Dolly Cakes

 Dolly Parton is known for many things namely her music and philanthropy. Thanks to Duncan Hines  she is now known for her cake recipes and frostings. She 's teamed with the fsmed baking company to create a line of new and down home cakes, muffins and icings.

I've been seeing her mixes every time I'm in Wal-Mart They look interesting and since she's paired with Duncan Hines the cakes have to be good. I'm a big fan of Duncan Hines. They're my go to cake mix and I've never been disappointed by them. The Dolly cakes look interesting and I think I might bake her banana cake for Easter.I 'm still undecided ot try her frosting. if I  make the banana cake, then I want a fudge frosting for a chocolate covered banana flavor). The cake flavors are vanilla, chocolate, banana and coconut. All look really tasty and I might also try the coconut. The other mixes are a caramel turtle brownie mix  and a plain one.  Both  the cornbread and buttermilk biscuit mixes look rasty and they're on my must bake list. Dolly also has a cinnamon swirl crumb cake and muffin mix along with a blueberry one. At Christmas Duncan Hjnes brings out her cookie kit that comes complete with frosting , sprinkles and a note from Dolly herself.  There is even a buttermilk pancake mix too. There may be a mix coming out at Easter. It seems Duncan Hines is keeping mum about that.

How are the reviews? For the most part home bakers seem to adore the cakes.At Sporked, writer Jordan Myrick gave the banana cake and vanilla buttercream frosting good reviews. The ailyMeal.com also has given the line good reviews , namely her chocolate and vanilla cakes. Both tasted like scratch cakes , with the vanilly even haveing a faint buttery scent after baking. The chocolate one was flavorful without being too over whelming with cocoa. The frostings which also have whipped cream added  to cut the sweetness don;t have that usual cloying sugariness. The banana nut muffins were baked into a bread and came out OK and the reviewer did like the cinnamon swirl crumb cake. This last has a light springy crumb and a delicate spice flavor. Th reason for all of this is that the extra ingrdients are different. There is an entire stick of melted butter instead of vegetable oil to give the cakes and muffins a rich flavor . Four eggs are used instead of the usual three that are in Duncan Hines mixes and a cup of milk instead of water. This is what gives the cakes a  truly homemade flavor - a big hit with reviewers.

Dolly parton is known for many things. Now her favorite recipes are one of those. Try her mixes for  a fun change up in baking.It's down home goodness with down home taste.

High End Versus Low End Baking

 Home chefs are starting to think of the heavy baking season ahead. There' are pies and breads to make for Thanksgiving  followed by the intense cookie race for Christmas.One of the big questions is do they go for the more expensive ingredients and implements or save money with buying cheape ingredients.

It's a hard dilemma. Purists will want to use the best quality yet for some it's hard to do thanks to inflation. A simple compromise is using both high and low end in the same recipe.If you;re going high end then think King Arthur. This is one of the oldest flour companies in the country  first starting in Boston in the 1790's by Hnery Wood. Over two centuries later home bakers rave about its finely milled flours and pure extracts.Yes it is expensive.You can buy a pound fo flour for $4.95 online or at your local grocery. Acme sells their organic flour  for $7.19 , Their almind flour there is around nine dollars. Their cake mix is close to nine dollars for a box. You could easily go to your local Stop & Shop and buy a box of Duncan Hines cake mix for only $1.25 on sale right now. Again it's up to you. If you want to indulge yoru family then go for the more expensive. Their doughnut and muffins pans are high quality with prices as high as almost thirty dollars.Are they worth the money? You can probably get twenty years out of them so the answer is yes. King Arthur also sells extracts  and cocoa powder too. They are expensive with a tin costing $12,95. You can get ti for a lot less again at any store.

