Happy Valentine's Day (p1)!

Valentine's Day includes pink and red and flowers and mushy gushy stuff and sweets! Lots of sweets!
Here's a kickback to some of the sweets of V-Day's past.

Chocolate Dipped Strawberries
Scones + Treat Bags
Gift Baskets with a whole mess of homemade treats

And what was in store for this year's Valentine's sweets orders?

Why, a TOOL BOX (a red one no less) filled with treats!

Contents include:

Pink(Strawberry) Rice Krispy Treats

Sea Salted Chocolate Chip Cookies (of course!)

Heart Shaped Chocolate Whoopie Pies (whoopie!)

Gift Bakets Galore (aka holiday baking bonanza part II)

This post is quite overdue... oops!

Just wanted to tie up the holiday season, though its been long gone...

2 baskets from the Holiday Baking Extravaganza

Special Gift Basket a la The Appropriated Muffin

 Included: the usual Salted Chocolate Chip Cookies and...

Homemade Peppermint Marshmallow with Semisweet Chocolate

Holiday shaped Rice Krispy Treats

Dachshund shaped Butter Cookies with Mini Chocolate Chips for eyes (the recipient was a doxie owner)

the goings ons

I've been "busy" lately... eeeesh. Oh life.

Here's what I've been up to:

hand-stamped packaging

gift baskets

working on packaging methods

The holidays are FAST approaching. I hope to bake new stuff this year! (But who can't help but make the "oldies but goodies"?)

big change and a big gamble!

I'm doing it... taking that leap. Don't know where I'll land, but hopefully I won't land too hard (or on my face!). I will keep you all posted as this "endeavor" either a) grows amazingly b) goes nowhere c) fails a horrible death.

This should also mean more projects and even MORE baking! Yay!

Initial marketing/branding stuff

Love in little packages...

In case I've only slightly alluded to my new job as a baker for a vegan cafe/bakery... yes. It is true. Thus, I am leaving behind the job and company I have been a part of for over three years. Time to follow my dream!

And of course, I'll be missing my co-workers. They all threw me a going away party. A potluck, in fact, which made me tear up. It was nice to see them MAKE food, given that we work for a catering company I would have expected a platter of whatever from our kitchen. So, just to humanize myself a bit for you all... it goes like this: "So, who made all the food?" "We all did. Since you've been making us treats, we wanted to repay the favor!" "*CRY*"

I decided that night to bake up one final treat for everyone... a parting gift.

No new recipe, but the office's fav! Marshmallow Crunch Brownie Bars - I've made this COUNTLESS of times for them... and always so well received!

Rice Krispy Treat initials to personalize!

the amazing treat!

Slap the two together in a cello bag.

♥

Turning 26! (Been there, done that.)

Mine has already passed, and now... on to the next one!

And we celebrated the one way we always celebrate - food, friends, and fun. Usually pretty low key. In fact, I can't really remember back to when we've been off-the-wall ridiculous. 22? 23? Lightyears ago it seems.

Anyways, on to the quintessential birthday cake!

Triple Layer Lemon Chiffon Cake with Lemon Curd and Italian Buttercream

Cake recipe from Tender Crumb
Lemon Curd - recipe to follow
Italian Buttercream - recipe to follow

This cake took me an entire afternoon. That's what happens when you have no ingredients and bake completely from scratch. (I might as well have also churned the butter myself!)

I wasn't 100% confident in my chiffon cake abilities, since my cakes generally turn out to be more dense than light. SO! Here we go:

BOWL FULL of fluffy cake batter

out of the oven! Cakes pull away from the pan as they cool. (the tops of mine were still sticky - so i worried a bit).

Lemon Curd:
4 Eggs
4 Egg Yolks
1C Sugar
Zest from 2 Lemons
3/4C Lemon Juice (took me about 5 lemons, why?!?!?!?!)
8oz butter, cubed

Combine eggs, yolks, sugar, zest and juice over double boiler.
Add butter and cook. Stir until thick - a light sour cream consistency.
Strain (in case of any unfortunate cooked egg chunks, or pulp.)

Hmmmm. Note to self: Distribute cake batter EVENLY among pans.

Italian Buttercream:
5 Egg Whites
Pinch of Salt
1lb Butter, room temp
1/4C Sugar + 3/4C Sugar
1/4C Water

Combine water and ONLY 3/4C Sugar in small pot. Heat to boiling.
When sugar starts to cook, turn on stand mixer with egg whites and pinch of salt. Let beat to fluffy meringue.
(Should get soapy looking - if not, re-do with CLEAN egg whites.)
Continue to boil sugar until it threads in ice water, and you can pick up the piece in your hand. (detailed explanation to follow)
Egg whites should be "soft peaks" by this time. CAREFULLY, pour in the hot sugar to the egg whites.
Continue to beat until the mixing bowl cools back down to room temp/comfortable to the touch.
Throw in butter cubes as mixer continues to beat. BEAT BEAT BEAT BEAT BEAT! And.... DONE!
In my experiences, the meringue does deflate once you throw in the butter. I haven't been able to get it back to being as light and fluffly as I did in class - the first time I've ever made this buttercream. (Maybe I misremembered the texture...)

Iced Water Test:
So you got the sugar boiling - HOT HOT HOT - use a metal spoon and dip in to scoop up just a bit of the bubbling sugar. Drizzle into the bowl iced water. You should be able to SEE the thread of sugar in the iced water. Try to pick up that sugar. If  you can pick it up, and roll it into a ball - its ready to be poured into the meringue! (I forget what the exact term would be... "hard ball", "soft ball"?)

