my very first contest here on Crumbles!

Unlike my other blog in which I tend to blather on and curse a lot... this is a place where I share a part of me that I am truly passionate about... my baking creations. For a girl who went to college for Aircraft Engineering, and spent 8 years working and designing and managing projects in varying engineering disciplines.... BAKING and decorating is a pretty far cry from what I was trained to do.

But alas... here we are, and here I go down that road. A road that I hope will some day lead to culinary school when my children are a little older. A road that may some day lead to a business in which I can make money from my edible creations.

So again... your participation in this contest is not only validating to me, but encouraging. Having more than just my close family and friends see what I do is thrilling and nerve-wracking! but to have such a great response and surge of creativity shared all in the name of naming a Jane? Again, I say it is encouraging. Maybe this really IS the right road for me to be on!

So without further ado... I will take the submitted names and pass them on to my judges!

Each name will be anonymously given to my panel of judges for a vote. I am asking my judges to vote for their TOP FIVE names. OF those top five names... each will be assigned a point value ranging from one (1) to five (5) points. Five points given to their favorite name, 4 points to their second choice, and so on down to one point for the #5 spot.

I have personally bribed my judges for their input with their own coconut and dark chocolate combo Janes. I figure it's only fair that they can match the taste with the name.

I have five judges in mind, and will scan their scoring sheets for all to see on Monday.

again.. thank you ALL so much for participating... and stay tuned for Monday when our "Name That Jane" Contest WINNER will be announced!!!

GOOD LUCK!

Name That Jane--- a CONTEST!!

2008-08-22T14:12:00.000-04:00

Well... I did it. I created yet ANOTHER type of Happy Jane.

Let me tell you something. It's GOOD. like "I may hide the rest of these from everyone and eat them by myself in the laundry room GOOD".

But alas... I have a problem.

My lil Happy Janes are without a name.

First.... let me introduce you.

This Happy Jane hails from a vanilla cookie descent. She is topped with a rich, hand-made coconut buttercream (laced with shredded coconut, of course), then dipped in an extra dark Belgian dark chocolate, then topped with just a teeeeny sprinkle of more shredded coconut for garnish.

She really is a beauty, if I say so myself. wait. I just did.

______________

So there you have it. Now is where YOU come in.

I need a name for this Jane... and I'm willing to offer up a free batch of Janes to whomever can give her the best name.

To play... leave a comment here BEFORE 5pm EST, August 29th with a name suggestion.

All entries will be given to a panel of judges for voting. The name with the most votes will not only win the honor of having their entry attached to an official Happy Jane, but he or she will ALSO receive a shipment of ONE DOZEN HAPPY JANES in a flavor of their choice. (Mint Treasures, Mocha Crunch, Strawberry Shorties, or the TBN (To Be Named) )

Additional rules: no more than TWO suggestions per person, please. I realize that a week is a long time to think on something, and you may get a new idea after you submit your first suggestion. THEREFORE... I will allow TWO (and ONLY TWO) suggestions per participant during the submission period.

Side note... on the chance that two individuals submit the same name choice.. credit will be given to the entry with the earliest timestamp. (so if you DO have a good name.. don't sit on it too long...)

so what are you waiting for? NAME THAT JANE!!!

*** due to my personal standards of quality and the types of ingredients I use (read "chocolate MELTS in the summer heat"), I can only select a winner with a valid US mailing address that can receive overnight mailings.

New Addition - Strawberry Shorties

2008-08-22T08:37:00.000-04:00

I'm proud to say that we now have two new additions to the Happy Jane Family!!! This post will only discuss one of the two I made, as I will be hosting a little CONTEST involving the other happy jane. (stay tuned for later today about the contest info and unveiling of the other Jane!)

I decided to shake things up and make some Happy Janes with a vanilla cookie base.

After looking around in the fridge and our daily lives for inspiration, I decided to try to make something of a vanilla-strawberry variety.

After whipping up a buttercream filling, I piped little 'cones' on the cookie rounds. After the 'cones' were in place, I piped in some strawberry preserves. AT this point I wanted to call it quits and eat the whole lot, as strawberry and vanilla are two of my favorite flavors. alas, my senses over-ruled and I put them in the freezer while I prepared the white chocolate dip. Or should I say "pink" chocolate dip.

Each round was coated in a pink-dyed white chocolate, then allowed to set overnight.

Don't be deterred by their loud pink color. These Janes are soft blend of vanilla, shortbread, and just a right hint of strawberry. I present to you...