What about cookies? Many home bakers make tins of all different kinds for family and friend gifts along with for the office or class party. Family and friends can get the best.You can use the the better flour and Kerrygold butter along with the top grade vanilla extract. You can decorate them with the Wilton cookie decorating kit. This has the nozzles and bags to create sweetly stars and angels. you will have to supply the icing yourself. A better deal is Wal-Mart's cookie kits. Their own brand Great Value is offering some cool and inexpensive kits like their gingerbread one for only $4.97. It comes with the mix, cutter, two tubes of icing  and candy decorations. You can;t beat that! Another good Wal-Mart deal is their  BUild Your Own Brownie Tree kit which has the brownie mix , an icing pouch, cutters and candy decorations. These are perfect for the kids to make  but also fun on any holiday dessert table.  Another idea is cutting back on the amount you're planning to bake. Instead of two pr three pies for Thanksgiving choose one and stick with it. As for cookies opt for three or four as opposed to five or six. 

It's a dilemma about choosing high or low end baking. Base your choice on what works for you financially. Welcome  holiday baking. DOn;'t be fianancially drained by  it.

To Bake Or Not To Bake

The problem with August birthdays is that they're well in August. Like July birthday's they're in some of the hottest weeks of the year. The question is do you bake a lovely homemade cake or do something else? There are alternatives, yet are they the best choice?

Many will say the heck with baking,It's just too hot and humid to pop a cake into the oven. Keep in mind that a good size cake can range from as low as $25 for one that serves six to one at $39 for half a sheet cake. Yes it's easy but it's also expensive, especially when you factor in decorating costs. Cupcakes are a better way to go , depending on the bakery or grocery store. You can easily get   a six pack of fresh made ones from Stop & Shop for $3.99 providing it's a small get together. Vegan cakes and cupcakes are a bit more expensive. Vegan bakeries such as Sweet Avenue in Rutherford, New Jersey charges $4 for one single cupcake. Granted they are OK and there's a wide array of different kinds from simple vanilla and chocolate to S'mores cupcakes and strawberry shortcake ones. Their cakes are $35 for a six serving cake and $95 for a larger one that can serve twenty-four. If you can stand the heat, then bake. You don't have to create an elaborate scratch although it's a great way of using up all that flour you bought. The birthday boy or girl would surely appreciate a Duncan Hines,Pillsbury. or Betty Crocker one. All of these companies have frosting if you don't feel like making your own.

What about microwave cakes? They're all over You Tube and they look easy. It's just a five or six minute pop into the microwave. The ingredients are the same from the flour, and milk to the baking and cocoa powders. There are even no egg and no dairy versions that only require vegetable oil or melted butter.  You can bake two layers and then frost how you want. If you feel that butter cream is still too involved then use Cool Whip.It's a great icing and filling. To jazz it up, add a few drops of mint flavoring if it's frosting a chocolate cake. A layer of strawberries, blueberries or peaches work for a vanilla one. Another idea is an ice cream cake. It's just filling a silicon mold with ice cream and making the crunchy filling. This is taking those Nabisco chocolate wafers or any similar kind and grinding them down in a food processor or chopper. Mix these with microwaved melted butter or margarine and spooning it onto the first layer of ice cream. Then add the second and finish with Magic Shell, If not decorate with whipped cream, cherries and sprinkles. Freeze for a couple of hours before serving.

Do you bake or not bake for an August birthday? There are alternatives from buying to microwave to ice cream cakes. Pick what works for you during these warm days. The birthday boy or girl will enjoy it.

A Summer Cake In Winter

Everyone craves summery flavors in the winter. It's no difference with desserts. There's always a craving for something light in a season full of heavy flavors and weighty ingredients. For a friend's birthday I thought I'd go mid summer in the middle of mid winter.

It starts with a light cake. I used Duncan Hines Perfectly Moist. I liked their Perfectly Moist chocolate cake so much I tried their classic white. What I didn't know that it was an angel food cake that only used egg whites.

The yolks will be used in a ham scramble tomorrow. The result is a light  fluffy angel food cake.

The icing should be just as light and fluffy. I went to my favorite frosting go to site, Two Sisters Crafting. They have a wide variety of different buttercream recipes from vanilla to peanut butter. I love their peppermint one however that's better with a chocolate cake. I decided to try their lemon one, light and summery with this cake.

It is a labor intensive one though. It's made with only three ingredients

Here are two

  

I used Acme's Organic butter and their lemons. The recipe called for a 1/4 cup of lemon juice which is about the juice of one lemon.

