Boston Cream Pie

For my dad's birthday, which was almost a month ago, he requested a Boston cream pie/cake. Therefore, I should have posted this a while ago; I blame the fact that my computer hates me and freezes constantly as the reason why I've been reluctant to do anything other than surf the internet lately. But I digress.

The cake is from scratch, a simple and fluffy white cake; the filling is vanilla custard. Custard is not the easiest thing to make, but it definitely adds something to the overall taste. The topping is chocolate ganache. 

Doggy Valentines

We recently got a new puppy, Moxie, and I was inspired to try and bake something that she, and her doggy friends, would like. As a project one afternoon, a friend and I made doggy cookies for some of Moxie's valentines. The recipe was surprisingly simple and easy to make. Because they're made from peanut butter, bananas, and oatmeal, they're technically fine for human consumption as well. From what I've heard, the dogs, even the very pickiest, gobbled these right up.

The icing on these is, in fact, sugar. Dogs are not supposed to have a lot of sugar in their diet, so these cookies are a special treat, not an everyday snack.

Needhams and Eggnog Cheesecake

As mentioned in a previous entry, I made Needhams for Christmas. For those who don't know what a Needham is, it's essentially a sweet coconut filling, coated in chocolate. The filling also has butter, salt, milk, and.... mashed potatoes. Don't knock it til you try it, they're delicious.

Last Christmas I made Eggnog Cheesecake for my extended family's annual party. People liked it so much that I was told I would officially be in charge of bringing it every year. So, of course, I had to make it this year. And, once again, it was a big hit.
The filling is eggnog flavored, the crust is made from crushed gingersnaps, and a sprinkling of nutmeg on top.

Messes and Marshmallows

Confession: I forgot to take pictures of the whoopie pies I made for family and friends. Also forgot to take pictures of the candy cane marshmallows that accompanied the whoopie pies in their boxes. I do, however, have a picture of some of the mess that making said treats. For the record, my hand mixer is normally black.

I've also been really bad about updating this thing lately; life's been busy and I've been forgetful. So now I have to backtrack a little bit to catch up on some recent projects. Let's start with the Maple Marshmallows I made over a month ago that I never did a blog post about.

Essentially, I just substituted Maple Extract where the recipe called for Vanilla. These marshmallows were a softer marshmallow, think Peeps brand. Next time, I might add more gelatin to get more of a standard marshmallow texture, and use a shallower pan to make them smaller. Regardless, they were really good.

Tuesday, December 21st
I am writing this post while this project is still in progress so as to not forget any details; though it wont be posted until a few days later to keep things a surprise. I took on a project to make baked goods/sweets for a large chunk of my extended family for the upcoming holiday. Enough for approximately 20 households. This project was, in fact, self-inflicted. Why would I choose to do this, you might ask. It may be because I love the holidays; could be because I like a challenge; or perhaps it's because I'm insane. I think it may be a combination of the three. It also makes for an entertaining blog post.

I am making whoopie pies. Chocolate with peppermint icing, rolled in crushed candy canes. Found a really awesome recipe and doubled it. Had several cookies scooped out, one pan was on it's way in the oven when I realized I had forgotten to add the baking soda. No good. Those cookies wouldn't have risen. Thankful to have caught myself just in time. Threw all of the cookies back into the bowl; add baking soda and hot water solution (as directed), re-mix. Wonder why I didn't pick up on the fact that the batter was a little thick. Re-scoop cookies and put in oven. There's batter smeared into the kitchen floor, thankfully it's linoleum. I pause every so often to stir the simmering crock pot with tonight's dinner in it. Dropped a cookie on the floor. Forget to set the timer multiple times, and don't manage to burn any of them until the time I used a timer but had a dark, non-stick pan. Vowed never to use that pan again and continue. All the while, I'm using a kitchen towel to take pans out of the 400 degree gas stove (being careful not to catch the towel on fire) because I threw out my slightly burnt pot holders when I moved out of Pennsylvania and never replaced them.

All of the cookies are out of the oven now, cooling until they can be stored. The ones that came out first are stacked between layers of wax paper, inside my (upside down) cake carrier. There are enough cookies, minus the burnt ones and the one that fell on the floor, for 56 whoopie pies. (That's 112 cookies....) The recipe said it made 18, so i doubled it. Apparently the recipe was wrong, oh well. I only needed 40-ish. They're going in boxes in pairs, along with homemade marshmallows (which are my project for tomorrow)

I'm waiting until Thursday to frost and candy-cane them; they'll hang out in the fridge to keep them fresh until then. Pictures to follow. Now onto cleaning the floor and getting to my other project for the day (Needhams for my dad)

The last of the birthday cakes for a while (hopefully)

I am relocating to Boston soon, and this will be my last post until after I move. I've got some great things planned for December, specifically for Christmas, and am looking forward to working on them in my new kitchen.

For now though, I will finish playing catch-up with this post about my boyfriend's birthday cake. He requested a Black Forest cake, which is something I've never done before. But I like a challenge. After doing some research and looking around online, I found a recipe that reviewers claimed to be very similar to an authentic German Black Forest cake.

The outside is whipped cream, hand-shaved chocolate and maraschino cherries; the inside is frosting and cherry filling, sandwiched between four layers of a not-too-sweet chocolate cake. I wish I had gotten a picture of the inside. Everyone said it was really good too :)

Trying to catch up a bit...



 I've been really bad about updating regularly, so I'm going to try to get caught up this week. Happy belated Thanksgiving. Did some cooking and baking this year, but in the midst of doing so, forgot to take pictures of what I made. I guess that saves me from having to do a separate blog post about it?

Today's post is of a cake I did about a month ago. (Clearly around the same time as Halloween). As a final project for my Wilton cake decorating class, we had to make a cake and flowers to go on said cake. We then brought the cake in to class and decorated it with said flowers and a basket weave on the side of the cake.



The cake itself is marbled orange, in both color and flavor. Buttercream icing on the outside, with grey royal icing roses. Making this cake happened to coincide with a friend's birthday, so it was consumed in celebration.