I am thankful for pie

Obviously, because pie is awesome. I hear about this great place called Dangerously Delicious, and it's all pie. I haven't been but it sounds pretty spectacular and came highly recommended by a fellow cook. I'll have to go there soon, nothing like warm pie on a winter evening. Any guy friend of mine reading, this would be a great date.
Speaking of pies, dessert was my responsibility for Thanksgiving this year. I ended up making two Pumpkin Pies, two Pecan Pies, and one Apple. On a side note I was watching When Harry Met Sally last night which is awesome because I always say "Pecan Pie" the way Billy Crystal does in that scene with Meg Ryan. Back to my pies, they turned out great but no holiday is complete without a little drama. Pecan Pie, for those of you who don't know is very watery before it bakes. Although I use the same recipe for my Pecan Pies I do tend to change up my pie dishes. I only have one decent pie dish so when it comes time to bake a lot I buy the pie tins from the store. Well this year I must have purchased a pie tin that was a little more shallow than usual because as I was loading my Pecans into the oven some of the sugary goodness spilled over. It sounds silly to say but my mom and I weren't too concerned about it and left it alone. Thirty-forty minutes later, I open up the oven to a massive cloud of smoke. My dad claims he couldn't see the kitchen from the living room but he tends to be a little dramatic (read very dramatic). I don't know what the chemical process is that takes place when something bakes but I can tell you that sugar continues to burn and burn...which now seems like common sense, oops. Once we removed what had turned into a black chunk of sugar moon rock and fanned out the kitchen, we were good to go. Another side note, our fire alarm did not go off which is pretty scary, I think the house would burn down before we'd get a chirp out of that damn thing.

So aside from a little bit of smoke, the rest of the pies turned out fine and drama free. I think I may have made the crust a little too thick with my Apple but my mom and I are big crust lovers. Crust is, after all, the secret to a great pie and it just so happens I have a great recipe from a friends grandmother. If you're curious for it shoot me an email and I'll send it to you, you've got to work for it.

I would be proud to partake in your Pecan Piiiie...

Cinnamon Swirl Pancakes

I actually made these a couple weeks ago. I was pretty excited to post about it but ADD kicked in and I forgot, my bad. Despite the late post I can still taste the buttery cinnamon filling, and let me tell you it was delicious. The brown sugar that makes up the cinnamon swirl sort of caramelized on the pancake making a... crème brûlée layer on the top. The cinnamon was great but I think that little bit of a crunch is what made it. No one likes a soggy pancake so it was nice that even after they sat for awhile they still maintained that sugary crunch. The recipe I found suggested a cream cheese topping but I think I mentioned before, that’s just too much for breakfast. With butter and syrup these cinnamon swirl pancakes didn’t need anything else. I would definitely suggest this recipe.

As you can see my swirl is a lot thicker than what they used in the recipe. I wonder how a thinner line of cinnamon would change it. Also I really messed up on the first attempt at a spiral, the cinnamon was still too wet from the melted butter so if you try this recipe, let it cool down before trying to pipe it on the batter otherwise it kind of goops out of the bag.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving so I will of course be making some desserts. If I can remember I will try to take some pictures tonight on the pie process, I’m making two pecan pies, a pumpkin and an apple. Also on I received an order for a sheet cake to be completed by Sunday so look for pictures on that too. I will be a busy baker this week, have a Happy Thanksgiving!

Cupcake Inspirations

Yesterday, as you may or may not recall, I was supposed to make some of those delicious pancakes I posted about. However, because my school is in the ghetto, once night approached we were a little apprehensive about traveling to the store for the ingredients. Damn, we'll have to wait until next weekend. Instead of pancakes Gretchen and I went to Barnes and Noble. Can I just quickly say how much I love book stores? Especially B&N because they have Starbucks in them. I miss Borders though because Borders always had more seating, it's like B&N doesn't want you to stay. Anyway while there I found some books I liked and found a really pretty journal. I thought of how my mom has a little wine journal that she takes with her to take notes on different wines we try at restaurants and such and decided that would be a great idea for cupcakes. I'm always jotting down scribbles and notes on different ideas that hit me and I inevitably end up losing most of them. With that in mind I decorated my first page and am more than ready to start collecting some ideas! Keep an eye out for some of my thoughts!



