20somethinggranny-blog

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-=- LEMON BLUEBERRY CAKE

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Chocolate Orange Mousse Cake

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That awkward moment when you're uplpading pics for a blog post and it makes you crave even more cookies.

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The beginnings of a second bleeding heart. #embroidery

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"A friendly desert community where the sun is hot, the moon is beautiful, and mysterious lights pass overhead while we all pretend to sleep. Welcome to Nightvale." #nightvale #geek #embroidery

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One-Bowl Eggnog Cupcakes

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NSFW

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GF Chocolate Lava Cakes

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Sweet turquoise Easter bunnies. I need this!

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During the month of March, I baked and donated two birthday cakes with For Goodness Cakes. The first, pictured above, was a vanilla cake with blue and white buttercream frosting. My buttercream turned out a bit butterier than it should have, so I will have to remember to keep my ratios right in the future. I enjoyed continuing to practice my piping skills with the writing and rosettes, though, and was overall pleased with the results.

You can find out more about For Goodness Cakes and how to contribute to their cause on their official website.

Cross-posted from 20somethinggran.wordpress.com

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You may have guessed already that I have a bit of a sweet tooth. When it comes to my experiments with bread so far, though, I tend to take a different approach. A lifelong lover of fantasy, I tend to think of it as an adventurer's staple food (think Lembas Bread!). And in real life many breads are more of a food than a dessert - so I like them to be just that. Hearty and a bit rustic, maybe with a fruit or vegetable - something you can really sink your teeth into. For this reason, I love banana bread. Not only is it delicious, but you can really make a recipe that has a substantive, filling feel to it. It's something you could be enjoying before leaving suddenly on a quest with a strange wizard. Plus it's a great way to rescue bananas that have over-ripened.

Here's the recipe:

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup butter

1/2 cup honey*

2 eggs, beaten

2 cups mashed overripe bananas

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 cup chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Lightly grease a 9x5 loaf pan.

In a large bowl, combine flour, baking soda and salt.

In a separate bowl, mix together butter, honey, eggs, mashed bananas, and vanilla extract.

Stir your bowl of wet ingredients into the flour mixture - just to moisten.

Mix in walnuts until just combined.

Pour batter into prepared loaf pan.

Bake in preheated oven for 60 to 65 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into center of the loaf comes out clean.

Let bread cool in pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack.

*If you want a sweeter banana bread, you may use 3/4 cups honey.

Cross-posted from 20somethinggran.wordpress.com

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This month was also my biological mother's birthday! She did a lot to make my birthdays special growing up, so I wanted to make her a delicious treat as well. Her request? Something chocolate - which gave me lots of room to be creative. I ended up making chocolate cupcakes with chocolate raspberry frosting, and adding a special surprise. Using the same method for filling the Irish Car Bomb Cupcakes with ganache, I filled these cupcakes with a raspberry jam. I am very pleased with how it turned out, as I think the tart raspberry flavor helped to offset the rich chocolate. As you may be able to tell from the picture, though, the frosting turned out less fluffy than the last batch of frosting I made - so I am looking forward to making more buttercream frosting and working toward getting it just right.

Cross-posted from 20somethinggran.wordpress.com

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Earlier this month, my family and I celebrated my stepmother's birthday. She is a great woman who works hard to make everyone else's birthdays special. And one of the treats she sometimes creates for a special occasion is a batch of Irish Car Bomb Cupcakes. This year, I decided it was my turn to make them for her. You can find the recipe here.

Some notes on the above recipe:

The whiskey ganache filling will take quite some time to cool and become workable. Be patient and give yourself plenty of time (otherwise you will end up with a gooey chocolate mess all over your cupcakes). You can speed up the process by leaving it in the refrigerator or freezer to set. Just make sure to check on it frequently so that it does not become too solid and unworkable.

As the recipe states, you can use either a round decorating tip or cookie cutter to remove the cupcake centers. Having used both, I recommend the cookie cutter over the decorating tip.

The Baileys Frosting is seriously awesome. Be careful you do not eat it all before it makes its way onto the cupcakes.

Cross-posted from 20somethinggran.wordpress.com

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🍰 Raspberry Swirl Cupcakes 🍰

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Technically this little project is outside the scope of this blog. However, after last month's inauguration I got to thinking that the situation might call for something a little stronger than a cupcake. Plus I had lots of leftover cranberries from when I made a cranberry walnut pie for my birthday.

I've never tried to infuse vodka with anything before, nor have I worked much with cranberries, so this seemed like an interesting project to try - and quickly, since I didn't know how long my leftover cranberries were going to stay good.*

Here's the recipe I ended up developing:

2 tablespoons water

1 teaspoon vanilla

3 cups fresh cranberries

3/4 cup white sugar

1 orange's peel

1 teaspoon whole cloves

750 milliliters vodka

Place the water, cranberries, orange peel, sugar, and vanilla in a sauce pan on medium heat. Allow to simmer until the sugar dissolves and the cranberries begin to burst** - this should take about 5 to 6 minutes. Allow the mixture to cool. Pour the vodka over the clothes into an airtight container. Add the cranberry mixture and shut the lid tight. Let the vodka infuse for 5 to 7 days, shaking the container every so often. When finished infusing, strain the liquid into a storage container of your choice. Enjoy your homemade cranberry infused vodka!

*Turns out, whole cranberries will keep well in the fridge for quite some time. And a good freshness test is throwing them down on a hard surface to see if they bounce. You can probably imagine that I wasted far too much time trying to bounce cranberries into measuring cups.

**If you've never worked with cranberries this way before (like me) don't be alarmed - they won't explode, just make very small popping noises. You will also see splits in the outer skin begin to develop.

Cross-posted from 20somethinggran.wordpress.com