Bella's Birthday!

Sorry for the delay in new posts everyone! But good news I just finished my latest baking venture, a double-layer chocolate cake. My mom's co-worker has a daughter, Bella, who is celebrating her 8th birthday. When I asked what kind of cake she wanted me to bake I was told one word and one word only: Chocolate. Seems fitting for an 8 year old girl to ask for and I was more than happy to create birthday cake for her. Bella had my strawberry cupcakes recently and she LOVED them. So I decided to be creative and decorate her cake with more strawberries. Here is how it turned out!

A trick I learned that helps with removal of 

cake from pans: line the bottom with wax paper

Then fill with cake batter and bake

I found some pretty pink sparkly icing and I 

wrote her name on wax paper to dry

and then place on the cake later

While the cake was baking I started

to dip the strawberries in white chocolate

Then to make her name really "pop" on the 

cake I decided to put polka dots on the

strawberries

Once the cake had cooled I iced it

Then I place the berries around the edge and 

her name in the center

Close up

Unfortunately in the middle of delivering the cake to Bella, for some reason a crack started to form near the center of the cake. The crack slowly somehow turned into a crater of sorts. It almost looked like my entire cake was a tectonic plate and an earthquake decided to destroy the world. Fortunately, Bella still loved the cake and so did her mom, so I guess I can still count it as a success!
peace&hearts,
G.

Polish Cookies

On Christmas Day my mom and I drove three hours over to my boyfriends parents house for a lovely Christmas dinner. His mom made a scrumptious meal and the company was positively delightful. After dinner his mom served us cake and these little bites of heaven cookies, made by the mother of my boyfriend's sister-in-law. She is from Poland and so is the recipe of these cookies. They are called Kolaches, but his sister-in-law has since informed me the correct spelling of them is Kolaczli. The cookie part itself is not too sweet, and they are filled with little drops of fruit filling inside.

My mom and I loved them so much that my boyfriend's mom sent us home with a bag full. Unfortunately, by the end of the 3 hour drive back home there were only three left...they were oh so yummy! In order to fix the problem of a lack of these cookies, fate was looking out for me and I stumbled upon a recipe in my new baking book that I got for christmas! Well you can imagine my delight in finding it amongst 700+ recipes! I decided to bake them today and I must say they turned out tasting oh so good!
Peace&Hearts,
G.

All you need to make these cookies!

(yes it calls for ice cream!)

Mix together the Ice Cream and

 room temperature butter

It will look curdled when ready

Then add the 2 cups of flour and 

Tablespoon of sugar

Mix together

Then separate into fours and

refrigerate for 2 hours or 

until easy to handle

Roll out dough with rolling pin

and cut out with a cookie cutter--

I don't actually own any so I had

to use a cup...

Put a dollop of fruit filling of any flavor 

in the center

Fold over and bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes

Then dust with confectioners sugar 

if desired!

Final product!

Crafty crafts

So I'm sorry to say that I am not baking today BUT I did not want to leave you guys hanging with nothing new to read today so I will tell you about my latest baking adventure.

I have decided that since I have already been baking so much and now my baking has intensified I should have a respectable apron. I spent a solid hour and a half at Hobby Lobby yesterday looking at patterns and trying to pick out the best fabrics I could think of going well together. Let me tell you, something that seems so easy to everyone else is a difficult thing for me to accomplish, I am the most indecisive persons imaginable! But after what seemed like 10 years of going back and forth between this fabric and that fabric I FINALLY decided on two fabrics (even though the pattern calls for four--picking out two more would have kept me at the store far after it closed, and I'm fairly certain that's illegal.) So here is the pattern and fabrics, the light pink paisley is going to be the main part of the apron with the polka dots as the straps, belt, and pockets. Unfortunately I forgot to buy thread so you'll have to stay posted to see how it turns out!

Peace&Hearts,
G.

Strawberry Cupcakes

Yes, I know, they ARE very pink. But trust me they are oh so delicious! I must be honest with you, I made the crystallized strawberries in hope to garnish these cupcakes today. However, it saddens me to say that the berries did not exactly turn out like I had hoped they would. In fact they did not seem to crystallize at all. They looked exactly the same this morning as they did in the picture I posted last night...no change at all! Does anyone know what went wrong? No worries, I will keep trying to perfect the recipe and I will let you know if my second, third, fourth etc. batch is any better than this one. I would have taken a picture of the final product but it looks exactly like the one already posted on my previous entry.

That being said, I did make some Strawberry Cupcakes this morning! Here's the final product:

Getting ready to go in the oven

Frosting tip: If you don't have a proper frosting bag

you can put the frosting in a Ziplock bag and cut off 

one corner, squeeze out in a circular fashion or 

straight in one spot.

Since my crystallized berries did not turn out, I 

decided to garnish my cupcakes with sliced berries.

Final product!

Crystallized Strawberries

All you need!

Whisk egg white and 1 tablespoon of water

Add the strawberries

And about 1 cup of Superfine sugar

Mix together

Place in a cool place and let it harden for at least 8 hours

-Stay tuned for the finished result-

Baking Supplies

A few days ago I was on a trip with my boyfriend to a town called Naperville. The downtown area was positively gorgeous, it's a lovely area with cute shops both with local shops and national chains. His mom knows that I absolutely love baking, and when I was up there over Christmas she mentioned a baking store I should check out, unfortunately, my mom and I didn't have time to check it out when we were there. So when I went to Naperville with my boyfriend I begged and begged for him to take me downtown--even though he was fighting a horrible cold. And when he finally agreed to take me (which really didn't take all that much to crack him) and I made sure we got to check out the store his mother recommend: Sur la Table.


I walked into the store and it's like I had walked into cooking Heaven. Everything you could ever imagine was presented before me. I feel bad because almost immediately I ditched my boyfriend somewhere in the store and began exploring. They had everything from pots and pans to cupcake holders with cute designs! They even had cute little cupcake delivery boxes! Sure things were a little out of my price range but that's also just because I am a poor college student. One day though, when I have the money, I am going to go on the BIGGEST shopping spree of my life there. Sur la Table, watch out, here I come!!

What I do when I'm bored

Playing with cupcake designs

My famous "Summer Berry Surprise Pie"

Almond Buttercream Cupcakes