Sixtieth Birthday Party

My pops turned 60 earlier this month. We threw him a big surprise party. And even with all the cooking and preparation we did, he (shockingly) was surprised! We really went all out too; it's quite something that we still managed to surprise him.

Wedding Reception Tea

Remember that wedding cake tasting we did? This afternoon tea was for that couple. Instead of the one cake, we catered an afternoon tea wedding reception for 30 people. For this afternoon tea, we served tea sandwiches and assorted desserts.

The Best of 2013

It's that time. The time to look back over the previous twelve months and see where you've been and what's happened in your life, both good and bad. For me 2013 is the year I started grad school. It's also the year I made a wedding (okay, anniversary) cake for a real couple, crafted a TARDIS out of chocolate cake, made hundreds of chocolates for the holidays, and so much more. So here's to 2013.

Belated Birthday Desserts

In addition to the two cakes, I made quite a few desserts for my party:

Toasted coconut brownies

Mini Brooklyn blackout cupcakes with cream cheese frosting

Chocolate, chocolate chip cookies

The brownies were delicious with desiccated coconut giving them a lovely texture. The Brooklyn blackout cupcakes were delicious as usual and the zing of the cream cheese frosting was complemented the deep, dark chocolate cake nicely.

The cookies were surprisingly good. I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised, the recipe was from Nigella Lawson and she really is a domestic goddess, but I love the chocolate chocolate chip cookies from Death by Chocolate. These might actually be better than the latter. The taste was a little sweeter (which I'm not sure is better or worse...it's just different). But the texture was perfect: a little crisp around the edges but still soft and nearly gooey on the inside (without being under baked).

Milk chocolate caramels with Maldon sea salt

Chocolate, peanut butter and oatmeal candies

The caramels and the candies (which are technically no bake cookies, but I think they are more like candies) were both gluten free (as is typical for candies) and were delicious. In fact, the caramels were perfect, which made me really happy because the last time I tried making them they came out yummy but the texture was all wrong and they didn't hold their shape. The cookies/candies, which came out a little crumbly and difficult to shape, ended up richly peanutty and quite sweet with a hint of chocolate and a nice texture from the oats.

Because there were two excellent chocolate cakes, the cupcakes, cookies and brownies didn't get much attention but we sent them home with people as favors and heard good things about them after. Interestingly the candies were popular even with the cakes as everyone's focus. I suppose the small size and the complete lack of similarity to cake made everyone reach for them. Both were well received but the caramels were definitely the star (well the German chocolate cake was the star, but the caramels were the non-cake star). All in all, everything was yummy and there were plenty of leftovers to enjoy after we weren't so stuffed from the amazing food!

Valentine's Day Cupcakes

Pink rose cupcakes

I'm not a huge fan of Valentine's Day. I don't mean that to imply that I'm bitter about being single on Valentine's Day--I've had dates for it in the past and it still didn't thrill me. It's just an odd sort of holiday that makes single people feel a bad and puts pressure on couples to do something extra special for no real reason. That said, I totally stand behind Valentine's Day desserts. Chocolate and more chocolate with the occasional red berry and a hint of pink. What could be better?!

Anyway, in keeping with tradition, these are dark chocolate cupcakes and the vanilla buttercream is a lovely pale pink. To decorate, I used different tips to get a rose-like swirl and a couple other simple swirls. I'm not sure how I feel about the rose swirl. I know they are in right now, and they are very pretty, but they are a bit flat so there isn't as much buttercream as with a normal swirl. Then I sprinkled them with beautiful vintage-y colored coral, pale blue, and white jimmies. I think they are quite pretty for Valentine's Day but still sufficiently un-Valentine's-y to work for any time of year.

All three different icing swirls

New Year's Eve Cupcakes

I liked the Christmas cupcakes so I decided to make them for New Year's Eve too! These chocolate cupcakes were decorated with golden yellow fondant stars and white snowflakes. I used a gold glitter dust on the stars and the same silver luster dust as I used for the Christmas cake on the snowflakes.

I think they all came out lovely and festive, although I particularly like the gold ones for New Year's Eve. I think the snowflakes are more generic winter rather than New Year's party--of course we didn't really have a party so much as we stayed home, ate blinis and cupcakes, and watched TiVo. That's my kind of New Year's party!

Christmas Cupcakes

I really like decorating sugar cookies with royal icing, but I don't have a terribly steady hand with a piping bag and I have a very small oven, so making batches of cookies gets old fast. Still, I'd seen a cute idea about decorating a round cookie to make it look like a Christmas ornament. I decided to pair this with another technique I've been wanting to try: cupcakes decorated with fondant. Since delicious chocolate cupcakes (the same ones I made for July Fourth, by the way) are lovely and round, I just coated with buttercream, topped with circles of white fondant and had some fun with my aspic cutters (don't worry, I have never made and never plan to make aspic--but the cute little cutters are perfect for decorations.)

