Cakes, cakes, cakes!

Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Anthony's Maine-Style Whoopie Pies

Anthony's last birthday cake was, in my opinion, one of my best. It was one of my bigger cakes. This year, I had a hard time coming up with something to top it. I came up with one idea (which I can't discuss in case I need it in the future), but after discussing flavors with him, I decided to just go with something I knew he'd like and appreciate.

Last summer, I went home with Anthony to Maine. He told me all about Dysart's famous whoopie pies. After some light research in the car ride there, I found out that whoopie pies seem to have originated in two places, one of which was Maine. I believe the other inventors were Amish. I had seen whoopie pies at home in Vermont, but never quite like in Maine. They are everywhere.

We had to search and search to find the right ones, though. Apparently, Dysart's stopped making Anthony's favorite kind, but they still had another option - Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Whoopie Pies with Cream Cheese Frosting in the middle.

Me and Anthony in Maine last summer! This was my first official whoopie pie.

I decided to skip going crazy over the design, and just make him this old favorite. It is one of those things that we have a history with. Plus, they are just delicious!

Yummy pumpkin batter

Plenty of chocolate chips

The cream cheese frosting

Fresh out of the oven

Preparing the pies, and wrapping them in saran wrap for an official whoopie pie presentation

Now that is one happy boy!

I had to snag this mid bite so I could take a picture in front of his banana tree :)

We went out with some friends on Saturday night to celebrate! Happy 22nd birthday, Anthony!

Monday, May 23, 2011

Summertime Strawberry Cake

In continuation of graduation weekend, my friend, Eli, had a barbecue at his parent's house. Since I had made the graduation cupcakes the night before, I decided to switch it up. I was glad to be able to make whatever I wanted, with no theme or shape to worry about. The strawberries I had just bought and the beautiful weather inspired me to do a strawberry cake. I topped it with seven-minute frosting, which I hadn't made in a while. I wanted to make a cream cheese frosting, but I didn't have the ingredients for it on hand. Instead, I was able to make the cake using supplies I had in the cupboard.

I found a recipe for strawberry cake (that didn't involve cake or jell-o mix) from A Dash of Sass. Luckily, I had all of the ingredients (including the exact amount of vegetable oil) except for the lemon juice, which I omitted.

The cake turned out pretty well. It tasted very fresh and had a consistency similar to zucchini bread. A cream cheese frosting would have made it killer, though. Next time!

Strawberries!

Strawberry puree

Fresh, local brown eggs (of course)

Layer one

There is a light layer of frosting and strawberries in there

From above


The final product

The cake was quite thick!

Sunday, May 22, 2011

Graduation Cupcakes

Last night, my friends on Cornell Street had a final BBQ/get-together at their apartment. The majority of my friends have graduated. Many of them are staying around, but most are leaving. It's amazing how quickly these past four years have gone by, and I wish I had taken advantage of more opportunities to see some of my friends.

On to the cupcakes!

I had several ideas brewing for graduation. I thought about doing brown and orange to represent RIT's colors or tiger paws for the mascot. Those seemed too expected and boring, though. I found cap pops by Bakerella, the woman who invented cake pops. I altered a couple of things about her pops.

I made mini chocolate cupcakes and lightly iced them with peanut butter frosting. The frosting was made up on the spot, so I don't have an exact recipe for it. It was made out of butter, peanut butter, confectioner's sugar and vanilla extract.

The Reese's mini peanut butter cups were easy to find. I searched Wegmans for an alternative square topper, though. I found some cookies, but they weren't the right size. Then I noticed Hershey's bar chocolate was on sale (for s'more season). Two bricks seemed like they made a perfect square, and this was the cheapest option.

Sorry about the quality of the images. It was getting late, the lighting was bad, and I wanted to bring them over!

Lots of mini cupcakes!

Peanut Butter frosting

I ran out of chocolate for caps, so there were some without.

Egg cartons work surprisingly well for carrying mini cupcakes!

The extras for the roomie :)

Lots of caps

Happy Graduation!

Amy made a cake for Cornell :)

That's me!

Friday, April 22, 2011

Angry Birds Cake for Dave's 21st: An Adventure with Steph

My good friend/past room mate/future room mate/birthday twin, Steph, asked me for help making a cake for her boyfriend's 21st birthday. She requested an Angry Birds cake. For those who don't know, these are the characters to which she was referring:

This is a video game which you can download and play on your iphone or android. Steph wanted to make the red bird in the center of that image and was wondering if it was feasible. I chuckled to myself a little. Of course, Steph, anything is possible! This is the first time since some of the first few cakes that I had help making a cake! Steph now knows all my tricks and secrets, but I've sworn her to secrecy! We're living together in a little over a month, so I'd eventually have to let her in on the secrets anyway. :)

Knowing we'd have some extra cake batter, we planned to try out Bakerella's famous Cake Pops. We planned to make the green pig seen flying in the upper right hand corner of the image above.

I sent Steph out to Wegmans to get cake mix and a couple of ingredients for icing. We then met at Jo-Ann's and picked up some food coloring, sticks, candy melts and a piece of foam to hold the pops up.

Apparently, Dave (Steph's boyfriend), likes double chocolate cake, so when picking out the box cake mix, she picked out the fudgiest looking one she could find. Turns out she went a little too far down the aisle and picked up brownie mix! Ohh, Steph. We had a good chuckle at her expense (hehe) and then decided brownies were more yummy than cake anyway!


Ohh Steph. What will I do with you?

To make the red bird, we used the same method as I used on Justin's Boobie cake and baked the (brownie) batter in a pyrex bowl. We baked the rest of the batter in a round pan.

The brownies in the round pan were for the pigs. For those who are unfamiliar with the cake pop/ball process, I'll give you a quick run-down. You take your baked cake, crumble it up, add icing, mix it all up, form balls, and dip them in candy coating. They are really quite delicious!

We formed the cake/brownie balls and stuck them in the freezer so they would hold their shape. We had some trouble putting the sticks in the balls without them splitting, so we made most of them into cake balls instead of pops.