4th of July

Every year, my family has a big reunion on the 4th of July. They rent a pavilion, everyone brings food, and there's tons of fun games. They also hold an auction..people can bring family heirlooms, gift baskets, or other miscellaneous items (like jerky, jam, or homemade candles). Needless to say, there are lots of objects available to buy. This year I made my own basket (with my mom's help) called "Brooke's Baking Basket". DUH! There was a bunch of baking utensils and such in it. I also included a few baked goods made by yours truly. There was: 

Chocolate Cake Pops

Toffee Cookies

Banana Bread

Sugar Cookies

Now here's the finished product!

Thanks to my Uncle Alan and Aunt Diane for buying my basket!

Angry Birds Cupcakes

Here are the pictures on the Angry Birds cupcakes I made for my sister's birthday party. Half were vanilla and half were chocolate. And of those, half of each kind had classic buttercream and the other half had chocolate buttercream. So there were plenty of choices!

I also made the toppers all by myself. Just printed out the pictures of the birds, and used my moms scrap-booking supplies to add the border to the back. Then I hot glued cake pop sticks to each one. It took me two hours, but it was totally worth it in the end!

For Makayla's birthday present, I had been working on making her something to hang in her colorful flower/butterfly themed room. I saw this on Pinterest and thought it was the cutest thing ever! Here's a picture of her when she opened it...

She loved it! And it looks great hanging on her bedroom wall!

Lots of cookies!

Last week was my little sister's 6th birthday. And she had a t-ball game the night before. So I made birthday sugar cookies for the kids' after game snack. Plus a bunch of extras for my family (so about 25 total..yikes). There were cupcakes, party hats, presents, and birthday cakes.

I'll be posting pictures of the cupcakes I made for her angry birds themed party in a few days (:

Birthday Cupcakes

So my friend Cassandra's birthday was this past Saturday. And last week during lunch, she jokingly said I should make her some cupcakes for the occasion. But unfortunately, we don't have school on Saturdays (ha!), and we had off on Monday for Memorial Day. So I made some to take for our lunch table today.

They were marble with chocolate buttercream (which i hadn't made before yesterday).

Surprisingly, they were great! I normally don't eat the desserts I make, just taste them. But I had a WHOLE CUPCAKE & I was very happy with how they turned out.

Happy Belated Birthday, Cassandra! Love ya girl!

Coffee Cake

One of my all time favorite desserts is the Amish Coffee Cake my mom used to make all the time when I was little. I always thought I was super cool because I was eating something with coffee in it. Turns out, it doesn't actually have coffee in it, much to my disappointment. BUT, it does have buttermilk! 

It has the softest & fluffiest texture ever, and an amazingly thick crumb topping. Seriously the best combo in the world. I love me some crumb topping!
Want the recipe? I bet you do. Well, I'm feeling pretty generous today, so here you go..


Ingredients for cake
2 1/4 cups sifted flour
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
2 cups packed brown sugar
1 egg
1 1/2 cup buttermilk
Ingredients for crumb topping
1/2 cup sifted flour
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 (1/2) stick butter


1. Sift flour, cinnamon, baking soda, and salt onto a piece of wax paper; reserve.
2. Beat butter in a large bowl, then add sugar gradually, continuing to beat until light; beat in egg.
3. Prepare crumb talking: mix flour and sugar in medium bowl, then cut in butter with pastry blender until texture of coarse crumbs.
4. Finish making batter. Add sifted dry ingredients alternately to creamed mixture with buttermilk, beginning and ending with dry ingredients.
5. Pour batter into well greased 9x13 pan; scatter crumbs evenly on top.
6. Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes or until cake pulls away from side of pan.

Then cut & enjoy a piece with a large glass of cold milk!

Easter Time Desserts

Hello everyone! I hope you all had a fantastic and fun-filled Easter! Over the past few days, I made Easter themed desserts for my family's consumption, as well as desserts for Easter day lunch & dinner. Just for fun, I made & decorated some egg & cross sugar cookies a few days before Easter.

Unfortunately I did not get a chance to make anything else until Saturday morning (I started my first job last week!!). The desserts I made were for Easter Sunday meals at each of my grandparents house. For lunch, I made some bunny & carrot cookies. 

I saw these cupcakes in an ad while clipping coupons for my mom & thought they were adorable! So for Easter dinner, I made white cupcakes with vanilla icing & decorated them to look like bunnies. I used sprinkles for the eyes, nose, and whiskers, & a piece of marshmallow for their ears.

I hope everyone enjoyed their Easter!