Big Opportunity

I can't believe I forgot to post this. Last week I recieved an email asking if I would like to potentially be a sponsor for the opening of Walish Gooshe in the DC area. I've never heard of the brand but surely you can imagine how awesome it would be to have my name and logo being advertised on their website and on banners at the event. That would provide me with so much business! Unfortunately I had to decline. Even though in my last post I was talking about making pancakes and such, school has been way too demanding these last few weeks. If you can believe it we're already half way done with the semester which of course means- midterms. I send the woman who contacted me an email apologizing for my conflicting schedule and asked (begged) that they would think of me for future events. She responded quickly and said she would, so hopefully this isn't the last of Kristie's Kreations big event opporunties.

Baking Season!

Even though it has technically been fall for about a month now, until temperatures start hitting the 40's and 50's I don't really consider it autumn. It's hard to get into the festive mood when you're wearing shorts and tank tops. So now that the fall season has finally arrived I have been in my head about what wonderful treats I should bake. As some of you, all three of my readers, may know I am back at school. And while I to tend to venture home more often than not it's really hard to bake at school. For one, the community kitchen is disgusting, I mean really girls? Your mothers would be so disappointed. I had some waffles I wanted to pop in the toaster for a quick breakfast (come to find out we don't have a damn toaster) and there was egg all over the place, a stack of dishes in the sink that were overflowing, gunk everywhere, I mean it was worse than a teenage boy's room. I'll admit, I'm pretty OCD when it comes to stuff like that but I'm quite positive this would be disgusting by anyone's standards. Long story short, the only time I bake is when I'm home.

I won't be home this weekend because it's Halloween but the Today show did a segment on festive sweet treats so I'm very much looking forward to the next time I'm home. They talked about chocolate fudge cookies and it reminded me of this recipe I tried out a few years ago, Chocolate Snowflake Cookies. You roll the dough in powdered sugar before you bake it and when it's done it looks like a snow flake! Best idea ever! Needless to say I'm pretty excited for the Christmas season so I can start baking stuff like this.

Even though I'm stuck with mostly pumpkin flavors for now, I still have plenty of seasonal ideas pertaining to the fall. Something I think my friends and I will try to tackle this Sunday is Cinnamon Roll Pancakes. I know they look pretty intense but I'm confident in our abilities. I think maybe the cheapo ketchup dispensers like the ones I used for my Red Velvet cupcakes would work perfectly for the cinnamon swirl part. Maybe a few diced apples for an extra added piece of awesome? I'll admit I'm not loving the icing drizzled on top, I think that would be a bit much. I'll stick with maple syrup. Be sure to check me out on Monday to see how we did!

Red Velvet with Cocoa Raspberry Sauce

At work, as you may have read, I was very much inspired to try and make Red Velvet cupcakes. I spent a ridiculous amount of time researching a recipe and how to decorate said cupcakes. I'm dedicated, what can I say? Any who the chef in me was determined to really rock these cupcakes with some sort of sauce. Raspberry seemed to make the most sense but I was still hesitant.
After work I came home for the weekend and Saturday morning I got started on the cupcakes. While they were baking I got to the sauce. Even as I was making it I wasn't too excited about it so on a whim I added some cocoa powder. I let it chill and put it in one of those old school diner ketchup bottles, the kind that's all red with an easy squirt nozzle. The thought being I could drizzle this sauce over my cupcakes in a fancy-shmancy way.
I was suposed to go to a friend's party but unfortunately had to cancel to instead have dinner with some friends who were in town. Excited to have an audience, I happily prepared my cupcakes with the drizzled Raspberry sauce which I had heated just before serving. Omg these were so good. As I mentioned in my last post, I don't know much about Red Velvet cupcakes but I have to say these were phenomenal. Also I never did go to Crumbs to get a cupcake, whoops. And I know I say that about all of my cupcakes but these were so good, and the sauce is what made it. I think it would have made anything taste good. One complaint, I think I over baked the cupcakes by a few minutes. But other than that, heaven. I literally just finished another cupcake, I may try to take some back to school with me tomorrow.

PS I stole this beautiful plate from Little Italy when we were in NY a few weeks ago :] 

Prelude to a Cupcake

A prelude, my mom does this on her blog, and I think it's the cutest thing. Upon conversation with my coworkers (they deserve some cupcakes soon, they really inspire me) I've decided to tackle Red Velvet cupcakes. To me this is huge, people are all about their RV. I feel like when someone talks about a cupcake place the first thing you hear, praise or criticism, is how they did on their Red Velvet. When I have about $50 to spend, because these places are so damn expensive, one day I'm going to go around to all the local cupcake places and buy a cupcake from each so I can scope out the competition.