Strawberry Shorties!

Lessons Learned? once again, I foolishly tried to 'enhance' the white chocolate with an imitation strawberry extract. (there's the clue.. imitation = BAD!) the chocolate got lumpy and grainy, and I had to scrap the batch. oh well. the second batch came out nice, and believe it or not. I think it's better without the 'extra' strawberry flavor. now they just stand with that hint of strawberry. very nice for adults who don't like that over-the-top sweetness.

Truckloads of Cookies

2008-08-21T17:08:00.000-04:00

So this week I took on a project for a little man that's very near and dear to my heart. My very good friend's little boy (and quite possibly my future son in law) is having his 4th birthday party this weekend.

The theme?

Monster Trucks.

Short on time and even shorter on 'monster truck' cookie cutters... I opted for a plain circle in which I could pipe monster trucks on.

little did I know what I was getting in to.

Undeterred, I did some research, printed out a few clip art images, did a few practice sketches in pencil, then dove in.

Some of the first ones weren't exactly the best, but eventually I caught my groove and came up with an acceptable design.

Final count was two dozen, and the birthday boy should receive them tomorrow.... with plenty of time to spare for his party on Saturday.

Final pictures.... here's to a "monster" good party....

Lessons learned? I still need to figure out my shrink-wrap methods. the backs of the cookies looked lump and bumpy, which is PROBABLY because I used too much shrink wrap.

also? if I ever get to a point where I'm charging people for cookies, I have to be mindful of the design and amount of effort each takes. This particular project was done out of love, so it could have been 100x more intricate and I wouldn't give it a second thought... but in terms of something that could be a paying job... I'll need to consider the amount of skill and time certain designs require. I'd be curious to compare my 'speed' to get cookies such as these done now, and let's say.. in another year from now.

When it's Too Hot

2008-08-07T09:02:00.000-04:00

So here in the south.. it's hot out. like all day long.

like still 88 degrees after 9pm hot.

of COURSE, a SMART mom would find nice cold treats to give her kids... ones that do not require turning an oven on, perhaps. BUT... cookies are what I do best... and it really is something that my kids can help out with.

The other day we made a small batch of chocolate cookies, and my daughter rhena insisted on making some ice cream cookies.

We had a good time decorating them with sprinkles and the such. The ones the kids did didn't quite turn out as 'real' looking.... but they sure were colorful. here's one that I was allowed to do without 'help'.

the best part? they're pretty portable after the icing dries, and no matter what side of the cookie my daughter eats first.. no dripping!!!

Plum Pear Apple

2008-08-03T13:31:00.001-04:00

some days, I've got it. other times?? not so much.

Last week, I really wanted to send out some packages that had been kicking around for a while. random love, thank you gifts, belated birthday presents, congrats presents, baby gifts.. you name an occasion, and I pretty much was needing to send something for it.

of all the packages I sent last week, one happened to be a congratulationary gift. Is that a word? if not... you heard it here first!

Anyho... a fellow blogger I enjoy reading recently launched her own company selling super-hero capes for children. Have you seen it yet? It's Pear Plum Apple Designs... and she really does make the most adorable hand-made capes.

As a little way to congratulate her company's inauguration, I decided to send her a little of what *I* like to do.. kind of like a long distance hi-five. I whipped up a batch of sugar cookies, and created one with her logo on it.

and since I had the icing and cookies made already, I made a few extra... one with her name on it, and a few little ones for her little boy, Mason.

LESSONS LEARNED: Although this was a fun 'gift' to make... I made a VERY big mistake. Erin's logo background is white. when doing a white background.. it it EXTREMELY imperative to let the icing dry completely before piping dark colors on top. Thankfully, I took pictures of the cookie the night I did it, because after sitting overnight, the plum, pear and apple dyes bled into the white background. ... as seen by the picture below.

another thing to be noted with white backgrounds... it is better to use a THICKER layer of the icing. Due to the size of the cookie, I baked a little longer to ensure it was cooked thoroughly. This caused some browning on the top of the cookie, which can easily bee seen through the icing because 1 - it's white, and 2 - I did not apply a thick enough coating.

one last (obvious) reminder... the thicker the icing.. the longer the dry time!!! so be patient!

Happy Janes

2008-07-27T09:49:00.000-04:00

ok.. it's been a slowwww summer here. Between travels, no bake sales at church, and just trying to keep the kids occupies... I don't have as much stuff to share.

