Other Baked Goodies

3D Turkey Cake/Thanksgiving Cake

October 8, 2014 by Jenn

It’s about time I learned how to cook a turkey I say!! A turkey made out of CAKE that is!

Somehow Canadian Thanksgiving has managed to sneak up on me. While learning how to cook a turkey for a big dinner is honestly on my list of things I want to learn how to do, this year will not be the year! Paul and I will be furiously filming this weekend in order to be prepped and ready to go to Buffer Festival next weekend in Toronto! I’ll give more updates on that later.

This 3D carved turkey cake is surprisingly easy. The hardest part is having the patience to ice the turkey legs and wings. I found that freezing the cake “pops” worked well, and gave me a bit more time before the cake became soft, and was a serious problem to cover in buttercream. Carving the turkey shape is simple, and again, if you’re having difficulty with that, try freezing the cakes before starting to cut them. You will definitely want to freeze them if you are using cake mixes. The cake mixes are much softer and lighter than homemade cakes (as a rule) so carving them is super challenging.

I found the cutest “Peas and Carrots” candy from Jelly Belly on a recent trip to the States. I haven’t looked for them in Canada, but I’m sure they can be ordered online. I found that they were the perfect addition to the cake, as adding some colour seemed to be a must. If you can’t find the peas and carrots, making them yourself out of fondant, candy or modeling chocolate is also a possibility.

Another way I found to add colour to the cake was the addition of the bed of “lettuce” on the serving plate. This again is an optional step, but I think it really adds to the overall presentation of the cake. I used a simple petal tip, but you could do without a tip, and simply spread it onto the cake.

Whether you’re with or without your family near or far, I hope you all have a great Thanksgiving weekend!!

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Filed Under: Cakes, Holiday Baking, Tutorials, Videos Tagged With: 3D cake, cake, canadian thanksgiving, carved cake, food cake, fool cake, shaped cake, shaped turkey cake, thanksgiving, thanksgiving cake, thanksgiving dessert, thanksgiving dinner, turkey, turkey cake, turkey dinner

Gourmet Caramel Apples with Homemade Caramel

October 4, 2014 by Jenn

I’ve never made caramel apples before, and in fact, I’ve never even had a caramel apple. I’ve walked by chocolate shops a million times that had the fancy apples in the windows, but for some reason I have never bought one. I probably thought it was too healthy or something . . . all that fruit and all!!

When I first set out to make the caramel, I started out trying the pre-made caramel candies, and melting them down. I tried that 3 times, and had no success. I don’t know what I was doing wrong, but I had failed enough times that I said “Screw it!” and went to scratch! I should have known better and started there! The caramel is deliciously chewy and SO hard to resist dipping into it immediately, but it is HOT when it comes off the stove, so be careful.

Choose a great tasting apple to use for dipping. I went with Honeycrisp and I was worried at first that they would be too sweet with the caramel and chocolate, but they were perfect! When I took the apples to a work function, the thing that my coworkers liked best was the combination of flavours with the type of apple I had chosen.

Choosing which additional toppings to put onto the apples has endless possibilities! I chose three that I thought would make great combinations, but you can change them up however you would want to. My favourite of the three was the peanut butter one. I think it was because of the combination of saltiness of the peanut butter items and the sweetness of the caramel and apple! Whichever one you choose, they’re all delicious!!

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Filed Under: Holiday Baking, No Bake Desserts, Tutorials, Videos Tagged With: apple desserts, candy apple, candy apples, caramel, caramel apples, chocolate, chocolate apples, chocolate caramel apples, fall baking, homemade caramel, oreo apples, oreo caramel apples, oreo cookies, oreos, peanut butter apples, reese's pieces, reese's pieces apples, smarties, smarties apples

Homemade Cherry Pie Recipe

September 17, 2014 by Jenn

Until our videos last fall (2013) I had never baked a real pie before. Sure, I had used a premade pie crust, and premade filling, and called it a pie, but looking back, it really wasn’t. My adventures last year with Apple Pie and Pumpkin Pie had given me the courage to knead more dough and attempt a cherry pie! You can find the pie crust recipe in the Apple Pie video.

The thing about cherry pie is that I don’t (well, didn’t) even like it! I don’t know what came over me when I decided that cherry would be the flavour I would go with this fall. What I soon learned though, is that I had never had good cherry pie. Oh, man, when I had my first bite of this pie, I was in love. I find that artificial cherry flavour is one of the worst flavours there are- it brings be back to cough syrup as a kid (and that is not a good thing). Using real cherries for this recipe is a must in my opinion. If you’re stuck you can use canned cherries in a pinch. but I take no blame for pies made with canned cherries!

