Valentine's Day Gift Boxes

It's no secret I love holidays -- ask any of my family or friends and they can tell you I'm probably planning some little party or dessert extravaganza to celebrate. Anything from Thankgiving to Fourth of July to Purim is just a reason to bake and have a good time with friends! Who doesn't want to do that?

 So when Valentine's Day came rolling around (after I baked this Valentine's Day Cake) I was looking for ways to embrace the Hallmark holiday with my family and friends when inspiration suddenly hit me. For Thanksgiving I had given each of my friends a homemade pumpkin pie as seen in this post A Time to Celebrate, so I decided that for Valentine's Day I would give each of my friends and family a gift box of different and delicious cupcakes! One box for each of my 6 closest friends and my aunts and uncles. I spent my simply perfect Wednesday morning, afternoon, and night making 80 coconut, red velvet, chocolate, and vanilla cupcakes which I then packaged into adorable, little boxes with personal notes for each of my family and friends.

Obviously great preparations are in order...

I used a coconut cake recipe from a Williams-Sonoma baking book (which I will share later!) and simply put it into cupcake form by changing the baking time from 30 minutes to 20. I paired it with this heavenly coconut cream cheese frosting by Ina Garten which went together perfectly. Once they finished baking (and cooling) I simply frosted and generously coated the cupcakes in shredded coconut, easily leaving them looking tasty and professional. 

The vanilla cupcakes I used were from this book Cupcakes! which I accompanied with a vanilla buttercream frosting (also from the Williams-Sonoma baking book) that turned out perfectly. The chocolate cupcakes I'm sad to say weren't as good as I hoped...

                         

I used (yet another...) Williams-Sonoma chocolate cake recipe which was even more shocking as to why the cupcakes didn't turn out as moist or rich as the picture makes them look. I'm pretty sure there was an error on my end because, lets face it, a Williams-Sonoma cookbook is basically the bible. The cupcakes were still tasty (especially when frosted with the chocolate buttercream frosting once again from the William's Sonoma baking book...) but I was definitely on the search for a better chocolate cake/cupcake recipe.

                      

Now for the prized, perfect, simply amazing red velvet! What to say about these gems - they really turned out perfect. Kudos to The Brown Eyed Baker for her Red Velvet Cupcake recipe that really cannot get any better. It's perfectly red, moist, and has that great cocoa flavor of a red velvet without overwhelmingly and suddenly turning into a chocolate flavor. I used the Williams-Sonoma cream cheese frosting recipe from the baking book but definitely prefer the Sprinkle's cream cheese frosting recipe I shared here for it's texture and supreme taste. 

I got much praise and great reviews for the cupcakes (chocolate didn't seem as adored as the rest) but that only leave's room for improvement! Any baking I do whether it's simple chocolate chip cookies or a huge 3 layer cake only adds to my experience, helps me practice, and allows me to master to this passionate hobby of mine. 

                            

Cheer Up Sunshine!

I'm a very lucky girl. I'm surrounded by loving, supportive, and healthy family and friends. I've been given the finest education, and I live in one of the most vibrant cities in the world. But that being said, we all have some really bad days when it feels like nothing is going right. Anything that can go wrong pretttty much does and when it feels like things can't get any worse at that moment and you're making your second trip to the apple store in under three hours -- you then find out your computer has crashed...again. 

Apparently I'm supposed to back it up a lot more often that I have (which is around once every 4 years?) You would expect me to learn my lesson after this happened for the first time a few months back, but apparently not.

- Carrie didn't know either - 

Some 15 hours later my tears have finally managed to dry up and I'm inspired to write this post because while it has been the crappiest week on earth, I also know that I am like I said, a very lucky girl. So in an attempt to not let the little things get to me, to not mourn the loss of thousands of pictures that are now swiped off my computer, and to not let this bad week turn into a bad month, I'm going to list a few things that have still cheered me up this week:

1. I have the best sister in the world - and that's not something I'm just saying, I truly believe I have the best sister out there that anyone could ever, ever ask for. She's been so helpful, attentive, and supportive all week so even if everything seems to be going terribly wrong, I'm still pretty damn lucky to have her by my side.

