Last week I met with the owner of Filo's Pizza and Pasta to offer my desserts since he has no dessert menu. (They just opened.) He was willing to try some samples and even better he asked if I would be interested in doing all of their breads too. Here is the chocolate cake he asked for. It's pretty much pure chocolate! Chocolate cake, fudge frosting, chocolate drizzle and hersherys squares. It is the deathliest Death by Chocolate Cake I've ever seen. Sorry about the images. All the cameras in the house had no batteries so these are all cell phone pictures. :/

I also gave him raspberry cheesecake samles and two different loaves of bread.

Regular ole Birthday cupcake order.

These were for Mrs. Parish who wanted a bunch of cupcakes for her 10 year old's birthday. 10 were for her softball team and two dozen for her class at school. She gave me creative license with the flavors (except no nuts, we had a severe nut allergy) so I just went with what ingredients I had the most of. Result?

Chocolate with Fudge frosting and Raspberry Vanilla with White Chocolate frosting.  The softball ones were decorated with white chocolate disks and piped with red icing to look like softballs. The flowers were made with fondant. This is the first time making fondant flowers like this so it took a while to perfect them, but it turned out pretty nicely! :)

So today was one busy day! (Phew!)
We had:
1 baseball game
1 sick person
2 cake orders
1 prom
1 birthday party
1 scheduled meeting for PDB
1 men's retreat
1 lost cell phone
1 trip to the florist
1 dishwasher to buy
4 loads of dishes to wash by hand
5 fondant animals to scuplt
1 car stalled
3 subway sandwiches
and a VERY tired Candice.
WHOO.
One cake was a lemon birthday cake with blueberry filling and candied lemon peel decorations.

The second cake was a very cute three month-iversary cake with all of the cute little baby animals!

Two dolphons, a shark, a chicken and a lemur. BAM. It was chocolate with vanilla frosting. :)

THIS is my beautiful drop dead gorgeous amazing sister and her date for the Prom. I was so flabbergasted by how stunning and grown up she looked. It was like being related to a princess. 

Annnddd that's me, exhausted from doing Prom Hair/Makeup and baking two cakes at the same time. But VERY excited and happy for my sister who (yes, let me say it again) was beyond beautiful. 

Two dozen rosebuds...

Rosebud cookies for one of the Highschool's student organizations. CHS is an awesome school with lots of things for me to bake for!

 Lemon Cookies with Vanilla Rosebuds.

Mother's Day Cake

I think this one was a joke.
The customer got it for her husband for "Mother's Day".
I was confused, but hey! (Hey!) I just make the cakes...you can use em how ever you want I guess.

You can tell I took my own pictures. :P My sister was at church and couldn't grace me with her amazing photography talents that morning.

And since I know nothing about taking good pictures, the cake looks half as good here on the internet as it did in real life.

:)
Oh yes. It was Earl Grey infused cake with Lemon Buttercream icing. For all those people who wanted to know. :)

Coconut Madeleines

I have had a madeleine pan for about a month. And I have never made madeleines before in my entire life. (Until this past week, of course)
My parents bought me a silicone madeleine pan in Hawaii when we were there for Spring Break. It's a bright cheery red floppy thing and I was quite intimidated by it.
Lucky for me, madeleines are the easiest thing in the world to make! And they are super tasty...
I thought that these shell forms made cookies, but I was mistaken...madeleines are more like mini pound cakes than cookies. Which is all right by me! Everyone knows I love me some cake. ;) So here is the recipe I used. It was really delicious...I still think that I will alter it a tinsy intsy bit to make it just perfect. But for now everyone can happily follow this one to the last teaspoon and be delighted all the same. Because this madeleine pan is from Hawaii, I thought it appropriate (and equally scrumptious) to make coconut madeleines instead of the traditional ones with lemon zest. Best idea ever! 

Gilded Coconut Madeleines

• 1 1/2 tablespoons melted butter, to grease the pan, plus 1/4 pound (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
• 3 extra-large eggs, at room temperature
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup cornstarch
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/3 cup sweetened shredded coconut
• Confectioners' sugar or melted white chocolate, optional

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Thoroughly butter and flour the madeleine pans.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the eggs, sugar, and vanilla on medium speed for about 2 minutes, or until light yellow and fluffy. Add 1/4 pound of melted butter and mix. Sift together the flour, cornstarch, baking powder, and salt, and stir into the batter with a rubber spatula. Stir in the coconut.

With a small spoon, drop the batter into the pans, filling each shell almost full. Bake the madeleines for 10 to 12 minutes, until they spring back when pressed. (Like a cake) Tap the madeleines out onto parchment paper and allow to cool. Dust with confectioners' sugar, or drizzle with white chocolate if desired. I also sprinkled mine with gold sugar to make them sparkle. :) 

If you are using a silicone form, set it on a baking sheet before putting it in the oven. They are floppy and hard to handle when transporting them from counter to oven. But they are amazing for popping out the madeleines. No problems with these ones sticking! 

Serve with berries, coffee, or tea. Or just eat them all on their own, they are great. 

Daring Bakers- April!

The April 2011 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Evelyne of the blog Cheap Ethnic Eatz. Evelyne chose to challenge everyone to make a maple mousse in an edible container. Prizes are being awarded to the most creative edible container and filling, so vote on your favorite from April 27th to May 27th at http://thedaringkitchen.com!

Ok, I usurped the kitchen with this mousse. This delicious tasty super awesome drool worthy mousse. Seriously. I would head on over to thedaringkitchen.com just to get the recipe. (But you could vote for me, too. That would be nice.)

I made three different edible cups.

1. Bacon cup.

   A cup made entirely out of bacon. Pure win, my friends. I know, a little weird if you don't like sweet and salty together. But the maple mousse actually tasted good in it! Plus the thought of bacon in the form of a cup is absolutely stupendous on at least 9 levels of tasty.

2. Walnut/Sweet Potato Chip cup.

   This cup is another salty version, but not as in your face flavor as the bacon. There's half chopped walnuts and the other half is crushed sweet potato chips and then baked til brown and fragrant. So it's a little more subtle. I didn't try this one, but my sister said it was good, I would imagine it would be a little like a cream pie in a salty graham cracker crust.

3. Meringue Shell.

   Eh. This was WAY too sweet to hold the already sweet maple mousse. But they were excellent holders for fruit, so we ate em that way later.

4. Apple Cup.

    This was the prettiest of all the containers. It just held itself toether nice with a little apple swirl on top. It was cute! Taste wise it was pretty good too. the apple was hard to eat with a fork, but we don't have anything against eating with our hands, do we? Nah...Maybe I'll try baking the apples next time to make it easier, but the tart apple balanced the sweet mousse really nicely.

5. Sweet Potato Boats.

   I saved the best for last... ah.The sweet potatos didn't look the prettiest, but man were they the tastiest! Me and my mom argued over the last one and we licked that plate clean. I carmelized the insides with butter and brown sugar and then filled them up with the smooth mousse. It. Was. Fantastic.

As for the mousse itself it was pretty awesome straight up out of the bowl. It was very fluffy and light, and the maple flavor wasn't so overpoweing like I was afraid it would be. All around a great great challenge!