cakes

I know it's been a really long time, life's just been a bit stressful lately. It's also just been way to hot to do any baking in my little apartment. So i figured i'd post a couple pictures of some cakes i've done at work.








This is a buzzlightyear decoration i made for a cake (all fondant)

Hello Kitty cake (fondant)

Noah's Ark cake, for a christening

I'll try to post some more pictures, and hopefully there might be a day cool enough for me to do some baking. 

Easy Chocolate Swirl Cheesecake

Here is a recipe and some photos of a chocolate swirl cheesecake i made the other day. Its a bit simpler than your standard cheesecake recipe. It also doesn't require the use of a springform pan which is typically necessary for cheesecake making. So if your looking for a fairly simple dessert and you love chocolate, i would definitely give this recipe a shot.

Easy Chocolate Swirl Cheesecake 
Ingredients:
1 8oz package cream cheese
1 14oz can sweetened condensed milk
2 tbsp lemon juice 
1 tbsp vanilla extract 
1 egg
1/3 cup chocolate chips, melted 
1 chocolate pie crust 


Directions:
1. Beat cream cheese until fluffy. Then gradually beat in the sweetened condensed milk, lemon juice and vanilla. Add egg and beat just to combine. 
2. Pour about half the cheesecake mix into the crust.
3. Then melt your chocolate chips, and add about 1/2 cup of the cheesecake mixture to the chocolate and fold together. 
4. Pour the mixture over the cheesecake 
5. Then pour the remaining plain cheese cake mixture on top, then with a butter knife swirl the cheesecake. 
6. Bake at 300F for 50-55 minutes. Then remove from oven and let cool on wire rack for 1 hour.
7. Refrigerate for at least 3 hours. However is best served after it has been chilled overnight. 





And heres a final photo, and before i knew it the whole thing was gone! 

Sorry i haven't been updating too often lately, but i would like to point out the amazon application i added to my blog. Amazon is personally one of my favorite sites, and its great for baking supplies. So this will show you the latest deals on baking stuff. Hope you enjoy!

mini cupcakes

Here are some mini cupcakes i made the other day. I made chocolate with chocolate frosting, and vanilla with chocolate frosting. I'll post the recipe for the vanilla cupcakes later. These recipes are again from my favorite book Vegan Cupcakes take over the world. I'd like to add again you do not have to make these vegan if you don't wish to. However i can assure you they are delicious and some of the best cupcakes ever!

All of these recipes make about 12 standard cupcakes or 24 minis

So here is the first recipe which is for the chocolate cupcake:

Vegan Chocolate Cupcake

Ingredients:

1 cup soy milk

1 tsp apple cider vinegar

3/4 cup granulated sugar

1/3 cup canola

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 tsp almond, chocolate, or more vanilla extract

1 cup ap flour

1/3 cup cocoa powder (dutch-processed or regular)

3/4 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350F, then line your muffin tin with paper liners.

2. Whisk together soy milk and vinegar, and set aside to curdle. Add the sugar, oil, vanilla and other extract is using it together. Add the milk mixture and beat until foamy. In a separate bowl sift together the dry ingredients. Add the dry in 2 separate batches to the wet mixture mix until no large lumps remain.

3. Fill liners 3/4 of the way, Bake 18-20 min or until skewer inserted comes out clean. Let cupcakes cool completely before frosting them.

Here is the recipe for the Vanilla Cupcakes

Vegan Vanilla Cupcakes

Ingredients:

1 cup soy milk

1 tsp apple cider vinegar

1 1/4 cup ap flour

2 tablespoons cornstarch

3/4 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 cup non-hydrogenated margarine, softened

3/4 cup granulated sugar

2 tsp vanilla extract

1/4 tsp almond, or more vanilla extract

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350F and line muffin tin with paper liners.

2. Whisk together the soy milk and vinegar and set aside to curdle.

3. Sift all of your dry ingredients together and set aside.

4. Cream together the margarine and sugar until light, fluffy and smooth. Don't beat more than 2 minutes. Beat in vanilla and other extract (if using). Then alternate mixing in the dry and the milk mixture. Stopping to scrape down the sides of the bowl a few times.

5. Fill liners two-thirds of the way full, and bake 20-22 minutes.

6. Cool completely before icing.

And Finally here is the Chocolate Frosting

Vegan Chocolate buttercream Frosting

Ingredients:

1/4 cup margarine, softened

1/4 cup shortening

1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

2 1/2 cups confectioners sugar

3 tbsp soy milk

1 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract

Directions:

1. Cream together the margarine and the shortening until smooth and well combined. Add the cocoa powder mix until well combined. Add the sugar in batches mixing well between each addition, and adding a bit of the soy milk between each addition of sugar. When all ingredients have been well incorporated, add vanilla and beat until light and fluffy (about 3 minutes).

Enjoy!