Keep in mind that the seeds have to be sieved out.

Then five cups of confectioner's sugar is added. Only do one cup at a time, then mix, one cup then mix.

To add to the zinginess the sisters also add a teaspoon of lemon zest. This required using the two lemons.

The finished frosting spread on very thickly which is perfect for a buttercream.  I plan on using this one for the frosting on my Easter lambs.

                                           It also holds candles well too. As for the flavors, the tart lemon drop flavor works well with the airy angel food cake taste. It really was the perfect marriage of frosting and cake.

There's nothing like a taste of midsummer in midwinter. This cake is the perfect solution to those wanting a lemony light flavor to remind them of summer picnics and tea parties.Make it and be instantly transported to warm sunny days.

The Winterscape Cake

This was supposed to be the perfect holiday cake.

Except I made it two weeks after Christmas and a week after New Year's.

This was the cake I had wanted to make, before sickness and life happened. It was going to be a two layer cake with a peppermint buttercream

 icing.

With the way my schedule is I thought a larger one layer cake - about 13  by 9. It was easier to bake

I used Duncan Hines Perfectly Moist Dark Chocolate Fudge cake

This mix requires three eggs which makes for an incredibly moist cake.

Then it was time for the decoration. I wanted to create a winterscape with pine trees.

This was my first time using fondant

It's a white gummy kind of icing that can be used as a covering for cakes or cupcakes. I just wanted to make pine trees.

This required my embroidery scissors and the mini skewers I used for the Easter.

The scissors are used for making the boughs while the skewers are used to spin the fondant around to cut.

Since fondant is white, green food coloring has to be added.

It's then hand mixing the coloring into the fondant and rolling the fondant into cones.

It kind of looks like cotton candy before it's cut.

This is it. Not bad compared to the other three made. Fondant is temperamental. It needs to be kept in a dark cool place once the package is opened.

The icing was a simple peppermint buttercream that I got from The Two Sisters blog. They have the best buttercream recipes with all sorts of flavors. I've used their cream cheese one already.

It's typical buttercream - although I used I Can't Believe It's Not Butter, confectioner's sugar along with two teaspoons of peppermint extract.

It's Neisen-Massey's which makes the best extracts. This was blended with the confectioner's sugar , I Can't Believe It's Not Butter and a tablespoon of almond milk to get it creamy.

This was frosted over the cake. The trees were added , along with silver sanding sugar for a sparkly snow effect.

This was my Christmas  - winterscape cake. I will make it again. I love the new Duncan Hines' mix. and there's something about peppermint buttercream that's heavenly. As for the fondant, I will try it again. It makes for pretty decorations.

Mix Versus Scratch

There is a huge controversy going on right now -and it's not what baby box Sussex will be named. It involves cakes mixes versus the all natural scratch cakes. Both have merits.Both have their detractions. What's a home baker to do?

Scratch cakes have been around since Roman times when special breads were baked with honey, butter and eggs. The18th, 19th and the first thirty years of the 20th Century saw housewives mixing ingredients such as eggs, flour, sugar  and butter into crude pans and baking them. They were eaten no matter how they turned out. The 1930's saw the birth of cake mix and it took twenty years for it to be a household staple.Now there's an internet controversy about which is better. Many home bakers- especially moms of young children - prefer using scratch recipes. The ingredients are natural plus they can change the recipe to suit gluten and allergy problems.One of the pluses of the internet age is that there are tons of scratch cake recipes from basic chocolate and vanilla to rum and strawberry flavors.Thanks to grocery stores , Amazon and King George's Flour ,all ingredients such as corn starch and vanilla pods can be found. Yet , despite  all this are scratch cakes better? Is the taste better? What about the crumb?

