Earl Grey & Vanilla Bean Birthday Cake

 

It's my mother's birthday again!  My mom loves tea, so I decided to make her a little earl grey cake this year.  Since earl grey is a pretty mild, delicate flavor, I decided to accompany it with a subtle vanilla bean buttercream.

Pear Pie

Ah, winter.  Seattle's color palate is dominated by grey, dark grey, and very dark grey.  Today is the shortest day of the year (fingers crossed that it's not the last day ever).  Sunset is officially at 4:20, but it'll start getting dark by 3:30.  And the endless winter drizzle, which will last until May at least, has begun in earnest.

So...it's absolutely necessary to brighten the winter days with some warm, sticky, delicious pie.  Pear pie is one of my favorites.  I first made it last Christmas instead of the apple pie I usually bake, and, although it's almost blasphemous to say in my family (we really care about pie), I actually prefer pear to apple.

Chai Spice Oatmeal Cookies (In a Jar!)

I decided to make cookie mix for Christmas gifts this year!  I have seen these adorable treats both around the Internet and in grocery stores for a while, and thought it would be fun to try them for a personal, DIY gift.

To give these oatmeal cookies a unique twist, I added chai spices and black tea to the mix for yummy, warm, chai spice oatmeal cookies.

Grandma's Tortelettes (Daring Bakers' Challenge)

This month's Daring Bakers' Challenge was holiday celebration cookies (hosted by Peta of Peta Eats).  This challenge had two parts - to make one of the dozen recipes listed by Peta, and to make another celebration cookie of our choosing.  For the second requirement  I picked out and made some of my grandma's holiday cookies - ones that she called tortelettes.  Due to an unfortunate kitchen malfunction, I didn't get to the first of the criteria.  So, this post is all about grandma's tortelettes!

Walnut Carrot Cake

I've always disliked carrot cake.  In my experience, it is often too dense, the frosting is usually too sweet, and it almost always commits what I consider to be a major cake felony - it contains chunks of nuts and carrots right in the cake, which messes with the texture in an inexcusable way (this is totally my opinion - I know lots of people like this). 

I decided to create a carrot cake that I would like: light, moist, and free from chunks in the cake - all without losing the carroty-ness and nutty-ness that defines a good carrot cake.

Baking Experiment! Cupcakes with Varying Sweeteners

I've been neglecting my studies.  Last year, I got How Baking Works by Paula Figoni as a gift and have been slowly (very slowly) working my way through it.  At the end of each section, there are experiments that demonstrate the concept being taught.  I learned about different flours in a previous experiment, but I hadn't done a single experiment since then.  It's time to change that - this weekend I did an experiment to determine the effect of the amount and type of sweetener used in pound cupcakes.

Pumpkin Pie Cookies

I've been itching to try a new rendition of the pie cookie.  After hearing that we would be having a small Halloween celebration at work, I caught myself wanting to bring in some delicious pumpkin pie, and decided this would be an excellent opportunity to try pumpkin pie cookies.

Chocolate Mousse Mille-Feuille (Daring Bakers' Challenge)

It's October 27th!  That means it's time for another Daring Bakers' Challenge.  This month's challenge was to create something called mille-feuille, which means "thousand sheets" in French.  The reason this is called "thousand sheets" is because the buttery pastry part of this dessert is folded and rolled out a gazillion times (I may be exaggerating...a bit).  Typically, mille-feuille is filled with a vanilla pastry cream.  I felt like I'd just used pastry cream in the pâte à choux swans challenge, so I decided to use chocolate mousse instead.

Our October 2012 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Suz of Serenely Full. Suz challenged us to not only tackle buttery and flaky puff pastry, but then take it step further and create a sinfully delicious Mille Feuille dessert with it!

Chai Tea Roll Cake

I seem to base a lot of my baking projects off of beverages don't I?  From margarita cupcakes to cinnamon latte cupcakes to pumpkin spice latte cupcakes, I tend to find a lot of inspiration in delicious drinks.  In fact, whenever I have a drink that I like, I usually ponder its possibilities as a macaron or cupcake.

Pumpkin Spice Latte Cupcakes

Starbucks is serving Pumpkin Spice Lattes (ermahgerd!).  I guess that means it's officially fall.  In the spirit of the season, and because I had a serious craving for latte cupcakes, I decided to create a cupcake version of this tasty autumn beverage.  The cupcakes are filled with a delicious from-scratch pumpkin spice butter, which is also featured in the buttercream alongside dark brown sugar.

Red Bean Mooncakes

This Sunday is the Mid-Autumn Festival, which is celebrated in many countries including China and Vietnam.  Mooncakes are a tasty pastry traditionally enjoyed during the Mid-Autumn Festival.  They consist of a thin pastry crust, and are usually filled with red bean paste (yum), lotus seed paste (yum yum), or some other dense, tasty filling.