2. I'm currently in the works of making business cards and a website to showcase all the sweets I make, so I'm incredibly excited/nervous/over joyed.

3. A friend introduced me to Justin Timberlake's new song Mirrors which I almost immediately fell in love with and has been on replay ever since.

4. I found what is undoubtedly the best chocolate cake and chocolate buttercream frosting recipe in the world. I made chocolate cupcakes with chocolate frosting a few weeks back that were fine (to say the least) but a little on the dry side. So what to do? I went on a search of course! Thankfully, Pinterest led me to this Chocolate Buttercream frosting and this insane Black Magic Cake. I only made a smaller one layer 9-inch cake this past weekend to try out the recipe but I fell so in love with it I'm gonna make a larger one this upcoming weekend for PATH. I know Shanee loves chocolate cake so hopefully she'll like this one too.

5. While most of the contents of my computer are totally gone and that includes the recipe book I've been working on, I've been able to find most of my precious recipes by checking my tagged pins on Pinterest and by going through the countless emails with recipe links that I've sent to myself. At least technology has given me that!

6. The best of news: I spent this past Friday baking a cake for my first official customer! I spent all week running from store to store so I could buy supplies that have now become an investment in my business. My customer requested a triple layer red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting and white fondant at a staggering 12 inch size since the cake was for a 50+ person party.

- intense and powerful red dye waiting to be mixed -

- 12 cups of the best cream cheese frosting - 

Considering the fact that this was the largest cake I'd ever bake and it was the most professional cake I'd make yet, I had several mini-freak outs throughout the day. But, after spending most of Friday on the cake it thankfully turned out beautiful and I got only the best of reviews.

And even after the worst days I'm lucky enough to still have a lot to look forward to -- this blog being one of them. I hope anyone going through a rough patch can find at least a bit of ease by thinking about all the good things going. It doesn't sound like much but you'll soon find the list to be very long and it will definitely cheer you up, similar to how it's just worked for me.

Sincerely,

The (now much more Blissful) Baker

Challah

There are few things that get me really excited about the weekend. Sleeping in, grabbing lunch with friends, lazy Sunday's catching up on Grey's Anatomy and Revenge, you get the picture of my weekly ritual...

But to end the long weekday and welcome a sweet weekend, Friday nights always mean family time at my grandmother's house for Shabbat dinner. But whether you're Jewish or not, there is some type of get together your family keeps up that brings you all together in the best way possible. So when we get together I always look forward to conversing with family, a good movie and of course, the food.

Now while my grandmother spends all day making everything at the table (Shabbat dinner is always by far the best meal of the week), we always buy challah bread from a near by bakery until a few weeks ago, I decided to make it myself.  I had made it once or twice before in school when I was younger and decided to give it a shot using this recipe from Smitten Kitchen who gives the best directions and is so unbelievably helpful and clear. The recipe ended up yielding enough dough for four loaves of challah instead of the two that I expected, but that just meant more challah and French toast in the morning so hey, I'm not complaining...

I actually really want this...

Making the dough was surprisingly very easy and only took about 30 minutes or so. I tried making it with poppy seeds the first time as you can see in the picture, and then opted for sesame seeds this week yet both versions turned out equally great. The only issue I'm having is that it's not as light and fluffy inside as I'd hope for it to be so that's something I'm working on, but there's something about homemade bread straight out of the oven that definitely makes it better than anything I could get from a bag.

I've only used this recipe twice and have had great results both times. It is instructed on Smitten Kitchen's website that it should work equally well if I freeze half the batch and save it for later use, so I have about a loaf's worth of dough waiting for me in the freezer until I put that to the test Friday morning. Stay tuned for how it turns out and until then, I hope you have a great week.

Previews and Pictures

Happppy Tuesday everybody!! Sounds like a contradiction, no? It's still so far from the weekend, I have hours of homework ahead of me, and I can't stop thinking of baking supplies I want to buy from Michael's Arts and Crafts...

Nonetheless, we still have a lot to be thankful for (like chocolate, the best friends a girl can ask for, and more chocolate...) so let's get happy and start blogging :)

 Great news: I have a first official client who put in an order for one of my cakes! Even though she's one of my family friends so I'm not really sure if that counts (I'd like to think it does!), she asked me to make a cake for a party she's hosting this weekend. Since I'm always nervous and excited for these kind of things I obviously make a practice cake this weekend...