I baked both scratch and mix cakes during my lamb experiment.What produced a better bite? The box mixes, of course. As with scratch ones I could alter the recipe, getting rid of the vegetable oil, adding double the amount of eggs along with including a cup of cold water. The crumb was dense and moist, perfect for the lamb cake and a good foil for the super sweet icing that would frost the lamb.The baked vegan lamb was not that great tastewise. The recipe was from Vegan Cooking In Colorado which was taken from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World and modified. (I bought the cupcake book and will be experimenting with its recipes soon). To me there was too much almond extract - four teaspoons - that gave the cake a sickly sweet taste. The crumb was so delicate that the lamb's head fell off. Maybe the recipe would have worked  for cupcakes or layer cakes. The color was very pale too. There was no richness there. The mix cakes - all Duncan Hines blended with Dream Whip had this , possibly because of the addition of Dream Whip. I won't rule out homemade cakes yet when I want to impress  - then it's a Duncan Hines cake mix all the way.

What's the best recipe to use when making a cake? That's really up to the home baker. What works for one baker may not work for the other.As with cooking the answers lies with experimenting.

The Lamb Experiment

Since mid March  up to today I have baked and iced five lambs, using my Mom's Wilton Easter lamb mold, along with her cake and icing recipes.

What have I learned?

That greasing and flouring any cake pan is vital to having an easy to remove baked product. 

Dream Whip is crucial to producing a dense yet surprisingly light pound cake. I plan on making cupcakes with it.

Crumb coats are very important in creating a smooth first coat. You need this in order to create fancy stars squiggles and rosettes.

Vegan cakes don't work. This little lady's head fell off .Also the taste wasn't as great as the Duncan Hines mixes I used.

Variety is truly the spice of life. I made a chocolate cake with coffee icing for my friends who love chocolate. This is the flavor combination I will be flirting with for the next few months.

As for everyone else, it was vanilla cake with vanilla buttercream.I also learned that it takes time to master Russian tips . Mine have come out like pink blobs.Also all lambs require seven cups of icing not five.

Another thing I've learned. Not to bake five lamb cakes and then ice them. It is a lot of work, well received but still labor intensive.

A Small Quiet Christmas Dinner

Everyone thinks of Christmas dinners as big lavish affairs with  tables groaning with roasts and bowls of mashed potatoes with gravy , followed by an endless array of sweets. Some households may have that. yet there is also the ones with only two or three people. They can still celebrate but on a smaller scale.

Roasts are always the stars of a holiday table. Yet a twenty pound turkey or ham would be  way too much  not to mention providing leftovers until Valentine's Day. Think small. A four to six pound turkey will work and there will still be leftovers for sandwiches.Another idea is turkey breast. it can range anywhere from two to eight pounds. The smaller ones only take between an hour and a half to two hours to roast and there's not as much fuss to them.It can even be  cooked in an Instant  Pot. There can be gravy  by using the pan drippings.  Individual Cornish hens are a lavish  yet not so overwhelming as a  main dish as well . Like turkey, there will be crunchy skin and tender white meat and juicy dark.Ham has always been a Christmas favorite. Get a small one  - a little over one pound will be satisfying to a party  of two or three.What about vegans? Gardein has  four turkey cutlets that come with a reasonable facsimile of gravy.If there's a table of four then  think about their holiday roast. It's stuffed with cranberries and rice along with having its' own gravy packet. The taste is exactly like the real thing too.

What about sides? A full holiday table will have three or four plus a salad or two. This would be too much for two or even three people. Write down a list of favorite sides and narrow it down to two. That way dinner isn't so overwhelming and there's no waste or a ton of leftovers in the fridge. If you're having stuffing, then nix the dinner rolls. Decide on what kind of potato you want , whether the usual Idaho or russet or sweet. Think  larger casserole type sides such as scalloped potatoes or candied yams may be too big a dish for two. You could just have baked russets with a fancy garlic or herbed butter.Or try just roasted yams, with maple butter. Something green is always a nice compliment to ham, turkey or tofu. Get the steamer bags of broccoli and green beans. There's just enough for two to three people.Serve with melted butter or vegan butter and sprinkle on some Parmesan.. Dessert should just be for two. Duncan Hines has  their Perfect Size cake mixes with icing that makes for a sweet ending to a holiday meal. Jazz it up with a sprinkling of red and green sprinkles or crushed candy canes.

A Christmas dinner for two or three can still be lush and delicious. Just think small. It'll be a perfect meal, with the right amount of food.