Plain cupcakes,
 frosted cupcakes (it's sort of like a crumb coat on a cake),
and one cupcake with its fondant on

I opted for classic red and green decorations with little yellow hangers that I dusted with gold luster dust. I think they came out really nicely! By the way, to get different sized circles, just use piping tips as cutters, it works like a charm.

After I made a few of those, I decided I was having far too much fun playing with fondant to keep repeating the same few patterns, so I fiddled around and made some Christmas-y ones with trees, candy canes, Santa hats, etc. I think the ornament ones look more elegant but the others are a ton of fun!

Fourth of July Dessert Plate

Any holiday is a good excuse for food. I feel that July Fourth is no exception, as you may have noticed from my little pastry battle. Well after my little war fought with food, there was enough dessert left over to feed a small army, so I gave away some plates of food. I think they came out very pretty, so I thought I mention them here. I didn't have left over brooklyn blackout cupcakes (I may have eaten a few too many) but I did have a little extra mocha buttercream so I piped it on the white cake cupcakes. I did whip up a small batch of royal icing for these fairy cakes but didn't anticipate that the foil cupcake wrappers would peel away from the cake, allowing the icing to drip down the sides of the cakes rather than pooling on top of them. They still tasted excellent (the royal icing actually improved on the cakes), even if they did look like a smurf threw up on them. The sour cream frosting for the guinness cakes was more spoonable than pipe-able, so I was afraid it'd end up all over everything on the plate so the guinness chocolate cupcakes remained unadorned and still absurdly delicious. I also left the shortcakes and scones plain so that they wouldn't get soggy. Trust me, they were very good plain. Who wouldn't like getting a plate with that assortment of delicious baked goods?!

If the Revolutionary War had been Fought by Pastry Chefs...

Fireworks!

I went a little crazy this Fourth of July. I decided to make a whole themed meal. I made everything in pairs: one British version of the dish and one American version of the dish. For example, scotch eggs and deviled eggs would have worked (I didn't make them, but that's not the point.) We all voted who one each skirmish but we couldn't decide who won the war--both sides had such delicious food!

And the battle commenced:

Pigs in a Blanket & Bangers and Mash

Well, it wasn't really mash. I decided that there would be no easy way to eat bangers and mash, so instead I baked up some slices of potato in the oven. It was more like bangers and baked potato, but it was still great! I made the pigs in blankets fresh, with hebrew national hot dogs and puff pastry. Actually, as much as I love pigs in a blanket I liked the bangers more.

Smoked Salmon, two ways

On the top we have the British smoked Scottish salmon with thinly sliced cucumber on buttered brown bread. Below, the American side put up bagels with gravalox and cream cheese. Well actually there wasn't cream cheese because even though I'd bought it on the 3rd it was blue--so the American dish ended up bagels, lox, and butter. I think the British dish won, but by a very small margin. It's not entirely fair to the American dish, because as much as I love bagels, good Scottish smoked salmon will beat lox every time.

Strawberry Shortcake

Strawberry Scones

Now we have the first of the desserts: American strawberry shortcakes and British scones. The shortcakes were excellent plain, once you added the macerated strawberries and creme fraiche whipped cream they were just amazing! To make the strawberry scones, I used diced dried strawberries in place of the traditional dried currants. I filled them with strawberry jam and clotted cream--delicious! There was no decisive winner of this battle.

White Cake and Fairy Cakes

I had planned to ice these, royal icing on the British fairy cakes (in the foil wrappers) and vanilla buttercream on the American white cupcakes (in the paper wrappers). Unfortunately I ran out of powdered sugar and time (so I couldn't run to the store to get more sugar). Ah well, we didn't really need more sugar and they actually tasted delicious plain. I'm not sure which of these I liked more. The fairy cakes were slightly denser and dryer than the American white cupcakes (not that were dense or dry, just less light and moist than the others). On the other hand, they were slightly more flavorful. I think this battle too was a draw--though if you forced me to pick a winner I'd say the British fairy cakes.

On the left: British Guinness Chocolate Cupcakes with Vanilla Sour Cream Frosting
On the right: American Brooklyn Blackout Cupcakes with Mocha Buttercream

To round out the night, I had to have something chocolate, so I made guinness chocolate cupcakes (this is the same cake I used for my menu project) with a vanilla sour cream topping for the British side and Brooklyn blackout cupcakes (I found the recipe--for normal chocolate cake, technically, but it certainly seems like Brooklyn blackout cake--in an excellent ice cream cookbook I just bought) with mocha buttercream for the American side. As much as I love the guinness chocolate cake (as I always have), I have to declare this battle for the Americans. The rich, dark chocolate Brooklyn blackout cake was delicious on its own. Topped with a rich and creamy mocha buttercream it was amazing!