On fourth of july, I made a 'twinkie' cupcake in which I stuffed yellow cupcakes with a marshmallow-based frosting. They were beyond sweet, and I forgot to take pictures, but now that I have them under my belt (so-to-speak) I will make them again and document it.

For today, however... I will share something I whipped up based on a recipe, a good friend, and some good music.

The original recipe I saw suggested topping a vanilla cookie with ganache, then coating with candy drizzle.

I made it 'my own' by starting with a chocolate cookie base. Then I made two batches of an extra-dark chocolate ganache. One I kept plain, then other I mixed in some pure peppermint extract.

I piped the ganache onto the cookie rounds, and placed in the freezer to set.

meanwhile, I melted down some milk chocolate, and mixed in espresso powder. after it cooled slightly (but was still pourable) I dipped the tops of the plain-ganache cookies and put aside to cool and 'set'. I called these happy janes a "Mocha Crunch"

Next I melted some white chocolate and added a touch of flavorless green gel coloring. Once that 'dip' was ready, I took the rounds that had the peppermint chocolate ganache, and coated their tops. These were to be called "Mint Treasures"

after all the happy janes were cooled and set, I piped a drizzle of the plain dark chocolate ganache on top of each.

"Mocha Crunches"

"Mint Treasures"

I was pleased with the results; a crunchy cookie with a chocolate shell filled with a ganache that was SO RICH and literally melted in my mouth. Like a great marriage of truffles and cookies.

Mocha Crunch Happy Janes

Mint Treasure Happy Janes

LESSONS LEARNED: Unfortunately, this is a treat that should be eaten within a day of making. the longer the ganache sits atop the cookie, I found the cookie to become softer; as if it was absorbing the moisture from the ganache? Though I did notice that the chocolate cookies in general tend to get softer over time (vs vanilla ones that stay crunchy MUCH longer). I hope to continue to explore the idea of the Happy Jane; perhaps with the vanilla cookie to compare softness over time, and of course... flavor combinations. Troy has already put in a request for a bing/black cherry variety.

Old, New, and a taste of Blue

2008-05-28T08:30:00.000-04:00

SO I still have some old pictures to post.... but I still have to finish converting them into jpegs (currently TIFs) before blogger will accept them....

for now.. here are the cookies I made with Rhena a week and a half ago. I tried a new technique with the picture taking.... more for backdrops than anything.

good day, sunshine!

rubber ducky, you're the one!

Little Lady

Mary had a little lamb (or three)

LESSONS LEARNED: UNFORTUNATELY, these cookies were not eaten by anyone. I noticed that the icing had a taste similar to WINDEX. I had cleaned up the counter using the Windex like I usually do, but totally forgot to cover and/or rinse my kitchen aide mixing bowl before making the icing. not sure if the spray had gotten in the bowl or on the whisk part, but bleh. that didn't stop me from practicing decorating, though. oh well. better for my diet, I guess.

Bake Sale- May Edition part 1

2008-05-03T20:13:00.000-04:00

I decided to try out a biscotti recipe this time around. Being that in general, I CAN NOT STAND the taste of almond flavored things... (amaretto? blah! plegh! kaploooey!)

I saw this recipe and thought I could give it a shot.

I was intimidated.

I had never made a loaf-like cookie before, and given my general dislike for biscotti (too hard! too almondy! is this stale??) I wasn't even sure if this was a good idea.. but alas.. gotta step outside the comfort zone.

SO I had visions of grandeur that I would chop up some walnuts or pecans to put in the cookies instead of the chocolate, then half-dip the cookies when complete in chocolate.

but. no nuts.

no mini-chips, either. so I used normal sized milk-chocolate ones.

The recipe notes that you should grease your hands before forming the rectangular-shaped dough logs, because the dough will be sticky. The idea of rubbing crisco on my hands made me vomit in my mouth a little, but after trying to just pick UP the dough, I realized that when I step out of my comfort zone.. I go for the gusto.

I smeared the crisco all over my hands, and was able to shape the dough. (of course.. I chose too small of a pan to fit the two loaves on one, so I had to shimmy the one loaf over to the center, then grease up yet ANOTHER pan, and my hands AGAIN, and form the other log. Rubbing shortening between my hands made me want to start another diet like IMMEDIATELY, btw..)

after the first round of baking, I let the loaves cool for per the recipes directions. I then cut the slices, and place on the cookie sheet again to bake/brown/dry out.

10 minutes later, I flipped them, and baked some more.