The sweetness and tartness of cherries can very greatly, so with this recipe, you can adjust the amounts of lemon juice and sugar accordingly. If your cherries are really ripe and sweet, lessen the amount of sugar. If your cherries are sour, lessen the amount of lemon juice, or add additional sugar. The recipe is pretty flexible that way.

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Filed Under: Other Baked Goodies, Tutorials, Videos Tagged With: Apple pie, cherries, cherry, cherry pie, Cherry Pie Recipe, Cherry Pie Recipe Filling, fall baking, homemade cherry pie, Homemade Cherry Pie Recipe, homemade pie, pumpkin pie

Giant American Flag Candy Bar for the 4th of July Dessert

June 28, 2014 by Jenn

The American’s are coming! The American’s are coming! My brother and his family from Minneapolis are coming! They’re “the American’s” in my world. I can wait to see them and celebrate Canada day AND the 4th of July!

Since we have family, friends and lots of viewers from the United States, I wanted to do another 4th of July video for all of them. Last year I did an American Flag surprise inside cake, so I knew topping that would be a challenge. What’s better than cake? CHOCOLATE!

In Canada we call small bars covered in chocolate “chocolate bars” but my research told me that in the States, they are called “candy bars”. They’re the same thing though. This candy bar uses my sugar cookie recipe for the crunchy base, and a chewy nougat for the top. Cover the entire thing in chocolate, and you have your own giant chocolate bar!! I found red and blue M&M’s easily (they come in the regular pack of M&M’s), but I had to order the white M&M’s off of Amazon.

I had never experimented with making candy before this recipe, so I was a little intimidated. Turns out, it’s only a lesson in patience! Watching the candy thermometer slowly climb seems as effective as watching paint dry. It takes a long time to get to 250F!! Ok, well, maybe it was only 10 minutes, but it seemed like a long time. The only caution I have is that the candy is HOT, so be careful.

Since this is a chocolate bar of sorts, I strayed away from my usual candy melts, as I wanted to have a true chocolate coating. Working with real chocolate (as opposed to the candy melts) is a little bit more tricky as the real stuff takes longer to solidify, so time in the fridge was necessary when I was shaping the sides to be vertical. Cover, swipe sides, fridge, repeat.

When you’re ready to serve your guests, slice off a piece of the candy bar, and each person will get their own American flag!

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Filed Under: Holiday Baking, Other Baked Goodies, Tutorials, Videos Tagged With: 4th of July, 4th of July dessert, American flag dessert, American Flag M&M, blue, candy bar, chocolate, chocolate bar, forth of July cake, forth of July dessert, red, red white blue, USA, USA bar, USA cake, USA dessert, white, white M&M's

Canadian Flag Cake for Canada Day (Surprise Inside Cake)

June 22, 2014 by Jenn

“The flag is the symbol of the nation’s unity, for it, beyond any doubt, represents all the citizens of Canada without distinction of race, language, belief or opinion.” Honourable Maurice Bourget, Speaker of the Senate, 1965

In Canada we celebrate our Nation each July 1. Our Canadian flag is a very simple design . . . red panels on each side of the flag, in the middle white with a red maple leaf in the centre. I THOUGHT this would be an easy cake to make. I thought wrong. Very wrong.

After the success of our American Flag cake tutorial that we put out for the Forth of July last year (2013), I knew that this year, I HAD to make one for my country! When I started out, I thought it would be super simple, and I would find success the first time out. Not-so-much. 6 practice cakes later, I had finally nailed it, and it was ready to be filmed for YouTube stardom!

I wanted a very distinct maple leaf in the centre of the flag, and with that, I caused myself a problem. The maple leaf kept coming out of the second bake missing sections of the leaf, or looking like a red blob. I tried cutting the maple leaves out of regular cake, using cakepop mix, and I tried prebaked sugar cookies, until finally, when I had almost given up, I thought I would try freezing the section I needed for cutting the leaves out. Thankfully, it worked!

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Filed Under: Cakes, Holiday Baking, Tutorials, Videos Tagged With: cake, Canada cake, canada day, Canadian cake, July 1, red and white cake, surprise inside, surprise inside cake

How to Make Chocolate Tacos

May 17, 2014 by Jenn

I thought that I liked tacos before I worked on this chocolate taco recipe.

I LOVE tacos now! Especially chocolate tacos . . . with ice cream, and sprinkles, and M&M’s, and chocolate chips, and marshmallows, and chocolate sauce . . . you get it!

When I was doing my research for this recipe, I encountered many recipes for hard tacos shells that were simply dipped into chocolate, and left to harden. I thought that those would be a great salty/sweet combination, but I wanted a taco with a FULL chocolate shell. This chocolate taco shell is so chocolatey that you need the ice cream combination to settle it down!! That is, if something being “super chocolatey” is a problem for you. I loved it.

