Cake Endeavours

 For the first time in several years we had a big family Christmas dinner and it was amazing.  I found this recipe for  Peppermint Fudge Cake  and thought it would be a great addition to the dinner. In between the layers of chocolate cake is a delicious chocolate peppermint ganache.  The cake is covered in a peppermint cream cheese icing.  This cake was so decadent! Peppermint Hershey's kisses, crushed candy cane,and holly/berry candies I picked up at Picard Peanuts to finish off decorations. Cake: 8" 3-layer chocolate cake with peppermint fudge ganache filling and peppermint cream cheese icing.

 This year's Christmas baking round-up. I haven't made these Peppermint chocolate cookies in years.  I forgot how much I love them.  I had extra peppermint icing left over from the Christmas cake I made and knew I could use it for these cookies.  As Miss E described them, they are more like a muffin consistency and the muffin top consistency to be exact!  I made the Newfoundland 5 star bars to bring to a Tbb's Eve party and added Christmas sprinkles to make them festive. Chocolate chip cookies, always a classic no matter what time of year. Peppermint crinkle cookies are messy with the icing sugar but are yummy. My all time favourite, Millionaire shortbread that I try to limit to only making at Christmas time.  

I was asked to make a dozen cupcakes for a friend of mine to take to a Christmas dinner.  These cuties are a favourite of mine to make.    Cupcakes: chocolate with vanilla buttercream; fondant leaves and snowman noses

 Originally I was going to do Jamie Oliver's  Scrumptious Yule Log  recipe for our Christmas dinner dessert but as Mr. T and were driving back home from my parents' on Christmas Eve I was reading the instructions for the cake and realised that there was no way I was going to make this before going back to my parents' in the morning.  Instead I went with this very scrumptious  Chocolate Espresso Yule Log  recipe instead.  It did not disappoint. My mother-in-law gave me some vintage Christmas decorations when they were moving and I knew that they would be perfect on top of this cake.  In the rush to get out to my parents' on time I forgot to bring the board for the cake.  Thankfully my brother had this very appropriate buffalo plaid tray that I could use. This is the cake several hours later ready to be served up.  What I didn't realise and should have, is that you dust the cake with icing sugar just before you're ready to serve it otherwi...

Several years ago I swore I would not do any mini cakes, rather multiple mini cakes in one request, especially at Christmas time.  Clearly, I forgot that resolve!  I'm hoping I won't forget again.   The 8" vanilla cheesecake was not a problem.  I made it in the Instant Pot and it came out beautifully.  Even the red with gold mirror glaze went on with ease.  If only it stopped there!   The decorations were simple enough, fresh cranberries, some sugared and some left as is, along with fresh rosemary and silver and black dragees.     Then there were the two dozen mini cheese cakes.  Yikes! I made up a cheese cake in a 9 x 13 pan, then cut into 2" square pieces and set them in the freezer.  When it came time to covering them in the glaze, it did not go so well.  It was a mess!  It would have definitely gone smoother the cheese cakes were a no bake recipe done in individual molds but I knew my friend wanted baked and ...

 Cupcakes turned Christmassy with the addition of some sprinkles! Chocolate cupcakes with whipped cream icing. Lemon cupcakes with whipped cream icing as well.  

A friend of mine asked me to make this cake for her Christmas Eve gathering.  I've made this one before and I love how it turns out.  The making of the pine cones is a pain in the butt though.  Getting the slivered almonds to stay on can be a night mare. This was a 3 layer chocolate cake with whipped cream filling and chocolate fudge icing.  I treated myself to a new cake stand from Walmart of all places.  Love the Santa cake stand.  You can't see his boots in this photo though. When making the pine cones this time I tried a new method.  For the base I divided a tube of marzipan into five and formed them into egg like shapes.  Then I painted them with melted chocolate; while it was tacky I added the slices of almonds.  This method went smoothly and much quicker than previous attempts.  Afterward I added melted chocolate to the tips of the almond slices.