I wont be putting up pictures of the cake I made this weekend just so that next week when I blog about the cake and share pictures it's that much more special. But, I will tell you it went amazingly well and I'll share this recipe of the best red velvet cake I've made ever.

So around now is the time that I should probably confess I was a little bit of a thief this weekend and stole Sprinkles cream cheese frosting recipe :/ Not that it's hidden or anything, but when my friend had a sudden craving for Sprinkles this week and we stopped by the store and they just happened to have the frosting recipe printed out on those adorable cupcake mix tins... I had to check it. So after (quickly) jotting it down, I spent the next day testing this recipe out and let me tell you it rocks.

(The Best Ever) Cream Cheese Frosting Recipe

8 oz. Cream Cheese, room temperature
1 stick unsalted butter, room temperature

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/8 teaspoon salt

3 3/4 cups powdered confectioners sugar


Basically, I first set the mixer on medium-high and blended the cream cheese and butter together, then slowly added the other ingredients in that order. The vanilla extract I usually use in my recipes has a brownish tint, but I bought this colorless-vanilla extract (from Michael's of course) so that the frosting could still have that bright, whiteness to it that gives it such a great contrast with the red velvet cake.

I highly recommend this frosting since it not only has great taste but texture as well! And since I won't torture you with all of this writing non-sense and not provide you with anything to feast your eyes on since let's be honest, this is a baking blog and you're probably expecting to see a picture of a cupcake or something... I'll share some pretty pictures that have motivated and inspired me recently. Hope you enjoy them too :)

Elegant & Clean

- cheers to independence -

Food Art

No Pain, No Gain

Valentine's Day Cake

 Winter is awesome. Besides the truly terrible weather, were granted with: 

a good two or three months of celebrations like Thanksgiving, Hannukah, Christmas, New Years...

school break and friends coming back from college

the chance to bring out our cute boots and beanies again :)

But what happens after? February slowly creeps up on us and BAM -- suddenly its Valentine's Day. No, I'm not going to go on a rampage complaining about this holiday like you're probably expecting now. Truth be told, I think Valentine's Day is actually quite adorable and it gives me an excuse to spend a night with friends, make dinner together, and share a good two or seven bottles of wine...

But this year I love Valentine's Day just about 100x times more because it's the perfect opportunity to bake pretty pink and red desserts all week long and excuse myself by simply saying ... hey, its for Valentine's Day.

I decided to get in the holiday spirit a bit early this week. My lovely Saturday morning was spent baking a 4-layer red velvet cake topped with vanilla frosting and covered in a smooth layer of fondant - all made to perfection by moi, if I may so myself.

Making the cake from scratch left me incredibly nervous for its results and led to me searching the web for a good two hours until I found the perfect recipe. I usually trust websites like Martha Stewart, Cupcakes and Cashmere, or Smitten Kitchen (whos currently featuring a killer Salted Caramel Brownie recipe that I'm dying to try). But ,when I found this "Sprinkles copy-cat recipe", I felt pretty safe. I frosted the cake with this vanilla frosting recipe by Martha Stewart but found it okay so I'm still looking for a better recipe out there.

- And thats only the half of it -

Now for the fondant. This stuff is very scary. I still don't fully understand how it looks so perfect when other bakers use it, but I'm on a mission! Instead of buying a store bought one ($9 for a box of sugar is a tad bit annoying if you ask me), I opted to make my own using this recipe which worked out really well and is surprisingly very easy to follow. I made it two days before and kept it in an air tight container which kept it pretty soft, but it would be better to make day of in the morning just so its easier to deal with and tastes more fresh.






I love how the cake turned out with the huge red bow on top and the mini red hearts all over -- I dont think I've made a cake this popular amongst my friends and family. I do wish that I got the chance to slice into it and see how it turned out on the inside, but taking it to PATH this week was once again a great experience. Shanee wasn't working when I stopped by late that evening, but I did drop the cake off with a man (who I didn't catch the name of) and a woman named Danita, a tenant of PATH. She had the prettiest blue eyes and was incredibly sweet -- and to top it all off, when I dropped off the cake she asked for my number incase I'd be able to do a cake for an event coming up soon! She asked me if I had a business card (which I'm now in the process of making) and pretty much made my day. I hope they enjoyed the cake and I'll definitely be looking forward to running into Danita again.


