Cake Tips and a Recipe

Among my friends talking about cake mixes around me used to be taboo. For some reason they thought I was going to judge them for using a box mix.

I realize not every one views cooking and baking as therapeutic and fun like I do. I even realize that there are some people that have the exact opposite view on cooking and baking as I do. Which is good, it keeps me employed : )

I have no judgement against cake mixes (other than my hydrogenated oil phobia). It was all my mom used growing up and my first experiences in cake making. You can make a decent cake using the box mixes and following the directions. But really...who wants just a decent cake? Obviously I think you can get a superior cake from scratch (and if y'all just knew how easy it was you wouldn't be the least intimidated!), but there are also some things you can do to cake mixes to get a pretty good cake out of them too. I'm going to share my wisdom with you so you never have to eat lackluster cake again (made by you any how).

Don't follow the directions. All the oil and water, eh. There are only two cakes I make using oil and neither of them are any thing vanilla based or chocolate based. You can find the cake mixes that call for butter. GET THEM. Butter makes every thing better. Seriously. Once equipped with the right kind of cake mix, continue to ignore the directions. You are going to be asked to add water. DON'T DO IT. You could pretty much add any thing else in your refrigerator and it will taste better than adding water. Here are some suggestions:

Chocolate:
Sour Cream
Buttermilk
Whole Milk
Coffee
Guinness Beer
Yogurt

Vanilla:
Sour Cream
Buttermilk
Whole Milk
Coconut Milk
Yogurt
Any type of citrus juice (obviously it will flavor your cake)

Just add the substituted ingredient in the amount that the cake calls for and you can follow the directions from there.

If there is one area that I promise will take your cake to the next level it's making your own frosting. Again, for some reason people find it super intimidating, but I promise it's ridiculously easy. If the thought of butter cream intimidates you, you could start off a bit easier with something like a ganache or just using homemade whipping cream. A frosting 101 post may be coming soon.

However if you think you may be up for trying a cake from scratch that takes about the same amount of effort as a box mix, you MUST try this cake! It's ridiculously easy and super tasty. It's perfect for summer as well because it's light and fruity. Plus, if you make it right...almost healthy.

I'd been hearing people rave about yogurt cakes and hadn't ever tried one, so I wanted to give it a go. It being a different cake base than I was used to I used a trusted recipe as a starting place. However I wanted to do some thing differently. So here is the recipe I ended up using:

Cake
1 cup sour cream
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil (normally I would recommend just regular olive oil but I didn't have any, I like the extra depth it added to the cake)
1 cup sugar
1/3 cup lime juice
2 eggs
1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt

Strawberry Sauce:
I don't have an exact recipe, these are guesstimates, if you like less sugar add less, more add more.

20 strawberries sliced and hulled (or 1 bag frozen strawberries)
1/3 cup sugar
squeeze of lemon juice

Place strawberries in a container with sugar and lemon juice (I may be known to occasionally add a drop of Grand Marnier as well) stir slightly and refrigerate over night. Puree with blender, or food processor. To obtain a thicker sauce, boil for a few minutes on the stove, adjust sweetness to taste.

For frozen strawberries, defrost and them place them in saucepan with sugar and lemon juice, bring to a boil, and let boil until desired thickness, tasting and adjusting sweetness to taste. Cool then puree in blender or food processor.

The sauce takes more time but I always make a lot of it and freeze it when fruit is fresh in season. I do the same thing with peaches and will use the fruit purees to make home made ice cream, and to add to cupcakes.

Not so good iPhone pic of the final result

Secret Desire

So I have this secret desire which I occasionally get to entertain: to be a party planner. I love planning things, and apparently I am "dual brained" which gives me the ability to be creative and attentive to detail. So when my own childrens birthday parties come up, or we have people over my husband gets the not so easy task of reigning me in.

Thankfully this time he didn't have to work too hard. My oldest (Josh) and I are both born in May. Two days apart as a matter of fact (and if you were wondering, yes it is kind of a bummer to have to spend two of your days...Mothers and Birth, making my sons day special. But it's worth it, right?).

