Hot Sauce Gingerbread Cake w/ice creams de jour

Gingerbread Cake

A birthday at work! Score. It was a co-worker's birthday & I was asked (which always makes me happy!) to make a cake. But, for this particular person, the cake had to be unique. It is always exciting when someone or a group of people like trying odd flavor combinations - those of which usually turn out to taste good, and not weird like they sound - but not everyone is so willing to try these types of things...

Chocolate Merlot Frozen Yogurt

The cake was one of Oprah's favorite cakes - the recipe is here. It is made of a rather odd combination of hot sauce (like Tobasco), ginger water & cane syrup. Because it was baked in a bundt pan, which usually means a large amount of dense batter, it had to be baked for almost an hour. Which, is part of the reason I am slightly obsessed with bundt cakes right now. They get a nice, dark, but thin crust around the entire cake. This looks awesome on a light colored cake, but even if you have a darker colored cake - the nice, slightly crunchy, chewy texture of the cake crust is yummy!

Then, the cake was frosted with a meringue that was toasted with a torch, of course! Fun & tasty. It was a nice light frosting that paired well with the spicy cake - much better suited to this cake than a butter cream would have been.

I also made a few ice creams, knowing I could make some 'out there' flavors! Sadly, I only have a picture of the one here...a Chocolate Merlot Frozen Yogurt, a Sweet Corn & Raspberry Ice Cream & a Key Lime, Ginger, Cayenne, Coconut Ice Cream. I have to say, I liked them all. Of course, they were all from Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams book, or slight variations on her recipes.

Roasted Strawberries & Buttermilk Ice Cream - From Jeni's Splendid Ice Cream book

So, this was the first (of what seems like a million!) ice cream I made from my new favorite book! Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams - might be the best book I have ever purchased! Mainly, because of the base recipe & how perfect the texture of the ice cream is. Of course, all of the insane, unique flavor combs, are fun, too!

This was the most 'normal' flavor I found in the book (beyond chocolate & vanilla), so I thought it would be perfect to make & bring to work to see what people though...

Fug-Cakes

I was bored last weekend and I just wanted to try some different decorating ideas, specifically for frosting cupcakes. I had seen something I liked on  another blog and I wanted to try it.

I got carried away with stencils & sprinkles and crap...lol...I don't care for it at all!

Cowboy Cookies: part deux

Just more pictures...

Cinnamon Sugar Cake

A co-worker's birthday. He happens to like cinnamon & sugar donuts. So, I tried to make that into a cake.

A vanilla cake made with brown sugar & cinnamon - pretty simple. Frosted with vanilla frosting. Nothing horribly outrageous - but good, none-the-less!

More pics...

Raspberry Cream Cheese Ice Cream Sandwiches

I have made at least 5 ice creams in the last 24 hours. A bit ridiculous?! Yes. Anyhow, I got a new book. I have nothing to do. So, what the heck?!

Harry Potter Cupcakes

Red Velvet Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting topped with a Golden Snitch cake-pop or Harry's glasses.

Fun stuff for a co-worker's kid's birthday! I think I need to find one person per day who's birthday it is...so I have a reason to make something every day! Sign up people...!

Left over cupcakes with butter cream flowers.

Nutella Ice Cream

Given any excuse to make ice cream or a cupcake...or anything...I'll do it! A co-worker's son had his wisdom teeth pulled. All he can eat are things you don't have to chew?! Kind of crappy...but a GREAT excuse to eat a lot of ice cream!

This is just a basic vanilla recipe where I replaced 1/4 C sugar with Nutella, because it is insanely sweet on it's own...how is there a Nutella commercial saying give it ot your kids for breakfast?! That is insane!...anyhow...read on for the recipe!

Chocolate Peanut Butter Whoopie Pies

The minis

With my new goal of baking everything in both of my books by the guys at Baked, I decided to make Whoopie Pies. People talk about them all of the time & seem to love them. I have never had one.

Check out these books below for some awesome recipe! There are various whoopie pie recipes is both books.

Cowboy Cookies

 I don't get the name at all. But the book said this is what the cookies are called. Pretzels, chocolate chips, oats & coffee. They are super yum! But not one of those ingredients makes me think of a cowboy, right?!

Whiskey Cream Cake

Have I made a lot of 'good-bye' cakes lately?! It seems that way, but I guess I have only made 2. This cake was for my friend/co-worker for her last day before starting a new job.

This was sort of a bunch or recipes piled on top of one another...

Burnt Whiskey Caramel Ice Cream & Brownie Cubes

Ice Cream & Brownie Cubes

If you didn't know that I really don't eat dessert (VERY rarely), you'd probably think I am obsessed with brownies. Well, I kind of am, because if I ate dessert, I'd eat like, a million brownies - as least!

I made these brownie cubes because I had to trim the edges off the

When Brownies & Cookies get baked together

I'm obsessed with something I saw at Williams-Sonoma. A boxed product from...you guess it, Baked...called The Brookster. It is a brownie with a chocolate chip cookie baked on top. SA-WEET.

Of course, I had to attempt to do this on my own - I am NOT going to buy a mix.

Patriotic Tart

I made this for the 4th of July. I am a little late posting this, but, errr...oh well?

Anyhow. Simple to make...I basically had 1 hour to make something to bring to my friend's house so I just looked in the freezer to see what I could make something out of.

Baby Cupcakes!

If you know me, you know I like miniature versions of normal sized items - baked goods, babies, nail polish bottles...ya know, whatever!

Lemon Pound Cake trials

I have been trying to find a Lemon Pound Cake recipe for what seems like EVER. I don't like a gritty, rough texture and that is what I have always ended up with until now!!!

My brother's birthday was June 22nd & since I was visiting over the 4th of July, I asked him what he wanted - something lemon.

Salted Caramel Brownie Cupcake

My sister needed me to make cupcakes for her work! She wanted something chocolate & caramel. No problem...

I had to load everything I'd need into my car and drive 5+ hours & of course I forgot somethings, or didn't really think about needing them at the time I packed. Slowly, my sister's house is being stocked with random baking tools!

Chocolate Cake w/Salted Caramel Chocolate Frosting

This lovely cake is taken from my favorite book at the moment...Baked. It was a co-worker's last day, so of course I had to make something!

Green Tea Cake w/White Chocolate Frosting & Pistachios

The Green Tea Cake, which spawned the tiniest Green Tea Cupcake, previously blogged about,  was completed this week!

Honestly, I don't have much to say about it! It was fun making the cake with Yuri & it was fun frosting it!

More...again..sorry?!

Well, clearly I am just fascinated with making Cake Balls. Obviously it is easy, as I have posted about it before. I kind of gave in (and am a little annoyed about it) and used some 'chocolate' that would hold up to the heat, considering is is FINALLY summer-ish like in Illinois.

So, even though I kind of strongly dislike this fake chocolate non-sense...I have to admit, it works well & looks good.

I did research these chocolate things and found out there is a company that makes some that taste better than the Wilton brand. We shall see after I place an order!

Can you tell I started using my real camera, rather than my iPhone?! I hope so! Not that I am a stellar photographer, but at least the camera is better, ya?!