Baking Blog

Click on the pic above to check out my baking projects. Most have been on here already, but they are so delicious! Even to look at!

I'm going to be posting them all throughout the next few weeks, so keep checking back!

Moving

I've decided to separate my baking skills from my personal stuff. All my baking from now on will be posted here:

http://nikkidssweets.wordpress.com/


It's a little crude right now while I work on creating a cohesive design, but come check it out!

Happy Easter!

These are the cake bites that I made for Easter. They are Red Velvet with Cream Cheese icing and White Chocolate coating. I decorated them to look like Easter egss.

It was definitely some good practice. Some look a little crazy, but I had a lot of fun doing it!



I put some in an egg carton so that they look a little more like eggs!

Cake Class Final

I had my final cake decorating class last night.

This class was just making all the different flowers in class and then assembling them on a cake in the final class. We also learned different borders and the basketweave (which Josh stared at in amazement and still can't figure out how I did it!).

Wedding Shower Cake Bites

These are my very first order for Cake Bites. My very first order for someone besides family. Well, not quite, because the orderer was my cousin Sarah, but they were for her friend Sara's wedding shower March 27.

I was so nervous to make these because I am a perfectionist and wanted these to look just right! I think they came out perfectly!

The white is Red Velvet with Cream Cheese frosting and white chocolate coating.

The chocolate is Yellow Cake with Chocolate frosting and dark chocolate coating.

The stripes are the bride's colors - Navy Blue and Yellow.

The couple's monogram

The Cake Bites at the shower (*photo courtesy of Kelsey Bryant via Facebook*)


Sarah called me with rave reviews and hopefully some more orders!! I think for my first time, they turned out really, really well!

Spring Flowers

How cute are these?

I think these might be my favorite to date. Although the Valentine's cupcakes were cute too.

I am heading home this weekend to visit with my family and grandparents. My uncle and aunt from Vegas are in town and we are having a big family lunch on Saturday. And I am bringing the cupcakes.

These are vanilla cake with strawberry filling and lemon buttercream frosting. I made the little flowers earlier this week from the leftover icing from my decorating class. I left them out, so they dried out and were easy to work with.

Cake Class Final

I had my final cake class for Course 1 last night. It's amazing to see where I am now!

The decorations are a little more "traditional" than what I like, but I now know how to use the tips and translate things into how I can decorate cupcakes.

I have signed up for Course 2 that starts in March, and I am so excited!!!

Cake Class

For the past three weeks I have been taking a cake decorating class at Michael's. I have kind of self-taught myself decorating over the years, but really wanted to take a class to learn some of the things that I hadn't learned yet.

I completely forgot to take a picture of my cake last week, but was not going to miss out this week!

We worked on perfecting the roses, learned how to make the clowns, small flowers, and borders. These pictures really don't do it justice!

I loved my clowns!! Wilton makes little plastic clown heads that you put on top of the body, but you have to buy those and I really didn't want them. It was looking like my clown was just going to have to be headless! But as soon as I got done with the body, I decided to use some of the really stiff icing to make a round head and put it on the body. One of the other girls saw that and decided to do it as well. And then it spread around the room!! Yeah it doesn't have a face, but I think it turned out really cute!

These are the little flowers we learned to make! I love them!! The color was called 'Rose,' so I assumed it was going to be a pastel color. Ha! Yeah right, it is bright, bright pink!

And these are the roses! They leave a little to be desired, but they are getting better.

I have really had a lot of fun taking this class! I am thinking of going on to Course 2 in March!

Happy Valentine's Day!

This was a low key V-Day for us. We both had work to do, so we didn't get to spend too much time together. We did make dinner yesterday evening, but that was it. I am not a big fan of Valentine's as it is. I think it's just turned out to be all for making money.

I did make some cupcakes though! Red Velvet with White Chocolate Cream Cheese frosting. YUM! They turned out pretty well. The cake was a little dry, but the frosting was delicious!! And earlier last week, I melted some red candy melts and piped it into hearts and "LOVE" words that I put on the frosting. They turned out really cute!!

Josh said his coworkers loved them! And he even caught one of them throwing out the red heart from on top because he thought it was wax or something! Ha!!

Creme Brulee

My absolute favorite dessert of all time has got to be creme brulee. I love it! When we go out to eat and make sure to save room for dessert, I get this everytime. Sometimes I love it, sometimes I am dissappointed in it, but I usually always enjoy it no matter what.

I had found a recipe online for a creme brulee cupcake quite a while ago, but haven't gotten around to actually making it until this week. There were a few glitches, but oh my gosh...it is so good! And I get to use a mini-torch! Hello! Fire! (I'm a closet pyromaniac! Really, who isn't? Fire is so much fun! I remember well, as a little kid at my grandparents, setting leaves on fire with a magnifying glass. Always on the driveway though...we didn't want to catch the farm on fire!)

I don't even know how to describe the cake part, but it includes caramel syrup, and it was good by itself. I cut out a cone and filled it with swiss merigue buttercream. This was a glitch because it didn't turn out quite right, but it still was delicious. Now, I know what to do differently next time! The finale was a sprinkling of brown sugar that then gets torched!

I thought it tasted pretty good. Josh was disappointed because he thought it would be more custardy like actual creme brulee, but he thought it was good. My dad wants me to bring him some, so I froze a few to take home.

I'd say this recipe was a success!!!

Mint Chocolate

** Edited to add pictures at the bottom **

I am sick. I made some delicious cupcakes this weekend and completely forgot to take any pictures whatsoever!

They were Mint Chocolate cupcakes. All homemade. Chocolate cupcake with Mint buttercream frosting. Mm mm mm. Josh said they were orgasmic! The neighbors loved them. The rest went to work with Josh and I haven't heard the verdict from there yet.

I plan on making some more next week, so I will try to make sure to get a picture. Ugh!

** I had sent some to work with Josh and three came back. He said his coworkers were on diets and didn't want to try them. What the heck is that? It's a cupcake for crying out loud, not a whole cake! Anyhoo, I got to take a picture! I'm going to be making these again to take home next weekend. We'll see what the family has to say! **

Now back to our regularly scheduled Christmas 2009 recap...

I'm a horrible procrastinator. I know this. I embrace it. But it's over a week after Christmas and I'm still posting about it. Yeah, that's a little sad. But this Christmas was pretty good. And I took a ton of pictures.



This is going to be all about the tons of food we ate during the Christmas weekend. It's a little sickening. You've been warned! :)

My dad's sister from Vegas was down and she was in a food/candy making mood! Most of this stuff is courtesy of her ideas!

Of course, I made red velvet cake balls!

And I made cinnamon sugar pecans which are always a huge hit!

These pralines were courtesy of my aunt!

My dad decided that he wanted to make homemade poppyseed kolaches for the weekend. It was a huge undertaking, but they were soooo good! My grandpa even said they were really good!

Kneading the dough

You wouldn't believe how many kolaches come out of a ball of dough this size!

Almost ready to go in the oven

Fresh out of the oven!

All of our baked goods ready to go!

Christmas Eve buffet!

Pretty cake balls!

My dad also decided he wanted to make a Lemon Meringue Pie with fresh lemons. It turned out really good!!

And this is just the dessert table for Christmas Day. I completely forgot to take a picture of the rest of the food!

We were all so full every day! It took me a few days to get my system back on track and to even get hunger pains again! And I also have a few extra pounds to get rid of!! :)