Fall is the season for baking...

Fall baking usually starts with Halloween.  This year I didn't bake any Halloween cupcakes, but I did make some apple strudel cheesecake bars.  Apples are big during the fall season, usually in apple pies.  I happened to be in the cake store buying more boxes for cakes and saw a sign that they were selling caramel apple cheesecake. It sounded soo good, so I wanted to make it. Only, instead of caramel apple cheesecake, I ended up making a strudel cheesecake recipe that I found online.  I think it turned out okay.  I do want to make the caramel apple cheesecake though. 

I was too lazy to take it out of the pan, cut it up and take pics of it

I was hoping to make sugar cookies in the shape of star wars characters, yoda, darth vader... I bought the cookie cutters from William Sonoma, but something went wrong when I baked it.  It spread out losing its shape.  I was reading something about how using butter doesn't really work since in the heat the butter melts and so you'll get cookies that spread, but the recipe called for butter.  =\  It could be that for the flavoring I used oils instead of real fruits.  I made a key lime sugar cookie, a lemon cookie, a regular sugar cookie and a chocolate sugar cookie.  The chocolate one didn't make it though, it was too hard that I couldn't roll it out after keeping it in the fridge overnight.  The key lime tasted really good, and the lemon, well, I needed more lemon flavor.  The sugar cookie I didn't bake.  FAIL!  

The next holiday is Thanksgiving.  I don't know that I want to make anything for the in-laws.  No one seems to want to eat desserts, so I think I will pass.  I might make something for my family's thanksgiving... we'll see. I need to do some recipe searching.  I was watching Giada make turtle candies, which look easy.  Maybe I will make a turtle cupcake or something.

A couple of weeks ago I was watching cupcake wars and thought what inventive cupcake would I make. I'm sure this is out there somewhere, but I came up with a Sundae Cupcake.  I wanted it to taste like a banana split sundae.  So I thought of the different components, banana, vanilla, strawberry, chocolate, whip cream and a cherry.  I don't remember the last time I had a sundae, so I wasn't too sure what goes in it.  Anyway, I made a banana cupcake, put a vanilla pudding in the middle, made whip cream, drizzled chocolate sauce and I tried to drizzle strawberry sauce but it wasn't really saucy, and added a maraschino cherry on top.  I heard it was pretty good, but I don't know.  The next time I wanted to add nuts, but got lazy and just basically made a chunky monkey type cupcake - banana cupcake with walnuts, vanilla pudding, whip cream and chocolate drizzle.

 

Orange Cranberry Cupcakes w/ Cream Cheese Icing

I made these cupcakes for my co-worker who's leaving.  I was sure that he'd choose some chocolate cupcakes, but he was debating between orange cranberry muffins, orange cranberry cupcakes with cream cheese icing or strawberry cupcakes.  I personally like the strawberry cupcakes with strawberry buttercream icing, but that actually takes awhile.  So I'm kinda glad he chose these cupcakes.  

I've made this cupcake before - the funny thing is I don't know where the recipe is.  So I found a recipe in my notebook for cranberry cupcakes and orange cranberry muffins.  I decided that I'd make the muffins but smaller - so they're "cupcakes". Sucks, I can't remember what I did before.  I really need to write on the recipes if I substitute or whatever. This time I decided to try my decorating skills again. I had bought some tips for the piping bag.  I went nuts.  I had bought a 100 pack of tips, and then 2 huge tips from Cakes Plus.  I love the huge tips.  It's less time having to squeeze the piping bag. I am not good at squeezing the right amount. I still have trouble piping (writing).

It's been awhile since I've baked. I hope they came out well.

I don't know if you can see it, but I think the tip I used is a huge flower tip and I topped it with orange zest and a cranberry in the middle.


So the other day I went to Montgomery Mall and had a yocake - it's a yogurt cupcake combo and it was pretty good.  I had a pecan hazelnut cupcake with cream cheese icing, with acai berry frozen yogurt topped with granola.  Minus the granola, it was pretty good.  I think it would've been better with fruit or graham crackers.  Now I just need to learn how to make frozen yogurt...

Chocolate with Banana, should've added nuts

When I got pregnant I was too tired to bake during the first trimester.  I did nothing but sleep.  I did some baking during the second trimester, but hubby got lazy and didn't take pictures of them.  Since giving birth I don't have much time to bake when hubby's not home to watch the baby for a good 3-4 hours straight (gives me time to prep, bake, cleanup).  I always want to bake but haven't, until now.  I was going to bake for hubby #2's bday, but he didn't show up to work that week, so he missed out.  I ended up baking for my bro's friend.  I didn't know what to make for her, but I was told she loves chocolate.  Who doesn't.  Then again she also likes my mango tart that I attempted, but that would be too much since I'd have to go out and buy mangoes and puree them, etc.  I had all the stuff for a chocolate cake in the house so I just went with that.  I ended up making a chocolate cake with banana butter cream icing. Maybe I should've added some nuts...

I made a small cake b/c I didn't anticipate a big crowd; so I had leftover batter.  I just made cupcakes for her - I should've made a big cake. My decision making is all off...

Now my decorating sucks, but I tried.  At first I didn't decorate the cake b/c I ran out of time making the cake.  I usually do all my baking at night, so it was getting late and I just said forget it.  I intended to decorate the next morning, but I ran out of time (dr appt).  I thought the cake would've been picked up before I got home, but not the case.  I had some extra time so I tried it - I can't write in cursive, so block letters it is.  I then thought it looked plain, so I added some dots to the side.  The original thought was a group of three dots, but it ended up being like 3 rows of dots "evenly" spaced.  The top of the cake still looked like it needed something, so since I bought the 100 tip decorating set, I decided to use a tip and make flowers or whatever.  Like I said, I'm not a good decorator, but it's good training.

The other suckie thing is, I ran out of cake boxes and my ink pad dried out  - so it was more homemade than professional looking. I want to make more cakes, but no one is asking for any.  The next time I look forward to baking is for my baby's baptism. I intended the giveaways for my baby shower to be cupcakes, so maybe at the baptism that's what my giveaways will be....