So, when we were in Turkey there were kabobs everywhere (I guess I should say kebaps instead). Little did I know… there is more than just the shish kebob. Kepab just means roasted meat and so, on the streets we saw many versions like this doner kebap . I guess dishes that are derived from this are shwarma and gyros. Anyway, enough about meat… this is a cupcake blog. I got this idea one day when I was browsing on Pinterest. Remember – you can follow me on Pinterest if you click here. I even added a board where I am going to post my attempts at stuff that I found on Pinterest. So, this post will be pinned soon! I had a gathering to go to and the main dish was going to be kabobs so I decided to make my own kebabs – cupcake kabobs. The original things I pinned can be found here. Here is how mine turned out….

Cupcakes and a variety of other treats on skewers – how neat! Did I really grill them? No, but what a cool idea for a picture – I think that was Josh’s idea (I actually don’t remember who thought to do this). I made some mini chocolate cupcakes and used piped melted chocolate for the icing so that it could be easily put through the skewer. I included some chocolate covered marshmallows rolled in graham crackers (my s’mores on a stick) and some store bought wafers and rice krispie treats (or as the Cake Boss likes to call them – cereal treats). I think that these looked pretty cute, but I don’t know…. I’m not sure that they tasted as good. The wafers got a bit stale as they sat out and the cupcake was still a little hard to eat, but I really like those s’mores!

In honor of my friend Aaron’s birthday (my other friend Aaron – not the one I posted about here), I thought I should post about two cupcakes I made about a month ago. Since Aaron’s biorthday is today and I made these a month ago these were not made for his birthday. I made them for a mathematics education gathering we had and Aaron was nice enough to let me take his picture with them! I made two different cupcakes and since I had some issues with getting everything together I don’t have any good pictures of the cupcakes themselves. I actually forgot to take the pictures until I got them to campus. Luckily I had my little camera with me.

So, my first cupcake was a gluten-free vegan cupcake. This one did not present me with any issues. I cheated a little and used a mix for this one. I was going to make them from stratch, but since I am not a big gluten-free eater I wasn’t sure what I would do with all the expensive ingredients afterwards so I opted for Bob’s Red Mill Gluten-Free Chocolate Cake Mix. Since I wanted these to be vegan as well I followed the directions for using flaxseed and water instead of eggs and I used the vegan butter Earth Balance. The frosting was this vegan coffee icing that I found from the Gluten-Free Goddess. Unfortunately, I don’t have a close-up of this one, but here is today’s birthday boy holding one of each. The gluten-free vegan one is on the left (in Aaron’s right hand). As someone who hasn’t had many gluten free vegan treats I thought it tasted pretty good!

The one on the right that Aaron is holding is the infamous hi-hat cupcake. I don’t know what it was – the weather or what, but this one was impossible. I ended up having to make the meringue twice because when I tried to dip it the first time the meringue just slid off. I followed the directions exactly. I decided to use Martha Stewart”s recipe for these.  You can see it here. There is even two videos on the site explaining the process, but the videos didn’t help me much. I could not get the chocolate covered meringue to look as defined and high as the pictures. I was really bummed. Despite all my issues people really liked these. Here is one that I asked Aaron to cut open. We only had plastic knives though so it wasn’t easy!  :-)

You can see the meringue underneath the chocolate, but as you can see it doesn’t have the height I was looking for…. Oh well. Better luck next time with these ones. I think I’ll try them on a less humid day and see if it was me or the weather!

Thanks Aaron for letting me snap your pictures with these and have a VERY happy birthday today!

Look’s like it is a two-post day. Since I got some good dissertation work in today I don’t feel too bad. Not only was it time to post for the Martha Stewart Cupcake Club today, but it is that time again for the Club: BAKED post and I almost forgot to post these today! This time around Stephanie at Ice Cream Before Dinner picked Bananas Foster Fritters. So, I made these a while ago and didn’t have as much success as I would have hoped. I was excited to try my hand at frying again. I had pretty decent success with the doughnuts a few month ago, but this one… not so much.

Everything seemed to be going fine, but I am guessing the oil temperature just got too hot because I had to take the fritters out so they wouldn’t burn. I took them out and from the outisde they looked pretty good.

But, check out the inside… Not quite done! I decided to plop them in the oven and although I don’t have another picture they did cook up some more and weren’t as mushy inside. Anyway, in the end they did taste pretty good.

 

 

Happy Back to School everyone! So, about a month ago I gave you all this little teaser…

What a perfect time for these cupcakes. I made theses Peanut Butter and Jelly cupcakes for Josh’s birthday since he is a big peanut butter and jelly fan, but saved the post because it is the September Martha Stewart Cupcake Club pick. This one was chosen by none other than the Club:BAKED (another baking club I participate in) organizer herself, Karen from Karen’s Cookies Cakes and More. I started them the day before Josh’s birthday. I didn’t take too many pictures because I knew I was also going to be making that Chocolate Salted Caramel 3-Layer Cake as well that week (since Josh’s birthday is the day before our anniversary) and just didn’t have the time to be snapping a lot of photos. Here’s one of what they looked like pre-jelly.

The jelly really made a difference. I think without it these would have been too dry. Maybe it is just me since I am not a big peanut butter fan (unless it is paired with chocolate!), but these were not my favorite from Martha’s book. I was the kid who never liked peanut butter and jelly. I was more of a cream cheese and jelly fan. Anyway, here is a few all plated up.

Josh agreed that these were okay. I brought the remainder of them to a meeting I had the next day.

