Easter Treats

I can't decide what to make this weekend; so I rounded up a few ideas just in case you're looking for some baking inspiration for Easter as well.

Lemon Poppy Seed Bundt Cake  

Lemon Bars  

Carrot Cupcakes

Lemon Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting

Lemon Chiffon Cake

Desserts for a Bridal Shower

The week following my first wedding "cake", my sister, again, talked me into doing something I have never attempted to do.  I helped her put together SEVERAL different desserts for her friend's bridal shower.  The theme was Fall In Love sprinkled with Disney; given the wedding would be in September and the honeymoon in Disneyworld.  Over a span of two days, my sister and I worked together to make the following desserts:

Carrot Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting

Leaf Shaped Fondant Toppers

Lemon Cupcake with Raspberry Frosting

Caramel Apples

Candied Apples

Candy Dipped Pretzel Rods

 Minnie-esque Sugar Cookie Favors (Pictured w/o the Personalized Names)

On top of all of this, my sister with the help of a friend also made all of the decorations; from the banner to the tissue pom-poms to the food label cards with Disney Characters on them.  She even went as far as making leaf shaped tortilla chips!  It was a lot of work but definitely a lot of fun helping put together a full on themed party.

Hello Kitty Baby Shower Cake

For those following my progress, I've made a baby shower cake before and a Hello Kitty cake, not once but twice before.  So, it couldn't be long before I made a combo of the two, a Hello Kitty baby shower cake!

I had a lot of fun decorating this cake.  I absolutely love Pink Cake Box's work. So, this was definitely inspired by their baby shower cakes; especially the ones with the cute bows!  I did make it my own by handcrafting a baby Hello Kitty topper for my friend (the receipient) who loves Hello Kitty.  I also added a bunch of teddy bear cutouts onto the cake.

 

The tiers were made from carrot and chocolate cakes with cream cheese frosting and peanut butter frosting.  Everything was covered and decorated with homemade marshmallow fondant.  I'm sharing the peanut butter frosting as it was ridiculously good for something I just threw together because I was too lazy to go to the store to buy more butter and powdered sugar.

Peanut Butter Frosting
A Baked By Jen Original
Makes about 3 cups

1 cup of peanut butter
1/2 cup of butter
4 oz cream cheese
2 teaspoons of vanilla extract
3 cups of powdered sugar, sifted
3 tablespoons of milk


Cream together the peanut butter, butter, and cream cheese until smooth.


Add the vanilla extract.


Slowly mix in the powdered sugar.  Scrape the bowl down often.


Add the milk.  Beat until light and fluffy.

First Birthday Cakes

I don't know what I was thinking. The last time I agreed to making two cakes in one weekend, I told myself to never do that again. I guess I thought I could really do it this time with very minimum stress, hah!!!




The jungle theme birthday cake actually didn't give me too many problems. It was a chocolate cake with oreo mousse filling and chocolate buttercream frosting covered and decorated with marshmallow fondant.  All the fondant animals were secured to the cake with tylo glue.  I loved how it turned out!








As for the Baby Elmo theme birthday cake, it almost broke me.  I didn't even want to take a picture of it but in the end I did a quick snap of it in the box right before delivery; hence the bad quality picture.  I went with my go to carrot cake and cream cheese frosting.  The plan was to wait for the cream cheese frosting to crust in order to use the Viva towel method and skip the fondant covering.  I'm one of those that don't fridge fondant cakes and believe anything dairy should be refrigerated.  However, I couldn't get the cake layers on the top tier to stop sliding; so, I just skipped putting it on the cake and focused on the bottom tier.  And then, the carrot cake was so moist and all these crumbs were getting pulled off and stuck in the frosting.  I did do a crumb coat but I was slowly entering the wee hours of morning (and losing my sanity) and probably didn't give it enough time to crust.  I slapped everything on and crossed my fingers that it would stay put.  The only thing I liked about the cake was the baby elmo, the number one, and the sesame street sign made of gumpaste which I made days in advance!

Birthday Cupcakes and Cookies

Hooray for birthdays!  I could always use an excuse to bake.  This week, I whipped up carrot cupcakes with cream cheese frosting for one friend and sugar cookies (from i am baker) with powdered sugar icing (adapted from i am baker) for another friend.

Given I've already made these exact cupcakes a few times for this one friend as they are her favorite, for her birthday, I personalized them a bit with marshmallow fondant toppers. 


As for the cookies, I found this 4 piece set at Michaels that included a cake, a cupcake, a gift box, and a party hat cutter.  The dough was a lot easier to work with than the dough I used for the Star Wars sugar cookies.  The powdered sugar icing was less fussy than royal icing but still held up really well too.  I could see more sugar cookies in the future with these results.

The Best Carrot Cupcakes

When I came across Marzipan's blog post about the best carrot cake recipe, I had to add that to my to bake list as my own version was only okay.  I adapted this recipe into cupcakes in order to give some to one friend today and some to another friend tomorrow.  Because I wanted a slight crust to the frosting like the ones from those specialty cupcake stores, I tried a new cream cheese frosting from Cake Central.  To hint that these were carrot flavor, I threw on some orange sprinkles.

I'm not a huge carrot cake fan as the two friends which will be receiving these cupcakes but I tried one and did like it a lot.  I left out the raisins and the nuts by request; however, I think it would've shined a lot more with them.

Carrot Cupcakes with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting

Source: adapted from the Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book