Chocolate & Hazelnut Birthday Cake

Does anyone else have something that you constantly think you're out of, but in reality you have vast quantities sitting in the back of your pantry?  My husband and I are like this with Nutella.  We often return home from the grocery store with a new jar of the sweet chocolate spread, only to be surprised to find many more jars in the pantry.  We currently have four mostly-full jars cluttering our shelves and serving as vivid reminders of just how disorganized we are.

Champagne & Strawberries Ombre Cake

It's my husband's and my first anniversary this week.  Our wedding cake was completely eaten, so we did not do the save-the-cake tradition (which honestly we probably wouldn't have done anyway, since year-old cake sounds a little unappetizing).  I thought that instead, a new cake featuring pink champagne and strawberries would be appropriate for the occasion.

Pâte à Choux Swans (Daring Bakers' Challenge)

I'm continuing to have a lot of fun with the Daring Bakers' monthly challenges!  This month, we were challenged to make filled pâte à choux swans (or, more generally pâte à choux shapes).  Prior to this challenge, I had no idea what pâte à choux was - I soon discovered that it is the pastry used for cream puffs.  I love cream puffs (here in Seattle, they're often served at pho places - is that the case anywhere else?) so I was very excited to get started!

Kat of The Bobwhites was our August 2012 Daring Baker hostess who inspired us to have fun in creating pate a choux shapes, filled with crème patisserie or Chantilly cream. We were encouraged to create swans or any shape we wanted and to go crazy with filling flavors allowing our creativity to go wild!

Blueberry Pie Cookies

Camping is one of my favorite summer activities.  Car camping, boat camping, backpacking...I love it all, and one of my favorite things to do after I arrive at the campsite is to relax with a good book and something tasty.  Most of the time, these are store-bought cookies or crackers.  Sometimes, they are tasty homemade pastries.  Recently, I've been dreaming of bringing along the ultimate summer baked good (pie, of course).

Almond & Raspberry Cattails Cake

My dad really likes cattails.  I also like them (although not nearly as much as he does).  I think they evoke an image of a still, quiet pond, on which you while away an afternoon in a boat.  So, I decided to make a cattail-themed cake for my dad. 

Raspberry & Aprium Mini Pies

Summer is for fruit pies!  And summer has finally (finally!) come to Seattle.  Luckily, farms, grocery stores, roadside stands, and farmer's markets are bursting with berries, peaches, plums, cherries, and fruits that I have never even heard of.

White Chocolate Cheesecake Mini Cupcakes with Raspberry & Blueberry Whipped Cream

Happy Fourth of July!  What an excellent day!  I woke up this morning to a star-spangled Space Needle, and ended the day with grilled shish-kebabs and corn-on-the-cob for dinner.  Because I had no work today (yay!), I decided to revisit cheesecake cupcakes - this time, with some patriotic red (raspberry) and blue (blueberry) whipped cream.

Red Velvet Graduation Cake

My cousin graduated from high school!  My aunt asked me to make a cake for her graduation party, and I was happy to do so.  This is a 12" square red velvet (my cousin's request) cake with white chocolate cream cheese frosting.  It's the largest cake I've ever made and I learned a lot throughout the process.  In total, it took me approximately 10 hours to complete (including planning, practicing, calculating, etc), although much of that time was spent desperately trying to recover from some...unexpected challenges (more on that later).  Most importantly, my cousin liked it!  Yay!

Battenberg Cake (Daring Bakers' Challenge)

This month's Daring Bakers' Challenge was a type of cake I'd never heard of before: Battenberg Cake.  The first Battenberg Cake was a wedding cake for Queen Victoria's granddaughter and the Prince of Battenberg.  The two-color checkerboard pattern is known as Batternberg markings.  This challenge was very fun (and very British) - my favorite so far!

Mandy of What The Fruitcake?! came to our rescue last minute to present us with the Battenberg Cake challenge! She highlighted Mary Berry’s techniques and recipes to allow us to create this unique little cake with ease.

Amish Friendship Bread

When I was young, I would often watch my mother make bread.  I was particularly fascinated by the weird bubbly yeast - even more so when my mom told me the yeast was "alive".  She told me we needed to feed the yeast with sugar and make sure the water wasn't too hot so that we didn't kill it.  I became very concerned for the welfare of these little yeast creatures (especially because I knew they eventually ended up in the oven), so I asked my mom if I could keep some yeast as a pet.  I think I watched my yeast pets do absolutely nothing in a bowl for a little while, and occasionally fed  them sugar, but I eventually grew pretty bored with them.

