I recently saw this idea on Pinterest.  I was intrigued by the Nerds in the cupcakes.  I have no idea why.  I don't like Nerds or any other sour candy for that matter.  But, I thought I should give it a chance.  I'm pretty sure all great bakers have come up with some pretty crazy ideas.  Some of them turn out amazing and others...not so much.  I settled on baking a Nerds cake and asked for Noah's help in picking out the frosting.  He chose cotton candy.  Cotton candy and Nerds.  Huh.  We're going all in on this one I guess!

Have you seen these?  I normally make my own frosting but Noah saw these little packets and just had to mix up his own frosting.  There were many flavors to choose from, in case you're interested in checking them out too.  I still much prefer to make my own frosting but in a pinch the canned stuff will work.

I folded about half of the box of Nerds into my vanilla cake batter and poured it into a bundt pan.  If nothing else, the cake LOOKED wonderful when I pulled it out of the oven.  (Can you tell I'm still a little skeptical about adding sour candy to my cake batter???)

After the cake cooled I mixed up the cotton candy frosting and popped it into the microwave for a bit.  My mom was here to watch this step and was pretty impressed as she had never thought to melt frosting to make a drizzle.  I'm glad I could teach her something.  : )

After drizzling the frosting on the cake it was Noah's job to add the final touch.  He took his job very seriously...

Or, maybe not so much...



The verdict?  Mom and I didn't mind the tangy cake at all but Noah didn't care to take a second bite.  The frosting is, well, canned frosting.  'Nough said.  I would never bake with Nerds again but I'm glad I tried it because you just don't know if you never try!

It does look all cute and happy though.  : )

Happy Birthday Harry

I have a teeny bit of catching up to do so today I'm going to double post!

Last weekend was a pretty busy weekend but I still wanted to get my cake baked and decorated for Mugglenet's birthday cake contest.  So, over the course of three days, I managed to throw something together.

The first thing that popped into my head when I starting planning was the birthday cake that Hagrid made for Harry's 11th birthday.  As this was probably the single nicest thing anyone had done for Harry in ten years, I felt it was really important to include it but I didn't want my contest cake to just be a replica of it.  So I decided to make a mini version of Hagrid's cake as my cake topper.  With the design mostly figured out it was time to get to the baking.

Now, I know that this is a cake that is supposed to honor Harry Potter (and it will!) but the Hufflepuff in me couldn't resist using my own house colors in the cake.  Here are the yellow and black cake layers fresh out of the oven.  You can find the tutorial for the zebra effect here.

After the layers were cooled, crumb coated and cooled again I was ready to decorate.  This time I used Harry's house colors to create colored ribbons around the cake.

Next, the mini replica of Hagrid's cake.  I paused to take a photo here mostly because I was scared to try to toss that baby cake on top of the main cake without completely destroying something...

Whew.  Made it.

The contest rules were specific.  You had to supply a photo of the cake, a photo of the cake cut open and a photo of you with the cake.  This last one was a little tricky as I was home alone at the time.  Eventually I got myself in the shot a little better than this...LOL!

I ate that big chunk of cake when I was finally done photographing.  I totally earned it.  : )

My coworker, Jolene, is finally catching up to the rest of us...It's her *cough* 21st *cough, cough* birthday today!  I promised her that I would bring some Red Velvet cupcakes to work to celebrate.  I had never made Red Velvet cupcakes from scratch before (gasp!) but felt Jolene's birthday deserved the effort.  I did some Internet searching and found this recipe.  Like this blogger, I've never really bought into the Red Velvet hype so I felt her recipe was quite trustworthy.


Here's what the batter looks like.  So far so good!









Ooh, they baked nicely too!















This is the end result.  I used the frosting recipe from the same sight and it's rather quite yummy.  I may even be guilty of licking the spatula...

Since Red Velvet isn't my usual flavor of choice I had to seek out an impartial taste-tester.  My six year old son ensures me that these cupcakes are delicious.  Whew!  Happy birthday, Jolene!

One of my besties, Maura, bakes THE BEST apple pie. Her recipe is top secret, so don’t even bother asking her for it. However, when she left the comfort of my back yard (seriously, she lived right behind me) to move across the country, she left me her super secret recipe. She made me swear on my life that I would never share it with anyone EXCEPT Noah’s wife (he’s only six so the recipe won’t be shared any time soon…) and then ONLY if I have deemed said wife worthy. Yep, it’s that good. Excited to bake something that would make others swoon, I had a go at the apple pie recipe.