The Bonbon Cake

What could be better than a chocolate covered strawberry? A cake made like one. I had this idea pop into my head when I saw Duncan Hines' strawberry cake mix.It sounded  like a good idea......

Here is what the batter looks like, a kind of Pepto Bismal pink with dried strawberries thrown in.

It's the standard Duncan Hines, add three eggs, 1/3 cup vegetable oil, and one cup water. Bake for thirty minutes .

And this is the result. The pinkish shade can't be seen here but there is a rosy hue to the cakes. I have to admit I was nervous , considering the birthday sprinkle cake fiasco. I had nightmares of gooey batter  dripping on my oven floor. Thankfully it didn't. It was then onto the icing.

I have fallen for the Two Sisters chocolate buttercream icing.I usually add more cocoa powder than they recommend . It creates a rich, fudgey kind of icing.

The two sisters recommend mixing the confectioner's sugar and cocoa powder first.

It looks like ashes

Two sticks or a cup of softened butter cut up .Milk is usally added but I prefer light cream for a richer, smoother icing.

This is what it looks like all mixed together.

This is the iced cake. I had leftover buttercream icing from the sprinkle disaster.I added a bit too much red food color (all safe) and got this watermelon colored icing.

I should have added lard to it so I could make more defined decoaration.

In the end it turned out to be the perfect ending to a perfect dinner/ (And thank you Polly Bertos and Lili Dugan for inviting us over and for a chance to for me to make this cake.)

Happy Birthday Disaster

I had such high hopes for the cake I was going to bake for my friend's birthday.It started out good.Unfortunately I can't even upload the pictures regarding this. It's like the whole project is against me!!!!!

It is blurry  but you can see it's the Duncan Hines butter cake, along with sprinkles and butter. I did everything according to the instructions (well except for the sprinkles) I added half a cup which I thought would be fine. It wasn't.

The butter part was fine. I diced it to make for easier blending. This is the batter

The batter looks fine. It was fine as I poured it into the two inch eight inch round cake tins The problem was that the batter super rose and got all over the oven floor. Could it be that I whipped too much air into the batter, thanks to my new Proctor-Silex beater? Maybe? The batter didn't set on one layer. That went directly to the birds when cooled.

I made a traditional butter cream for the remaining layer, 

As you can see the cake is in the pan and is too soft to be lifted out of it. Just a plain icing graces it, hiding the mistakes in the upper right side. I used Wilton's Sparkle Gel icing to write happy birthday. If it had come out OK, , it would  have been a blue and green ombre, but alas it wasn't.

Will I use Duncan Hines again? Maybe. Maybe not. Will I bake butter cake again? Probably not  but never say never. This has been an eye opener in a usually idyllic and problem free baking season. I will try again - but not so soon. I think I need to get the bad taste of a flop out of my mouth.

My Big Christmas Baking Extravaganza

 I am in full baking mode this year. Blame it on The Great British Baking Show and The Great American Baking Show for making me want to have a three day event where I will be creating the trifecta of holiday baking  -cupcakes, brownies and cookies. It'll be the most baking I've done in years, but I'm looking forward to it.

The cupcakes will be the star of the show. I plan on using Duncan Hines lemon cake mix and turning it into Christmas Funfetti cupcakes. This is where you add half a cup of sprinkles to the batter. This creates a fun and pretty polka dot look. Many home bakers are getting on the trend and making these for birthday parties and showers. The tubular jimmy kind has to be used. The tinier rounded sprinkles just don't cut it. I bought mine at Stop & Shop. They always have large tubs of them, left over from their own baking. The  icing will be my favorite cream cheese one dyed a festive green and decorated with  what else  - more red, green and white sprinkles.If this works out I may try pink and red Funfetti cupcakes for Valentine's Day. The icing will be elevated - I'm using  the good  Irish Kerry Gold butter to kick it up a notch. I am thinking of using it in a champagne buttercream icing  for a friend's birthday.