To be honest I don't think I've ever had  Red Velevet before. It doesn't look that great and to be honest I don't really get it. It's like vanilla? But not? With some cocoa in it? But it's not chocolate? Like, make up your mind cupcake. So in order to determine how RV should taste I'm going to head over to Crumbs and get one. Cupcakes there are huge and a whopping $4-something but word on the street is they offer one of the best RV cupcakes around. Until I conquer this mountain of a cupcake enjoy your Friday and keep an eye out for my post about Kristie's Red Velvet!

A Lifetime of Happiness to Des and Ray

Obviously today is catch up on my blog day. Actually I'm supposed to be studying for a midterm but all that means is do whaetever you can to not study, including blog updates. A week or two ago I was asked to make some cupcakes for a friends wedding. Not instead of a cake but in addition to (thank God, much less pressure). I had taken a batch of my Blueberries and Cream to her bridal shower and they loved them so that's what she asked me to bring. I only brought a few dozen and even though everyone was very complimentary of them we used a lot of the cupcakes for a cake fight. I think because they were much easier to throw. At least a few folks took some of my busines cards...
Shown is a picture of my best bud Gretchen and another best bud Sean, she got him pretty good.
Pow, right in the kisser.

Hostess with the Mostess

No I didn't host. But I did make cupcake that look like Hostess cakes. And I made them back in July, so when I said I didn't make any in July... oops I lied. Anway it was a combination party for a couple of folks birthdays but mainly my good friend Billy. He is the individual seen with the box o' awesome. In addition to being one of the nicest people I know he also does some DJing, some of his stuff can be seen here.

Anywho this party seemed like a great opportunity to show of my baking skills. I don't remember what inspired me to make Hostess cakes cupcakes but I rocked the shit out of these cupcakes. I made chocolate cupcakes and filled them with creamcheese buttercream, dipped them in chocolate ganache frosting, and finally added the signature swirl on top. My only complaint is that I don't think I put enough cream filling on the inside but no one else said anything so I'm hoping I'm just being my worst critic. Other than that, they were really good. I just have to modify how I fill my cupcakes because cutting a hold in each individual cupcake is way too time consuming.

8 Dozen

My biggest fan at work asked me to make 8 dozen cupcakes for her for an event she was having. For those of you counting along at home that would be 96 cupcakes. When I agreed to do it I honestly didn't realize how many cupcakes I was making until someone said it. Then, "oh shit, I'm making almost 100 cupcakes." So the night finally came. The actual baking part was a breeze I have 2 cupcake pans at home and some friends broought a few more over so I finished that part in a little over an hour. now the decorating... well that's another story.

I Googled a few ideas and sent her some asking what she was looking for. She had mentioned a pink and black theme so based on what I found online and what we talked about I just ran with it. Upon my research I came to the conclusion that I would have to use fondant. I hate fondant. I think it's a little lazy and a bit of a cop out. I love sugar flowers and bows and whatnot but when people make entire cake out of fondant... whatever. Now if you can do that with regular icing, then go you. That's my spiel, so obviously I was reluctant to use the stuff. Luckily I had some amazing friends over to help me that night. Mom helped a little too but baking isn't so much her thing. Wine on the other hand...
Anyway so we tackled it, one cupcake at a time. The other two girls hadn't used fondant either but we all did an amazing job adapting and figuring out how to work it. We only used it for 2 dozen of the cupcakes and for decorative lines for some of the other cupcakes. My biggest reason for using it was I needed a flat survace and I wasn't sure how to create one with buttercream. I found this which talks about how to flatten buttercream with a papertowel. It works amazingly but I didn't have a chance to try it out before the big day so I was nervous about it.
Below is one example of the designs used for the cupcakes, needless to say I recieved a lot of compliments from the woman who ordered them and the guests at her event. I think I'm going to get a lot more business because of these babies...

Oh So Sweet Potato

I keep accidentally calling these Pumpking cupcakes. I think it's because people (myself included) forget how amazing a sweet potato is and how much it tastes like pumpkin. I was bored at work one day looking up some creative icing recipes when I stumbled across this little jem. Ginger Honey Buttercream. Initially I wasn't all that interested in making the cupcakes, just stealing the icing recipe but the reviews at the bottom convinced me. To be honest I think I made these the same day I made the Mint Oreo, I was in the baking mood. They were a little time consuming just because I had to boil the sweet potatoes, mash them, blah.
These are so amazing, I can't even describe. Especially when they were fresh out of the oven with the cool icing on top...mmmm. I didn't pipe the icing like I normally do, it was much too soft. Maybe if I refrigerate it next time it would be more manageable. Who knows. Anyway, needless to say I'll be making these again.

Oreo Mint- It's a Hit!