Final Notes - yummy! Cake was light and fluffy - success!

Strawberry Cupcakes with Basil Cream & Pink Peppercorn Meringue

I'm not 100% sure why I picked these cupcakes out of the few that I brainstormed for the Cupcake Camp OC competition... I guess it was just one of those combination of flavors that I've tried and never really forgot.

So without further ado, the cupcakes!

Strawberry Cupcakes

2.75C AP Flour

0.5C Cake Flour

1T Baking Powder

1t Salt

8oz unsalted butter, softened

2.25C Sugar

3 Large Eggs and 1 Large Egg White

1C Whole Milk, room temp

1.5t Vanilla Extract

2C Diced Strawberries

Preheat oven to 350.

Cream Butter and Sugar. Add eggs (and white) one at a time, mixing after each addition.

Sift together all dry ingredients. Mix together milk and vanilla.

Add wet and dry to mixer. Mix until combined.

Fold in strawberries.

Bake at 350 for 22-25min - toothpick test for doneness.

Pink Peppercorn Meringue

4 Egg Whites, room temp
0.75C Sugar
0.25C Sugar
1.5t Cornstarch
0.5t White Wine Vinegar
1T pink peppercorns, lightly crushed (or ground, if you prefer less concentrated heat)

Preheat oven to 275.
Beat whites until soft peaks. Then add 0.75C sugar gradually until medium-firm peaks.
Mix remaining 0.25C sugar and cornstarch. Gradually beat mixture into meringue until very stiff. Beat in white wine vinegar.
Fold in peppercorns.
Pipe onto parchment lined baking sheet in whatever shapes you like. I used dollops, and did so sloppily for the initial trial run (as seen above).
Bake at 275 for 25min. Then turn off oven, crack open oven door and let sit for 1 hour until dry.
(Can be made 1 day in advance)

 Basil Cream (adapted from Cupcake Bakeshop by Chockylit)

 6T Basil Syrup (recipe below)
1C Heavy Cream

Beat heavy cream until stiff peaks. Add syrup to taste.

Basil Syrup

0.5C Sugar
0.25C Water
0.75C Packed Basil Leaves - cut up into pieces (you can adjust strength to taste - also, I used the more fragrant sweet smelling basil, not the licorice-y smelling one. Blech.)

Boil sugar and water until clear. Add basil and let boil for a while. Cool to room temp.

I decided to use Basil Buttercream in lieu of Basil Cream on actual competition day.
I simply used a buttercream recipe and added in the basil syrup to taste.

The assembly...
Cool cupcakes.
Frost.
Top with a meringue hat.
Sprinkle a line of ground pink peppercorns across the top.

Ta-da! The "competition dozen" - turns out I really only needed 4 good ones, the rest were served as "donations" anyways.

Cupcake adventure complete!

Petey!

It was Petey's bday... and sometimes as we get older and just go out for dinner and drinks, wrapped gifts sometimes seem to be overkill.

But because I heart Petey so... I made him a little something!

What could it be???????????

A blue rice krispy treat name plaque thing! 

I spread some white on the top just to make this letters pop. (Hey! That rhymes!)

Happy Tape!

I'm a sucker for cute and unique packaging... so of course, when I came across Happy Tape - I immediately ordered a box! No hesitation. I love this stuff! I'll have to restrain myself from buying each and every style. Eek!

Wrapped up some of that homemade bread from class to gift to some peeps!!

Pudding anyone?

Still playing around with packaging and labeling...

Would you refuse this magnificent tower of homemade...

?

MIA

So, I'm starting a baking program this week, I've had to switch my work schedule around to accommodate - meaning I now only have Sundays off for the next 3 months. I've been mentally preparing for the onslaught of stress and tiresome days which has thus decreased my motivation to run/workout and bake as often as I usually would otherwise. If I seem to have disappeared off the face of the earth... sorry!

On another note, I'm currently working on making some macarons!

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand it's not going well so far.

But practice makes perfect!

Any tips would be absolutely wonderful too!

The filling I made the other day came out wonderful though! Vanilla Bean Buttercream from Brown Eyed Baker. Yum!

gifting cookies!

so, we've already been over how amazing these salted chocolate chip cookies are - and how these particular cookies are HIGHLY accepted by everybody...

so i bake them for "special occasions" and package them into gifts!

A paper mache flower pot filled with cookies, and hugging an empty Starbucks cup containing gift cards! Happy Birthday Jason indeed!

More V-day treats!

I did lots of baking last night. I had a big order to fill for a friend to give to her hubby!

And of course, I had to make her a treat box too!
Contents include: strawberry rice crispy treats, sea salt chocolate chip cookies, chocolate doxie cutout cookies, PB brownies, pretzel brownies, and classic brownies!

Strawberry Rice Crispies - recpie right off the bag!
3T Butter, 1 Bag Marshmallows (I used the strawberry flavored - since you know, V-day needs pink and hearts and crap like that), 6C Rice Crispy Cereal.
Melt then mix then cut!

Pretzel Brownies - just add in crushed pretzels to your favorite brownie recipe!

Doxie Cutouts

I used the Chocolate Linzer Cookie recipe from King Arthur Flour.
Then for the markings, I just smushed some pieces of cookie dough from the choc chip cookies I was making and just did a quick roll over the dough before cutting out the shapes.

And of course, I got fab stuff too!

Assortment of goodies from Trader Joe's - instant pudding, brownies, soba noodles, chocolate and candy!