Baker's Birthday

This is what it looks like when a baker has a birthday:

My loved ones are very good to me.

Chocolate Cupcakes with Salted Caramel Frosting

Umm...nope.

Probably my biggest fail yet. I'm pretty sure the reason this happened is not related to my serial over-filling. I think it has more to do with the fact that it's an all butter recipe, and I live at a high altitude. It didn't occur to me until after the fact (obviously), but when I looked over other recipes I've used and had success with, they all had some butter, some shortening. So, did I re-work and re-try? No. No time these days. I had a very small window of baking time. But, like I said, the point was that I wanted to test her recipes before making full cake versions, now I know I've got to change the proportions of fats if I want to use them.

I may try this recipe again sometime, I'm intrigued by the salted caramel frosting. But I think I'm going to try something more summery next...something reminiscent of campfires.


TGIP Rating--Chocolate Cupcakes (didn't even attempt the Salted Caramel Frosting)--FAIL, but might work if I adjust the fats.

Next Up: S'mores reinterpreted.

Midweek Projects: Threadcakes

Yep, this is another blog about Threadcakes on another baking/cooking blog. Why? Why am I jumping on the blogging bandwagon? Because it's a completely awesome contest that I want to enter. If you are unfamiliar, the basic idea is for people to make/decorate/enter cakes that are based on a tee-shirt design at Threadless. Any tee-shirt design you like. And the thing is, the designs at Threadless are really interesting. There's tons of good stuff to maybe make a cake version of.

By way of illustration, here's last year's winner:

Based on this tee-shirt design:

Pretty cool, right? And there's tons more to look at, some with detailed pictures of the process of making the cake.

Here are some designs that I particularly like/would like to take a crack at:

THIS YEAR?!! Oh, hell, no. The deadline is August 16. That might still be enough time for YOU to do something like this, but not me. Not this year. I want to enter SOMEDAY. I have no aspirations of winning. I want to do it because it looks fun, because it would give me a decorating challenge, and because it would give me an excuse to figure out how to work with fondant (more than likely). See any designs over there on Threadless that you like?

Cherry Brown Butter Bars

These little guys are...dangerous to me. And by "dangerous" I mean "make me have too many thoughts". But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Summertime=cherries in the mind of spiker. I love them. I could live on a diet of fresh cherries alone and be completely content. When I was pregnant with Prima I stopped at the grocery store on my way to work every morning (during the summer months), bought a pound of fresh cherries and ate them all for breakfast. They made me sooo happy. My midwives scolded me for eating so much fruit and told me my baby would be huge. She arrived 6 weeks early, and yes, huge for her gestational age (a whopping 5 lbs., 8 oz.), which is probably why she never had to have oxygen supplementation or a feeding tube, and came home after only 6 days in the NICU. I owe it all to those 50 pounds of cherries I ate that summer!


So, needless to say, when I saw cherries in the grocery store for the first time this season, I wanted to find an amazing recipe to use them in. Searched and searched and found...a dearth of fresh cherry recipes on the internet. I guess people don't bake with them so much. And why is that? I'm a little mystified. But, I did find at smitten kitchen, this recipe for Cherry Brown Butter Bars. Perfect.

I have never made anything before that required brown butter. Holy. The smell when it's browned is probably the best thing I've ever smelled. And the slightly brown sugary, almost smoky flavor that it gives to these bars is...heavenly. I am going to have to find a way to use brown butter in...more recipes. Maybe even some that don't call for it at all. Didn't Julia have something brilliant to say about butter?


Now, back to the ideas running around in my head...the bars are perfect just as they are...buttery, crispy, delicious little morsels with just a little fruit to cut through it. But, the mind boggles at the possibilities. You could leave the cherries out completely and make the most buttery Blondies in the world. Then you could top those with a drizzle of dark chocolate sauce, or a raspberry coulis, or you could replace the cherries with pears, or raspberries, or god forbid, chocolate-covered toffee bites! I know, it's getting a little out of hand over here.


TGIP Rating--Cherry Brown Butter Bars--KEEPER. Try alterations.

Next up: The Priestess just turned me on to The Cupcake Bakeshop by Chockylit. You should know that in general, I prefer regular-size cakes over cupcakes. But she has some very intriguing recipes that I'd love to try as full-size cakes. For now, I want to give a test run to her recipes by making cupcakes for the cast of the show I'm in. I think I'll do Chocolate Cupcakes with Salted Caramel Frosting.

P.S. I think this is my favorite of all the photos I've taken for my blog.

BAKED Explorations

You know how I've baked (and blogged about) altogether too many (and yet, not nearly enough) utterly, fantastically, delicious recipes from this book:

And remember how you still haven't bought your own copy?

Well, they're coming out with a new book this October. And you can pre-order it now:

I did! And when we both get our new cookbooks, we can make things together! Virtual baking parties! Won't that be fun?!

Almost as fun as this:

Croissants and Danish

You should know, first off, that I didn't make this dough myself. I went to a class at Les Madeleines in which I learned how to make these laminated doughs, and at the end of the class, dear Romina gave each of us a big piece of each: danish dough and croissant dough. This was in February. I put them in my freezer. Possibly for too long.

At any rate, the cutting and shaping and rising and baking of these kinds of pastries is all new to me, so that's what this project was all about.


I learned that I get very frustrated with yeast doughs. The rising is so finicky. It seems like the air has to be just the right temperature and have just the right level of humidity for it to work out right. Putting it in the warming drawer of your oven is not a great idea because that just makes the butter melt. In the future, I will have to have a day full of plans that will keep me busy while the dough rises, so I won't fret over it.

I also learned that I need to just attempt to make this dough from scratch. The frozen and thawed dough didn't rise quite as much as it should have and didn't have the highly anticipated tender flakiness.

The cutting and shaping itself was not as difficult as I thought it would be.


And if I hadn't messed up by adding an extra egg (please don't ask) into the almond cream for the danish, all of the pastries would have been beautiful to look at. They all tasted delicious, just weren't quite as flaky and puffy as they should have been.

TGIP Rating--Croissant and Danish--KEEPER. Next time (sometime when I'm feeling exceptionally brave) I'll make the dough myself.

Next up: Fresh cherries are one of my favorite foods in the world. And I want to use them in a delicious dessert. So, I'm making smitten kitchen's Cherry Brown Butter Bars. And I may add my own little tweak to the recipe. Maybe.

Midweek Recipes 3: KAF Rustic Sourdough Bread

Highly recommended.

Over a year ago, when we moved and transferred items from fridge to fridge to fridge, my sourdough starter that I had been given by The Pie King kicked the bucket. I don't know that I had ever taken proper care of it. But we did use it almost once a week for sourdough pizza crust, before its untimely demise. And it was delicious. I never tried making regular loaves with it because I couldn't find a recipe that seemed right without being overbearing, if you know what I mean. I've been missing it (and I need it if I'm ever to make Bread and Puppet Theater bread). So, I ordered some from King Arthur Flour a while back. It's highly active. Or hyperactive. I'm not sure which.


And then I used their recipe for Rustic Sourdough Bread. So easy. So good. Next time I'm going to try their Extra-Tangy Sourdough Bread. My mouth is watering just thinking about it.

Obviously, sourdough is perfect for sandwiches or to serve with soups. But, how do I like to eat mine? Toasted. With butter. Also highly recommended.