Like the near-rhyme?
So I mentioned in my last post that I was going to try and tackle Mint Oreo cupcakes. A co-worker has requested them a few times as that is his favorite cupcake from Georgetown Cupcake. I've never had GTCC but I'm not really a fan. They are, after all, my competition. Eventually I'll have to try one of their cupcakes but I have zero desire to wait in line for 20+ minutes for something I could bake myself. Also I'm not too interested in paying $3 for a cupcake. But anyway...



Georgetown Cupcake

 The pressure was really on for these cupcakes. I'm not a globally recognized organization with my own reality show, I barely get views on this! I've blown off my co-workers request quite a bit since I started bringing in cupcakes to work so I finally felt obligated to try it out. I did my research and this is what I came up with.

In addition to half an Oreo on the top I also put half an Oreo on the bottom, like this blog did. Co-worker said he liked the oreo on the bottom a lot. It was a nice little surprise. He said he thought it was on par with GTCC. I was hoping to hear it was better but as the ladies are running a million dollar business, I accept. I think in the future I wont add such a big chunk of Oreo on the top, I didn't have one but I imagine it was tough to eat around. My biggest concern was feedback from Co-worker but everyone had great things to say.

Blueberries and Cream

Well, hello. It's been awhile hasn't it? Before you get upset and curse me for being lazy, slow your roll. I legitimately haven't baked since my last post. I've made meals but this is a cupcake blog not a "what's for dinner" blog. BTW, the answer is beef. Initially it was a nice break, I felt like I was baking a lot for a while there. However, the last few weeks I've had an itch to try something new, cupcake-wise. I had two exciting events to attend this week, the perfect opportunity. The first was a friends going-away-to-school party on Friday and the second was a bridal shower on Saturday. Obviously I'm going to bake something for the two, but what? The age-old cupcake question, do I get creative with the flavors, or decor? After much internal debate I decided to try a new flavor and keep the decorations to a minimum, less is more. Okay, vanilla cupcakes, that's an easy go-to flavor. Should something go inside? Yes, but what, fruit? Okay fruit. Strawberries? No I've done that. What frozen fruit do I have at home? I'm not going to the store. Mango? Would that be any good? No that's too exotic, maybe berries? Yea okay berries I like that, raspberries? Maybe-oh wait blueberries! Do we have blueberries?? What icing, honey? Maybe, but it needs something creamier. OMG- BLUEBERRIES AND CREAM! Done. Decision made.
On a more serious bakers note, I wanted to keep the cupcakes white without the purple tint that frozen blueberries tend to add. To do this I added a spoonful of batter then dropped in 3-4 blueberries, then another spoonful of batter, then 3-4 more blueberries, and a final spoonful of batter. This seems like common sense but I was excited with the idea of individually dropping blueberries in the batter. As you can see in the picture, no purple swirls! The icing was traditional cream cheese frosting but to give it that awesome pearl-like glow I bought this stuff at Fran's , a bakery supply store in NoVA. It comes in a can, like a spray paint can and works wonderfully! I tried to Google it so I can tell you what the name is but I can't find it. And no, it's not that cheap ColorMist shit you find at Wal-Mart. Bought the candied flowers at Fran's (because I haven't mastered fondant) and voila. People flipped over them. Folks at the going away party helped themselves to some of my business cards and my mom wants me to bake a batch for her to take to an event at work- I can't wait!!

What's next on my list? Mastering Mint Oreo Cupcakes. Stay tuned...

Chocolate Banana

Family was in town this weekend for my dad's retirement party so of course I took it upon myself to do some baking... actually the real reason I got to cooking in the kitchen was that a beloved coworker of mine had her last day on Friday. I bring cupcakes into work so much that it only seemed right to bring a batch in to her one last time. She wasn't specific about flavors so I made strawberry vanilla. The cupcakes were vanilla flavor with a strawberry on the inside and strawberry icing. I was such a spaz about getting the treats into work that I completely forgot to take a picture. Whoops.
Anyway so with my family in town my cousin and I got to talking. He's getting married October 2012 (congrats Jack!) and he mentioned me maybe making some cupcakes for his wedding. We talked a little bit about flavors, nothing too in depth, and he mentioned a friend of his had some chocolate banana cupcakes that were to die for. Why didn't I think of that!?! Inspired with a new cupcake idea I hit the kitchen. It took me a minute to figure out how to flavor the cupcakes, mashed banana and banana pudding. After that it was only a matter of dipping them in my chocolate ganache frosting. Rave reviews. Disappointed I didn't get to share the joy of this new flavor with work, I'll have to bring them in something this week. I promised Kyle I'd give a shot at mint cookies and cream. We shall see.