Being in the baking business, May is a busy month. Between weddings and showers and Mothers Day and birthdays, I'm going non-stop. This May was no exception. So when we were trying to pick out a time to have Josh's birthday we ran into a bit of a conundrum. Do I have to after a wedding, or...after a wedding? Pretty much leaving me 48 hours to get every thing ready for his party. EVERYTHING. Like buying every thing too.

Some how we managed to pull together and give my son the superhero party of his dreams. He had no idea about all the great ideas mommy wished she had time to execute (like the superhero emblem on the driveway, or the sign that said "welcome to superhero training camp", or the mask decorating table, and the very grand city block cake with all of his favorite superheros on it I was going to make...). Either way he loved every minute of it.

The final cupcake product. Like I said, I had some thing grander in mind, so this was kind of my cop out, but I think it turned out pretty well.

The "tablescape". We were decorating superhero star cookies

After I made these my husband told me I had a sickness. Apparently he thought napkin rings were unnecessary for kids parties. Huh.

In case you are wondering about how I made them I had them custom made for me from etsy. I printed them and then used a special pinch to cut them out. Easy and cheap.

Iron man loved his cupcakes. He likes pretty much any thing with sugar. We had a bunch of fun and played games like superhero training course (which was a failed to attempt to tire out the boys) and practiced our shooting skills. That was a big hit, we had Iron Man and Spiderman waterguns for everyone (which late became part of their goodie bags) and I made an awesome bubble recipe (may come soon). They had to shoot down the bubble with their water guns. Boys and guns. You can't really go wrong there.

So for 48 hours I was happy, my secret desire got it's fill for the time being, or at least until my youngests birthday now 20 days away...gulp.

May weddings, Cookies!

I lumped these two weddings together because they are all about the cookies. I had two weekends back to back of 150-200 monogrammed wedding sugar cookies. I learned that you can get blisters from baking-who knew?


This was for a wedding at the Carl House, which is one my favorite venues here in the Atlanta area (the other being Trackside 550). It is gorgeous!!! Their colors were light blue and yellow. When I made a test run to give them some choices they couldn't choose between two so we did 100 of the blue background ones and 100 of the yellow background ones. The mainly blue ones have yellow ribbons on the bags and the mainly yellow have blue ribbons.

This next wedding was in St. Louis for my cousin. I also ended up helping co-ordinate the day of the wedding so I was wiped once I got home. I consider myself a fairly organized person, and secretly love event planning so I didn't mind one bit, but I am telling you- weddings are a complicated business! Wedding lingo is like a foreign language! I think one of the best things I did for my wedding day was hire someone who I knew would be just as anal and detailed as I was so I didn't have to worry about a thing the day of. It was such a blessing to have that peace of mind!

Now I got married in St. Louis, so you can't hire her, but I know someone down here just as fabulous. She has a meticulous eye, is creative, budget conscious, detailed and has amazing taste! If you want to check her out you can go to her website to learn more.



This is how I packaged the cookies for travel. However if you don't want to have them at every place setting this would be a fun display as people are walking out to take a favor.

Just a few of the black and white themed cookies in process.

This is what the cookies looked like on the table and how they had them displayed. My aunt also has a secret passion for event planning so the decorating was beautiful and fun!

May wedding #1

I have spent the majority of May to date baking. Mainly cookies, so I was thrilled to have at least one all cupcake wedding. Since it is kind of my thing. And in case y'all hadn't heard...cupcakes are SO in. Get on the bandwagon!

We were leaving EARLY the next morning for STL so my pictures are not very good and just of the cupcakes themselves. Maybe I'll throw one up of what they looked like at the wedding if I get one. After all, that is the best part!

These were for a small, low key wedding. We did chocolate with Bailey's, double vanilla, snickerdoodle, coconut cream, and one other flavor I can't remember : )

double vanilla and snickerdoodle
jumbo bride and groom cupcakes in double vanilla and double chocolate

double chocolate

Chocolate with Bailey's

More wedding goodness coming soon!

