Same Sex Weddings and Rainbow Cake

   Yesterday I got to go to easily the coolest and most open minded wedding I had ever been to. One of my dearest friend's sisters was getting married and I was asked to make the cake and so I was able to go celebrate the marriage of Sam and Robyn. The really cool thing about their wedding was that it was an interracial lesbian wedding that was 100% legal in the state of Iowa. It wasn't a commitment ceremony but these two got to express their love for each other in front of their friends and family, in the eyes of God and in a legally binding ceremony. It was awesome. A few weeks prior, Robyn's adoption of Detroit, a special needs child, was made official. Sam and Robyn are now an amazing family of 4, including Sam's son from a previous marriage. It was so fun to be a part of their special day and I'm so glad they allowed me to make all their wedding day goodies! How else do you celebrate a gay wedding except with a rainbow cake! I made a two tiered rainbow cake that was very wedding appropriate on the outside but a lot more fun on the inside. The reaction from everyone during the cake cutting was great!

The butterflies were also edible. 

The happy couple with their fantastic rainbow cake!

In addition to the rainbow cake, I made 10 dozen cupcakes. 

Instead of posting all the the recipes here I will link to the ones I used!

I made a total of 5 cupcake flavors:

 1) Blue Velvet

2) Chocolate Espresso

3) Chocolate

4) Pink Champagne

5) Wedding Cake

Blue Velvet Cupcakes

Chocolate Espresso Cupcakes

Chocolate Cupcakes with Vanilla/ Chocolate Swirl Frosting

Pink Champagne Cupcakes

Wedding Cake Cupcakes

I know its been a long time since I updated my blog. This  has been a crazy busy year and I haven't had much time for baking. I'm hoping I can do a little bit more once I get my new oven installed. A big thank you to my friend Teresa for being my baking assistant and making it all possible. But most of all:

Congratulations to the new 

Samantha and Robyn Carwyn!

May Update

May has been a very busy month! Jon and I both had our birthdays. I had graduation. We had our birth mother's day picnic. I served dinner one night at the Ronald McDonald House with my boss. Work has been busy and Jon and I have started house hunting. I haven't been baking a whole ton but I've been able to get a few things in. I made a cake at the end of April for a lovely lady who I used to work at Old Chicago with. I also made some super cute cupcakes for birthmother's day. I also decided to jump into macaroons over the long weekend, which I'm super happy to say was a success! I made both American and French macaroons and I can't wait to try them again.

First things first.
Dee's Birthday Cake:

Dee's cake was a 4 layer cake that had two layers of chocolate cake and two layers of white cake dyed a burgundy wine color. I piped grapevines all over the cake and I think it turned out really cute. She said she liked it and that there were left overs for days, which doesn't surprise me since this cake has two full cake recipes in it! 

NEXT!

I absolutely love my job at the Ronald McDonald House. My boss and I served dinner with another board member one night in May. It was a great way to really sit down with the families who are at the House and chat with them. One of my recent favorites, Jaxson, was finally going home the next day after an 8 week feeding clinic at Monroe Meyer. I thought that a funfetti cake would be appropriate for the little ones at the House. I had some fun decorating the cake as well. 

I'm all for sprinkles and I probably could have put more in!

We were all happy to see Jaxson be able to go home but we definitely miss him at the House.

Birthmother's Day was next and I have always wanted to make these cupcakes and so I figured it was worth a shot. Next time I make these cupcakes, I'm going to allow myself more time. I didn't start baking the cupcakes until 9 am and I had to be at Nebraska Children's Home at 11:30, needless to say we were late because I was frantically piping petals on the cupcakes! I made them as cookies and cream cupcakes. Each cupcake had chunks of oreos in them and them had an oreo on the top for the center of the flower. 

Birthmother's Day was great. I got to spend some time with the Harters and my Calvin. He and Jon had fun at Gramp's and Grammy's place. 

Run, Calvin, Run!

Last, but not least, MACAROONS! 

