Merry Christmas

Santa brought me a vintage cake stand for Christmas this year. It might weigh 50 lbs, but it's a beauty. I was so excited to use it, I had friends over for a chili dinner this past Tuesday.

It holds a Mexican Chocolate cake with Chocolate ganache, dusted with powdered sugar and cinnamon. While it looked great and everyone else liked it, I myself was not a fan. Something about cayenne pepper messing with my chocolate. I also ate it after a bowl of chili, so that might have something to do with my bias. Regardless, it was a lovely way to wrap up a year of baking.

Mexican Chocolate Cake with chocolate ganache, powdered sugar and cinnamon

The Holidays are Here

Christmas cupcakes for the Rezza family. They all connected with the string of lights to make a tree or wreath. Katie had let me use her printer for some final projects, so I made some festive cupcakes for her family.

Chocolate Cake with Buttercream frosting and Peanut M&Ms.

Type Show

The Graphic Design Society asked me to bake something up for their "Type Show." I hadn't worked with chocolate in a while so I decided to make letters for the top of the cupcakes. I can't remember exactly, but I'm pretty sure Futura, Gill Sans, and Sabon are represented here. They actually made up an artist label to put next to them with my name and title, "Cake Therapy."

Vegan Chocolate with Buttercream Frosting and Milk Chocolate Letters

Bakery Packaging

This semester I have been taking a papermaking course. For our final sharing project, I created these little boxes made of recycled brown bag, and sisal fibers with coffee grounds and cookies 'n' cream sprinkles. I pulled the brown bag sheets in a vat of hot chocolate. The test was to see if I could get the scent to dry with the paper and enhance the experience of the cakes inside. Unfortunately, the scent left after a day, but the boxes were still cute!

I made mini vegan chocolate cupcakes with an almond and dab of chocolate on top. (sorry for the sideways photo.)

This experiment is part of my research for my degree project next semester. I'd like to explore the idea of experiencing baked goods using the 5 senses. I want to create a relationship between the packaging and the product, deeper than that of a protective outer.

Vegan Chocolate with Almond

Cheap Date

We had dinner, but nothing for dessert. Mike and I decided to make a Cherry Chip cake mix my mom had sent. I had some left over frosting from Katie's birthday the day before, so we used that.

Betty Crocker Cherry Chip Cake with Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting

Katie Turns 21

Katie turned 21!...just around the time everyone was burnt out from school. So I made a vegan chocolate recipe, we had dinner in and decorated with any sprinkles we could find. What a good time it was to mismatch sprinkles everywhere, and not have any set design plans. And yes, that's an Edward cupcake in Caley's hand (for Kendra.)

Vegan Chocolate with Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting

Steph's Last day at Simmons!

My roommate Stephanie asked me to make some sweets for her last day of work. We decided to do something of the season, an apple spice cake with cream cheese frosting and caramel swirl, and something chocolate; chocolate cake with a Junior Mint center with chocolate ganache. The blue paisley wrappers were electric against the dark chocolate.

The cake was a new recipe I have in a cupcake book. It was a bit dry, but turned out great when heated before eating. The center melted too.

Chocolate Mint with Ganache, Apple Spice with Cream Cheese Frosting and Caramel