Spring Flowers!

I feel like a bear that just came out of hibernation.

The weather has been soooo unpredictable! Back in fall, people were saying that we were going to have one of the hardest winters ever. So obviously I went and bought a really warm (and expensive) coat and a really sturdy (and expensive) pair of waterproof boots.
And then winter didn't come.

But I'm not disappointed. As I might have mentioned before, I wasn't really built for winter. Not one hair on my head likes winter or snow or cold.

And then all of a sudden it became really warm and breezy and sunny and just DELICIOUS!

After a long time, I was able to try something new in terms of baking and decorating to celebrate the good weather.

I baked some chocolate peanut butter cupcakes with a recipe I found in a cupcake book. I have to do a review on this book sometime soon.

I also watched a video on some pretty fondant flowers and was inspired to recreate the look. I gave it a try and it was pretty easy!! It took me a few tries to get the hang of it but the outcome is quite pretty.

If you want to try this and think the video is a little unclear, let me know and I'll do another post with step by step pictures and explanations.

I'm also really happy with how I photographed these. Obvious credits go to the sunlight but I like to think I had something to do with it too :)

Happy Baking!

Funnel Cake

Today marks the beginning of my new diet. Well technically its an old diet that I've started and stopped multiple times. But we're just going to call it my new diet.

Over the 5 years that I've been an undergraduate student, I have changed (what I consider) drastically. I'm not going to go into details about everything I want to change about myself but I WILL say that I'm on a determined mission to live a healthier lifestyle full of exercise, nutritious food, and good rest.

Obviously this is a pretty hefty goal. I live on Mr. Noodles and soda, sleep at 3 in the morning and wake up at 12, and the most exercise I get is walking to the bus stop which is 1 min from my door.

Thus my back up plan is to fatten all those around me so that I look good.

KIDDING!

About the fattening others part....not about the healthy living part.

But the title of this post is funnel cake and that is what we are going to talk about.

Gimme a break this one time and I'll try not to put up anymore posts that will clog your arteries. No promises though.

I tried out a recipe I found at this site which has some beyoooootiful pictures of food. Seriously. Compared to those pictures, mine look like they were taken on a polaroid.

I love this recipe because it is super simple. There isn't a whole lot of ingredients and you can find almost everything you need already in your pantry....if you have a pantry that is.

What I don't love is that it calls for deep frying. Deep frying always makes me cringe because I KNOW it will taste sooooo good but I KNOW that its sooooo bad....INTERNAL CONFLICT! Who am I kidding? There's not conflict. Deep frying FTW!

Here's what you'll need

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 1/3 cup milk
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 egg
1/4 cup powdered sugar for garnish
A squeeze bottle


The original recipe also called for 1/4 tsp lemon zest but I didn't have any. I also assumed that the powdered sugar was for garnish...it wasn't super clear on the original recipe...or maybe I'm being a total idiot and I should have added the sugar. Either way....it tasted fine without the sugar.

Here's what you should do

Sift the flour, baking powder, and salt into a container with a spout. You will be pouring the batter out of this container so it's easier if it has a spout.

In another bowl, whisk the egg and then add milk, vanilla, and lemon zest and whisk some more.

Pour the wet mixture into the dry mixture and stir until well combined. The batter should be pretty thick.

Pour batter into the squeeze bottle. I tried to use the Wilton bottles but I found the tips to be too small and the funnel came out crispy and thin. I changed to a piping bag which made a really big funnel which I also didn't like too much but my taste testers loved. Try to find a bottle with an opening thats not too big or too small. I suck at math so I'm not going to bother giving you a diameter or a measurement. I will say that the squeeze bottle is MUCH easier to manage than a piping bag.

Place a metal ring into a pan with oil. This will act as a guide if you want perfectly same sized funnel cakes. I didn't have a metal ring so I just eyeballed it. They turned out fine.

Once the oil is hot enough, squeeze the batter into the oil making a ring and then criss crossing everywhere to achieve a funnel cake look.

Cook for about 1 min and flip. Once it is evenly golden brown, remove from oil and place onto paper towels or something that will absorb all the excess oil.

Top immediately with tonnes of powdered sugar and add whatever else your little heart desires. I used whipped cream, strawberry jam (which I melted because I didn't have strawberry sauce), and chocolate sauce.

NOM NOM NOM

Happy baking...err...frying!!

Creme Brulaylay

Do you ever have those days when you're sitting in class at 9:30 in the morning thinking about a really yummy dish you had a while ago? I mean yeah your obviously paying attention to the lecture and studiously taking notes. But your also drooling over a big fat piece of pie or a creamy dessert...like creme brûlée.

Well that's what I was doing last week and then had the opportunity to put my dreaming into action.
Recently, my roommates and I had a girls night and I decided to whip up some creme brûlée...obviously I can use phrases like 'whip up' and 'throw together' because I'm such an expert...duhh.

It was surprisingly easy. There weren't too many ingredients and I found a really good video showing the process...and the cook was French....with a French accent. The accent proves his expertness so I went with his video. I'm sure there are many other variations and ways to do it.


Here's the link to the video. The ingredients are also listed on there.

I didn't have a flamethrower...I mean blowtorch so I set the oven to broil and carefully put the ramekins in and watched them with hawk eyes. I wish I had the blowtorch though. It would have been cooler.

They tasted really good. They were a little warm and more liquidy since I put them in the oven instead of torching them. All in all, very fattening and yummy.

First Sugar Cookie Attempt

Okay so I know I said I wouldn't be doing another post until I got a few other things done and was back at school....