One more photo of the Brooklyn Blackout Cupcakes;
I think they are so pretty!

Overall, the results tallied up to 2-2 with one tie. While there was no decisive winner of this food war, I think we can all agree that those of us who got to eat the food came out on top for the night!

Halloween Party

I went all out for my Halloween party this year. As one of my friends has a nut allergy and is also allergic to pumpkin, I had an interesting time trying to make things that seemed Halloween-y but didn't have pumpkin or nuts.

But pumpkins are so perfect for a Halloween party, so I made pumpkin shaped brownies (I made a pan of brownies and cut them out with a cookie cutter). And iced them so they'd resemble pumpkins.

I also made both chocolate and plain palmiers. Not that they are terribly Halloween-y...but they are good!

And with the left over puff pastry, I made cheese straws.

My friend with food allergies has never been able to eat pastries from patisseries, so she's never had things like a fruit tart. A classic pastry cream and fresh fruit tart seemed terribly un-Halloween-ish. But an apple tart seemed to work nicely. This is the same apple tart I made in class, just in a bigger tart shell and with better apple compote (I finally made it so that it didn't resemble apple sauce!)

Finally I made cupcakes; because who doesn't like cupcakes? I just made the vanilla cupcake from Magnolia Bakery's cookbook and decorated them with my favorite vanilla buttercream (which is my own recipe.) I decorated some to look like pumpkins and some to look like little gravestones in a grassy grave yard (I made the stones by slathering cut up brownie with gray icing and then carving "RIP" into the icing with a toothpick.) Aren't they the cutest little tombstones?

The desserts were all a hit. As was all the lovely real food that my friends so kindly brought, thank you guys!

Mini Cupcakes with Vanilla Buttercream

Hmm, the color of this photo came out kind-of funny.  Ah well, they still look nice.

Yesterday was my birthday, so I wanted cake.  But let's face it, I really didn't need a whole cake in the house, so I made cupcakes (that way I can give some away easily).  The recipe for the lovely fluffy white cupcakes is from Nigella Bites.  It was surprisingly easy (not that cupcakes are hard, but these were especially simple).  And gosh they were good!  They tasted sweet, but not overly so, and the texture was perfectly cakey and fluffy.

The recipe called for either royal icing (not my favorite) or ganache (I didn't have heavy cream) so I made my favorite vanilla buttercream instead.  I actually didn't use vanilla extract to flavor it, instead I used vanilla powder.  I'm not quite sure how they make it, but it's by the same company who make my vanilla extract.  It's real vanilla, but not with the alcohol and, well, powdered not liquid.  I like it because it doesn't change the color or texture of the buttercream but it still gives it a strong vanilla flavor.  I colored it pink with my new food coloring paste (a ton of fun, I can't wait to use it again) and piped it onto each cupcake with a wide plain pastry tip.  I topped them with an upside down white chocolate chip, because I thought it would be pretty and match the pink and white polka dot muffin papers that I used.  Wow they looked good...and they tasted good too!

The color came out odd on these too, but differently.  Shame, but I suppose you can still get the picture (no pun intended!)

Chocolate Chip Cookie Cupcakes

  

Aren't the different colored muffin papers fun?!

Right before I went to Oxford a friend of mine (Sophie, who made the apple pie with me) bought me the Martha Stewart Cupcakes cookbook.  Unfortunately, I haven't gotten the chance to use it until now.  And let me say, it is a good cookbook!

I made the Chocolate Chunk Cookie Cupcakes.  I've called them Chocolate Chip Cookie Cupcakes because I was running a bit late today and I didn't really have time to chop up bars of chocolate, so I just used chocolate chips.  They are really, really good!  I think the name is a slight misnomer though.  They don't really resemble cookies or cupcakes or muffins, for that matter; they are sort-of a conglomeration of the three.  They have a similar taste to chocolate chip cookies (though less brown sugary), a similar texture to cupcakes (light, moist and slightly spongy, in a good way), and resemble muffins in that they aren't iced (but are much, much lighter and are made of a cake batter not a quick bread batter).  Whatever you call them they are very good!  My only complaint is that they are not nearly chocolaty enough...next time I will have to increase the amount of chocolate chips.  

By the way, the recipe makes 24 normal sized muffins.  But I made them mini sized so I got 48 minis and 3 normals (I ran out of mini muffin tins).  I personally like the two-bite nature of mini muffins, plus they are a perfect size to give away, which my friends who I'm surprising with these tomorrow will be happy about!