As for the cookies and brownies.the cookies are from the Betty Crocker packaged mixes. Fingers crossed that it works out well, because I have yet to use that brand thus far. It is an oatmeal one that I am going to amp up with mini chocolate chips. It should be very buttery tasting, Again I will be  using the Kerry Gold butter which will work well with the oatmeal. If these are successful I will move onto the brand's sugar cookie mix. The brownies are my go to, Duncan Hines dark chocolate brownie mix. I love this mix. Use two eggs when making it and the brownies come out perfectly cake like. with  a tender moist crumb. Home bakers can add  crushed peppermint candy or walnuts for a fun spin. The company does have a decadent brownie line (which my store unfortunately does not carry) .The various  mixes have walnuts, caramel and even large milk chocolate chunks along with peanut butter pieces added to them. If you want to jazz up the regular ones, think of serving them with eggnog or peppermint ice cream and Stop & Shop's Limited edition peppermint whipped cream.

My oven will be working overtime this week. I can;t wait to bake and share these experiences with you. It'll be fun   and actually better than any baking competition, British or otherwise.

A Special Cake For Mom

One of the best gifts is a homemade one for Mother's Day. Any mom would appreciate a tasty treat that she didn't bake. Think fun cupcakes or a daffodil cake. If she's into fruit than a great pie, or if she's fancy a plate of macarons with a ganache filling. There's a variety of sweets that can be created for mom's special day.

If you're not a pro at baking, then go for the mixes. Between the big three cake mixes, Duncan Hines, Betty Crocker and Pillsbury, you can make any kind of cake.Duncan Hines has introduced serving for one -  mug filled with either cake or bread. This is the easiest bake - just the mix and three tablespoons of water - - it just takes a minute in the microwave and voila - a perfect treat. She can have her choice of flavors from a decadent chocolate lover's cake to  banana bread. There's even one minute muffins, blueberry ,apple cinnamon and corn, in a mug too for a neat breakfast in bed. as for cakes and frosting , all three brands have not only mixes but frostings too. As for decorations Betty Crocker has these various sprinkles including Cupcake Gems that are gold and silver sugar crystals. Sprinkle these on a plain cake  to amp it up to something special.You can also have fun with the mixes too, thanks to the brands offering dozens of recipes on their sites. Try a poke cake with either pudding or Jello for a fun surprise or a skillet cake , layered with whipped cream and fresh berries.Pillsbury has a easy to bake ice cream cake recipe that just requires cake mix , ice cream and whipped cream.It's easy to assemble and decorate.

More experienced bakers can definitely whip up a scratch cake with no problems. One of the prettiest is the daffodil cake,  a marriage of angel food and yellow scratch cakes. The frosting is a mix of pineapple juice and Cool Whip which is a lovely , mild flavor to go to the cake. Of course , nothing beats the taste of a scratch marble cake. This would make a great dessert with a scoop of French vanilla or chocolate ice cream.It's also good just on it's own with an iced coffee and mom's favorite Sunday crossword. A homemade pie is always a nice gift.Supermarkets such as Stop & Shop and Acme are still selling Granny Smith and Fuji apples and these are the best for a homemade apple pie.  If you want something fancier then think a homemade lemon meringue with a slightly browned meringue crown. It's a great end to a Mother's Day barbecue. Another tropical tasting treat is a Key Lime pie, the perfect union of sweet and tart. What mother wouldn't like a plate of fresh from her oven macarons. Yoou can make them like the ones from the famed Ladueree Patisserie, with flavors such as chocolate, salted caramel and even rose water.Fill them with a rich chocolate ganache or almond buttercream for true luxury,

Nothing beats a homemade treat for mom's special day . Surprise her with home baked treat. It's a sweet way to thank her for she's baked for you.

Caked

Cake is one of the best things to come out of a home kitchen. There's something soothing and satisfying as well as fun about freshly baked layers with or without icing. It's fun using a mix but also fun attempting an old fashioned scratch cake. The end result is always delicious.