I also had some leftover chocolate from the apples I made.. so I did actually do the dip.

the final product was a nice golden color, and the taste was a pleasant surprise. not OVERLY banana-y, not TOO chocolaty, and by luck of my mistake.. it wasn't rock hard. one, because I'm sure it was still oven-fresh.. the other cause I think I didn't bake it long enough the first round in the oven. and the biggest thing... no almonds.

Lessons learned: this was a long process to undergo for a cookie I wasn't sure I would actually like. kind of a pain with the in-out-cut-in-out-flip-in-out baking. but I liked the taste. the KIDS LOVED the cookies. I think this recipe, with some educated substitutions, would make great teething cookies.... again.. only if I found a way to cut the sugar and up the fruit/fiber. might be something to work on in the future.

Bake Sale - May Part 2

2008-05-03T11:29:00.000-04:00

Usually when my folks come to visit us, we end up taking a trip to the outlet mall. One store we always seem to make a stop in happens to be a Chocolate shoppe. In their front window, they boast a HUGE copper pot which is used to make their gourmet apples. Try as we might... when my mom is with me, we cave and buy one.

I let that primal urge for needing chocolate covered apples be my inspiration for this month's bake sale and made some gourmet apples of my own.

For baking and eating purposes, I usually stick to Breaburn apples. sometimes a Fuji.. OCCASIONALLY a Gala.. but mostly I'm a Breaburn girl. However... when it comes to gourmet apples.. I personally feel that nothing beats a Granny Smith.

I've said before how I love caramel, so it should be no surprise that I started this batch of 'healthy desserts' by a generous dunk in caramel. I used the Kraft caramels.. which was much easier than making my own caramel.. but I assure you that unwrapping about 50 of those little squares was mundane. I just know I like the taste of Kraft caramels and can count on them to melt and re-form well.

after the caramel set, I coated each apple in a mix of chocolate bark and baker's chocolate (I do not like the taste of store-bought chocolate bark.. bleh! so I always add in a better quality chocolate to the mix to make it taste like REAL chocolate. for things I serve at my house or that I know I will eat, I typically skip the use of bark and go straight to Dove or Ghiradelli or Hersheys.)

I let the chocolate cool slightly, then rolled 2 in crushed Heath Bar pieces. I topped another 2 with a store-bought jar of nestle's rocky road-flavored ice cream mix-ins. the last apple was topped with mini m&ms. (speaking of; does anyone know how I can buy those? I snagged a little snack-pack that my daughter had gotten in a goody bag from school, but couldn't find them anywhere in the store?)

Lastly, I drizzled just a little more chocolate on top of the whole mess and packaged them up to sell. When all was said and done, each apple weighed over a pound. now THAT'S my idea of health food!

LESSONS LEARNED: I'm not sure how they sold, and I know that while they were packaged nice enough, I think it was really hard to see them under all the plastic wrap. Given the state of hurried buying that happens in the hall after mass, I'm not sure potential buyers would get the full effect of their looks. I know, cause I'm one of the buys, and dealing with people in front of and behind me, and holding on to my daughter.. well.. it's more of a get-in-and-buy-and-get out mentality at the table. I don't really get to PERUSE the goods like I would elsewhere. so perhaps I'll try to find a better way to present them. a giant clear box would be good, I think.

Taffy Apple Bars

2008-04-29T17:38:00.000-04:00

So when my folks were here, we passed through Barnes and Noble, and my mom bought me a book, Cookie Dough Fun.

It's a cute book, and while it's not COMPLETELY jaw-dropping inspiring like my Confetti Cakes book... I find that it has some cute ideas and very simple recipes.

in fact.. most of the recipes listed in this book have the base of ready-made cookie-dough.

one of the recipes was called a "Taffy Apple Bar". It used a base of pre-made sugar and peanut butter cookie dough (one package of each, then mixed together). The original recipe was topped with apples, peanuts and then caramel sauce... but I took the liberty of using pecans and real caramel squares instead. Really... what you see below were all the ingredients I needed.

after the doughs were combined and pressed into a pan, I chopped my apples, nuts and caramel squares. Ever the fan of caramel, I decided to 'mix' my dough-toppers so I would have caramel all over the place, and not just the 'drizzle' on top like the recipe called for.

All set for the oven....

mmmm.. melted caramelly-apple goodness. I'm in LOVE!

cooled off and ready to be served

care for a piece?

I will gladly share the actual recipe through e-mail; just leave a comment letting me know if you want it.