Who knows what’s coming next?! You’re right. I failed. Miserably. At that point the pie recipe got locked in the super secret recipe vault and hasn’t been touched again. I’m really hoping Maura will come visit soon so she can bake me a pie…

I had pretty much given up hope of baking a not only passable, but tasty, apple pie until I arrived at Jody’s last Sunday to watch an episode of A Game of Thrones (does anyone else think Tyrion is the best character ever?!). She offered me a slice of apple pie and vanilla ice cream. Yes, not only does she invite me over to watch A Game of Thrones but she also feeds me! Anyway, the pie was super tasty (don’t worry Maura, yours is still THE BEST) and she assured me that it was also super easy to make.

I felt compelled to share with all of you. Please note that this is Jody’s recipe NOT Maura’s super top secret recipe (she’d kill me if I put that one on the internet!).

So…Here it is….

Start by slicing 5 Granny Smith apples (I used 6 because that’s what I had) directly into an un-greased pie plate.

Sprinkle with a cinnamon/sugar blend. And when I say sprinkle, I really mean evenly coat. I used about 2 tablespoons of each.

In a mixing bowl, mix 1 egg with one cup of sugar.

Add 1 cup of flour. Mix. This part gets a little messy...

Lastly, mix in ¾ cup (1 ½ sticks) butter.

Spread the mixture over the apples. I wanted to be sure that I covered all of the apples so I used the back of my spoon to spread the mixture out a bit.  Pop the pie into the oven set at 350 degrees for 45 minutes.

While the pie is baking, brew yourself a cup of coffee and go catch up on your DVR’s. *Note: This step is optional but obviously (best Snape voice) enhances the whole pie baking experience. Trust me.



When you pull the pie out of the oven, be sure to check for doneness. Give it a poke with a toothpick or something. I did not do this as I was too anxious for the pie to cool down so I could have a slice with a scoop of the vanilla bean ice cream waiting for me in the freezer. And, of course, my apples ended up being slightly on the crisp side yet. Oops. I’m learning.

Although this pie won’t win you an award in the prettiest pie contest, it still tastes quite yummy. Thanks, Jody!











Bingo!  I'm going to go ahead and throw modesty aside for a minute and say that today's cake, well, it rocks.  Not only does it look super cute (my 5 year old son said it looked like the cake was wearing a ruffly skirt) but when we dug in we found it to taste delicious too!

As much as I love chocolate, I typically shy away from chocolate cake.  It's a bit fussy and can turn out crumbly, dry, bland, you name it.  I know that I've been all about finding great "from scratch" recipes lately but I recently found this recipe for a doctored cake mix and decided to give it a try.  I was a bit skeptical but that started melting away as soon as I pulled the cake layers out of the oven.  They baked up so nice and even.  Plus, I totally made up for using a box mix by making homemade whipped chocolate ganache for the filling and homemade buttercream.







Stacked, filled and ready for crumb coat.

The crumb coat is so important when working with decorated cakes.  It really holds everything together nicely.

And here it is finished.  Cute, huh?  I rather like the sweet little ruffles. 

Next time I'll try it with some color.  Maybe ombre style.  Yep, definitely.

Valentine's Day is only two days away.  In the spirit of the holiday, I had to bust out the pink food coloring.  I just couldn't help myself.  I whipped up a batch of vanilla cupcakes (tinted half of the batter pink) and topped them off with pink vanilla bean buttercream (say that five times, fast!) roses.

I'm not expecting real flowers on Valentine's Day.  That's ok, though.  No, really...I rather prefer the edible kind. 

Happy Valentine's Day!

A couple of weeks ago, my brother asked me to make the cake for my niece's birthday party.  I immediately panicked.  I mean, it's one thing to make a cake for myself but a whole other thing to make one for someone else.  For their birthday.  Eep.  I almost said no but this is my brother and, equally importantly, my niece we're talking about. 

His request was for a white cake (the quest for the perfect recipe continues!) with not-too-sweet white and red frosting flowers.  I ordered the best red food coloring I could find (red is such a hard color to create in frosting), bought some bakery whipped cream frosting and baked up a vanilla cake based on a much raved vanilla cupcake recipe.  I didn't get a chance to make a test cake but I will keep my fingers crossed all the way to the party that it will be delicious!

Here's the end product...

It's sort of a hot mess.  Oops.  But, hopefully that can be overlooked. 

Happy birthday, Quinn!