Sunday, August 29, 2010

2 Blogs??

I'm becoming addicted to this blogging thing!  So many fun ones out there to follow, who knew?!  Not sure if I'll be any good at it, not sure if I'll have the time for it, but I started a second one anyway!


So if you're looking for the Cream Cheese Bars, you can find them there. Crumb Coat Cakes will be dedicated to my cakes, and all of my other baking related ramblings can be found on Apron Strings Baking.  This way I can stay a bit more organized by interest.  That's the plan anyway, but those of you that know me can attest to the fact that organized and my name shouldn't be used in the same sentence.

That's it for now, but I have quite a few cakes coming up....so stay tuned!

Thanks for checking in!


Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Happy Birthday To Me??

Open Gift Box Cake

Lesson learned.  Don't be stubborn, let someone else make your birthday cake.  Last year I did the same, insisted on making my own cake.  But last year there was no design, I just focused on my favorite flavors (white cake with apricot filling and white chocolate buttercream, mmmm).  Since this year I gave into the kids and made vanilla cake with chocolate buttercream, I decided to attempt the open gift box design that I've been wanting to try. You might not be able to tell from the strategic angle of the photo, but it was a disaster!!  A disaster that could have been avoided in so many ways. First and foremost, a little planning would have helped.  I spent the entire weekend celebrating (I had sooo much fun!), leaving very little time to make and decorate the cake.  With the proper equipment and products, a few hours would have been sufficient.  But due to my lack of planning, that wasn't the case.  Believe it or not, I do not have one decent 8" square pan. Thankfully, I did find an old one that was probably stolen years ago from my mother's kitchen.  Sometimes you just have to work with what you got. Uggh!  I had to bake and cool each layer (3 of them) before I could start the next one.  Another mistake was using store bought buttercream.  I ALWAYS make my own, but because of my time constraint, I cut a corner. Maybe it's me, but it just wasn't the same to work with.  And not to mention the "store bought" taste, but don't get me wrong, I could still sit back and eat the entire container with a spoon.  I told you I have a wicked sweet tooth!

Well, at least my bow and tissue paper had enough time to dry....


After all the excuses, here it is.....


Sloppy crumb coat, not enough lid support and poor fondant work.....everyone has a bad day now and then!  Time ran out, so the only corrective measure taken entailed a big knife and some hungry kids.

As for the vanilla cake recipe......moist and delicious!  I've searched and tested many, this one is a favorite!


I've made it with cake flour and I've substituted with 2 cups of all purpose flour, it always comes out perfect!

Thursday, August 5, 2010

A Worthy Cause

Icing Smiles Inc, a great non-profit organization, needs your help.  Even if just one person views this post and votes, it will be one vote closer to their goal. Click on the following link, it only takes a second.

Provide custom celebration cakes to children with critical illness. | Pepsi Refresh Everything

The small things in life can make a HUGE difference!

Icing Smiles Inc.
"Cake has a way of creating smiles and memories. We serve some very special children and leave them with an Icing Smile."
-Icing Smiles Inc.

Wednesday, August 4, 2010

Go Bananas! UPDATE

Feedback on the Chocolate-Banana Cupcake was just as I thought.  Cake thumbs up, icing too sweet.  Too sweet?  So what's the problem?  I don't think there's such thing as too sweet, but I get it.  Every cupcake has it's liner.  Easy fix, scrape some of the icing off....

Ok, next time I'll tone it down.  Live and learn!

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Go Bananas!

Here's a little something fun...

When it comes to cupcake liners, let's face it, grocery store selections are usually pretty boring.  I always make an extra trip to a specialty store or have to wait for my online order to be delivered.  Well, not anymore!  While at Wegmans the other day (I spend way too much time there), I stumbled across some new selections from Reynolds.

This is what excites me, cute cupcake liners.
What can I say?!  
I couldn't wait to get my hands on this one!

It's not too hard to figure out the necessary ingredient here, but I didn't want to do my typical banana cake.  So I mixed it up a bit.  I whipped up a batch of my favorite Hershey's chocolate cake, stirred in some ripe banana and there it was, as simple as that.

Chocolate-Banana Cake
w/Banana Cream Cheese Icing

The cake was out of this world!  Adding banana to the icing gave it just the right hint of flavor, but it took a lot more sugar to get the right consistency.  Very sweet, I LOVED it!  Did I mention my uncontrollable sweet tooth?  

Banana Cream Cheese Icing
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
1 (8oz) package cream cheese, softened
1 tsp vanilla
4 cups icing sugar
mashed ripe banana pulp to taste*
*may need to increase amount of icing sugar for desired consistency

After throwing these together, I decided to look up a banana cream cheese icing recipe.  Seems as if I could have made a few changes, which may have helped cut the unbelievable sweetness.  The recipes I found increased the cream cheese by 4oz, added 1/4 cup sour cream and a dash of nutmeg.  Hmmm??  Maybe next time.


Sunday, August 1, 2010

Cakes & Cupcakes

I managed to include photo galleries in the tabs above.  For now, that's where you'll find my pre-blog creations.  However, as for my photography skills, I have gotten some flak from a dear friend of mine.  I do realize that photography is a big part of blogging, so "M", from here on out, I promise to try harder!!  Happy caking!