Sunday, July 31, 2011

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.

Saturday, July 30, 2011

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...

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

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!

Monday, July 25, 2011

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...


Sunday, July 24, 2011

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?!


Friday, July 22, 2011

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.