Raspberry Almond Torte

This is absolutely one of my favorite desserts.

This is nearly correct, but not quite there. I had a piece of the real thing tonight and have some ideas for improvement. Can't say I'm surprised considering how hard it is to get copy cat recipes to be the same as the original, but I have hope for success in the future of this cake!

Lessons Learned: copycat recipes can be iffy. Pastry cream needs to be thicker. Cake needs to be cooked more consistently and for less time. Cake needs to be sweeter so as to offset the rest of the ingredients in the cake. Needs more raspberries.

Creme Brulee

Prepared custard and baked in a water bath:

Added sugar to the top for hard shell:

Baked under broiler for 2 minutes:

Lesson Learned: adjust amounts so custard will set more solidly. Buy blow torch... there's really no substitute for the caramelized top. It did harden under the broiler, but it's just too hard and nerve wracking for me to monitor a perfect top and it doesn't give the same effect.

Bright side: tastes good!

Failure aka Meringue Cookies

I only made these to avoid wasting extra egg whites not utilized by my other two recipes. Absolute failure.

Lesson learned: evaluate many recipes before attempting something new. Try recipes with consistent instructions. Something like a 100 degree increase in oven temperature is probably not a good gamble if it's unique to one recipe (my house still smells like smoke -_-). I'm sure I made other errors in these cookies, but that one was un-recoverable.

Learning Experiences...

This weekend was not a good one as far as baking was concerned. I made three new things. I was not successful in any of them. I gained insight into three items I've never made before and do have ideas to improve each of the recipes I attempted.

I did make a lot of progress on my classes this weekend so that's something...

Belated Halloween Cookies: Part 2

More Halloween cookies!

I like the black with white polka dots and pink ribbon hat which I almost didn't do at all. Trying to think of something else I can do with those colors...

Belated Halloween Cookies: Part 1

I missed Halloween!

I was so busy last week I never got to use my Halloween cookie cutters. I couldn't wait a year to use them so I've made belated Halloween cookies.

I use to make cute chibi characters out of clay and used that as inspiration for my cookies. I prefer cute to scary and even better, some scary cute!

Happy Birthday to... me?

This is likely the ugliest cake I'll ever make. Fitting for my birthday.

It was suggested that I finish it out and make it look something like this:

The aim of this cake was to try out as many tip techniques as possible. This thing is fully covered in frosting.

I'm using my new cake plate that my sister got me for my birthday. I love it!

Cinnamon Roll cupcakes

This is the best cinnamon roll and cream cheese frosting recipe ever!

I wanted to try making the cinnamon rolls in cupcake wrappers so that they would be easier to handle and serve in an effort to make them more transportable so that the frosting could be put on each roll one at a time.

When warm the frosting melts nicely over the rolls.

I'll post the recipe another day.

Cake Balls

I've made oreo balls, but I've never made cake balls. I prefer the oreo balls as far as taste goes.

Red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting dipped in white melting chocolate with fondant flowers.

I wanted to see if you could color the melting chocolate. You can!

This was more of a test for a pending larger project that keeps getting postponed due to lack of time.

Fall Cupcakes

I love fall!!!

I had some extra cupcakes and some extra frosting so I thought I'd try mixed fall colors. I added each color to the pastry bag along the side one at a time and piped as normal.

I was going for something that reminded me of this...