Orange Delight

Sorry for the delay on the blog, just been really busy, and haven't had much time for writing, or baking anything for that matter. So todays is short, its just a recipe for a tasty little treat my grandmother always made. It was memorial day when i had a craving for this, it's a really great picnicky/bbq dessert. Its also a great dessert for people on a diet, or just cutting back on the sweets. So anyway enough rambling heres the recipe for orange delight.

Ingredients:

24 oz light & Lively cottage cheese

3 oz Orange Jello

8 oz Cool Whip; thawed (can also use light cool whip)

One 11oz can mandarin oranges; drained

Directions:

1. Mix together the cottage cheese and dry jello (do NOT add water)

2. Fold in the thawed cool whip, until incorporated

3. Fold in drained oranges

4. Chill until firm, then enjoy!

Heres some photos of it, it doesn't look that good, but don't let that stop you from making this. Its so easy, yet it's one of my favorite desserts i think.

Well thats all for today, hopefully i'll be able to do some more baking soon.

Mushrooms

I know this blog is mainly about sweets, but hey we all have to eat real food some time right? Well i'm really having an urge to make my favorite stuffed mushrooms. These mushrooms are so delicious, and very versatile. The recipe can be altered in a number of ways. Its great as an appetizer in which case you use button mushrooms. Or you can go along with the recipe and serve this as your main course, or a side dish. Anyway you choose these are so yummy, there also pretty healthy, oh yeah AND their vegan. For all you non-vegans out there please don't let that frighten you away (remember when there's a vegan product in something such as soy cheese, you can always use the real thing).

Now my personal preference for this recipe is to use the small button mushrooms, as i've always served this as more of an appetizer/or side dish.

Ingredients:

2 Tbsp. olive oil

8 large flat mushrooms; or 1 container button mushrooms
1 chopped onion
1 crushed garlic clove
1/4 cup rolled oats
1 8-oz. can chopped tomatoes with herbs
1 tsp. hot pepper sauce
1/4 cup pine nuts; just roughly chopped
1/2 cup soy parmesean (or real parmesean)

Directions:

1.) Preheat the oven to 375°F.
2.) Use a small amount of oil to grease a shallow baking dish large enough to hold a single layer of the mushroom caps and set aside (i use 13x9).

3.) Remove the mushroom stalks then chop them, and set the caps aside.
4.) Sauté the onion, garlic, and mushroom stalks in the oil until lightly browned. Stir in the oats and sauté for another minute. Then add the tomatoes and hot sauce.
5.) Arrange the caps with the hole side up in the prepared baking dish. Divide the stuffing mixture between the mushrooms and layer on the nuts and soy cheese.

6.) Bake for 25 minutes, should be served warm.

Now if i do decide to make these i'll definitely upload some pictures later.

Hope everyone has a great memorial day!

peanut butter chocolate chip cookies

This is a great peanut butter cookie recipe from good housekeeping cookbook that i jazzed up a bit by adding some chocolate chips, and some other various adjustments. These would be a great treat to take along to any parties for memorial day weekend. There simple, but definitely a crowd pleaser.

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 cup creamy peanut butter

2/3 cup honey

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup butter; softened

2 eggs

1/2 tsp baking powder

1 cup chocolate chips (more of less depending on how much you like chocolate)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350F, Then cream together the butter and sugar, add peanut butter, eggs, honey, and vanilla mix until combined. (make sure to scrape the bowl with a spatula, to ensure incorporation of all ingredients) Then add in the flour and baking powder, mixing until just combined. Then mix in chocolate chips.

2. Shape cookies into 1-inch balls and place 3-inches apart on cookie sheet (i like to line mine with parchment paper, that way the cookies just slide off, and clean-ups a breeze).

3. Flatten each cookie a bit with hand (or the back of a measuring cup works good; just have a little flour on it though if it begins to stick).

4. Bake 10 minutes (or until edges are lightly browned); rotating halfway through.

Heres the cookie balls before i flattened them (i forgot to take a pic after i flattened them)

And here they are after being baked

And just before there about to be devoured.....

......enjoy :))

plated desserts part 2

Here are some more plated desserts, these were some we did in level 3. Both of the plated desserts were made using pate a bric. Pate a bric is sort of like fillo dough, except its thicker and much less fragile. Its actually very flexible, which is how it's able to be rolled and folded into these shapes. It comes frozen in packs of circular disks, so its very handy.

This first dessert i wasn't to crazy about, i thought it was pretty ugly, and it didn't taste very good either.

It's a mango beggars purse (a disk of ginger cake inside and a ginger mango compote inside the pate a bric dough) it's served with a ginger sake sabayon (which was torched) and a lychee nut sorbet in a pate a bric cup. The little people decoration is also made from the pate a bric dough.

This next dessert was actually probably one of my favorite things we made. It was soooo good!

So here it is asian pear spring rolls served with a raspberry creme fraiche ice cream (in pate a bric cup), a champagne raspberry gastrique (also in a pate a bric cup) with little caramel chopsticks for decoration. All of this is served on top of a banana leaf.

A short definition for a gastrique is basically a sauce thats a caramel vinegar reduction, sounds weird but its actually quite tasty.