Garden Variety Cupcake

2008-04-18T19:57:00.000-04:00

ok. so I FINALLY got the chance to play with gum paste.

we had a play-date today, so what better thing to bring than a batch of fresh cupcakes to our hostesses?

ok.. I could think of a FEW good things that I would love to have someone bring to my house.. but still. time and money being limited.. I opted for the cupcakes.

box mix people. nothing fancy in that. and I had leftover icing from the bake sale. canned icing. yup. used that too. But really.. it's not always WHAT you use... it's HOW you use it. right?

anyways, after the cupcakes were cooled/cooling, I got to playing with the gum paste. thankfully, I still had a box of rubber gloves leftover from the pierogies. they saved my hands from being dyed by the coloring gels.

I had some cute little cookie cutters that I used to cut the rolled gum paste. I used a knife to etch in a very simple line for the leaf.. then left to dry.

halfway through the leaf-making, I got to thinking about Daniel's upcoming birthday (in november) he'll be 2, and I'm doing a farmer/garden/veggie theme for him. Since seed packets will be part of the favors, I thought it might be cute to have a few cupcakes flanking the main cake with little garden items on them.

so I used some of the green gum paste and made some peas. then I made some pink gum paste and moved on to some flowers. I got pretty bored with the flowers quickly, so I threw in a strawberry for practice. (used a nail to create indents/seeds. not great. needs work.)

I got crazy and tried to make grapes. actually, it's cause I couldn't think of any other pink fruits, other than watermelon, and as I said I was tired of the flowers.... so I just added a little blue gel to the remaining pink gum paste. it had a very concord-grapey look to it.

when all was said and done, I had a few basic cupcakes to take to our playdate (plus a few gum paste ones)

a few flower ones left for home

and then of course, fruit/veggie ones. I used crushed cookies to make the 'dirt'. oh, and about the grapes... they're varying in color cause I used water and a paintbrush to make the balls "stick' to each other. they take a long time to dry. a LONG time. I wanted to get this post up before the weekend consumed me, so unfortunately you get the color variance.

Annnnnd.. what's on a tray in the kitchen as we speak. wanna come over for some coffee and cupcakes?

Lessons Learned: I REALLY liked working with the gum paste. I used the pre-fabbed wilton kind this time around.. being my first time and all. biggest thing to note for next time... MUST know my plan ahead of time. it dries quickly, and if you bend or try to shape it after some drying has occurred, you get a cracked or greying effect on the final color.

the gloves? priceless. my finger would be blue for a week if I didn't use them. wondering what happened to the little fondant tool I purchased a while ago. it's used for making funky cuts or 'stitches' in the fondant and gum paste.

I liked the look of the peas. I will for sure do those again... only better next time. but especially to practice for danny's birthday. that's gonna be a fun cake, I think.

Old Faithful

2008-04-06T15:01:00.000-04:00

ok, when I typed the title of this post, I was thinking about how these two treats I made for the bake sale were just easy stand-bys.. but I like how the pun happens cause it was a CHURCH bake sale. or not.. maybe I just need sleep.

anyways.. more bake sale items!

Since I didn't use all the batter from the cone cakes, I made some standard cupcakes with the chocolate box mix.

but just cause I used a box mix and frosting doesn't mean they can't look pretty! ever the chance to practice my piping techniques, I filled up my bags and used my new wide tips.

the frosting was just so simple with the swirl, but I thought they looked polished. as in professional.. not as in from Poland.

and since I didn't get to make rhena her pancakes from my over-ripe bananas... I mashed them up and decided to make banana bread.

oh.. with pecans, that is.

There's something very promising about something being put into the oven. I really do get a little giddy whenever I put something in.

I only made the four loaves, but that's all I had in terms of bananas. I was pleased with their coloring. Though.. I have to say, if I was keeping them for me, I would have topped them bad boys with a streusel topping or something. I do love me some streusel.

not too many lessons learned here. this was pure churn 'em and (don't) burn 'em. on a separate note, though.. my mom oversaw a kid purchasing an oopsie-daisy after mass. she said he was VERY excited to get home and eat his treat.

Oopsie Daisies

2008-04-05T23:00:00.000-04:00

This weekend is another bake sale for church. I had intended on making the bird nests for church, but ended up doing them with Rhena for her preschool classmates.