Carrot Cake Cupcakes

If I ever make another batch of C-Cake Cupcakes it will be too soon. While these are very delicious, even for you non-carrot cake lovers, homemade carrot cake is the biggest pain in the ass, ever! I have to grate 3 cups of carrots per recipe. In case you didn't catch that, 3 cups! That is so time consuming, especially since I use baby carrots. Regular carrots are fine but because they come to a point they're as equally time consuming as baby carrots. I did get lots of compliments when I tried them out on my guinea pigs at work. I suppose that should make the hard work worth it but I some how ended up making 3 batches of this stuff in like 2 weeks. I should buy stock in baby carrots.
The cream cheese frosting might be one of my new favorite frosting recipes. It wasn't overwhelmingly cream cheesy but it was sweet and had a nice texture. Definitely a recipe I'll be using again. Maybe for Red Velvet? I haven't made that before but you use cream cheese frosting for Red Velvet right? Maybe a lemon cupcake! I'm not a fan of tart deserts but I have a feeling lemon cream cheese cupcakes will be delish! Definitely something tart with the cream cheese, raspberry might be good. I have family coming in this weekend I think I'm going to have to experiment and try these recipes out on them.

Happy Late Easter!

This is the cake I made for some friends that I spent this past Easter with, everyone loved it. I've had requests ever since to make another one. I am not going to lie this is probably the best chocolate cake I have ever made and probably top 10 as far as chocolate cakes I've ever had. Except cheesecakes because let's face it, cheesecake is always amazing and at the top of my list.

I think the best part about this cake is the grass that is used to make a nest for the marshmallow chicks and used to surround the cake. It's eatable! And by eatable I mean you can eat it. It had a weird, plain taste but was oddly addicting. My friend Nick was munching on it the whole ride to WV. Fortunately for him I was able to get a picture of the finished product before he cleaned the grass off one side of the cake.

This was the first time I successfully made a really good homemade chocolate frosting. I tend to use dark chocolate and I forget that the bitter dark chocolate tends to have is more of an acquired taste. So this time I mixed powdered sugar and heavy cream to balance it out.

I have no problem being cocky about this cake because basically it was awesome and if you know me I'd suggest you ask me to make you one.

:]

St. Patty's Day

It's been a while so I'm going to try and update some holiday themed goodies for events that have already passed.
These are from a St. Patrick's Day potluck at work, they were a hit!
The ones with the green icing are vanilla cupcakes with green tinted buttercream frosting while the chocolate ones are a little bit more exotic. They are double chocolate cupcakes with a pistachio truffle on the inside, sprinkled with pistachios on top. The combination of the salty nuts with the bittersweet dark chocolate was a amazing but you have to be a chocolate fan to like them. I think it was a bit much for the folks at work.
Thinking back the icing on top of the chocolate ones wasn't that great, I just whipped the chocolate and cream mixture that I use for my chocolate ganache and it was way too bitter for a cupcake that was so rich to begin with. In the future I'll be sure to use the frosting recipe I mention in my Easter post.

I tend to switch off between calling it frosting or icing, wtf is the difference?

Lavender Cupcakes

Last night I made some cupcakes for a friends birthday, they are Lavender flavored with a Honey Buttercream icing. If you enlarge the picture you can kind of see a few Lavender flowers in the actual cupcake.
They turned out really well and I think this Honey Buttercream icing is my new favorite, you can taste the honey just enough that it's not overwhelming. However the butter stands out more than the honey and I think it's because I use salted butter. I know most recipes say not to but we've always bought salted butter so it seems silly to stop what I'm doing to run to the store to buy unsalted butter. For this recipe I think I may have to start doing that just to see what the difference is.
Because they're lavender I was worried peope would be a little turned off so I made sure to not say anything about what flavor they were. Once people were like, "oh this is good what is it?" I'd reveal my secret. Overall, great feedback and they make my kitchen smell like heaven when I steep the lavender in water.

First Post- Vanilla Cupcakes

Just wanted to celebrate the first post on my blog by making some cupcakes and sharing them with you.

No fancy flavors, just classic white cake with a dash of vanilla alcohol and butter flavor. The dark ones are Chocolate Ganache with yellow fondant flowers while the white and purple ones are purple tinted homemade fondant topped with Buttercream Icing.

I'm told they were quite tasty.

:]

Some other silly info, I got my business cards today in the mail. I wish I would have waited until I designed a label for "Kristie's Kreations" before I ordered them but I like them just the same. A woman from work is having me make some cookies and cupcakes for her daughters Easter themed birthday and suggested I order some cards so I could maybe get a little business on the side going. I cannot wait to start handing these cards out!