RED VELVS

My oh my. I made these puppies for a 30th birthday that I catered last week and let me just say that I doubled the batch on purpose. Yep, these are the best red-velvet-cream-cheese-frosted goodies that you'll ever have in your life! And the best part...? I've finally tweaked my own recipe to be both delicious AND to produce the most magnificent, atheistically appealing red velvet cupcake on planet earth. Now, for the bad news. No recipe postage. I knowwww, I'm sorry. How could I possibly use such enormously descriptive words for a cupcake and then not share love? Well, you see..I've started my own business which means I'll be using all my own recipes that I've been working on perfecting for years. If I were to release such classified information, I might as well get out of this business and become a lawyer..or a kindergarten teacher, or a tennis pro. You understand, right? No grudges, please.

So, with that said; I will still be posting wonderful drool-full pictures as well as recipes..just not my own recipes. I promise there will be plenty to gawk at over at the peanut shell. No worries. Don't hate me :) I got nothin' but love for ya!

BROWNIE CHEESECAKE TEACAKES

I'm sensing a theme here...hmmm; perhaps a certain little combination pertaining to cheesecake....and, er, brownies? Yep, that's it. I'm addicted. I've been tossing and turning this whole week thinking of ideas for brownie/cheesecake combos. Here's a text message conversation I had with my mother today:

Mom: "Hi! I'm in the city, are you around?"

Me: "Really? I didn't know you were coming in..what are you doing in the brownie?"

Yea? 'Nuff said.

Ever since my much anticipated espresso cheesecake brownie selection; to which I earned real life positive feedback from THE Dorie Greenspan herself, I've been inspired to create interesting and fun cheesecake/brownie collaborations. I'd say these brownie cheesecake teacakes fall under that category quite nicely.

My boyfriend's father's birthday is tomorrow and I thought it would be nice to bring along these teacakes. You see, he has very little to no sweet tooth whatsoever, so I wanted to choose something that, at the very least, would be tasted due to the unique manner in which it's baked; because, who wouldn't want to taste a rich chocolate brownie with a surprise center of vanilla creamy cheesecake with creamy chocolate ganache on top? Yes, please!

These were fantastic. I used the same recipe as I did when I made the actual bar version of this recipe a while back, only these were baked in a teacake pan which I've been dying to utilize. Since the top of a "teacake" has that indentation, the cheesecake was put on the bottoms and baked its way through the cake. The outsides baked crispy while the insides were moist and creamy. I topped each teacake with a rich whipped chocolate ganache aiming for a "flower" look and placed multi-colored candies in the center. I arranged these in a beautiful shoebox that I've been holding on to for a while (it's a great lime green!) and wrapped it with beautiful ribbon. Go on and treat yourself--make these, stat.

BLUEBERRY CHEESECAKE CRUMB BARS

Ain't that a mouthful? Oatmeal raisin cookie crusted vanilla bean blueberry cheesecake crumb bars. Whoa. And that was the exact reaction they received, whoa. I went ahead and made this recipe up, from scratch, consisting of all my most favorite flavors and combining them into one crunchy, creamy, sweet, fruity taste all in one bar. Lets review:

Favorite Cookie? Oatmeal Raisin. Check.

Favorite Cold Dessert? Cheesecake. Check.

Favorite Fruit? Blueberries. Check.

Favorite flavoring? Vanilla Bean. Check.

Favorite topping of all time? Crumble. Check.

Get my point? These were the quintessential most sinful dessert on this planet. Just blogging about them is causing drool on the keyboard. I brought these to a BBQ I attended last weekend where the host requested several desserts, including cheesecake. I wanted something fairly simple that didn't make a mess and something that had less of a chance of getting ruined while transporting. I cut them into perfect 1 1/2 x 1 1/2 squares after trimming down all 4 sides. Because I couldn't bear to throw any part of this cheesecake bliss out, I brought the trimmings across the hall to my neighbors, who, renamed these guys "blueberry magic". Magical would be an understatement.

Unfortunately, I cannot give this recipe out because I truly believe it could be a staple dessert for my business! However, use your imagination and I'm sure you can simulate you're own kind of unique magic. :)

1ST BIRTHDAY CAKE

This 1st birthday cake was for another one of my clients; super light and springy white cake filled with a vanilla bean buttercream and decorated with multicolored fondant covered sable cookies. Wallah, hopefully a very memorable 1st birthday cake, indeed. I knew I really had to make this cake special and super childish because after all, 1st birthday's are ones that will be cherished forever! The cake is by far the most important part.

This cake was absolutely enormous weighing in at close to 25lbs! It consisted of 3-10 inch layers all smothered with rich swiss meringue buttercream and I sure as heck wasn't worried that it wouldn't feed a total number of 25 people at the birthday party. I baked dozens of chocolate and vanilla sable cookies which were shaped exactly like balloons, so I covered each one in a different color fondant and rolled some fondant into "string-like" structures as the base of each balloon.

Like I stated in the previous post, if you are interested in special occasion cakes, cupcakes, cheesecake, pies, cookies, brownies, and what have you--email me!

My business website is under construction and should be up and running soon. In the meantime, my blog is a great way to display my work until further notice. Thanks :)

BABY SHOWER CUPCAKES

These cutie blue cuppies were made for one of my clients and, as you can see, were meant for a baby shower. I went with simple golden yellow mini cakes topped with a vanilla swiss meringue buttercream, blue and white non pareils, and a sugared blue rattle. I filled each cupcake with a dollop of homemade cookie dough which I froze the night before so they'd bake gooey and delicious.

These were the perfect favor for a baby shower; simple yet elegant and most importantly, tasty! If you would like to order special occasion cupcakes, feel free to email me!