Yep that’s right – I actually made my own ice cream. I had been eyeing an ice cream maker for a while and so before the summer was over I thought I’d splurge. I bought the Cuisinart ICE-21. It makes 1 1/2 quarts. I haven’t made anything recently, but have collected up some pictures of my various creations so I could post about them at some point. By the way, that photo above was from my first attempt. Josh touched up the photo and made it look a little retro. For some reason making ice cream seemed retro to me!  Anyway, I thought I’d try the big three – ice cream, frozen yogurt, and sorbet. The first thing I made was the ice cream – Josh’s favorite – Mint Chocolate Chip.

I know it doesn’t look too good hear – it looks a little runny, but that is because this was right after it came out of the machine. I decided right after this to let it sit in the freezer for a while, but didn’t take any additional pictures. What a difference that made – it hardened up quite a bit and was like a store bought hard ice cream, but better because I actually made it!

Next up was the sorbet. I couldn’t find a picture of my sorbet by itself. So, if you looked at my waffles post you have already seen this. I decided to try a Mexican Chocolate Sorbet. I wish it had a little more kick. I used spicy choclate and I added cayenne pepper. I guess next time I’ll have to add a little more cayenne.

And finally…. the frozen yogurt. I thought that trying a frozen yogurt would be nice because frozen yogurt is probably a bit better for you than ice cream and I thought I could make a nice summer flavor. I decided to go with one of my favorite fruits – strawberries. Of the three, this was my favorite. I liked the Mint Chocolate Chip, but I think I liked the texture and consistency of this frozen yogurt better.

In addition to this strawberry frozen yogurt being tasty the photo became quite popular. Josh used this as one of his pictures of the day on Smugmug and it got a ton of comments. Of all the pictures we have up it is the second most popular. Check out this one and our other photos here.

As you can see above I decided to go a bit out of my comfort zone and bake a cake rather than cupcakes for our anniversary last week. I started using Pinterest to keep track of the things I find on the Internet. [It is actually pretty neat. You can follow me on Pinterest by clicking here.] Anyway, I found this great blog, Sweetapolita on someone’s board. Not only does this blog have amazing sweets, but the photos are great! I had never made a 3-layer cake (at least I don’t think I have – If I did, I guess it wasn’t very memorable).  So, when I saw this Salted Chocolate Caramel Cake I had to give it a try. I was a big fan of the Chocolate Salted Caramel mini cupcakes (you can see my post here) from the Martha Stewart Cupcakes book so I figured I would really like this cake. And boy did I…. I started by baking three 6 in layer cakes. I had to buy two more 6 in. round pans (so expect to see a lot of 6 in layer cakes!).

I got some serious doming on these cakes. I think it is because our oven doesn’t heat very evenly. I can’t remember if I placed these on some cookie sheets, but I read somewhere that it might help. It wasn’t a big deal though because I was going to layer this and so I could just cut the dome off. This cake was filled with a salted caramel buttercream. So, first I had to make the caramel. I love caramel. It looked so good! I had to restrain myself from just eating it all right from the pot I made it in. Let me tell you, it took some serious will power!

Making the filling was a little complex, but it was well worth it. After making that tasty caramel I set it aside to cool. In my trusty Kitchen Aid mixer I creamed the butter and then had to transfer it to another bowl, wipe the mixer clean with lemon juice, and put the egg whites and the rest of the sugar in the bowl over a pot of simmering water… Lots of work over simmering water for this recipe… Once this got to about 160°  I took it off and placed it back into the mixer and whisked for about 5 minutes until stiff peaks formed. Once this was done and cooled I added the butter back into this a cup at a time.  Finally I was able to add that cooled caramel. This filling was so good!

I then made the dark chocolate fudge frosting. In the recipe there was the option to make a chocolate swiss meringue buttercream which was supposed to be less dense, but I went with the chocolate fudge frosting. This was very similar to Martha Stewart’s chocolate frosting that I have made many times before and think is one of the best chocolate frostings! Now it was time to start assembling the cake. I shaved the little dome off each layer and started to place the layers down and put the filling between each layer using an offset spatula. I didn’t have a cake turntable, but had a wodden turntable that I thought would be helpful so I assembled the cake on that. The filling part wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.

Once the filling was done I did a crumb coat layer with my chocolate frosting and put it in the fridge for a while. When it was ready I took it out and put on the final coat of frosting. Putting it on the turntable really helped when putting the final coat on. So now it was ready to chill in the fridge. Since it was our anniversary we decided we’d go to dinner. We had a Groupon for this place Gracies’s which we heard was pretty good. So, we decided to go there for dinner. Right before leaving, I took the cake out of the fridge since the recipe said it should sit at room temperature for two hours before eating. When I took it out I sprinkled it with some more sea salt. Here is what it looked like before we took that first piece out.

By the way, I got that cake plate at Meijer. It was on sale and it was perfect! I must say, this cake was not easy to make and at first I wasn’t sure all the work was worth it, but in the end I decided it was. I loved the taste and I think it looks pretty elegant. Here’s to many more good years with Josh and good layer cakes!

So, I am a day late posting the September 1 Club: BAKED choice, but better late than never! I actually made it on Sunday. This time Brooke from Brooke’s Bountiful Kitchen picked Boston Cream Pie Cake. I didn’t follow the recipe exactly. I decided to make a 6-layer cake since I had three 6 in. round pans. I had just made my first 3-layer cake the other day (which I will post about that soon – with the start of school and trying to get work done I am so far behind!) and so I thought why not try a 6-layer one. I must say I have never been a big Boston Cream Pie fan so I guess I enjoyed making this cake more than I enjoyed eating it… As you can see it was a little bit lopsided, but not too bad for a 6-layer cake. At least it didn’t topple over! You can see all the other Club BAKED posts for this cake here.