Absence

So I had big plans for posting after I did my last post. However the day after I wrote that within a matter of hours my grandma went into major surgery and then passed away. Needless to say it's kind of thrown life into a whirl wind. Thankfully we had already planned a trip home (St. Louis) for my cousins wedding. So instead of posting I got to help with funeral arrangements, and then days later make 150 monogrammed wedding cookies and play wedding co-ordinator for the day.

Life has been a little crazy.

I'm looking forward to getting back into my routine which includes posting and cupcakes. It's been almost two weeks since I've made cupcakes y'all!

These sugar cookies are all well and good (I'm doing another wedding with them this weekend) but cupcakes are my thang. And I look forward to getting back to it.

So while I'm still unpacking, doing laundry and processing, here is some thing to give me a few days:

I don't typically do cupcake cakes like this. I think I do a better job when they are flat and I can do my buttercream magic. But it was for a dear friend whose daughter I adore and is one of my sons close friends....and I just wanted to do some thing fun. Is it immaculate-no, but is it whimsical and fun yes, and that was perfect for the birthday girl!



They were double vanilla cupcakes

Guilt

So I feel really guilty about not posting for about a month.

In fact I gave some cupcakes away this weekend to make me feel better about it (by the way, I do fairly regular cupcake giveaways on my facebook site, you should check it out), I'm not sure it worked.

So instead of continuing to give away cupcakes (not that I'm stopping...) I figured I would finally ease my conscious by doing that which the lack of had made me feel guilty to begin with...blog!

I'll give you my good reasons why it's been a month since I blogged.

First, I made this cupcake cake for a twelve year old girl. She told me it was exactly what she wanted. High praise from a twelve year old!

Then, I made these little cuties for Easter. They also happen to be two of my summer flavors: coconut cream, and sunshine (lemon cupcake with orange cream cheese frosting) cupcakes.

Bright and early at 5am the next day was my trip to Philly, which was wonderful. I came home and hit the ground running, making these for a fun networking event I got to go to. Red Velvet minis.

After that I had put the finishing touches on my husband's surprise 30th birthday party. I would like to say that it's really hard to plan things without your significant other knowing. It was a given that I was going to make cupcakes for his birthday, so it wasn't difficult to get a flavor request from him. Normally his request would be red velvets, but he had gotten spoiled with leftovers recently, so instead he requested (my favorite!) raspberry almond with chocolate frosting. If you don't order them though, you might not get to...because those are too good to give away, no matter how cupcaked out I am!

I have a few other things I've been doing in the last month, but I have to save some things to show you, or else I won't post for another month!

I have weddings almost every weekend in May, so my weekend availability is almost non-existent. I still have some week day openings if you want to try to get in on that. I'm already getting requests for August and September as well. All that to say, if you have a date in mind you think you might want something for, let me know! I will pencil you in for that date!

I have difficulties saying no, so it would just make my life easier if you book early so I don't have to tell you no : ) That's another thing that makes me feel guilty...

Spring and Life

I consider it spring when the daffodils have bloomed and I can wear flip flops out at least once with out regretting the decision. Due to my calculations, it's officially spring! Spring always brings about the thought of flowers and Easter. I've been doing some experimenting with both:

These are half of another set that spelled out "Happy 28 Kate", the purple ones were flower inspired

This is a chocolate cupcake with vanilla buttercream decorated to look like a hydrangea

These are my Easter cupcakes. Admittedly, I'm not very into chicks or the Easter bunny, I don't want to distract from the focus of the holiday. That said, I don't mind eggs because they represent new life. So they are chocolate cupcakes with a mini Cadbury egg baked inside (and on top) frosted with vanilla buttercream and toasted coconut.

Good Friday brings the start of spring break here. My kids are not in school yet, so typically this wouldn't effect our family however I lead a small group of high school girls with the youth at our church. Every year they go on mission trips during spring break and this year I get to go with them. I'm super excited to go and serve in the inner city of Philadelphia, but that also means that I will be out of touch for a week.

So if you email me or call, I may not get back to you right away, and won't be able to do any orders for that week (April 5-10). I will have my email on auto reply with some information and my number for if there is something you need right away, but even that make take some time, so please be patient!

If you are interested in Easter orders though, I'm taking those until Thursday!