Black Bottom Cup Cakes

I just couldn't resist these mouthwatering sight whose recipe comes from Eleanor's blog. I think hers turned out better or at least hers looks better through lenses. She was the one who directed me to Smitten Kitchen who is hosting the recipe. Really easy recipe and lots of helpful hints. I was really excited to taste them but I found that these need to get quite cool before they really show a good tasting. I did use a piping bag to pipe the filling into the cupcakes. I also made some large and some mini just to see which works better. I've only tried the mini ones and they are yummy... but only after they were well cooled. When they are just fresh out of the oven, they tend to taste a little cheesy, overpowering the chocolate.

Another decorated cake!

Just another decorated cake. This was made for Cecelia for helping me with a class when I was feeling ill. Its a 4" chocolate cake covered with blue butter cream and royal icing daisies! I personally like how this one turned out.

Bridal Shower Cake

Here's the other cake I had to make. This didn't turn out as I had hoped. I did try a different design. My options for the picture for a three tiered cake, wedding bells, an umbrella, champagne glasses or a wedding dress. Humm... I'm thinking I should have gone for the wedding dress. Oh well, maybe next time. Any suggestions? The cake is a butter pecan flavour with Wilton's classic butter cream icing with pink royal icing flowers. Nothing much to add to this pretty picture except that I do enjoy decorating cakes. If I had more time, I would try more complicated designs. I enjoy working with fondant but it is so expensive to buy and I still haven't found a good fondant recipe that uses easy to find ingredients.

Baby Shower Cake

This is the first baby shower cake I've made and I am quite pleased with how it turned out. I would have added a little baby's face but due to the lack of time and also I had to make another shower cake that I will post tomorrow.

For some reason, my icing didn't turn out the way I like. There seemed to be alot of air bubbles. Might have been due to the fast whipping of the icing toward the end of the mixing. For this cake, I made a rainbow bits cake. I used to love eating this cake but now, I'm more into the golden cakes and of course the chocolate cakes. Humm... that makes me think of the carrot cake I used to make. I just might have to make that some time soon. The cake is iced with Wilton's classic butter cream icing and the blue morning glory flowers are made of royal icing.

Chocolate Iced Orange cake

Baking again! Every time I bake, I am not quite sure what will turn out. I made this for our bible study group as it was our turn to host. It had great reviews! When I want an easy cake, I usually use a cake mix. But ofcourse, I cannot just leave it as it is. I like to spiff it up a little to make it more unique and perhaps homemade like? So, I used an orange...
cake mix from Duncan Heinz. Here's a great tip if you want a nicely leveled cake. I have noticed that many cake mixes tend to errupt in the middle when it cooks. So I usually sift the whole mix before adding the wet ingredients. This always helps to balance out the baking powder and evenly spread throughout the cake well. Normally I add orange juice instead of milk or water. But I didn't have any at hand. Another good tip to keep the cake level even is to bake the cake at a slightly lower temperature and bake for a longer time. Once it was cool, I divided it into two and brushed it with a light orange syrup made with orange marmalade or sometimes I use Grand Marnier. Just a tablespoon will do. Then I used a chocolate butter icing for the filling and to ice the whole cake. I had strawberried at hand and used it to make the cake pretty. Next time instead of cutting the strawberries into half and decorating it, I will use the strawberries whole. I found that putting the inside of a halved strawberry on the icing, made the strawberry start to screte its moisture. Next time, chocolate dipped strawberries would be even better for decorating.

Mini Flower Cup Cakes

Don't these look cute? I just love how they look and they taste pretty good too! Pre-mixed cakes are easy and convenient but I find that it always taste better when you spruce it up with something else. In this case, I like to brush my cakes with Grand Marnier or Kahlua or Cream Sherry before giving them a dusting of icing sugar or a coat of butter icing. Then to make them pretty, my favourite way is to use royal icing flowers that I made myself earlier. These royal icing flowers are hard and can keep for a very long time. If I'm out of these, I'll just pump flowers out of butter icing. Here are what my cup cakes looked like before they got decorated.

Baking- its been a while

Its seems like its been forever since I last baked. If I recall correctly, the last time was when I made a birthday cake for a collegue's little girl. She is such a cutie. A blondie with beautiful curls so I made her a doll cake according to her specifications. She wanted a white cake with white icing for her dress with pink, yellow and purple flowers. I always enjoy making doll cakes. They aren't too difficult and the results are wonderful.

Feeling a little under the weather tonight, I needed a little pick me up and this is when I usually like to bake. So I made cup cakes of 2 sizes. They are cooling and awaiting icing tomorrow.