BUT everything is almost pretty much in order and I just drank a huge mug of french vanilla coffee...and decided to do a post!

What is french vanilla coffee?

1 spoon of Nescafe instant coffee
3 spoons Tim Horton's French Vanilla Powder
Hot boiling water
Tons of sugar

yummm....I thought I might throw a Lindor chocolate truffle in there...but too bad I ate them all :)

I thought I would ring in the new year (a little late) by talking about a project I tried in 2011 summer and haven't touched since.

After creeping Sweetopia's blog and watching this tutorial video on her royal icing daisy transfers about 50 times, I decided to give it a try myself.

I was too intimidated to make the royal icing from scratch so I bought the Wilton mix...and this was also before I had my stand mixer.

Naked Cookies..teehee

I used this basic sugar cookie recipe. 

For a first attempt, I would say that I didn't do too bad. There were a tonne of downfalls like the cookies being too thin, not getting the right consistency for icing, having way too much icing left over and go to waste, ugly daises...well now that I think about it, maybe it wasn't such a successful attempt!

But she made it look so damn easy!

And from this project I've realized that I cannot ever be a surgeon because my hands are super shaky...well that and some other reasons but let's not get into that.

There were a tonne of steps to the cookie decorating process and since it was my first time I was super slow too.

So many little bumps :( Such uneven circles!

I'm not much of a cookie eater...I kinda prefer cake (surprise surprise)....but the cookie decorators I occasionally (and by occasionally I mean obsessively) stalk inspire me to try it out for myself. 

So this year I'm going to take another stab at cookies....maybe not be too over ambitious with the design and just start with basic things like actually baking the cookies properly and making the icing.

I also wanna try out a whole bunch of new cupcake recipes!! Top of the list? COCONUTS!

Happy Baking!

Happy Holidays!!!!

I have relocated back to b-town for the Christmas break. You might be thinking that must be nice....a whole two weeks to be pampered by your parents, relax, watch TV, and do whatever your little heart desires!


Let me just tell you now...that would be my break in a parallel universe perhaps...but around here? N to the NO.

I still have all my grad apps to get in. My parents' list of chores and cleaning duties is longer than Santa's naughty list. The only way I'm going to get time to watch TV is if they extend the day to 27 hours instead of 24. And all my little heart desires is a bed and a warm shower....I'm low maintenance like that.

So I guess this is just another long wordy poor excuse as to why I won't be baking this Christmas :(

You hate me don't you? I just know it!

Unfortunately, my schedule is pretty much gridlocked until January 22nd 2012, when I can wrap up my last interview and my last app will be stamped, addressed, and in the mail.

After that, I promise to bake up a storm!!! Occasionally I will be doing some reviews so if you're into that kind of stuff, stay tuned :)

Have a great holiday and a happy new year. Eat something sweet, do something nice, and snuggle a lot with loved ones!

Happy Baking!

Guest Blogging at Frosting for the Cause

I recently had the pleasure of putting together a post for Frosting for the Cause; an inspiring and wonderful online project to raise funds and awareness about breast cancer as well as being a tribute to all the brave women who have fought and are still fighting all forms of cancer. Every day is a new recipe and an inspiring story. Take a look through the blog and maybe you could sign up to be part of it? Pretty please? You won't regret it, I promise :)

I dedicated the post to my grandmother and my music teacher. Both these ladies have been huge influential figures in my life. The life lessons I have learned from them are invaluable. It still feels somewhat surreal that they are not physically here with us anymore but we all know they are still here with us in our thoughts and memories. I often have a hard time expressing myself about certain things because some emotions I like to keep to myself. Frosting for the Cause was a much needed outlet for these feelings and I was able to pour all my love into the making of these cupcakes. This may sound weird, but I guess these cupcakes are an expression of my love and gratitude to my grandma and my teacher.

I had initially wanted to put together a fundraiser as part of my posting responsibility. Unfortunately, due to time constraints and a lot of picky rules about food safety things got pushed back. I am still planning to have a bake sale but as of right now, its in the planning stages.

Take time this holiday to hang out with your family and friends. I know I definitely haven't been spending as much time as I would like to because crazy life gets in the way. Appreciate the people in your life, enjoy the present moment, and laugh as much as you can...everything else will fall into place.

Monkeying Around

Okay guys its time to get serious. Theres no time for monkeying around and tomfoolery (where the hell did I hear that word and why am I using it?)

I recently received a request for some cute little monkey toppers for 2 year old baby twins. These were a complete joy to work on because they totally distracted me from the rest of the cray cray that is my life. I'm going to start using more hip words like cray cray and oh em gee because apparently I'm getting old and thus feel the need to connect with the inner youth in me. BOO YEAH! Wait do they still say that?

I used chocolate fondant for the bodies and skin coloured fondant for the rest of the bodily features.

I followed this tutorial and I think they came out cute as a button. I absolutely hated the skin colour fondant I was using. It smelled gross and was so much harder to work with than the fondant I use regularly. It was also overpriced and came with very little in the packaging. Overall, a very bad product.

But this post is about monkeys and not fondant.

I wanted the girl monkey to be wearing a tutu but when I tried to wrap it around her, since she was sitting down, it just ended up looking like a frilly weird skirt. So nixed that idea and gave her a blanket instead.

I wish I could have made the whole cake so that I could tie in the theme of the cake to these monkeys. I also made a few letter blocks out of fondant but didn't manage to get a good picture other than with my phone and lets face it, with my crackberry, it may as well not be a picture at all.

I hope the twin babies and their mommy liked them!!

Happy Baking!