Happy (after the holidays) Holidays!

It's a little late to be making a Christmas post, but I'm going to throw caution to the wind and do one anyway!! I had a wonderful Christmas and I hope all of you did, too. It was filled with presents, food, friends, food, love, and food. Did I mention FOOD?

I started out the holiday with a great friend of mine and her darling daughter teaching me their family cookie recipe. Though we ate most of the cookie dough before it even got into the oven, we did end up with some great cookies complete with icing and waaaaay too many sprinkles (courtesy of the cute little girl mentioned above and pictured below). It was a lot of fun!

Isn't that tiny rolling pin the cutest thing you've ever seen?

 

Yes, that is indeed a high heel cookie. Custom made!

The finished product. See what I meant about the sprinkles? :-P

The cookies ended up being adorable AND delicious!! Not to mention the cookies and frosting were made completely from scratch.

I then went on to take a crack at those 'made from scratch' cupcakes and frosting from the previous post again for a food party at work. They definitely turned out a lot better than the first batch.

LOOK! They aren't lopsided (well, a few still are) and they're all the same color!!!

Baking tip #5: Take a toothpick to the top of each batch of batter once poured into the cupcake pan to smooth them out. For some reason, and that reason I do not know, the batter is unevenly spread when just poured into the pan. Even when it looks like they're flat after pouring, they still bake lopsided. I poked the toothpick in the middle of the batter and spread it out in the liner. I was so pleasantly surprised that this worked.

Baking tip #6: This was definitely a "duh" moment for me but of course I didn't think of it during my first baking of these cupcakes. The instructions always say "12-14 minutes". I always put it on the lowest time just to be safe, but I guess my oven is SO different (old, crappy, other bad adjectives) that it bakes in less time than needed. I put them in for 10 minutes and then checked them. They weren't ready so I checked them every minute after that. They turned out to be perfect!!

 Then I added the frosting and sprinkles! YUM!

The frosting wasn't as runny as it was the first time I made it,

but it still wasn't the stiff, fluffy kind. Sigh, maybe someday. :(

Even though I was frustrated with my runny frosting, it was a great Christmas overall. What'd y'all bake for the holidays?!?

Until later,
Baker in Training

I'll leave you with this: the pups, waiting patiently for something to fall on the floor!

Made from scratch!

YAY!! I successfully created home-made cupcakes and frosting for the first time!! Now, when I say "successfully" I mean that I made some form of edible cupcakes and some form of edible frosting without a store bought mixture. I wish that by saying "successfully" I would mean that they were the most delicious things I've ever tasted, but sadly, I cannot. Don't get me wrong, they weren't the worst things I've ever tasted nor were they burnt or anything but they just weren't amazing like I hoped they would be. I had high hopes for my first time.... ;)

I also can't say that I mixed all of the ingredients without using a recipe. I don't think they would have turned out as okay as they did if I hadn't used one. I'm most certainly not at the "eye-ball it" stage. Before now, I didn't have a clue as to what even went into a cupcake or frosting mix. So, after some research, I found and used these two sites, Cupcakes and Frosting. Honestly, the only reason I chose them was because in each of those recipes I had all of the ingredients they called for. Some wanted canola oil, crisco, merengue powder (whatever the heck that is) or some other odd item that I would never in a lifetime have in my cabinet. Those recipes were simple and that's exactly what I needed for my first 'from scratch' baking experience.

So, though the cupcakes and frosting were okaaaay, (they passed the boyfriend test...although men will probably eat anything, right?), they were far from delicious. The cupcakes were dense and a little over baked, not to mention poured unevenly into the liners. I think my very old oven, hopefully my apartment gets an upgrade with the upcoming "renovations" they keep talking about, is hotter and bakes more unevenly than most because I put the cupcakes in for a minute less than what was recommended and a few came out more brown than the others. The cupcakes were also not as sweet as I would have liked...more sugar, please!! On the other hand, the frosting was TOO sweet and also runny. I put in all the right portions [plus about 5 more cups of powdered sugar to thicken up my frosting- bad idea?] and followed the recipes exactly and they still weren't that great.

Here are a few pics from my baking adventure-

First came the mixing (oohhhh, aahhhhh):

Taste test--Butter and sugar together is SO yummy! But, of course, I didn't taste the batter in the pic below with the raw egg (ewwwwww). 

Then came the finished product (yep, that quickly and without any mess, of course :-P):

See how uneven they are in both color and height?

See how runny it is?

One of these days, when I'm not a beginner anymore, I will try and post some baking How-To's. I know there are TONS of blogs out there (like this amazing one that I'm currently obsessed with: Bake at 350- her cookies are amazing and I will eventually tackle those) that have baking tips and tricks but I want to try it anyway. Right now I'm just trying to learn from my mistakes and trying not to repeat them the next time. Let's see how that goes.

Until later,

Baker in Training