Now, I'm going to spend the rest of my evening buried in Williams-Sonoma cookbooks and online baking blogs until I find the perfect vanilla frosting recipe. Until I get a few hours in to bake, the vision of these beauties will simply have to do...

- STUNNING - 

dying for a bite!

Triple Berry Cake

For those of you who live in LA, you know a sweet tooth can easily by fixed by one of the many sweet shops near by. Cupcake shops and froyo joints have been opening up everywhere in this city, but by far one of my favorite bakeries in LA is Sweet Lady Jane. With one shop on Montana Avenue in Santa Monica and another on Melrose Avenue in West Hollywood, their sinful desserts are sure to satisfy any craving you might have. I especially love their triple berry cake -- three layers of yellow cake, fresh whipped cream, and berries -- that is always guaranteed to be a crowd pleaser. So, I reserved Saturday morning to make this popular dessert, and despite the fact that I started my weekend by accidentally waking up at 6 am, I actually got a helpful head start and had the most perfect day.

Everything was made from scratch, which of course freaked me out at first because it only left more room to mess up! I used this Martha Stewart yellow cake recipe but it actually tasted beyond amazing and proved to me just how much better homemade cake is than store bought mixes. The recipe says it yields two 9-inch layers, but it works perfectly fine for three 8-inch ones instead if you choose to do so.

Layering on the goodness

I used this whipped cream recipe that instructed me to originally buy just 2 cups of heavy cream, but mid-way into the morning I noticed I barely had enough for one layer of the cake and made a quick trip to Trader Joe's for more. In the end, 6 cups of heavy cream whipped to perfection should be plenty for a cake of this size. And while the calorie intake of this cake is incredibly overwhelming, I assure you it is definitely worth it by the end.

But the best part in this entire process was when I visited PATH homeless shelter Saturday afternoon to drop off the cake. Even though I have stopped by multiple times in the past year to drop off desserts, it was over a year since I last saw Shanee, the receptionist at PATH and also a fellow baker, who had quickly become a dear friend. I half expected her to forget me by now but as soon as I walked in on Saturday afternoon she immediately recognized me, embraced me with a huge hug, and exclaimed how happy she was to see me again. It truly warmed my heart to see her, and while I try to think of the perfect words to describe our meeting again, there really are none. We caught up and chatted about what we've both been up to since we last saw each other. She explained that she only worked on weekends (which was why I never bumped into her since I went on weekdays) so if I happen to come by on Saturday mornings from now on I can definitely run into her there. Seeing her again after such a long time really made my weekend and has given me so much incentive to come back and visit.

This post was a big longer than usual, but I simply had to include that last part in. I first started The Blissful Baker three years ago back in January 2010 and it was probably one of the best decisions of my life. I hope you enjoyed reading the post today and have a good weekend :)

Sinful Brownies

Sometimes blueberries, a piece of dried fruit, or a chunk of chocolate just doesn't do it. You're trying (and failing) to study for your midterm but instead you're home on Pinterest and throughout all the other pins "slutty brownies" just keep popping up!

What are slutty brownies?



Heaven. They are heaven.


This truly monstrous dessert starts off with a layer of chocolate chip cookie dough, followed by a layer of Oreo's spread out on top, until this is all hidden under a layer of brownie mix and baked in the oven for what feels like are the longest 45 minutes ever. A friend and I made this on a whim when we thought of nothing better to do but simply enjoy each others company and spend the day laughing and messing around in the kitchen.

Insanity!!

Warning though that these "filthy and easy " brownies (hence the name) are super sweet and about 10x better when followed by a glass of milk or tea. There's no real recipe for them since I made mine with store bought mixes but incase you need a bit of help here is a great recipe that should be some help. I followed another recipe (that I can't find now) which told me to bake them for 45 minutes but 30 (or I'd say 35 minutes?) sounds a bit better since mine turned out on the dry side :/

Hope you have great success with yours if you choose to make them!