As soon as my new oven was installed I bought mixes, from brownie to cake ones. I love Duncan Hines and have had nothing but luck with them, knock wood. As everyone knows last week was the Easter Cupcake Extravaganza. I baked twenty-two devil's food cupcakes, topped with that yummy, creamy cream cheese frosting, the recipe coming from the All Recipes site. To be honest it was a bit too much with the topping along with the candy bunny sprinkles I bought at Target. Devil's food is elegant and should not be gaudied up . I realized that as I took the first bite. The next time the cupcakes (or cake) will be just left alone , save for a light dusting of confectioner's sugar. My next foray will be lemon cake with  - what else a lemon infused cream cheese frosting. Will I ever try Pillsbury and Betty Crocker cake mixes? Pillsbury has pineapple and strawberry flavored mixes that look intriguing. As for Betty Crocker, I may try their cherry chip and Red Velvet. Their flavors aren't that much different from Duncan Hines, though. Duncan Hines has a wider variety such as marble cake along with blue and pink velvet cake mixes.They also have an orange supreme cake which looks way too tempting.

Scratch cakes are also on my baking horizon. There's always been a controversy regarding them. Of course scratch cakes don;t have that chemical cocktail of preservatives and flavors. They do
 taste better, Butter and chocolate ones are richer tasting,making the cake eater crave another piece right away. You do need to add baking powder and granulated sugar as well as milk , salt and vanilla.Scratch cakes can also allow home bakers to be a bit more creative, subbing in almond extract for vanilla or adding fruit to the batter. I would love to try a marble scratch cake that was popular in the Eighties.My Mom and I used to bake it a lot and it was wonderful. The marble veins were dense and gooey with chocolate. The recipe itself came from the New York Daily News and unfortunately, despite the vastness of the Internet, the recipe isn't found anywhere.There is a Martha Stewart recipe which also calls for buttermilk. It's more of a pound cake, which is still good and to me, a perfect cake for summer.I may try my hand at it , just for the sake of trying it.

Cake baking is surprisingly a personal matter. Many home bakers, like myself, have definite favorites and will always stick with them. Cake is not just cake. What it is depends on the mix and brand along with how the baker makes it.

The Easter Cupcake Exravaganza

Easter is here and I wanted to do something fun yet familiar. Of course I chose cupcakes with that sinfully yummy cream cheese icing that I got from All Recipes' web site. Here's how it went down :

I used Duncan Hines' Devil's Food cake mix which is a little more intense than their average ones I 've previously used. The cupcakes had to be baked  five minutes more because of the batter's density.

I used the cute bunny and chick cupcake papers from Target.

This is raw

This is baked.

Here is that great icing being made.

I added two tiny drops of McCormack's food coloring red, (looks like the icing got cut and bled)

More blending with the electric mixer to get this blushy  shade of pink.

And voila! - Sprinkle on candy bunnies also for Target!!

HAPPY EASTER, EVERYONE!!!

Carrots, Cream Cheese, and Cupcakes

I did it. I baked twenty-four  perfect cupcakes thanks to Duncan Hines and All Recipes. It started with making the carrot cake mix.

The cake batter is super easy to make. It even had carrots and raisithe ns that had to be reconstituted in hot tap water. From there it was blending in three eggs and a  1/4 cup of vegetable oil.It produced twenty-four  perfect cupcakes. I used the three tablespoon method to fill the cups, both metal and the

silicone.

Now here's the whole gang waiting to be iced

The icing recipe was the classic cream cheese which I got from All Recipes. I like their recipes which are simple and easy to make, yet packed with flavor. It's taking eight ounces or a brick of cream cheese with a stick of butter. 

i used I Can't Believe It's Not Butter..The two blended together perfectly,, although it was sticky at first. The recipe called for four cups of confectioners sugar, I used three and a half. I felt that using less would bring out the cream cheese flavor more. 

 I used my Madagascar vanilla, from Neilsen Massey (I reviewed them back in August of 2015). The two teaspoons of pure essence. This has no alcohol and no aftertaste.
 Here are the guys frosted and dusted with sprinkles and frosting puffs.
I love this frosting. It is definitely going to be my go to frosting for every flavor, including vanilla and chocolate cake.It doesn;t have that cloying sweetness that regular buttercream has. It has a much needed tang that definitely will go great with chocolate cupcakes.I can't wait to make it and dye it  to decorate more baked treats.It also is great for decorating, holding it's shape well as it comes out of a icing nozzle.