Lemon Bars

When life hands you lemons, you make lemon bars.  Again, I am behind on adding to my Fall recipes but I had a bag of lemons in my fridge; so, I made lemon bars to bring them to my cousin's dinner party.  The recipe was from Baking Illustrated; no surprise.  My sister is usually the one that makes all the lemon bars in the house but now I definitely have a new recipe for her to try.  The crust and lemon curd were the perfect balance.  Perfect amount of tartness and sweetness.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Cake

This isn't the fall-esque baked goods I promised; however, it is my brother's birthday today.  As a child of the 80s, there was nothing more fitting than making him a TMNT cake.  Last year, I knew I wanted to make him the Optimus Prime cake but this year I had no idea how to improve upon that. My sister came up with this great idea, even sketching me the picture to follow.  I love that it is very different from the typical TNMT cake.  I am partial to believe she just wanted to make cute fondant animals again given she did an awesome job helping with my last cake.

For this cake, I dabbled with isomalt for the first time.  We used an empty paper towel roll wrapped in parchment paper.  Once the isomalt was ready to work with, we quickly wrapped it around the tube and cut out the paper tube once it set.  Then, we cracked it to have all the ooze spilling out.  The ooze was simply frosting dyed green.

Because I didn't know how else I would write his name in "teenage mutant ninja turtle" font as my sister suggested, I did a frozen butter cream transfer using a computer print out I did of his name in said font.

Additional cake details - The cake was strawberry cake (a mash up/adaptation of my two favorite white cakes, here and here) with vanilla butter cream frosting, covered and decorated in store bought and homemade fondant.

Pumpkin Streusel Muffins

My blog is in dire need of "fall-esque" goodies!  So, as promised, here's the first in the series of everything "fall" on my to bake list.  The original recipe had a cream cheese filling; however, I didn't have cream cheese or the time to add it.   I'm sure it would've bought these muffins to another level of goodness but you won't even miss it as they were delicious as is.  Also, I made my topping without pecans because my coworker has a nut allergy, but I highly recommend adding them.

Pumpkin Streusel Muffins
Adapted from Annie's Eats and BH&G New Cookbook
Makes 24 muffins


For the muffins:
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground nutmeg
1 tsp ground cloves
4 tsps pumpkin pie spice
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
4 large eggs
2 cups sugar
1 15 oz can pumpkin puree
1¼ cups vegetable oil

For the streusel:
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup flour
1/8 tsp ground cinnamon
1/8 tsp nutmeg
2 tbsp cold unsalted butter
1/4 cup pecans (optional)

Directions:
To make the muffins, preheat the oven to 350˚ F.  Line 2 muffin pans with 12 paper liners.  In a medium bowl, combine the flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, pumpkin pie spice, salt and baking soda; whisk to blend.  In the bowl of an electric mixer combine the eggs, sugar, pumpkin puree and oil.  Mix on medium-low speed until blended.  With the mixer on low speed, add in the dry ingredients, mixing just until incorporated.
To make the topping, combine the sugar, flour, cinnamon, and nutmeg in a small bowl; whisk to blend.  Add in the butter pieces and cut into the dry ingredients with a pastry blender or two forks until the mixture is coarse and crumbly.  Stir in the pecans, if using.
To assemble the muffins, evenly divide the batter between the 24 paper liners.  Sprinkle a small amount (tablespoon) of the topping mixture over each of the muffins.
Bake for 20-25 minutes.  Transfer to a wire rack and let cool completely before serving.
Store at room temperature in an airtight container for up to 2-3 days.

Fall Recipes

Happy First Day of Autumn! It's hard to imagine that it's already fall given the temperature around here is still in the 80s. Nonetheless, I dug up a few fall goodies from the archives for some inspiration.  I definitely will be revisiting the following as well as adding a few new ones like apple pie, pumpkin muffins, cinnamon rolls, and pumpkin snickerdoodles this season.

Snacks:

Caramel Popcorn with Roasted Almonds

Pies:

Pecan Topped Pumpkin Pie


Double Layer Pumpkin Cheesecake

Cookies, Bars, Brownies:

Pecan Pie Bars


Snickerdoodle Cookies

Specialties:

Pumpkin Whoopie Pies with Cream Cheese Frosting


Oven Baked Apple Doughnuts

Cupcakes:

Pumpkin Cupcakes with Cinnamon Cream Frosting


Snickerdoodle Cupcakes

Winter Wonderland Cake

As I mentioned in my previous post, Cake4Kids held their inaugural Cake-Off4Kids Event last Saturday. There were about 50 cakes and 250 volunteers, family, friends, and supporters of Cake4Kids present to help Cake4Kids raise funds for their push to file for non profit status.   Even after putting in a lot of behind the scenes work for this event, I knew I wanted to bake a cake for the competition too.

This 6-8-10 tier white cake (from Baking Illustrated) with buttercream frosting covered in marshmallow fondant is my largest/heaviest/tallest cake to date.

The theme was inspired by my love of penguins.  I had a lot of help from my sister who made most of the fondant animals while I baked a lot of cake.

I have been using A Better White Scratch Cake recipe from Cake Central for over a year now but the recipe from Baking Illustrated is my new official go to white cake.  It was so light and fluffy and moist.  It probably isn't ideal for stacking and carving but given the right support, you can apparently stack anything.  And, in this case, I was able to carve out a portion of it for a slide.  I should've done the cut all the way around but I wasn't sure how it would hold up. Also, I baked the top tier in the Wilton Sports Ball pan instead of carving it for the same reason.

My 8-inch cake pans are actually 8.5 inches in diameter.  Hence, when placed on top of the 10-inch tier, there was absolutely no space to place the penguins.  Not pictured are three of the penguins which I simply had standing around on the back of the cake instead of my planned snowball fight.

My favorite one, if I had to pick, is the penguin making snow angels!  Again, due to lack of space, he had to be on top of the igloo but I think it sort of works.

Transporting the cake to the location 20 minutes away was nerve wrecking.  I have to thank my boyfriend for staying calm and getting us there in one piece.

Taking part in this event, from start to finish, was a lot of fun; the sweetest part was winning the best decorated category!