Shamrock Cookies

I am so behind on posting, as usual! I honestly keep forgetting that I STILL have St. Patrick's Day cookie pictures to put on here, almost 2 weeks later!! Well I'm finally getting around to it. So here are the pictures:

Lemon & Strawberry Cupcakes

 Oh my, it's been sooooooo long since I've posted. I believe it's been a month actually! I haven't baked much within the last month. So the other day I made cupcakes to get back in the groove. Since St. Patrick's Day is tomorrow, I used some shamrock cupcake papers. I topped them with lime green sprinkles (to match the papers) & gold dragees (inspired by a pot of gold, duh!). The cupcakes themselves were lemon, filled with a strawberry compote, and lemon buttercream. Absolutely delish! 

I'm going to make shamrock cookies here in a few days. Late I know, but I'm going prom dress shopping tomorrow, so it'll have to wait. Stay tuned!

Hearts Galore

I'm a little behind on posting, and for that, i'm sincerely sorry. But what is the most common Valentine's Day candy, besides chocolate? Conversation hearts of course! For my little sister's class party on the 14th, I made sugar cookies that look like conversation hearts for her to put in everyone's goodie bags. They were rather easy to do, and I loved the bright & fun colors of the hearts. I made sure they matched perfectly with the original conversation heart colors.

The day after I made these, I tried to make some red velvet whoopie pies in the shape of hearts. Unfortunately, they looked adorable but tasted like absolute junk. So I threw them right in the trash, despite my fear of wasting ingredients/desserts. I figured I would post a picture or two just to show how cute they were.

 I hope everyone had a LOVEly Valentine's Day! Ha Ha Ha, like my pun? 

Valentine's Day Cookies

I made some sugar cookies a few days ago. Here they are: 

Tomorrow I'll be posting pictures of the cookies I'm making for my little sister's class party. Happy Almost Valentines Day everyone! 

Valentine's Day Cupcakes

As everyone already knows, Valentines Day is only 10 days away. So of course, in honor of the holiday of love, I HAD to make some cupcakes. I had a pack of cute cupcake wrappers that came with matching heart shaped toppers. So I made a yellow cake with chocolate frosting. The frosting recipe was a new one that I found in Cuisine at home Magazine. It turned out okay at first, but I thought it was extremely bitter (I like super sweet frosting), so I added a bunch more sugar. I honestly don't know how much more, because I didn't measure. So I just kept tasting it after each addition. Eventually I was satisfied. Here's the recipe for it:


Ingredients

1/2 stick unsalted butter

3/4 cup sugar
2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
pinch of salt
2/3 cup heavy whipping cream
1/8 cup sour cream
1/2 tsp instant coffee granules
1 tsp vanilla extract


1. Melt butter in saucepan over medium heat.
2. Stir in sugar, cocoa, and salt. Mixture will be thick and grainy.
3.Combine heavy cream, sour cream, and instant coffee in a large measuring cup, mixing until smooth. 
4. Gradually add cream mixture to chocolate until blended and smooth. (add more sugar if needed). Cook until sugar has dissolved and the mixtures is smooth and hot to the touch, 6-8 minutes. Do not boil.
5. Turn off heat, add vanilla. Cool icing completely until spreadable.


Here is the end result:

I have a few more dessert ideas that go along with the Valentines Day theme, so check back here in a few days and there shall be more!

My New York City Trip

Hello everyone! No, I have not fallen off the face of the earth. I've just been super busy.  I got back from New York 2 weekends ago, and had finals just a few days after. New classes started this week. And also, I'm taking the SAT's this Saturday. So I'm kind of stressed. But anyways, I wanted to share some pictures from my trip to NYC. 

Statue of Liberty at sunrise

Clock in Grand Central Terminal

Empire State Building

Me and my dad in front of Rockefeller Center

Entrance to Central Park

Beautiful scenery in Central Park

Buffalo chicken and smoked gouda pizza in Little Italy...best pizza I've ever had!

Brooklyn Bridge

Me on the Big Piano in FAO Schwarz  

I don't even need to say anything..

Whole road named for it!

Me in front of Carlo's!

Red velvet cupcake

Eclair

Me in front of the consultation table!

Times Square

Manhattan Skyline from the ferry

Sunset

 I had loads of fun on this trip, all thanks to my wonderful dad. I saw everything I wanted to see and more. I also fell in love with the city. Hopefully I'll be going back again in a few months. I also hope to bake something here soon. It's been over a week and I'm going through a little bit of withdrawal. I promise, I will post a dessert on here very soon!