Beauty & Andi Part II

It was one of my first blog posts last year - Beauty & Andi!  My cousin Andi turned 4 this year- and as usual I made her cake.  I was hoping to make her something different this year, maybe a castle or a different Disney Princess.  BUT - what did she want?  Belle, from Beauty and the Beast.  The exact same cake I made her last year!

I made a few modifications this year - I used a different doll (barely!) and I also used a different icing tip to give her dress a different finish.  Last year her dress had this rippling effect and this year, I did little stars.  The one element that stayed the same - were the sparkles! I love making my princesses sparkle, it adds such a magical touch to the cake.  The only downfall...is I end up with sparkles all over me and my kitchen!  Oh well..sparkles never hurt anyone.  Which one do you prefer?  This years or last years cake?!  BAKE ON :)

Taste Test!

This week I experimented with yet another flavor of cupcake! (by the way - the bride and groom LOVED the cookies n cream cupcakes!) But this week - I went with my mom's favorite- lemon and raspberry.  She loves lemon cake  - and she also loves raspberry martinis!  I found this great recipe online that used Chambord in the cupcake and the icing - and knowing that we had some left over Chambord, I figured why not!

The cupcakes came out nice and light - and had a great lemon taste thanks to fresh lemon juice and lemon zest.  The icing was super sweet but it balanced out the cupcake perfectly.  My mom loved them and I brought some over to a friends house for a party and they were a huge hit!  I think next time I would change up the icing to make it a little less sweet!  But check out the recipe I followed here, from Bakedbree.com.  Soo yummy!  Bake on!

From Scratch...

Knowing that today was going to be a gross day out (and it was...pouring rain all day!) I knew it was a perfect day to check out some new recipes.  And I had the perfect excuse to practice - one of my brother's friends is getting married next weekend - so I am making cupcakes for their rehearsal dinner!

I wanted to make something new and from scratch - just to test out some new recipes.  I was debating between vanilla bean and lemon, but nothing seemed to catch my eye.  UNTIL - I saw this amazing cookies and cream recipe (check out the recipe here from Annie's Eats blog!)  They came out delicious - I had my family taste test them for my trial run.  I will definitely try and tweak the recipe in the future to put my own little spin on it, but it is an amazing recipe!  The cupcakes look super cute, and are moist and yummy!  I can't wait to try batch number 2 and make them even prettier for the rehearsal!

Congrats!  And I am looking forward to more experiments - so stay tuned and BAKE ON!

Hook 'em!

This past weekend I travelled up to a small town on the border of New York and Vermont to visit one of my best friends from college. She is moving to Texas to go to grad school, and she was throwing a good-bye celebration. She asked me if I could help her with a cake - and of course I said yes.  How could I not make her a going away cake? 

At first, she wanted the state flag of Texas on a sheet cake - but once I was up there, we decided to do the Texas logo, the Longhorns.  It was a basic sheet cake, that I iced and then piped the Longhorn logo (free hand) and then piped along the edges of the cake to polish it off.  Everyone enjoyed the cake, and Marie was quite impressed!  So best of luck best friend, and hook 'em!

Bake on!