One of my favourite bloggers is I AM BAKER and when I saw her video tutorial for her  Cable-Knit Sweater Cake  I knew I had to do my own version. This was a 3 layer 8" gingerbread cake with cream cheese icing.  I followed her instructions in the video for the decorating that was very easy to follow.   In addition to the sweater cake I made a 6' vanilla cheesecake in the Instant Pot then covered with homemade cranberry sauce. I love my mom's vintage Christmas table cloth!  Her Christmas baking in the background is always a big hit. We did not go hungry.

For Christmas dinner I chose to make dessert.  Again, a cheesecake.  They go over really well in my family.  I followed this recipe from Pinterest  with only making one change and that was to use almond extract instead of vanilla. This cake was super yummy.  I love the tartness of the cranberry combined with the sweetness of the cake. MERRY CHRISTMAS!

For Christmas I only made 3 different treats this year, which worked out well.  It didn't take up too much of my time and also reminds of why I like to do cakes!  All three recipes did not like how dry it was in the condo. 1.  Millionaire's Shortbread  - This is my absolute favourite.  I only make it at Christmas otherwise it would be all I eat.  It's like a homemade Twix bar.  I double the recipe for the shortbread and bake in a 9 x 13 pan.  The caramel and chocolate topping I only use one recipe for and it works well.  This first batch turned out really well.  The 2nd batch the shortbread was way to flakey; not a bad thing but it doesn't cut as nicely when it's a bit wetter.  Of course, I had to add some gold to the top to see how it turned out. 2.  Melting Moments  - This is a family recipe, but you can find different variations on Pinterest.  They don't normally look like balls as I would normally press the...

Today we had a family get together at one of my cousin's house.  I was tasked with bringing a dessert.  She was worried that I was tired of making desserts but I love to get a chance to do whatever I want and try something new; something that doesn't necessarily have to be a cake or elaborately decorated.  Okay, so I still made a cake, but a cheesecake is a totally different category.  I found the recipe on  Pinterest .  I did make a few changes from the recipe: I used a 10" pan instead of a 9", used almond extract instead of vanilla and I didn't bother to strain the apricot jam.  Continuing the gold kick I added some to the tops of the raspberries.  This is a really good recipe!  It went over well with the family.

This is the 2nd cake for my coworker that Mr T is on his way to deliver and on time! I made a couple of these last year and forgot how much of a pain it is to make these pine cones!  Fortunately, this was the most stressed out I got this year. This cake is a 3 layer 8" cake with chocolate filling.  The pine cones are made from fondant egg shaped balls, then covered in sliced almonds.  They are very finicky to "glue" on.  You can use melted chocolate or water.  Either way, you need very little otherwise the almond keeps slipping off.  Mr T had to go to several stores to find the fresh rosemary.  But the cake came together just as expected. Now we're off to enjoy the Christmas festivities.  Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

I made two dozen cookies and cream cupcakes for Miss E's school's bake sale for the holiday concert tonight.  Lots of red icing; just in case they didn't have enough energy. :) Unfortunately, I didn't make it to the concert.  Mr T's parents picked me up from downtown; it took them an hour to get me and then it took us 7 hours to get back to our place thanks to the snow!  We were at a complete standstill for almost two hours because of one hill with 3 lanes where two lanes were blocked by trucks that could not get up the hill.  What a disaster! Thankfully, the cupcakes were a hit and Mr T was able to attend the concert and take Miss E out for dinner while we stared at cars.