I've always wanted to try and make French macaroons because I figured they would be a good challenge and they are a light yummy treat. I found a really easy recipe for American coconut macaroons and threw them together on Friday night. It makes a really small batch but they were really good and Jon enjoyed them.

1 1/3 Cup coconut flakes

1/3 C sugar

2 T all purpose flour

1/8 t Salt

2 egg whites

1/2 t vanilla

In a small bowl, combine the coconut, sugar, flour and salt. Stir in egg whites and vanilla; mix well.

Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls onto greased baking sheet. Bake at 325 for 18-20 minutes or until golden brown. Cool on a wire rack.

I ended up making ones that were a little bigger than a teaspoon so my recipe only make 7 macaroons but it was worth it. Crispy on the outside and soft and coconutty inside. 

I also made French Macaroons with blackberries.

I used Martha Stewart's recipe for macaroons. I will do another post that goes through the process soon but I didn't take pictures as I went this time. But I think macaroons deserve their own post.

I hope everyone enjoyed their holiday weekend! I hope this summer brings good things and lots of baking!

Stormy Day Baking

You can tell I'm stressed because I'm trying to make time for baking and calm my mind. Last weekend I was able to bake for Easter. This weekend Jon and I spent the weekend at home because we were threatened with a big storm. As I sit here we have only had some intense rain, but nothing huge. I'm kind of disappointed. I LOVE thunderstorms. After we made some yummy waffles this morning, we ran off to the store to get all the fixings for a nice dinner and dessert. There was a recipe I saw in Martha Stewart's Raspberry-Cream Sandwiches in her cookie book YEARS ago and I've always wanted to make them but never had access to full vanilla beans. My sister-in-law made sure I got some in our wedding gift. Today was the day to try the recipe out.

Martha Stewart's Raspberry-Cream Sandwiches

Ingredients:
1 3/4 C all purpose flour
1 t baking soda
1/2 t salt
1 1/4 unsalted butter, softened
1 1/2 C sugar plus 2 t sugar
1 large egg
2 t pure vanilla extract
1 vanilla bean, halved lengthwise, seeds scraped and reserved
6 oz (1 cup) fresh raspberries
7 1/2 ounces white chocolate, coarsely chopped
1/3 cup heavy cream

Directions:
Preheat oven to  350*. Whisk together flour, baking soda and salt, set aside.

Mix butter and 1 1/2 cup sugar with an electric mixer on medium-high speed until pale and fluffy, about 2 to 3 minutes. Add egg, extract, and vanilla seeds; mix until smooth. Reduce speed to low. Gradually mix in flour mixture.

Scoop batter using a 1 inch ice cream scoop, space 2 inches apart on baking sheets lined with parchment paper.

Bake cookies for 8-10 minutes and let them cool on parchment papers on wire racks.

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This was my first venture with real vanilla.

My awesome vanilla from Trina! (Yay!)

Super flavorful vanilla beans! Delicious!

The Raspberry-Cream Filling is a yummy white chocolate raspberry ganache. The recipe in my cook book called for 1 1/3 cup of raspberries and the online version only calls for a cup and I can see why. I think the extra 1/3 cup creates too much raspberry puree and throws off the balance of the liquid and chocolate. The filling didn't set up as much as I would have liked. Next time I won't use as many raspberries. The flavor was delicious but I would have loved for it to have been thicker. 

Directions:

Puree raspberries and remaining two teaspoons sugar in a food processor. Pour mixture through a fine sieve into a small bowl, pressing to extract juice; discard seeds. Set mixture aside. 

Melt white chocolate in a heat proof bowl set over a pan of simmering water. Remove from heat, whisk in cream in a slow stream. Slowly whisk in reserved raspberry mixture. Refrigerate at least 30 minutes. 

Beautiful creamy white chocolate

Spread 1 heaping teaspoon raspberry cream on the underside of half the cookies. Sandwich with remaining cookies. 

I served these for dessert after the dinner we made for us and our parents. We served them with ice cream. Delicious! 

