Rosy Birthday Cake

I'm known to go a little overboard for Miss A's birthday. For birthday number seven we had a lovely girly pink afternoon tea party at the Tudor Place Historic House in Washington, D.C. This rosy pink birthday cake was what we enjoyed along with other treats at the tea party. 

I used the same chocolate cake batter to make this two layer cake as I did for the ice cream cone cupcakes. I a lighter pink buttercream to place between the layers and frosted a thin layer all around the cake. 

It's quite easy to make the rose buttercream decorations around the cake:

1) I used a round cookie cutter to place the round outline for where I wanted to place the roses around the cake.

2) I used a Wilton 1M tip to create the roses in each circle. I started in the middle and went around to create my messy yet pretty roses. 

It was a fairly easy cake and design, but it made for a very happy birthday girl.

Birthday Cupcakes

Miss A turned 6. S-I-X. I cannot believe it. She happened to have soccer practice the day of her birthday, so I thought that was the perfect opportunity to celebrate her birthday. We had a fun soccer themed party and these fun cupcakes we made with turf or grass and soccer ball rings. 

Earlier in the day, I took these mini cupcakes with pink cherry frosting and fondant flowers for a class birthday celebration.

We had SO many cupcakes.  In fact, it was enough to feed the soccer team two times over.

We had such a fun soccer birthday party picnic after practice. 

But driving home with the bouquet of a dozen balloons in the convertible was the most fun. 

Hot Cross Buns

Hot cross buns always remind me of lent and while I've had them before from a grocery store or bakery, I've never baked them myself. They are a sweet bun with spices and the dough smells similar to cinnamon rolls. They are typically made during lent and eaten particularly on Good Friday with the cross on top symbolizing the crucifixion. So, given the time of year, this was my challenge this past week and it was definitely more challenging than I thought for as simple as they seem to be. They require yeast for leavening and you just need to be patient and go through the steps. However, they were very fun to make and the outcome was hearty and delicious.

With using yeast for the leavening (to allow the dough to rise), it does require a hot liquid to be added to activate the yeast. I heated a cup of milk to 110 degrees and added in with the yeast and other ingredients. Once all the ingredients to the dough were mixed together, it needs to sit to allow enough time for it to rise. This time allows the yeast to emit enough carbon dioxide to allow it to rise. Here is my dough before and after rising - it worked!










After rising, I kneeded the dough a little and then measured out 24 (somewhat) equal pieces. I used the help of my kitchen scale to make sure they were pretty close with each being around 2 oz. so I didn't have different sized buns when I baked them.











Now it was time to place my 24 pieces of dough in the baking dish and wait yet again. The dough is to sit for another hour or so to rise before baking. Here are my individual buns rolled out into balls and then after rising. Yeah - it worked again!




Before baking, I traced the cross on top of each bun with a sharp knife to guide where the icing should be and brushed on an egg wash for a little glisten. They were to bake until golden brown on top and then I let them cool before taking them apart (I resisted temptation) and they broke apart perfectly. I mixed together a simple icing and chose to pipe the crosses on top. They were worth the wait and were great with a cup of tea. I'd take 40 days of these buns!

Valentine Cupcakes

I found some Valentine cupcake papers adorned hearts in my baking supplies and thought I would make some chocolate cupcakes for a Valentine's Day treat. I originally intended to make red velvet cupcakes and now know that I need to get gel food coloring as the liquid food coloring just doesn't go as far. And, while red velvet cupcakes are very pretty, I don't particularly like the idea of loading the cupcakes with food coloring. So, instead I just made chocolate cupcakes. I do always use cake flour to make cakes and cupcakes. If you haven't used it before, it's a much more fine flour that makes a more delicate cake. I decided to make cream cheese frosting as I had some extra cream cheese to use. I didn't pipe the frosting as cream cheese frosting doesn't stay put as nicely as butter cream, but used my new small offset spatula to frost them and topped them with some red sugar sprinkles. I ended up making a few dozen of these tasty treats so my husband had some happy colleagues at work the day after Valentine's Day!

Cupcake Party

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For Audrey's 1st birthday, I decided to do a cupcake theme. Cupcakes are fun, kid size and allow you to provide several options. And, not only did we end up doing dessert cupcakes, but most of the entire meal was in cupcake form including meatloaf cupcakes with piped mashed potato, macaroni and cheese cupcakes and pizza cupcakes. The dessert options included roasted banana with honey cinnamon butter cream, vanilla with vanilla butter cream, chocolate with peanut butter frosting and cream cheese filled chocolate cupcakes. With all the different kinds, I was very thankful to have family to help with the frosting and decorating for the party. I've definitely been on a cupcake kick and have since made them for the cake walk at Audrey's Montessori school and have had fun decorating them in different ways. I love all the different cupcake papers you can get too. How did the birthday girl like her cupcake? She thoroughly enjoyed the roasted banana cupcake and didn't hold back one bit.