COME ON OVER!

Come visit Balaboosta's Bakery at Shecky's Holiday Marketplace this Saturday and Sunday at

The Altman Building on 135 West 18th St. (between 6th & 7th ave). We will be selling an

assortment of our delicious cookies in beautiful packaging--great for holiday gifts! Be sure to stop by!

BALABOOSTA'S BAKERY

Hi old friends! Please visit my new business website at www.balaboostasbakery.com and place your orders today!! We have 24 unique mini cupcake flavors as well as delicious cookies to choose from! Delivery in NYC available.

MINI CUPCAKE ASSORTMENT

Hi! Featured here are my mini cupcakes that I sell. Flavors include nutella, vanilla coconut, chocolate coconut, wedding cake, red velvet, peanut butter Oreo, vanilla almond, cinnamon, and original (chocolate cupcake with vanilla buttercream and chocolate shavings). Flavors not shown include birthday cake, peanut butter & jelly, and carrot cake.

All of the above and pictured flavors come in regular and jumbo sizes as well. Now that I've started my business I'd like to give all my readers some insight as to what I'm selling! In addition to cupcakes, I have other fantastic unique desserts to order. My business website, as mentioned earlier, is under construction and will be up and working soon!

For the time being, if you would like to place an order, please email me for further details. I'm located in Manhattan and deliver locally. Enjoy!

60TH BIRTHDAY CAKE!

My dear friend asked if I would make her boyfriend's mother's 60th birthday cake! Lets be honest--I cannot turn down any opportunity to bake a cake. I heart cake-making! While this cake was designated to feed 12-15 people, it could have EASILY fed 40+. This guy was huuuuge; consisting of three tall 10inch round layers of devils food cake with silky chocolate buttercream sandwiched between and accompanied by gum paste flowers for garnish.

Believe it or not, I actually had some extra batter to spare so I made a half dozen jumbo cupcakes with the same chocolate buttercream as the cake and pretty pastel fondant flowers. The cake + cupcakes were a huge hit! I'm pretty sure that cake will stick around for a while! There's nothing like busting out a slice of cake from the freezer for a late night snack.

ALL-IN-ONE COOKIE BITES

Hi y'all. Let me ask you something. Have you ever showed up to a bakery craving cookies but didn't know which kind to get? There are endless appetite pleasing opportunities in the world of cookies. We've got sugar, chocolate chip, oatmeal raisin, peanut butter, ginger snaps, black & whites, chocolate chocolate chip, cowboy, kitchen sink, plus hundreds of others.

These all-in-one cookie bites feature my four favorite kinds of cookies united as one. From the bottom layer up we have sugar, chocolate chocolate chip, peanut butter, and lastly chocolate chip. The top chocolate chip layer bakes crunchy while the inside is soft creating the most divine flavor and texture combination.

These cookie bites have officially solved my "over-buying because I don't know which flavor to get" syndrome at the local bake shoppe. Woot. Woot.

On another note, I'm getting some angry emails/comments from my lovely readers about my lack of recipe postings. Readers, you must understand that my blog has changed over the last year because I opened my own bakery business. Therefore, I can no longer post my sacred recipes to the world because, well, that would be silly. I will, however, post recipes I use that are not mine; however few those may be. So, please understand that I'm not displeasing you on purpose! I will continue to post drool-worthy pictures as well as my commentary so feel free to come along for the ride :)

NY CRUMB CAKE

Dear classic NY crumb cake,

Where have you gone? Why have you chosen to leave me? Why are you no longer a staple in the local bakeries? Write back soon. Love, Melissa.

I am baffled as to why the classic NY crumb cake (a.k.a. "cawfee cake") has been eliminated in the bakery world. Why?  This deliciously moist sour cream cake with a cinnamon swirl and heavy-duty crumb topping just might be my number 1 guilty pleasure.

When I graduated college I went on this crazy crumb cake obsession.  I would bake a new crumb cake everyday for weeks at a time and critique each recipe appropriately.  While I was trying to come up with the perfect NY crumb cake recipe, my mother interfered and offered me her staple, secret crumb cake recipe.  Why had she taken so long to give it up? I was agonizing over the perfect crumb cake for years! I quickly baked her recipe and was finally at peace. 

The.Most.Amazing.Crumb.Cake. End scene.

Mind you, this was several years ago and as my baking skills grew to new levels, I neglected this fantastic crumb cake---until last night. Oh yes, my most glorified crumb cake had officially entered the building. It was even better than I had remembered with a touch of cinnamon flavor and ample amounts of crumb topping. Oh my dear readers, how I wish I could reveal such a recipe to you but I just can't.  Think about all the calories I'm sparing you :)

DOUBLE DARK MOCHA DROP COOKIES

I received my monthly King Arthur Flour catalogue yesterday; and while flipping through the pages of countless fun baking gadgets, I stumbled upon this recipe for double dark mocha drop cookies.  Sounded delicious enough and off to the kitchen I went! I've been baking cupcakes the last couple days and felt a truly good cookie recipe was long overdue.

