On the Agenda

Coming up....

*Homemade Marshmallows* I am not a huge fan of marshmallows. I can take them or leave them so I never had any intentions of making them from scratch until I read "If you have never tried a homemade marshmallow you have no idea what you are missing out on. Those nasty jet puffed chemical white blobs you get at the store and well pretty much tasteless and only good for setting on fire when roasting marshmallows for s'mores at camp when you're like 10 years old. But a HOMEMADE marshmallow is a whole different thing. They're light, fluffy, sweet, melt in your mouth goodness."
Sounds intriguing, huh? We'll see!



*Cake Ball Pops* Never heard of them? Google it! In a nutshell, you mix up a baked cake with some frosting, roll it in a ball and dip it in chocolate. You can use any flavors you like. I love recipes with creativity flexibility.



Also... I think it's apparent that baking cakes/cupcakes for a living is my dream job. I plan on spreading the word that I am open for business! I have one last MOPS meeting and I'm going to take a couple of things for the women to taste. I don't have a fancy name on business cards (yet) nor do I have a website. But I will bake you a darn good cake (or cupcakes) for a darn good price!

Happy Birthday, Kristie!

Today is not only tax day, it's my friend Kristie's birthday! She's a fellow chocoholic so I made her some Milky Way Cupcakes. It's a chocolate cupcake with a piece of a milky way candy bar baked in the middle topped with caramel buttercream.

Before baking:















After baking:















After frosting:































I wasn't sure how these were going to turn out. It has been a long time since I baked something in the middle of a cupcake. The candy bar hardened back up into original shape after cooling it had more of a chewy texture, though. These were really good. I wasn't the biggest fan of the frosting, so I used a decorating technique that used as little as I could. Overall, I consider these pretty successful! I just hope Kristie feels the same!

I'm gonna do better

I realize I haven't been quite the blogger lately. The last time I made cupcakes, I didn't take pictures, but let me tell you they were very different and quite tasty. I had a cupcake at a local cupcake shop that was outstanding and tried to reproduce it. It was a chocolate cupcake with Nutella filling frosted with a maple buttercream. VERY RICH--in a good way!

I am baking more cupcakes Thursday for a friend's birthday. I'll post pictures. I'm not going to tell what kind I'm making... you'll have to check back to see!

Also, on my baking agenda is this Coconut Banana Bread with Lime Glaze. Doesn't it look fantastic? I think it's gonna be a "Welcome Home" thing for Derek. He's been in Texas for the last week or so.

Anyway, just wanted to give a shout-out to say I'm still here and still interested in my blog even though it doesn't look like I am!

Yes, it is Amazing

Happy Easter!

I made Easter cupcakes for MOPS and forgot to photograph them before taking them. I snapped this picture of the mini ones after a few had already been eaten and didn't end up getting a photo of the full-size cupcakes at all. They were basically the same except they had a peep on them! I hope this inspires you to make your own Easter cupcakes-- why not!?!

2 Year Pictures

Aubree turns 2!

My baby girl is officially 2. I didn't think I was going to get emotional over this birthday like I had the last. I didn't... until I read her "Now I'm 2" which is a book about how she's not a baby anymore. She's not. She's on the road to being a big girl! Anyway, since the main subject of this blog is about baking, I figured I'd highlight the food/cake aspects of her birthday.
























I worked a long time on this cake. I had this image in my head and Friday night I was pretty sure it was going to be the furthest thing from the cake in my head. But, after finishing it Saturday, it turned out ok!


















There was a "2" candle I put after "Birthday"

























Aubree liked it! She even had to sample it before anyone else did :)






















Oh! And there were chocolate covered bananas- DELICIOUS!

















There are more birthday pictures on my myspace and facebook if your interested :)