Sticking with things that are geared for kids.. I threw a big whup-whup for days gone by and decided on making cone cakes.

you know.... anyone over 30 has HAD to at least had a cupcake baked in a cake cone at some point during their school years. you know.. before the days of everyone being allergic to everything and no parent being allowed to home-make any treat for the class without a pre-approved nutritional label and ingredient list? NOT that there's anything wrong with that, cause if MY kids were allergic to something, I wouldn't want them digesting something that could.. you know.. cause death or seizing or something.

anyways.. I thought.. ice-cream cupcakes! how fun! how cute!

so with my folks arriving and the deadline for submitting donated goods looming, I opted to just use a box mix, and get to baking.

filled up the cones.

I only did a total of 12, though. halfway into pouring the batter, I thought about how in hell I planned on transporting the cones TO church... as well as how to wrap them/present them for sale. errrrg.

oh well. I pressed on.

after the cakes had cooled, I filled up a pastry bag with frosting and let it stiffen up a little by putting it in the fridge for a little bit. I swirled the frosting around the top, trying to get that 'soft-serve' look.

the first couple didn't turn out so hot. turns out it takes an INCREDIBLE amount of frosting to get the height required to look similar to a real ice cream cone. like.. a "no way would I let rhena eat one of these cause she'd be up for a week from the sugar" amount.

after I had about 6 frosted... something distracted me and I jostled the tray I had the cones on.

PLOP. 2 of my cones. on the floor.

and that's when it hit me. inspiration is funny like that.

I decided to frost the cones, garnish with sprinkles, then "plop" them up-side down in little pie tins.

I was able to easily wrap them in plastic wrap, and transport 9 of them to the sale without affecting the final look of each treat.

I call them the "Oopsie-Daisy"... an up-side down chocolate cone cake. *I* thought they looked cute. I guess I'll find out tomorrow after mass whether or not they're a hit.

lesson learned: top-heavy cupcakes are not very practical. maybe for an at-home party.. but definitely not a transport-friendly item. I might try this project again with a meringue top?

the final result wasn't what I had in mind when I started, but sometimes that just happens.

Bye Bye Birdie

2008-04-03T17:03:00.001-04:00

Saw THE most adorable idea at Lauren's site around Easter. With the monthly bake sale starting up again at church (they were on hold during Lent)... I was thinking the nests would be a good spring treat, as well as a project Rhena would be able to help with.

Then, by coincidence, Rhena's preschool topic for the week happens to be birds, nests and springtime. We decided to make the nests for her class instead of the bake sale. (I've got other stuff up my sleeve for this weekend, anyway)

I had bought some gum paste on tuesday morning, with the idea that I would attempt top attach some flowers to the nests.. you know.. pretty them up a bit. but since this turned to a child-helping project, I opted to pass on the gum paste.

Overall this was a simple project. I double-boiled the chocolate morsels, which I just prefer cause it allows me to make sure there are no burned spots.. but I had to switch to a bigger bowl once I added the chinese noodles.

at first I was stressed about 'breaking' the noodles, but now having made a full batch, I would definitely toss and coat more vigorously next time. or maybe use a bag and a half of morsels to one bag of noodles. cause you know.. chocolate isn't necessarily a BAD thing to have more of.

this picture makes me hungry and kinda grossed me out at the same time. but see the uncoated spots?? the final products looked and tasted fine with them.. but again.. next time I would say more chocolate.

After the noodles were 'coated', we dropped them on to parchment lined bake sheets.

Rhena helped by 'squooshing' down the nests. I originally thought the shot glass would help to make a bowl-like indentation, but we made the nests smaller (needed at least 15 for her classmates, and again... keeping in mind the recipients were 3 and 4 year olds... didn't want them humongous) so the shotglass really didn't do much shaping. but don't tell her that.

instead of using a pre-fabbed egg or jelly beans as most of the posted noodle nest recipes call for.. I jazzed it up a little and made some 'Robin's Eggs' with blue-dyed white chocolate-coated mini oreos. Rhena decided to jazz up my day by choosing her own clothes... just in case you were wondering.

Once the cookies were dipped and fully coated, I let them cool on parchment.

Once everything had a chance to cool and set; the eggs were "glued" into place with canned frosting. I was GOING to make a batch of stiff royal icing, but opted for ease and availability.

I should have dyed the icing, too.. cause you can see the white upon close inspection.

Plated up and complete.

lessons learned; I would for sure make the nests a little bigger, so I could have more of a bowl shape. Also I would use more chocolate. The varying shade of brown in the final product isn't BAD, but again... more chocolate can't be a bad thing.

