EasterCakes

A few weeks back, I found a neat idea for Easter cupcakes...
Little green coconut nests with candy eggs!



I thought they were very cute, so I made 2 batches of them!



Upon first glance, these cakes look pretty cute,
but they maintain my standard of awkwardness!

You see, I tried to make chocolate-chip cupcakes.
Similar to a chocolate-chip muffin, these cakes were supposed to have
white chocolate chips distributed evenly throughout the insides.
However... I managed to mess it up somehow....



...and all the chips sunk to the bottom... and burnt. :(



The top part was very delicious, though...
Especially with the bird's nest on top!! :)



And amongst all the EasterCakes on Easter Day,
was one birthday cupcake for my friend, Sofia.



Happy cakes for happy days!

Some Past Projects

Here are some treats that I've made in the recent past.
(Proof that I really am capable of making cute cakes,
despite the awkward birthday cake in the last post!

Here is my first big cupcake endeavor:

This is the cupcake tower I made for my sister CC's 30th birthday party in December. I made homemade red velvet and vanilla cakes with buttercream frosting. I colored some of the frosting pink, purple, and silver, as those were the party colors.
And here's a bit of trivia: I cooked ALL 85 of these cupcakes in a tiny toaster oven, 6 at a time, because the oven was broken! It took over two days. Now, that's sisterly devotion!


Next, I tried another recipe of red velvet cupcakes for Valentine's Day:

I tried one of those gourmet packets that include all the dry ingredients...
You just add eggs, water, and oil, and then make your own frosting. The batter was impressively red, and seems like it'd make some serious red velvet, but I will never again make any red velvet cupcakes that aren't homemade. The ones from December were much more delicious! I tried to jazz them up with hand-crafted red and pink icing hearts and festive Valentine's Day-themed baking cups (but you can't really see them in the picture).


I made these girly cupcakes at the end of February for my friend Kimberly:

Kim had recently found out that she was pregnant with a little girl.
I had a lot of fun making little feet with gel icing...

They were vanilla cakes with strawberry frosting. (However, I could definitely make these with vanilla frosting and blue coloring for anyone expecting a little boy!)


Most recently, in March, I had a bunch of friends over for a Spring Fling party, and I made these spring-inspired cupcakes:

These little cakes are my favorite treats of all the cupcakes I've made.
They were confetti cakes with vanilla frosting. Bright and cheery!


In my attempts to be more domestic, I've also learned to make real food,
not just cakes:

I don't mean to brag, but I've pretty much mastered breakfast. Here are some scrambled eggs, homemade homefries, whole wheat English Muffins with garlic-herb butter, and sausage.
Note: This is the Man's plate, not mine, shown here! I don't eat that much, I swear! :)


One morning, I decided to make my own breakfast sandwiches:

They were miniature, but they were good and surprisingly filling! (Thanks, Pillsbury biscuits!)


I recently made my own chicken quesadillas, too:

I used Garden Vegetable tortillas, which is why they're green! I seasoned my chicken and cooked it up with a nice blend of veggies, cilantro, and cheese. I served them with salsa, and they were deliciosas!


Here is the spread I put out for my Spring Fling party:

There was a variety of tortilla chips for the salsa, queso dip, and sour cream. I also made my very own spinach and artichoke dip for the first time, and it disappeared quick! I think my friends really liked it. I made a gigantic pumpernickel bread bowl, too. There was an assortment of fresh fruits, including mango and kiwi, and my dear friend Sara brought a veggie tray. Fresh food for a fresh season!

Since I've moved out on my own this year, I've had to be more proficient in the kitchen, but it's been fun! I love having my own kitchen to cook up all these goodies! :)

My First Cake-Decorating Attempt

Last night, as I finished decorating a birthday cake for my co-worker Eric,
I stepped back from my kitchen table,
and I laughed.

The cake was an absolute mess!

It was lopsided.
The handwriting, reading "Happy Birthday Eric!," was terribly messy.
It looked too small to feed the 6 staff members in my office.
And, to boot, the cake carrier
(given to me as a housewarming gift by my lovely sister, CC),
on which the cake sat, was covered in smears of suspicious-looking chocolate frosting
and fine grains of hot chocolate mix.

Yes, hot chocolate mix.

See, I'd seen people use powdered sugar to decorate plates of fancy desserts.
Since my cake had chocolate frosting,
and since I had no powdered sugar in the house,
I decided that cocoa powder would look just as nice.

Problem: I didn't have any cocoa powder in the house, either.
Another problem: I didn't have the sifter that people use
to delicately distribute these fine powders onto plates.
Solution: I'd opened a packet of instant hot chocolate mix,
pinched a small amount between my fingers,
and dropped it randomly around the cake.

It looked AWFUL.

I grabbed a damp paper towel and wiped it all away from around the cake.
Then, (unfortunately) I tried again.
I was sure that if I was more careful in pinching and spreading it around the cake,
it would look much better.

It didn't.

I wondered if maybe I should just leave it.
The white cake carrier was already tinted a little bit brown
from the chocolate frosting I'd made a mess of earlier.
(No amounts of damp paper towels could make it white again.
I contemplated using some dishwashing liquid to get rid of the frosting residue,
but since the cake was frosted and couldn't be moved off the carrier,
I decided that putting liquid soap all around it MIGHT be a bad idea.)
The clumpy hot chocolate mix at least camouflaged
the unsightly, stained appearance of the cake carrier.

It was then that I wondered what hot chocolate mix tastes like.
I stuck my finger in the open packet and sampled it.
YUCK.
Hot chocolate mix does NOT equal cocoa powder.
It was bitter and grainy. Not delicious.

Again, I got a damp paper towel and wiped it all away from the cake.
Unfortunately, by this point, some of the hot chocolate mix
had gotten stuck in the decorative cake icing that edged the cake.

Now, I needed something to detract attention from the
grains of hot chocolate mix (which was supposed to detract attention
from the residual frosting stains).
I got some left over chocolate frosting, slapped it into a pastry bag,
and began making random swirls of chocolate.
I cut some strawberries in half, and placed them strategically around the cake.
I then picked up the pastry bag again,
and made a big
27!
next to the cake, as that's how old Eric is turning.
As I completed the exclamation point,
I realized that this piped chocolate frosting
had a remarkable resemblance...
to poop.
Quickly, I used a plastic spoon to scrape away the exclamation point, and
I used some red gel to highlight the big, chocolate 27.
(Even better, right? Poop highlighted with red. Yikes!)

Finally, I stepped back, looked at my awkward cake,
looked at the kitchen clock that read 11:27pm,
and I laughed more.
I locked the top onto the cake carrier, cleaned up my mess,
and headed to bed.
I knew my coworkers would share in my laughter the next day.

There is one good point to this story:
I had eaten a tiny bit of the cake earlier,
before the decorating fiasco began,
and it was very, very tasty.

My first cake-decorating attempt... Ugly but delicious.

P.S. Remember those cut up strawberries? They'd leaked a nice, pink juice
all around the cake by the next morning.
Scrumptious!