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.  

 After the success of the Mocha Crunch cake for Thanksgiving dinner I made a pumpkin spice version that turned out amazing.  You can't go wrong with a cream cheese icing.  It's a family favourite. I never used to like having any kind of nuts in my cake.  I still don't but having them as an accent works for me.  Ha!   Inside view of the cake in its glory.  When I can, if I remember, I like to get a shot of a piece of the cake or a view with several pieces cut out. Cake: 6" 3-layer pumpkin spice cake with cream cheese icing

I made this yummy dessert to take to Easter dinner with Mr. T's family.  I love a no bake dessert.  I followed this  recipe . Instead of crushed Oreos as the topper I added broken Cadbury eggs.  Instant Easter dessert.  

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

 This year for my family's get together I made this cake for Easter.  Flecked with dark brown dye to give a robin's egg look and topped off with some Cadbury chocolate mini Easter eggs. Cake: 8" 3-layer carrot cake with cream cheese icing

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

Back in August we took a trip to Niagara Falls with my in-laws and had lunch at  the Queen Charlotte Tea Room .  The home made sticky toffee pudding was amazing.  I decided that I was going to turn it into a cake for Thanksgiving.  While it's not quite as delicious as the one from the tea room, it's a pretty close second. I made a 3 layer 6" cake with toffee sauce and a light whipped cream cheese.   I kept it in the fridge until we were ready to serve it.  This way the toffee sauce didn't drip everywhere while cutting the cake. With the extra sauce, I heated it up to poor over each slice; just in case it wasn't sweet enough!

 Thanksgiving isn't the same without some form of pumpkin dessert.  Cheesecake is always appreciated in my family.   Baking a cheesecake in the Instant Pot is so much easier than in the oven.  It's pretty fool proof.  I wasn't worried about how the top was going to look as I was covering it with a whipped cream icing.  Can't have pumpkin without whipped cream.  Though Miss E would have preferred it from a can, I'm sure.

 This weekend we celebrated Mother's Day by visiting outdoors at each of our parents' place.  Mr. T's parents recently moved into a condo so we had no back yard to visit outside in.  Fortunately, the condo has a beautiful piece of green space that we can bring out lawn chairs out to and visit now that the weather is so much nicer.  At my parents' they have a big back yard and deck that we can visit outside in.  It was wonderful to be able to get together with both mothers (and dads too).  We brought them some chocolate cupcakes for a little treat. Sprinkled with some gold sugar for bling. 

Another Easter in captivity!  Fortunately, my parents have a big back yard and deck that we were able to be outside to celebrate even though it was a bit chilly.  Dinner was finished off with classic carrot cake and cream cheese icing; a family favourite! I did cupcakes so we didn't have to worry about plates and forks.  Added some chocolate eggs for decoration because, is it even Easter without some chocolate?  

This Thanksgiving is our 3rd annual Octoberfest celebration.  Though it was certainly celebrated much differently from last year.  It's our first Thanksgiving without my paternal grandmother which under normal circumstances would have been bittersweet.  However, combined with social distancing in our 2nd wave we had a very small gathering in my parents' backyard.  I am very grateful that we were fortunate to be able to celebrate with my parents and my brother.  It was a little chilly but we had good company and yummy food. My contribution was this 3 layer 6" pumpkin cake covered in cream cheese icing.  I know my family will take any cake that is a vessel to cream cheese icing.   Hopefully, next Thanksgiving we will be able to celebrate properly with extended family.

For this cake Adam and his brother-in-law were each celebrating their first Father's Day and so a special cake was requested with a BBQ theme. The recipe I used for this cake:  Bailey's & Guinness Cake I followed the recipe for the cake, ganache and buttercream making it a 6 layer 8" cake.  For the grill and food I used fondant and shaped them appropriately.  They came together rather quick and easy.  To make them more realistic I used some food colouring with vodka (makes the food colour dry very fast and the alcohol evaporates).  Finally, added grill and char marks. Both fathers enjoyed the cake.  My father was super jealous.  Good thing his birthday is coming up so I know what flavour it will be.

For some strange reason I always thought I didn't like German chocolate cake and never thought of making it.  For our 2nd annual Coles Family Oktoberfest Thanksgiving, I thought it would make a great addition to the spread of Oktoberfest themed food. Of course I turned to Pinterest to find a recipe and came upon  this recipe .  I didn't make any tweaks to it; simply followed the instructions.  Every component of this cake is delicious; the cake, filling and chocolate icing, they are all decadent.  The cake is so rich that I couldn't finish my piece.  Though I am sad that I didn't save it for later. 

For Mother's day this year, I wanted to try something different.  Apparently, different means, crazy multi-step, multi-ingredient and time consuming. This dessert required the following: - Phyllo pastry, used store bought - Chantilly cream, made fresh - Macaroons, store bought from  Charmaine's Sweet Studio  (highly recommend) - Meringues, made myself.  Note:  Only use fresh egg whites, not from a carton or you end up wasting your time and ingredients to start over! - Chocolate ganache, made fresh  - Brownies, store bought 2 bite brownies - Strawberries, not Ontario grown :( They aren't ready yet) There are numerous YouTube videos on these types of cakes to follow.  I chose to use Phyllo pastry instead of using a cookie recipe because I didn't want to worry about it breaking and how it would be difficult to cut without breaking it. It was a lot of work!  But totally worth it for my mom and me!  It was really good....

For New Year's Day we had my parents and brother over for dinner at our place.  My dad requested a chocolate cheesecake for dessert.  I only make a cheesecake in the Instant Pot now.  It is honestly, foolproof!  The cake is always moist. Best way to start a new year is with a triple chocolate cheesecake splattered with gold and silver shimmer dust.  The balloons and lettering were cut using my Cricut Explore Air.

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.

Every once in a while I will do a cake with full multi colour butter cream decoration.  For my family's Thanksgiving dinner I volunteered to make a dessert.  I made an 8" three layer pumpkin spice cake with cream cheese filling.  After baking the cake the most tedious task is preparing all the icing to do the decorating. Russian tips are not as easy as they look.  For some tips the icing has to be the right consistency and temperature or they come out like blobs.  I learned this the hard way.  Once you do get the right consistency you have a small window get out as many flowers as you can before they come out as blobs again! Definitely take the time to practice as each tip works differently.  In the end I was pleasantly surprised with how it turned out. Regardless the cake was yummy and was shared with family.