A Cake for Aunt Kathy

Here is a picture of the cake I made for my Aunt Kathy's birthday. It was a cherry chip cake with a cherry filling and a cream cheese frosting.

Favorite Tools to Use for Cupcakes

It is Saturday again my friends and what does that mean?
I will spend a couple hours baking something for somebody :)
I love baking for friends and family!
This Saturday I made cupcakes for a small party of old high school orchestra friends (about eleven people showed up total, even though it was small we still had a blast). I made Chocolate Cupcakes with a Cheesecake Filling and yummy Strawberry Cream Cheese Frosting.  I should come up with a name for this scrumptious treat. Any suggestions? I am gettting into a habit of making these. I need to branch out of my comfort zone sometime and try something new but it is hard when these are so good, not to mention ADDICTING.

I have a couple of things that are a must have when baking cupcakes.  Here are my Top 5 Favorite things to use when making cupcakes.

#1:

Chocolate Chip's (preferably Semi-Sweet): I throw them into the batter at the end to add an extra ummff to any chocolate baked good. Cupcakes, Cake, Brownies etc.

 

#2:

My Kitchen Aide: It is one of the best Christmas presents that I have ever received. Thanks Mom and Dad! It makes baking so much easier. I love making Marshmallow Fondant in it. I hate kneading by hand. 

#3:

Cookie Scoop: This helps me make even cupcakes with minimal amount of effort. Filling up the batter takes no time at all with this tool.

#4:

Cupcake Filler Tip: This has revolutionized the way I view and eat cupcakes. Just think of the endless possibilities of what fillings would go with cupcakes!

#5:

 My Grandpa's Old Big Round Tip: I use this to frost my cupcakes. I love how professional they turn out when I use this tip.

Multiple Flops

I am making a Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cake and I baked the cake just fine and is currently cooling on my parents stove.

The biggest problem was making the filling. I tried three different recipes in the last two hours for cookie dough without egg (so it will be safe to eat uncooked). My wonderful little sister Callie helped me taste test each batch.   The first batch was bitter and with a weird consistency. Here is what it looked like:

Callie made the worst face with this dough. Sorry Callie.

The second batch turned out with a normal consistency but still had bitterness to it. I almost just called it good enough but I couldn't do it. It would have tasted weird. See it looks more normal, but looks can be deceiving:

Callie did not approve of this one either. 

Here is my slightly annoyed face after the second batch failed:

I should have taken a picture of Callie too.

I decided to try one last recipe (after that I was going to cheat and buy cookie dough from the store). This one called for sweetened condensed milk which I did not have. By word of wisdom from my mother I searched the internet for a recipe for sweetened condensed milk. I found out that you can make it out of one cup of evaporated milk mixed with 1-1/4 cup of sugar. You heat it over the stove and stir until the sugar dissolves. That's it! Easy right? The filling is thinner than the rest and melted the chocolate (I should have let the milk cool down before I used it). It tasted so much better than the other two, I could deal with a the consistency.  It is in the fridge and it seems to be hardening up, I am keeping my fingers crossed! Here is what it looks like, trust me this tastes wonderful:

This batch was Callie approved.

I will posts some pictures of my cakes on here soon, including the finished Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cake. Hopefully the decorating process will go better than the filling. Wish me luck!