2011 Holiday Goodie Box

 Pretty freaking adorable, huh?

It's been awhile since I've made Christmas cookies.  Last month, I brought treat boxes with me to a Christmas gift exchange and one of my girlfriends said "You didn't make us cookies last year!... Or the year before!"  I know... I know... but, shit... it's hard work!  So, I figured I'd make it up to them and make them LOTS of goodies this year (so maybe I can take a break again for the next 2 years, or even 5).  In the boxes were: pistachio macarons, cinnamon sugar butter cookies, mini heart shaped apple pies, chocolate hazelnut cookies, a red velvet cupcake and soft ginger cookies.

I've made almost all of those cookies/treats before, except for the mini pies.  It was my first time making pie dough from scratch and I used Martha's pate brisee (pie dough) recipe.  It was super flaky and buttery.  Working with the dough was very easy and I had no problems making it by hand, without a food processor, but I did get a food processor for Christmas (after I made all these freaking mini pies) and made pie dough with it for Christmas day.  I would still consider both ways equally as easy but the food processor is just faster.

For the pie filling, I made a stove top apple filling first.  I based my recipe on this one.  I added twice the amount of cinnamon and my little pies took approximately 15 to 18 minutes to bake until golden brown.  I think that someone could easily make a bunch of these guys and throw them in the freezer.  When you get the craving for some pie a la mode, warm one (or four) in the oven and serve with vanilla ice cream!

To create the packages, I went to Smart and Final and got a bunch of take out boxes (the sort of flat and rectangular kind).  To keep everything cozy inside so that things could stay separate and not crack or break, I used jumbo cupcake liners, which I found at Safeway and Michael's.

Goodie box tied with a red ribbon and adorned with a homemade tag, ready to go.

I'm a little late, but I hope everyone had happy holidays and an even happier new year!

Purple Striped and Dotted Birthday Cake

Life has been particularly hectic lately, but I wanted to take a few moments to share with you all the birthday cake that I made for my goddaughter, Makayla, and her younger sister Alyssa.  Being 11, Makayla's favorite person in the whole world is Justin Bieber.  So obviously, her cake is purple because that is Justin's favorite color. 

Such cute little smiles.  Alyssa, Makayla's sister, is the middle one with the life vest. Part of the bow fell off but I guess that's just want happens when you put a cake in front of a bunch of 3 year olds that want to touch it. 

Back view of the cake.

The inside of the cake was vanilla cake with vanilla toffee bit buttercream.  Here is the recipe for the buttercream (but it's basically just vanilla buttercream with a bunch of toffee bits thrown in).  If you're not sure where to find toffee bits, I found these at Safeway in the baking section, next to the chocolate chips.

Vanilla Toffee Buttercream

5 egg whites
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
Pinch of salt
1 pound (4 sticks) butter, softened at room temperature
1 8 oz bag of Heath Bits O' Brickle Toffee Bits

In a saucepan, bring about an inch of water to a simmer.  In a bowl of an electric stand mixer, whisk together egg whites, sugar and salt by hand.  Put bowl over simmering water and continue to whisk until the mixtures is warm to the touch and the sugar has dissolved.  

Transfer bowl to electric stand mixer.  Using the whisk attachment, beat the mixture on high speed until glossy stiff peaks form, about 5 minutes.  

Change to the paddle attachment mix on medium speed.  Add butter a few pieces at time until incorporated.  The mixtures will look like it is separating.  This is normal.  Continue to beat on medium to medium high speed until the buttercream smooths out.  

Remove the bowl from the mixer and mix in toffee bits by hand.  

Yield: About 6 cups

30th Triathlon Cake for Drew

One of the cutest couples that I have the pleasure of knowing are Drew and Val so I was delighted when Val contacted me to make a surprise cake for Drew's 30th birthday.  Drew is an avid athlete and triathlon competitor.

When Val told me she wanted a triathlon themed cake, I immediately knew it would be a challenge.  As I always do, I looked up ideas on Google and I took much of my inspiration from Pink Cake Box's Ironman Cake (Pink Cake Box has an awesome blog.  I check it daily. You should too).

My main concern was the bicycle.  When I did a search online, I saw plenty of... how do I say... really shitty looking gum paste bikes on cakes.  So I was worried that I couldn't pull off any sort of decent looking bicycle on my own cake.  What I ended up doing was using angel hair pasta as the spokes on the wheels and glued each strand of pasta onto a disk of gum paste.  I modeled each piece of the frame and then attached them together on the cake.  Most of the gum paste work (all the heads, the swimmer, the legs on the runner) were done several days ahead to allow drying time.  On each tier I used a grass piping tip (Wilton #233) to make green shoots of grass and added chocolate rocks. 

The inside of the cake was white cake with cinnamon buttercream.

Cinnamon Buttercream

4 egg whites
1 1/4 cup sugar
3 sticks butter, room temperature
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

In a bowl of a stand mixer, combine egg whites and sugar.  With the bowl set over a pot of simmering water, whisk egg whites until sugar has dissolved and mixture is warm to the touch.  Remove from heat and with a whisk attachment, whisk mixture on high for approximately 6 minutes until glossy stiff peaks form.  Change to a paddle attachment and on medium speed add butter a few tablespoons at a time.  When the mixture begins to look like it is separating turn the mixer to medium-high speed and continue to beat until buttercream comes together.  On medium speed, add vanilla and cinnamon.  Mix until combined.  Reduce speed to low and continue mixing for another minute to get the bubbles out.  Makes about 4 cups of buttercream.