Cinnamon Latte Cupcakes

Every morning, I walk to work, go to my favorite coffee place, and nod my head in affirmation to the barista's question, "You want your regular?".  My regular is a double tall latte with lots of cinnamon.  The coffee house that I go to has a special name for this - it's called a Caffé Viennese.

Whenever I make coffee at home, I'll also dust some cinnamon on top.  I got a craving for coffee cupcakes the other morning, and decided to make some - topped with cinnamon frosting of course.

Sesame & Vanilla Sugar Challah (Daring Bakers' Challenge)

It's time for the May's Daring Bakers' Challenge post!  I'm really enjoying these challenges.  They force me to bake things I'm not familiar with, and both challenges have yielded really tasty results.

May’s Daring Bakers’ Challenge was pretty twisted – Ruth from The Crafts of Mommyhood challenged us to make challah! Using recipes from all over, and tips from “A Taste of Challah,” by Tamar Ansh, she encouraged us to bake beautifully braided breads.

Challah is a celebratory Jewish bread, and can be braided with three, four, or six strands of bread.  While deciding how many braids to try, I had a brief flashback to the summer I unsuccessfully attempted to learn to french braid hair.  That summer taught me one thing: braiding is not a great strength of mine.  Therefore, for this challenge, I stuck with the three strand braids.  Maybe someday I'll get brave and try four or six.  I decided to try two flavor variations - sesame, and vanilla sugar.

Mini Rhubarb Crumble

A few months ago, Mr. Buttercream and I were traveling in Scotland.  We took a guided multi-day tour of the Highlands, and were unfortunately starting to feel the effects from days of eating greasy restaurant food for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  Our tour stopped in a town called Fort Augustus for lunch.  Queasy and slightly green, Mr. Buttercream and I desperately looked around for something light to eat.

We settled on a restaurant that had a pretty extensive dessert menu, thinking that a fruit dessert would be good for our stomachs.  We ordered rhubarb crumble and some herbal tea.  Our crumble came.  It had something on top that we assumed was cream.  It was not.  It was cheese.  Cheese.  Hiding under the cheesy abomination was some tasty sweet rhubarb, but getting at it without accidentally getting a bite of the horrible topping was difficult.  As you can imagine, this did nothing to help our queasiness, and we returned to the tour bus both hungry and even more ill.

Apple Mint Panna Cotta

Both my parents and my in-laws have really pretty, food-producing gardens.  My parents' garden is full of apples, potatoes, rhubarb, and beans, and my in-laws have zucchini, watermelon, and garlic chives.  I really enjoy both gardens, and I especially love baking and cooking with the fruits and vegetables that start popping out of them in the spring.

We celebrated Mother's Day for my mom a day early this year.  I decided to make Mom some mint panna cotta using the apple mint that seems to have taken over a large portion of her garden.

Margarita Mini Cupcakes

Happy Cinco de Mayo!  I'm going to a friend's house later tonight, and thought I'd bring these little boozy cupcakes along.  Luckily, I had all the margarita essentials in my liquor cabinet (from my bachelorette party, which was over eight months ago - I don't get into my liquor cabinet very often), so no trip to the liquor store necessary!

Black Sesame & Red Bean Macarons

My husband and I go to his grandmother's house for dinner almost weekly.  She always prepares several elaborate, delicious dishes for us, and we always leave with leftovers.  Unfortunately, Grandma doesn't speak very much English, and I don't speak Mandarin, so it's hard for me to express my gratitude for these excellent dinners in words.  I've learned the Mandarin word for "thank you", but it never seems like enough.

This week, I decided I was going to bake something for Grandma.  She doesn't bake herself, and she usually seems to like the things I make for her.

Pecan Nazook (Daring Bakers Challenge)

When daydreaming about my next baking project, it is usually visions of cakes, cupcakes, and cookies that are swimming through my brain.  I'm not usually pondering Armenian pastries like nazook, which is a shame because it's delicious.  Last month, I stumbled across a website called The Daring Kitchen. Every month, it issues challenges - one for baking and one for cooking.  I saw an opportunity to expand my baking horizons, and signed on to become a Daring Baker.

Vanilla "Companion Cube" Cupcakes with Raspberry Buttercream

I don't usually like video games.  In fact, the only games I've played for longer than an hour are Minesweeper, The Sims, and Portal.  In Portal, you must solve puzzles using your "handheld portal device", which you really need to see to understand.  Throughout, you are prodded onward by an increasingly malicious AI named GLaDOS.  Your only friend (for a brief time) is the Weighted Companion Cube, which is, as the name implies, an inanimate cube.

