Sunday, December 5, 2010

Caterpillar Cake

*Warning Crappy Cellphone picture ahead, sorry!*

 
For my Mom's birthday last year, I made her a Caterpillar Cake. I've had the idea for awhile and finally made it into a cake. This took a lot of time and labor but I was happy with the outcome. This was made from a homemade yellow cake mix recipe, that I can't for the life of me remember, which I split and doctored to make it into a chocolate cake. The frosting is colored store bought white icing and the spiced dots are also store bought.

Hamburger Cupcakes



Bakerella made this very popular so I decided to try them but with my own little spin on it.

The original recipe called for the use of brownies as the "meat" but I didn't want to add that extra sweetness so I stuck to just all cupcakes for it. So, I used regular store bought vanilla mix, for the "buns", store bought chocolate mix, for the "meat", and colored store bought white frosting for the, "mustard, lettuce, and ketchup." I also used sprinkles for the "seeds" on the buns. All in all these came out very good and disappeared very fast.

Rainbow Cupcakes!


Back when everyone was on the Rainbow Cupcake trend, I decided to give them a try. Just a standard box mix with food coloring, and a store bought icing (that I somehow don't have pictures of).

The Best Apple Pie



This is definitely my favorite apple pie I've ever made. Ok and it's the only apple pie I ever made. But I have tasted a lot and this is delicious. The recipe comes from Paula Deen, Crunch Top Apple Pie, and I highly recommend it.

Christmas Mailboxes


For Christmas 2 years ago, I wasn't working at the time, and decided to do something homemade a holiday gift. Thus, the Christmas Mailbox came into the picture. At the time, Target had little red mailboxes for a $1, so I picked up a couple and came up with this idea.

Inside each mailbox was the following; 4 Quadruple Chocolate Brownies, 3 Snickerdoodle Cookies, & 3 Peanut Butter Chocolate Munchies. As an extra on the side I included a Peppermint Cupcake as well.


First up, the Quadruple Chocolate Brownies. Why quadruple? There are 4 different kinds of chocolate in this brownie, on top of the fact that it's also, you know, chocolate. I, for some reason, was in love with baking brownies in a round cake pan at the time. I cut these into pieces allowing for four for each box. I ended up doing four boxes so you can figure out how many pieces that gave me.


Next, I made up a batch of Snickerdoodle cookies. A very delicious Christmas cookie. I ended up with a lot but only put 3 per box.


After that, came the Peanut Butter Chocolate Munchies. These are a chocolate cookie with a ball of peanut butter filling in the middle. I dusted these prior to cooking them in red and green sugar to add to the holiday theme. I ended up with a lot of these as well but only put 3 per box.



Finally, I felt like I needed something else. Something extra. So, from that came a Peppermint Cupcake With Cream Cheese Frosting. I had thought about putting this in the box as well but after packing in the treats, I realized they didn't fit, so I ended up wrapping each cupcake in a separate piece of christmas tissue paper and tying with a piece of ribbon. A lot of people thought it was a candle only to get a nice surprise.

All the recipes I had picked up from here and there on the internet, minus the brownie one, which is just a doctored box mix. I do plan to do something like that again this year, only this time I'm thinking cupcakes.

First Postings!

These first few posts will just be past baking experiences. Sadly my camera has been out of commision for some reason for a while now, so some things I don't have pictures of others I have crappy camera pictures of. *hangs head in shame* Crossing my figures for a new camera for christmas!

Anyway, I'm an aspiring baker who hopes at some point to do something professionally in the food industry. It's currently a toss up between opening my own bakery or my own diner. In a perfect world I would do both. I'm leaning more towards the bakery part right now, as I just love putting different things together and trying new things. Baking is a hobby I hope to make into a business and this is my first step.