According to the picture of these cookies in the catalogue, they spread when baked. However, my cookies, as you can see, did not. They maintained pretty much the exact shape as they were before baked.  I traced back my steps and didn't make any mistakes so perhaps my oven wasn't calibrated properly. However, when I bit into these chocolate round blobs, they tasted delicious.  This cookie has a real brownie like texture and the center is dense and fudgy from all the semi sweet and white chocolate chips.  These are a winner and I'll most definitely make them again--flattened or not ;)

Click here for recipe.

RED VELVET CUPCAKES

Can't you feel the love in these handsome red velvets? Moist, fluffy, super red, and bursting with vanilla buttercream icing. Simply delicious.

I topped each cuppie with a little candy heart and doled them out to my neighbors. Needless to say, everyone was quite appreciative! I can safely say that I spoiled everyone's dinner on the 5th floor. Sorry folks.

As always, enjoy :)

CHOCOLATE OREO CUPCAKES

It has been slightly over 2 months since I've posted last. If that's not an indication of how busy I am then I'm not quite sure what is. I'm back to my old stomping grounds after spending the winter living in Tennessee and have been so incredibly busy igniting my new bakery business.

My bakery is called Balaboosta's Bakery and the website is currently under construction at www.balaboostasbakery.com. Please check back soon for updates! In the meantime, a very dear friend of mine turned 30 this weekend and I showed up with an abundance of mini and regular sized chocolate Oreo cupcakes. The mini's were beyond adorable and literally tasted like bite sized bursts of vanilla cream with a not-to-overwhelming chocolaty flavor.

I would have preferred to border the cupcakes in all chocolate sprinkles but unfortunately I was out so I went with the colored which added some nice flair. Enjoy.

KIDDIE CUPCAKES

I made these adorable cupcakes for a dinner party I was invited to on Sunday. The host's have two young children; a 2 year old girl and a 5 year old boy and I knew I wanted to theme my dessert cupcakes around these cuties.

Both sets of cupcakes consisted of cream-filled double chocolate fudge cake topped with either:

• pink buttercream, a dusting of pink sanding sugar, and a Valentine colored M&M for garnish (obviously these were appropriately decorated for the little girl)
• chocolate fudge icing with a dollop of vanilla buttercream and assorted colored fondant cut out circles for garnish (aimed at appealing a young boy!)

These were SUCH an incredible hit! There was a perfect ratio of cake to cream filling to buttercream for each cupcake! Enjoy.

BLACK 'N WHITE CUTIES

I've begun the "packing up" stage here in Memphis, TN and part of cleaning out my pantries involves baking everything off that I have bought in the last several months here. I have no room in my car to ship everything back up to NY and besides, my two 80lb dogs deserve all the room they can get. After all, it is a close to 20 hour drive back up North. Therefore, I made it my duty to use up all the ingredients, chocolate, canned items, etc that existed in my kitchen, bake it off, and donate it to charity. One of the many varieties of goodies I donated were these cute black-n-white cuppies.

All of them were mini chocolate cupcakes stuffed with vanilla cream and topped with a variety of fluffy white cream cheese frosting, chocolate frosting, coconut, and a jumbo chocolate chip. In addition, as you can see, the cuppies donned black and white polka dot liners. Cute!

While many of these cupcakes were donated, I had to pull a couple strictly for tasting purposes only ;)...and the verdict?? Outrageous.

SALTED CARAMEL CUPCAKES

My blogging has clearly slowed in recent months but I plan on picking it up very soon. As most of you know, I've been temporarily living in Memphis, TN since October to complete the last phase of my baking and pastry arts degree (a 210 hour internship at a local Memphis bakery). Well folks, my internship is up and I'm headed back to NY this weekend with tons of new baking tips, business knowledge, and amazing top secret recipes. I'm psyched!

Anyway, on to these cupcakes! I made them a couple weeks ago but because it has been so crazy here, I didn't have much time to post. I've wanted to make Martha's salted caramel cupcakes for quite some time now and I should have never waited this long! These are absolutely delicious; beginning with a one-bowl chocolate cupcake recipe stuffed with ooey gooey homemade caramel, topped with a rich dark chocolate frosting, and some sea salt for good measure. Once the caramel cooled inside the stuffed cupcake, it thickened and made for a perfectly, chewy, candy stuffed chocolate cupcake. Unconditionally delish!