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Dinner:

  Jon and I made a yummy dinner. I haven't been home much because of work and school. I wanted to spend some time this weekend making something that required more than a half hour to make when we were both hungry home from work. We made Alton Brown's Pork Wellington and I made some potatoes that were inspired by Pinterest. It was a great success. 

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/pork-wellington-recipe/index.html

http://pinterest.com/pin/6614730672937786/

Today was a delicious success. I'll be making a cake next weekend for a birthday so I get to bake again. I'm glad that after 3 whole months of barely baking that I'm making a come back in April 

Happy Easter!

It has been far, far, far too long since I have had time to bake and time to update this blog. Luckily, I had my last day at Old Chicago last weekend and so now I have a little bit more free time. While I have a lot of school work to do, I took a mental break. Easter was a perfect excuse to get to baking again. My little sister, Nora, got me some adorable tulip cupcake liners for Christmas and Easter was the perfect reason to use them. I made a yellow cupcake filled with lemon curd and topped with a butter cream frosting. They were delicious and a perfect treat for a lovely Spring Easter Day!

I found a new white cake recipe, I'm always on the hunt for a good, moist white cake. This was a pretty good cake. However, it had a REALLY weird creaming method. It was delicious though. 

Vanilla Buttermilk Cake

from Sky High Triple Layer Cakes

For the cake:

4 whole large eggs

2 egg yolks

2 tsp of vanilla extract

1 1/4 cup of buttermilk

3 cups of cake flour

2 cups of sugar

4 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

8 ounces of butter at room temperature

Preheat the oven to 350F degrees. Butter the bottom and sides of three 8-inch cake pans. Line with parchment paper and grease the paper.Place the eggs and the yolks in a medium bowl. Add the vanilla and 1/4 cup of buttermilk and whisk all the ingredients well. Set Aside.Combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in the bowl of a mixer; whisk to blend. Add the remaining buttermilk and butter to the dry ingredients and with the mixer on low speed, blend together. Raise the mixer to medium speed and beat until light fluffy; 2minutes.Add the egg mixture in three additions, scrapping down the sides of the bowl after each addition.

I then piped them full of lemon curd. I think lemon curd is so yummy and much easier to make than most people realize. I ended up making Ina Garten's lemon curd. It was different than most lemon curds as it used the entire egg and not just the yolk. It also used a lot of lemon peel. The lemon sugar smelled SO good. 

Ingredients

• 3 lemons
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1/4 pound unsalted butter, room temperature
• 4 extra-large eggs
• 1/2 cup lemon juice (3 to 4 lemons)
• 1/8 teaspoon kosher salt

Directions

Using a carrot peeler, remove the zest of 3 lemons, being careful to avoid the white pith. Put the zest in a food processor fitted with the steel blade. Add the sugar and pulse until the zest is very finely minced into the sugar.

Cream the butter and beat in the sugar and lemon mixture. Add the eggs, 1 at a time, and then add the lemon juice and salt. Mix until combined.

Pour the mixture into a 2 quart saucepan and cook over low heat until thickened (about 10 minutes), stirring constantly. The lemon curd will thicken at about 170 degrees F, or just below simmer. Remove from the heat and cool or refrigerate.

The curd was delicious, but a little sweet. It also didn't firm up as much as I would have wanted. I think I might go back to the curd I used for the Lemon Raspberry cake I made last year. It's always worth trying new things though! 

I brought these over to my parent's house for Easter dinner. They were a hit and everyone enjoyed them. Ignore my bright red face in the picture (I walked 10 miles outside yesterday and didn't think I would need sunscreen, boy was I wrong!)

The liners were adorable. They were even cute when opening them up and they were the cutest crumpled up after the cupcakes had been enjoyed!

How cute!

It still looks like a tulip!

I hope everyone enjoyed this lovely Spring Day, had a Happy Easter/Passover. I hope I get to bake more often! I miss it and I miss blogging. I should be back more in the next few months.