It's Christmas Eve and I am finally done all my baking.  Phew!  This last bake fest was for another coworker.  25 vanilla mini Christmas cakes, 2 pans of Salted Caramel Butter Bars and a pan of Lemon Bars.  Doing the bars were so quick and easy to do compared to the cakes. Since I ran out of the red glitter pen and gold spray I had to change things up.  For the berries, I took some clear alcohol, red dye and shimmer dust and painted them.  For the holly leaves with the gold glitter pen highlighted the vein down the centre. Mr T and I delivered these up to Aurora and now we're doing a mad wrapping session before heading out to my parents' to relax. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

On to my 2nd co-worker who decided on 25 chocolate flavoured mini cakes, 2 pans of lemon bars, a pan of salted caramel bars and a "pine cone" cake. I had just enough gold shimmer spray and red shimmer pen for this order.  I sent Mr. T on a mission to get more gold spray.  It was no where to be fond at this time of year.  I'm not sure what I am going to do for the third order but I will figure that out later on.  Ha!  The chocolate cakes were a lot harder to cover in a crumb coat than the vanilla.  Good grief.  They looked like globs of cookies and cream ice cream.  I did manage to bring my time down to just over an hour to cover the 25 in fondant. This cake was an 8" two layer chocolate cake.  This went together pretty smoothly.  Mr T delivered these out to the west end and of course picked himself up a Slurpee on his way back. On to the next cake...

One of my coworkers asked if I could to do mini-cakes for her mom's 80th birthday party.  I had a perfect idea in mind that I had seen on  Pinterest .  She thought it was great and also liked one with a rose on it so it wasn't just Christmas.  I told/warned her that I had no idea how long these would take me as I had never done petit-fours before but I was up for the challenge.  What I didn't account for was that she would show other co-workers what I was doing.   My order of 50 ballooned to 100.  Two other co-workers wanted 25 each.  Good thing I took the week off before Christmas.  Though it's not turning out be the relaxing week that I had planned! So, to make these cakes these are the steps I took: - baked four 10" vanilla cakes. - with a 1 7/8" round cutter I was able to get 25 rounds out of each layer. - filled with vanilla butter cream and sandwiched two rounds together, set in fridge for 20 minutes - covered in butter cream e...

Miss E picked these cupcakes out for me to make for her school Winter Concert bake sale.  I made two dozen chocolate cupcakes topped with vanilla butter cream icing. For the Santa belts I cut out 24 red 2 1/4" circles, strips of black and then used by square cutters to make the belt clip.  They went over well and were all sold by the time the sale was over.

I've had this cake pinned on  Pinterest  for a long time.  This year I vowed I was going to try making it.  I made the Perfect Chocolate cake  in 3 9" layers with whipped cream as the filling.  I was up super last night working on these pinecones which were not the easiest to do. In the original instructions the pine cone bases were made out of fudge.  I just used brown fondant and shaped it into 5 ovals.  Instead of melted chocolate to glue the almond pieces on, I used water instead as the melted chocolate was just making a mess.  I did use the melted chocolate for the tips of the slivered almonds as the pictures in the instructions still showing the almonds with the skin on it.  This worked out really well.  Thank goodness I only made 5 of these as they took a really long time to do.  At least I was entertained by watching Scrooged on TV. For the sprigs of "pine" I used fresh rosemary and then added some sugared cra...

I can't believe it's been over two months since I've updated my blog!  Fortunately there is not too much to get caught up on what I have been baking. These adorable snowman cups were for Miss E's winter concert bake sale on December 17th.  It's been so long since I've made them, I'm not actually sure what flavour they were.  Looking at the picture it looks like they were chocolate.  I saw these on Pinterest (of course) and have been wanting make them for a few years.  This was the perfect opportunity.  First you ice the cupcakes with some buttercream.  Then to cover the icing to make it look like snow, in a small bowl I had the white sugar crystals and dipped the cupcakes in to cover each one.  I used an orange jelly bean for the "carrot" nose, black dragees for the "coal" mouth, and cut out fondant for the eyes.  It was a simple but long process.  Thankfully it was for only two dozen of them. 

Miss E's school concert was last night. The parent council did a bake sale and the teachers organised a raffle to raise money for a family going through some hard times.  I donated cupcakes (pictured in a future post) for the bake sale and a cake for the raffle. I was excited to get to do a Christmas/winter themed cake of my own choosing.  I went with an 8" two layer cookies and cream cake.  I love my snowman. Miss E was super excited that I was doing a cake for her school.  She was disappointed that we didn't get to take it home though.  Ha!