Valentine's Day Recipes

With Valentine's Day around the corner, I thought I'd compile a list of my go to Valentine's Day treats for inspiration to share whether it's with coworkers, friends, family, significant others.

Red Velvet Cupcakes

Salted Caramel Brownies and Mini Strawberry Swirl Cheesecakes

Cheesecake Brownies 

Black Bottom Cupcakes

Vanilla Bean Macaron with Chocolate Ganache

Best Brownies

Chocolate Cupcakes - Two Ways

Chocolate Souffles

Baby Lava Cakes

Chocolate Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Frosting

Best of 2010

Seeing everyone's best of 2010 posts this week inspired me to take a trip down memory lane myself.  For my year end round up, I decided to feature a few of your favorites as well as a few of my favorites for 2010.

Fans Favorite Five Posts

1. Oven Baked Apple Donuts

2. Hello Kitty Cake

3. Best Brownies

4. Chocolate Cupcakes - Two Ways

5. Banana Pudding Pie

My Five Favorite Posts

1. Chocolate Peppermint Whoopies: Chocolate and peppermint is one of my favorite dessert pairings.  This post was only my second tribute to Whoopie Pies.  I definitely need to tackle more Whoopie Pies next year.


2. Little Mermaid Cake: This cake led the way into cake decorating for me.  I knew nothing about how to stack a cake, how to fill a cake, nor how to work with a timeline when I cranked this cake out from start to finish in less than 24 hours.  It's crazy to think about how much I have learned and am continuing to learn since then.


3. Pralines and Cream Ice Cream: Receiving an ice cream maker for my birthday along with the Perfect Scoop changed my life.  Pralines and Cream was the house favorite but I've made everything from Mint Cookies and Cream to Rocky Road to Horchata Ice Cream.


4. Strawberry Rhubarb Pie:  After discovering the best pie crust ever, I finally tackled my first fruit pie.  It was the most amazing thing ever.  I couldn't stop making fruit pies for a straight month, almost.  I can't wait for next summer!


5. Lego Cake: This was one of my favorite Cake4Kids.org cakes.  Looking forward to more cake requests through Cake4Kids for foster children and children in need.

Have a safe and Happy New Year!

Another Doctored Cake Mix Cake (Cake4Kids.org)

This week, I made another cake for Cake4Kids.  It was another doctored cake mix cake; this time a Devil's Food one which I adapted from the same recipe from my last post.  Unfortunately, I wasn't as blown away with this doctored version.  Maybe it's because I already found a chocolate cake from scratch that I swear by.  One thing about this cake that I loved was being able to use the new Wilton Make Any Message Letter Press Set I bought this week.  Good bye to fondant sticking inside those ABC cut outs!  Also, I remembered this time to use the Viva Towel Method.  Still not the smoothest looking chocolate buttercream frosting but better than the last one I made!  Wasn't given much direction on this cake, so I just went with blue and green marshmallow fondant accents.

Chocolate Cupcakes - Two Ways

After last week's hectic schedule, making cupcakes two different ways came together a lot faster than I anticipated.  I was planning to take two days to bake and then frost but finished them while watching Game 7 of the NBA Finals.

Using a devil's food cake (from Martha Stewart's Cupcakes) as the main base, I made s'mores cupcakes and cream-filled chocolate cupcakes.

The s'mores cupcakes had a graham cracker crust (adapted from Annie's Eats) baked underneath the devil's food cupcake which was then topped with chocolate ganache and seven-minute frosting.

The cream-filled cupcakes were filled with a marshmallow cream (from Martha Stewart's Cupcakes) using the cone method and then covered with chocolate ganache.  I used the left over cream to pipe on the swirls.

This picture was too cute to leave out.  Patches wanted to see what I was doing.