Cake!

Who doesn't love a good layered cake. It has the right amount of icing to cake ratio, especially when it's a great buttercream, swiss is my favorite. I've been making plans to make a cake for my birthday. Something that I never made. Something a little bit fancy. I even made a pinterest board for it. 

Got a new canning pot

Just fit on the burner.

My big old faithful pot seems to be leaking and I can't have that happen--too much water on my stovetop put my oven out of commission for 4 days in May. 

Now with my brand new pot, I've been jamming away. By the end of this week, I will have jammed 9 lbs of fruit--two batches of strawberry and one batch of mixed berry. 

I survive the making of 100+

To be exact 101 cupcakes for office event, 15 macarons [dumped almost a full batch. I had no patience left to gently remove from the slipat sheet because they were slightly overmixed and underdone again and kept cracking. Argh!!!!!!!!!!!!] and 1 batch of cupcakes for the restaurant's valentine sweets. Pictured above are the 101,  pre-frosting and filled, waiting to get all dolled up for the big event.

100 cupcake plus and incredibly busy menapausal woman

It just started a hour ago. Cleaning, organizing and prepping before the real baking start. Have already prepped 2 batches of swiss buttercream [I think I need make another], 2 batches of cream cheese frosting [for sure I need another], lemon curd, raspberry jam, steeped the milk with earl grey tea and measure out 3 batches of dry ingredients. 

I'm still working out what I'm making, this is what I have committed to so far:

• Earl Grey cupcakes with lemon curd filling and cream cheese frosting
• Strawberry cupcakes with strawberry jam filling and strawberry cream cheese frosting
• Blackberry Jam cupcakes with vanilla swiss buttercream
• Red Velvet cupcake with chocolate ganache filling and cream cheese frosting
• Chocolate cupcake with fudgy chocolate frosting [may have a little surprise filling]
• I'm thinking of doing an apple spice cupcake or orange cupcake that probably will be the last batch I'll make

And I'm hoping that I get all of these done so I can whip up a couple of batches of macarons for the restaurant as valentine's promotion. I haven't even promoted that yet as I don't know if I can make it. But if I do, it will be raspberry and meyer lemon macarons. I'm making them smaller than I've testing so I can give out 1 per person or 2 per couple. There will be lots of piping in my future--my arm already hurt.

Okay, off I go to prep some almond flour for my macarons. I have faith that I can do it all. Pictures to come. 

100+ cupcakes Part II

I'm baking up another order for a 100+ cupcakes for a Valentine's function @ my office.  I'm hoping to make up 6 batches, but not sure if I'm making 6 flavors or if I should make a gluten-free version--most people don't like the rice flour version  as texture is too chewy [unless you are crazy for mochi, like me].

This is the menu so far but it will changes as it gets closer

• red velvet with ganache filling and cream cheese frosting
• earl grey with lemon curd filling and cinnamon cream cheese frosting
• blackberry spice with blackberry jam filling and vanilla swiss buttercream
• chocolate with raspberry jam filling and ganache frosting
• vanilla with raspberry jam and ganache frosting
• strawberry with strawberry buttercream

Maybe's

• coconut with coconut buttercream
• carrot with cream cheese frosting
• mocha with ganache filling and  mocha buttercream
• tiramisu with marscapone frosting

The maybe's are ones that I'd like to try and need to test out. The coconut one as I've been itching to try out the recipe. I hope to better prepared as I have at least of year more under my belt of baking in mass quantities. 

Anyone has a favorite or a suggestions. I'll try and get some pictures as I test. February 13th will be a crazy day for me. Here's my last 100+ cupcakes I did.

My attempt of being frugal and a foodie

This weekend I decided to bring my breakfast and lunch to work to save some money. I also have some time to test out some recipes that have been burning up my to testing list. 


First up Breakfast
Greek yogurt, banana, homemade granola and local honey. Been wanting to try Alton Brown's granola recipe for a while and had the time this weekend. Adjusted it a litte, switch out pecans for almonds [what I had in my freezer] and added a 1 1/2 teaspoons of cinnamon plus I added some craisins. 




At first, I had my doubts. Didn't smell as I thought it would, I nibbled on a litte kind at the beginning, kind of bland. I was hoping I didn't have to toss out the whole thing. That would be such a waste. But an hour and fifteen minutes later [stirring every 15 minutes], it turned out great. Makes a lot, I think enough for 2 weeks of breakfasts. Not too sweet and not bland, just perfect with my yogurt and banana. Nice and filling.


My Lunch
I'm writing it as I'm eating it: Roast Beef [from the restaurant], spring and vidalia onion marmalade [onion from my produce bag from work] on a hard roll with a broccoli parmesan fritter. Broccoli has become my new favorite veggies and I found this recipe on Smitten Kitchen. I actually at the whole recipe by myself this weekend. I loved it with sweet chili sauce. I'm eating the last one with my sandwich. Wish I had more.





Another Recipe Test
I had some very sweet strawberries from Costco this week and wanted to try out this strawberry pie recipe from Sauver. Wanted to make a fruit pie with what was in season. I'm still not sure about it. Very juicy but tasted good. I think the crust need some work. Last time I made this crust it was great. It's probably me. I guess I need to work on my pies. Maybe I'll try a pie a week.