Next time I do this, I will play with gum paste.. maybe add some flower decoration? and for sure I will use the royal icing to glue the eggs in. the frosting was just too soft and didn't hold the eggs very well.

St Patty's Day

2008-03-16T15:43:00.000-04:00

Well... I doubt St Patrick had cookies on his mind when he was in Ireland teaching about the Catholic Faith... but I sure have cookies on MY mind this St. Patrick's Day.

Now that Rhena is older and really wants to HELP with everything.. and Danny is mobile (read has free reign of the downstairs so I'm a walking stress bucket) it's a bit harder just to decide I want to make cookies and get to baking.

step one--- get those cookies BAKED!

This particular batch has taken a total of three days to complete. one day I made the dough, the next rhena and I rolled, cut and baked... yesterday I layed the base icings, and just today I finished the details. oh. I guess that's FOUR days.

bases done... time for the finishing touches!

no matter. the best part of sugar cookies is that they keep extremely well; especially when stored in the tupperware.

for practicality, I tried to keep it simple. only 2 different shapes/cutters, and only 4 colors of icing.

The finished bunch. 21 in all. lucky number?

plated up for a nice final picture. Happy St Patrick's Day!

Lessons learned: I need to watch how much water I add back in to the icing to thin it out for flooding. I noticed that when the larger shamrocks dried, there was some inconsistencies in the color over the cookie. This is most noticeable in the dark colors. This batch was just for fun, and I'd like to think my friends will eat them just the same... but it's definitely something I need to be a little more careful about going forward.

Eat your vegetables!

2008-03-15T15:19:00.000-04:00

SO I already tried my hand at fruit cookies... I thought it was only fair that I give the veggies a shot.

ok, so it's only ONE vegetable, and I didn't make it for the sake of making a veggie cookie... The carrot cookies I made are really just the first installment for the Easter and St Patty's Day cookies I'm working on.

pipe, flood, pipe some more.

no matter. the carrots are done, and in the event that Rhena and Troy eat them all before I get the bunny heads and eggs done... I want to post them.

better than 'rabbit food'

it's all in the details

Have you had your veggies today?

personal note; the carrot shape itself was pretty easy to do. I have been percolating on doing a petit four or something.. mini carrot cakes? SOMETHING. I definitely will implement the carrot shape to the next carrot-flavored cake/treat I make. carrot cake cup cakes with cream cheese frosting and a little piped carrot on top? perhaps.

Be My Valentine

2008-02-14T15:48:00.000-05:00

These are pictures of cookies I made for some families in stepford for Valentine's day. I'm feeling more comfortable with piping, and even used colored sugar on some.

It had been a while since I made some decorated cookies, so overall I was pleased with the final products appearance-wise. (couldn't taste anything cause I gave up desserts for Lent)

Also note that I experimented with chocolate-dipped cookies. I used the cheap 'bark' that they sell in the store, but enhanced the chocolate taste by adding in chocolate morsels to the double boiler. not sure if it was the bark/chocolate ratio, it being applied to the cookies, or just the humidity here in general, but the chocolate never seemed to set all that well.

For these valentine gifts, each kid received their respective letter, decorated especially for them.

for Rushabh:

For Mike and Nancy:

For Alex, Ty, and Sonya:

For AJ and Jacob:

For Maddie and Aidan:

For Ross:

Bake Sale

2008-02-03T00:16:00.000-05:00

For the February bake sale, I kept it easy. made four personal pies... 2 cherry and 2 apple... both with the lattice work on top.

as you can see-- the edges got a bit brown, so I either need to employ the foil around the edges or buy one of those fancy bake rings. my cheap ass will probably stick with the foil.

A personal favorite of mine is chocolate covered pretzels, so I rolled up the sleeves and got to dippin'.

I made 13 one-dozen bags of pretzels to donate; in each dozen, there were 4 pretzels that had a decorative pink (dyed white chocolate) squiggles on them. My original attempt was to have that white chocolate be CHERRY flavored, but when I added the cherry extract, the white chocolate melt got stiff. TOTALLY not able to put it in the piping bags. I think because I used imitation extract, so maybe it was a water base, and caused the chocolate to coagulate?

anyways... I scrapped that batch and just went with the plain pink (white) chocolate.

I also took the opportunity to practice piping some chocolate designs on parchment paper.

piping with chocolate is much different than the royal icing. Next time I either need to go with a smaller tip or just have more practice, period. perhaps I might try letting the chocolate cool a little more, too.