Green Tea Roll Cake with Cherry Mousse Filling

Finally, a sunny spring weekend in Seattle.  I guess we had some sun two weeks ago, but I was in California (where it rained).  I was pretty busy enjoying the weather, and didn't spend too much time in the kitchen (at this point, I'm so vitamin-D starved from the long Seattle winter that it was kind of mandatory for my health).

Earl Grey Macarons with Honey & Rosewater Buttercream

Macarons seem to be popping up all over the Internet recently.  They're pretty, dainty, delicate little pastries, and I very quickly decided I wanted to give them a try.  After reading about some of the interesting flavor variations (basil & lime! black sesame! champagne!) I became even more intrigued.  They seem like a very versatile little cookie.  And buttercream is often sandwiched between them.  I do love buttercream...

Strawberry and Blueberry Cheesecake Cupcakes

Strawberry Cheesecake Cupcake

Laura: I visited my friend Justine in Berkeley last weekend!  She had been eyeing cheesecake cupcakes as a baking project for a while, so we made them.  And then decided to jointly post about them!

Green Tea Layer Cake with Lemon Honey Ombre Buttercream

Green Tea Layer Cake with Lemon Honey Ombre Buttercream

I have to admit, last time I had green tea cake, I was not a fan.  My husband (then boyfriend) and I were visiting a friend who was studying abroad in Japan over our spring break (this was back in college).  We were staying in this strange hotel over a mall/supermarket, and for reasons I don't remember, we decided to eat every Japanese baked good and sweet from that supermarket.

For dinner.

Baking Experiment! Rolled Sugar Cookies with Varying Flours

Rolled sugar cookies with different flours: cake (pink), all-purpose (blue), and whole wheat pastry (green).

I'm a bit of a nerd, and part of what fascinates me about baking is the chemistry.  Bread goes into the oven elastic-y, sticky, and unpleasantly chewy, and comes out soft, pocketed with air holes, and delicious.  Despite a year of chemistry in high school, and another year in college, I can't explain why this happens.

Coconut Cream Mini Pies & How To Make Pie Crust Flowers

Coconut Cream Mini Pies

I have a deep, dark secret: I don't like coconut.  So, why am I making coconut cream pies?  My husband loves them, and I had never made them before, which means a new challenge for me!  I decided to miniaturize these because my husband would be the only one eating them, and he can only eat so much coconut cream pie.

Black & White Sesame Cupcakes with Sweet Bean Filling

Last week, I saw a blog post about a cupcake with black sesame buttercream.  Immediately, I began to plot my next cupcake.  I love sesame.  I sometimes have weird cravings for it.  I started to envision a lightly sesame cupcake with sweet bean filling and sesame buttercream.  At this point, I realized I was scheming to create a cupcake version of my favorite dim sum treat: Jin Deui.

Grapefruit Daisy Cupcakes with Vanilla Buttercream

I miss the sun.  Wintertime in Seattle is gray, rainy, dreary, gray, wet, and gray.  Honestly, Seattleites really should come up with a bunch of words for different types of gray...like the Eskimos have with snow (which is not true according to Wikipedia).  When I saw a recipe on Whisk-Kid for Grapefruit Poppy Seed Cupcakes with Strawberry Rhubarb Jam and Cream Cheese Swiss Meringue Buttercream, I began craving them immediately because they seemed summery and delicious.

Valentine's Day Raspberry Mini Pies

I attempted to keep these mini pies a secret from my husband until Valentine's Day.  The plan was to make them the weekend before, freeze them, and then sneak home from work during lunch to bake one on Valentine's Day.  This mostly worked.  Unfortunately, my husband kept wanting to do annoying things like get into the freezer for ice.  So, he had to have known something was going on when I banned him from getting into the freezer.  A better idea might have been to store them in the freezer at work...

"Naked" Chocolate Orange Cake

My husband's and my birthdays are so close together that we celebrate them jointly.  This year, he requested orange chocolate for his birthday cake (which is really our birthday cake).  The oranges on the cake ended up matching the brilliant Seattle sunset we had that day.

First Post: Chocolate Raspberry Birthday Cake

My first blog post!  I realized a while ago that I'd become something of a baking nerd.  I also quickly realized that not many people want to hear me relate to them my research on various types of buttercream.  So, I'm starting this blog.  Hopefully, if you read it you are also a bit of a baking nerd and find my baking research and adventures at least somewhat interesting.  I am by no means an experienced baker, so all of these projects are learning experiences.  Some of which succeed (at least mostly) and some of which...don't.  I consider this birthday cake that I made for my mother's birthday mostly a success!  Woot!

My mom requested a chocolate cake (everyone always does).  She later added that raspberries might be nice as well.  I had previously made some cupcakes decorated with chocolate plastic roses that my mom seemed to like, so I decided to make some more of those for her.