TWD: Coconut Teacake

Ok so in the other room Siobhan (the girl with the name that just makes no sense to me) is murdering an R&B song. Oh poor girl, usually I really love her but man did she tank! Anyway to the cake! Coconut cake with a coconut milk glaze. Yum! It did not tank... very very yummy! Carmen chose this week, so you can find the recipe over on her blog Carmen Cooks. I made my straight up I think I will try it again with a little citrus kick, I think it would have benefited from that for sure.

Oh how nice they are making excuses for the bad singing shocking I know... they never do that on AI..... off to watch some other people sing badly some R&B.

Get your pie fix...

You Want Pies with That? is back in action for April! I have a confession.... I just saw the movie (Waitress) that inspired this group a while ago when I was stuck at home with the plague. I use the word inspired lightly because I don't think the intention of this group is to celebrate villainous husbands and/or adultery. I think its taking inspiration from the good things (or exceedingly crappy things in this characters case) in life and creating something fantastic from those experiences.

Aprils is SPRING!

It's that time of year when the flowers and trees are blooming, everywhere you turn people are outside playing frisbee, Easter candy is everywhere, and the best thing of all - you can dust off those flip flops! Get those toes pedicured because it's SPRING! This time of year, it seems like everyone can't wait to start cooking and baking with light, bright flavors like lemon and fresh herbs. That's why we chose a "Spring" theme for this month. Get in the kitchen and come up with the freshest, brightest Spring-inspired pie you can think of - whether it's inspired by your childhood Easter basket, or something with lots of fresh, fragrant herbs. You'll have a lot of wiggle room for this one (sweet OR savory!) just make sure the pie is fun and "Springy"!

Joe & Sandy's 20th Anniversary

This is by far one of my favorite cakes to date. I love the colors and opening my fridge to see these little guys peeking back at me just made me happy. I never did find out if the happy couple found these at all unflattering... it's always a little scary to make people especially when it's cartoony people. Its kinda like when you go to the fair and your get one of those GiantHEadeD cartoon drawings done and you look at the freshly minted drawing of what is supposed to be you and you like hey my nose isn't that big! is it?!

You can see a few more close-ups of this here.

TWD: Dulce de Leche Duos

Knowing how to make Dulce de Leche from a can of sweetened condensed milk is an evil skill. Thanks to the little tip posted here, I learned you can buy it (bah to easy), boil it (to dangerous) or even make it from scratch (too time consuming). Somehow the slow cooker method just seems devious and cunning to me (right up my alley). A delicious magic trick if you will.... 

Go get the full recipe from Jodie over at Beansy Loves Cake. The cookies are super yummy! I added mini chips to 1/2 of the batch but I liked the plain version better. The flavor or the Dulce de Leche just comes out more clearly without any chocolate to muck it up.

I just noticed something... my cookies do not look like everyone else's cookies... I didn't put any Dulce de Leche in the cookie batter! haha... I swear that part was not in MY recipe book! I like my version a whole lot so I better go note it in the book!

Next week were making coconut teacakes... not sure about this one, sounds sorta prissy...

Pole Dancer Cake

My Tuesday's with Dorie Tart shells sits empty on my counter because all of the sudden its too hot to bake. We had a little 4.4 tumble the other morning and I think it was California shaking in disgust that its already getting hot.

Eh...well no matter, instead I shall bring you apeek at a cake I made a while back and have just posted on my website... The Pole Dancer Cake. How do you take something that could be conceived as tawdry like pole dancing (stripper cake anyone?) and make it cute and charming? You make it pink of course!

I love how this turned out, even though it wasn't the original concept I think it came out even better. I actually had to tell the customer that I just couldn't do what we originally thought of without it looking clunky and cheesy (cheesy lame not cheesy cheddar). A difficult thing for me to do because I hate to disappoint anyone. The coolest thing on this cake was that the silver bit on the top was a turn table, so the 30 turned 180 degrees and back again so you could see the other side that looked like this ~>

Striped Electric Guitar

I'm trying really hard to catch up on editing photos and posting cakes I've done in the past few months. Trouble is I'm a shit photographer so I have to go thru a gillion pictures to get a few good ones. Thank the stars for digital cameras!

This is the second guitar cake I've done (here's the first one) so I knew a little of what was getting into. Making the detachable neck so it could fit in my fridge to all the tiny details. But what I didn't know was what was going to happen to the painted surface.

Because of the detail, I decided to hand paint the stripes then airbrush the edge and up the sides for the faded effect, this initially created a horrifying deeply pitted orange peel effect. Short of bawling my eyes out (which isn't allowed in baking my friends...) I decided the next best choice was to paint it. Scary thoughts of puddled brush marks ran thru my scrambled brain but I had no choice but to try or worse case rip off all the fondant and start over. A big soft brush laden with deep black vodka did the trick and it created a nice glossy finish to the guitar! You can see some other photos here.

TWD: Blackberry Thumbprints

When I was just a wee little kiddlet I always wanted to make thumbprint cookies with my grandma. I don't know why, they are kindof a pain. I'm sure she sighed a little each time I wanted to make them because if my attention span was anything like it is now.... I probably didn't do much to help in the end.

These were only about 1/2 as bad, because you don't have to roll them around in nuts (hehehe that sounds kinda dirty!) I used almond flour and filled the thumb holes with seedless blackberry jam prior to putting them in to bake. I like how the jam on gets reduced and tacky around the edges and sorta sticks to your teeth. I'm sure filling them after wouldn't have had quite the same effect.

This weeks recipe for Thumbprints for us Big Guys on pg 164 was chosen by Mike over at Ugly Food for an Ugly Dude. These were very linzer cookie-ish... what in the hell wait a second looking back in my archive this is so 6°sofkevinbacon (mmm bacon...) I made that dough into thumbprints way back then and the linzer sables were chosen by a guy too... and the guy is in the Netherlands and that's where my grandma is from... whoa.. ha groovy! Didn't make that up just noticed this as I'm typing and no I'm not smoking anything! Cross my heart!

TWD: Honey-Wheat Cookies

Playing a bit of catch-up on my Tuesdays with Dorie recipes. The worstest part of having to skip some things, is that the things I've skipped, I really wanted to make! So it was time to double up and get ir done....

I read fantastic reviews about the Honey-Wheat Cookies. These were hosted by Michelle at Flourchild a few weeks ago, you can click on the links to find the recipe there.

When I gave these little guys the initial sniff test they smelled super wheaty, and not to terribly appealing. I tentatively gave the honey a cookie as I bit into mine, not expecting much but a mouth of wheat laced sawdust....but they taste incredible! The honey and lemon really shine thru and the texture is downright addictive.

Of course I opted for cookies this morning with my coffee (breakfast of champions donchaknow) and I think they only got better after a little beauty sleep.