Thursday, January 27, 2011

Strawberry Cupcakes

My neighbor has been asking if I could make a cupcake with strawberries. Since I've been having great luck finding really juicy and sweet strawberries at Whole Foods, I decided to give it a try.  I made the cupcake using a Vanilla Buttermilk batter.  In the meantime, I chopped up fresh strawberries, mixed with a little granulated sugar and let sit for about an hour.  The frosting I made was vanilla cream cheese buttercream with a little bit of the syrup that came off the strawberries.  Last, I topped it with the chopped strawberries.  I love everything about these cupcakes.  The cake was nice and light, the frosting was rich but not too sweet and the strawberries were sweet and fresh tasting.  These are officially in my top 5 favorites!
Decided to pipe roses using the same frosting.


Sunday, January 23, 2011

Marzipan and Modeling Chocolate


It's been a while since my last posting.  In that time I took a class with Master Cake Designer Toba Garrett at Institute of Culinary Education.  We worked with different types of buttercream, marzipan and modeling chocolate.  I had a tough time with the modeling chocolate but it was my very favorite part of the class.  I'm definitely planning on practicing more so I can master it.
Before adding the finishing touches.

After
My first chocolate modeling experience. Not too shabby;)
Making the ribbon wasn't nearly as tough but I just positioned my rose in such a way that I could hide the imperfections.


Sunday, January 2, 2011

Cookies n Cream Truffles


I've been wanting to experiment with truffles for some time.  I'm a fan of any bite-sized desserts.   I made the batter and frosting from this post from scratch.  I got great feedback from these and will definitely be adding this to my "list."
Baked the batter in 2 8 inch pans

Let cool completely. Then break into small crumb-like pieces using pastry blender.

Mixed in frosting then scooped out using small ice cream scoop.

Shaped into balls.

Refrigerated for 15 minutes.

Used Candy Melts from Michael's and melted using double boiler method. ** I won't be using these again because they're a little too sweet and contain artificial ingredients.

 Dipped cake balls into melted Candy Melts. Allowed to cool on wax paper.