S'mores a go-go

2007-11-23T19:50:00.000-05:00

Danny's birthday was a camp theme. his party was also 2 days after thanksgiving, so I did nowhere near as much for him as I have done for rhena in the past.

in fact... I ordered the cake.

I know, I know. but the favors were a home-made treat.

Thanks to Susie for the inspiration; she said something along the lines of s'mores for favors, so I ran with it.

dipping the marshmallow in the chocolate provided a little distortion, and I noticed that the graham sticks were inclined to pop out during the heat/cool process.... but overall they came out cute.

they were small enough that even I enjoyed them as a treat; I'm not one for s'mores, so that has to be saying something.

I bagged them up in sets of 2, and tied with a coordinating ribbon.

overall.... they were easy enough to make, and certainly easy enough for mass-production. I would definitely do these again. maybe when rhena does girl scouts or something.

Luau Birthday

2007-09-22T18:36:00.000-04:00

For Rhena's birthday, I made a beach-themed cake to go with her Luau-themed birthday party. to compliment the cake (and to make serving easier) I made several cupcakes, covered in 'sand' (cookie crumbs) that each had a decorated surfboard stuck in it.

I was proud of the concept and how the theme flowed into every aspect of the party. the cake? tasted great, but I have a feeling I'll look back at it and be artisticly embarrassed. like maybe next week?

oh well. Rhena loved it, and it held up the label of 'cute' well enough.

And the band played on!

2007-08-01T19:36:00.000-04:00

My friend's little boy had a guitar-themed birthday party, so I sent a bunch of guitars and music notes to him as a gift.

The biggest key for producing a large quantity of cookies is to keep the number of DIFFERENT designs to a minimum. one.. to come up with 36 different looking whatevers is exhausting. 2.. having an assembly line of some sorts helps me crank them out much faster.

as a result, I stuck with only 2 shapes for the cookie gift; music notes and guitars. second.. I kept the colors to black, red, blue and green. (oh, and I needed tan for part of the guitar. and white. always need some white)

every 'color' I do requires a loose and a thick batch of royal icing. one for outlining, one for flooding. so definitely keeping the number of colors that I use down helps.

I also had a trial run of shipping them. obviously, I did them overnight. I had them in ziplock bags AND in bubble-wrap. not sure how the final product arrived, but I was very concerned about the 'necks' of the guitars. definitely a breaking point.

oh well.. here are some of the final cookies.

Using Sticks

2007-07-04T19:21:00.000-04:00

Tried using sticks in the cookies this time.

The idea was to make the cookies look like flowers blooming out of a ceramic flower pot. I bought a decorative pot then used icing that would compliment the pot.

I think the CONCEPT behind this birthday gift was with merit.. but the final product? meh. not exactly Martha, if you get my drift. The 'grass' made of green construction paper really takes away from the overall look of the gift... but hey. hindsight is always 20/20.

Next time I will NOT just use kosher salt to fill the pot to stick my stems into. I will use a combo of planter's foam AND the rock salt. and maybe a colored sugar on top to look like grass or dirt. no more construction paper, though.

cookie 'bouquet' for Maria's birthday:

detailed look at cookies:

Lemon Cookies

2007-06-26T14:55:00.000-04:00

I practiced using flavoring in the icing, as well as decorative techniques in this batch. The cookies themselves were a bit hard... a result of too much flour, I think. you can see 'layers' in the cookie from a side view.

I tried to do a more appealing plating/different camera angles for this batch as well... as seen from the complimenting colors and props. I feel the fancier background makes the cookies look that much more 'lemony'.

attempted to create the pulpy -slash- textured look. Used a paintbrush for that effect.

overall.. I would re-attempt these again. think with more experience and a better cookie base, these could be very nice as summer gifts.

SO sparkley!

2007-06-06T15:32:00.000-04:00

not sure if that's even spelled right.. but for this batch I experimented with dusting powder.

funny thing about that stuff... a little goes a lonnnnnng way. They say to mix powder with vodka and 'paint' on. I think for this group I used too much vodka, or applied the glitter too soon, as I lost some of the icing's shape, or the colors bled a little. next time, need to wait for the icing to be harder. or not be a Neanderthal with the paint brush.

here were some butterflies and flowers I made:

May Flowers and showing love

2007-05-30T14:45:00.000-04:00

trying to back-date here, to not only get a history, but to also (hopefully) show some progress.

One of my earlier attempts at royal icing... piping and flooding.