Making the chocolate shells is a bit time consuming, but if you have an assembly line of set up prepared, you’ll be flying through the process. The chocolate shells harden and are relatively delicate, but most of mine stayed together and survived cracking. I only had one casualty . . . I missed the wooden spoon and it dropped into the bowl.

When dipping the shells into the melted chocolate make sure that you have a large container for dipping. I went immediately to sprinkles (because they make me HAPPY!), but I think that crushed up Oreo’s or peanuts would be delicious too! You could add peanut butter cups, or crushed Oreo’s as the toppings as well.

Try using frozen yogurt and fresh fruit if you’re looking for a more healthier dessert. Strawberries and bananas would go fabulously with the chocolate shells. There are so many possibilities!! Let me know in the comments section what flavour combination you would like best.

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Filed Under: Cookies, Other Baked Goodies, Tutorials, Videos Tagged With: chocolate, chocolate taco, Chocolate Tacos, dessert, dessert taco, ice cream, sweet taco, taco

Chocolate Covered Strawberries Bouquet for Mother’s Day

April 30, 2014 by Jenn

Mother’s Day is one of the most special days for all of the amazing women in our lives! If you are lucky enough to have a Mom like the one that I do, you are incredibly fortunate. My Mom and I recently starting working together and we are currently teaching the same grade, at the same school. Being that we both have the same last name, it’s a little tricky for the adults in the building, but our 5 year old students seem to understand the difference just fine. It’s quite funny actually. The adults seem to stumble over how to refer and differentiate between the two Kindergarten teachers, but the kids, just go with the flow and line up with the right person each day. Having this new working relationship with my mom has been very special, and it has allowed me to see the genius she has in her craft of teaching. She is an amazing role model to students, parents and to her colleagues.

I wanted to make her something special for Mother’s Day this year, and knowing that she loves chocolate and strawberries, I knew I had to turn them into a bouquet for her this year. Last year she got a cupcake bouquet, which she loved, but I know that when I make this again for her on May 11, 2014, she’s going to love it even more than she did her bouquet last year.

Gathering the skewers together in the centre of the vase was the only tricky part to this video. I used a twist tie to secure them in place, and this also helped to stabilize the structure. The length of the skewers can make standing the up can create quite a tilt in the vase, so make sure that your vase is secure before you abandon it on the counter!

The tutorial is very simple and can be done with kids of all ages. It is also a healthy alternative to other sweets that you might be inclined to make for Mom . . . not that there is anything wrong with that, but with the push for people to stay away from sugar lately, this is one of those tutorials that does just that!

I hope you have a great Mom in your life like I do, and that you take time to recognize the amazing woman that she is!

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Filed Under: Holiday Baking, No Bake Desserts, Tutorials, Videos Tagged With: chocolate covered strawberries, chocolate strawberries, chocolate strawberry bouquet, fruit bouquet, mother's day, mother's day bouquet, strawberry bouquet

Milk and Cookie Shots with Rainbow Chocolate Chips

April 19, 2014 by Jenn

Gone are my days of doing shooters at the bar . . . hopefully. As I get older, and somewhat wiser, I realize that the three day hangover (that started rearing it’s ugly head after 30) is just not worth it for a couple hours of intoxicated fun. It is now “fun” to stay home on a Friday night and get up early on Saturday morning feeling refreshed. You might as well pass me the Seniors menu.

So, what’s a boring 30-something girl to do for fun on a Friday night? Make Milk and Cookie Shots!

This recipe and procedure took me quite a long time to figure out. I tried making the shots with ice cream cones (fail ..very awkward shape). I tried pressing the dough around the outside of a shot glass (fail…it just fell off and made a puddle). And I tried to shape a piece of tin foil to form the shot around, but again, that was a fail. Basically, there are a lot of ways to be able to make these cookie shots, and you may find a better way for yourself, but this is the only way that I found to be successful each time I made them. With that said, I hope you find my version successful for you!

So if you’re not up for getting wild and crazy, make these next Friday night. You know I’ll be partying on my couch with you!

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Filed Under: Cookies, Other Baked Goodies, Tutorials, Videos Tagged With: chocolate chip cookie shots, cookie shot glasses, cookie shots, milk and cookie shots, milk shots

3D Turkey Cake/Thanksgiving Cake

Gourmet Caramel Apples with Homemade Caramel

Homemade Cherry Pie Recipe

Giant American Flag Candy Bar for the 4th of July Dessert

Canadian Flag Cake for Canada Day (Surprise Inside Cake)

How to Make Chocolate Tacos

Chocolate Covered Strawberries Bouquet for Mother’s Day

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