Other Baked Goodies

Marbled Easter Cake with Rabbit Peeps and Easter M&M’s

April 17, 2014 by Jenn

Even though we’ve already made a bunch of Easter treats this year, I decided that this cake could NOT wait until next year. It is too cute to risk forgetting about in the file of “ideas” that I keep carefully organized . . . in my head . . . which is like a black hole- ideas are swallowed up, never to be seen again. Perhaps I should work on that.

When I first was practicing this cake, I could only find pink bunnies locally, so the side of the was cute, but it wasn’t as fun as it turned out to be with the multi-coloured bunny Peeps. With that said, if you can only find one colour of bunnies, just go with it. Brightly coloured marshmallows are happy no matter what colour they are!

Marbling a cake creates a beautiful effect inside the cake. In this case, the effect inside is bright, cheery and perfect for an Easter celebration, or a spring party! The neat thing about marbling is that if you change up the colours, you can customize the theme of the cake for any holiday celebration or party that you might be having.

I think this cake would be a fabulous thing to make with kids if you have any . . . borrow some if you don’t! That’s what I like to do. They could be involved in the marbling process and of course the decorating with M&M’s and Peeps!

Happy Easter!

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How to Make Royal Icing Daisy Cupcakes (Spring Cupcakes)

April 11, 2014 by Jenn

I don’t know about the weather where you are, but it has finally (fingers crossed) become SPRING here in Western Canada. To celebrate, Amber and I from SweetAmbs Cookies decided that we would make something “daisy” related on our YouTube channels.

For my tutorial, I decided to go with decorating cupcakes with royal icing daisies of different sizes. I thought that covering one of the cupcakes in mini daisies and having a second cupcake with one large daisy on it would be a spring-like way to put this design together.

Working with royal icing is not something that is too difficult, but it does take some getting used to if you’re just beginning. The most challenging part is learning about getting the consistency of the icing correct so that you don’t end up with flowers or other decorations that are weeping or falling apart. If you need help with making royal icing, or need a recipe, check mine out here. With that said, making these daisies is easier than more complicated flowers (roses etc) because you don’t have to worry too much about consistency. If you go with a stiffer icing, the petals will stand apart better, and if you go with a thinner icing, the petals may meet and blend together, either of which will work for daisies in my opinion.

Definitely take note that these, and any royal icing decorations, will need to have ample drying time. These ones, being that they are relatively thin, will take around 24-48 hours.

Other than learning to work with royal icing, these cupcakes are relatively simple to make, and result in a very pretty finished product. I think they would make a beautiful display if you were thinking of having a daisy wedding theme as well. Imagine all of these cupcakes spread out over a large cupcake stand . . . it would look like a beautiful garden of daisies!

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Filed Under: Cupcakes, Holiday Baking, Tutorials, Videos Tagged With: daisy flowers, daisy wedding, how to make royal icing flowers, royal icing, royal icing daisy, royal icing decorations, royal icing flowers, royal icing for cupcakes, SweetAmbs, SweetAmbsCookies, wedding, wedding cake, wedding cupcakes

How to Make Cadbury Creme Egg Cupcakes

April 9, 2014 by Jenn

Every Easter, I used to eagerly anticipate the arrival of Cadbury Creme Eggs on the shelves, but since they have become a year round feature in the chocolate aisle, the excitement has lessened slightly. Is this true where you are from? In the last couple of years, I have started to notice that there have creme eggs for every season! I guess when you have a good thing going, you want to capitalize on it!

Despite their availability year round, I will not eat them at any time other than Easter. RESIST THE CREME EGG! Now, that is willpower unheard of by me!! This year though, I found myself wanting a new way to enjoy the eggs! I think I had egg boredom.

So I thought, “why not put them in a cupcake for a new spin?! ” I knew the cupcake HAD to have a creme egg inside, flavoured buttercream, and another creme egg on top. And of course the cupcake flavour had to be chocolate. If you’re able to find Cadbury cocoa powder, you’re even better off for a “true” flavour match. I didn’t have THAT much luck, but I can’t complain, since like I said before, I can get creme eggs all year round!

If you have never had a Cadbury Creme Egg, I think you are totally missing out! But, these are one of those things that people feel strongly about: they either love them, or hate them! I will admit that they are very sweet, and usually make me cough (but I’m blaming the lingering effects of my chest infection for that this year). The outer shell is chocolate, and in the inside, there is a creamy smooth yellow and white filling.

The only “difficulty” with this recipe is figuring out what time to put the eggs into the baking cupcakes. I experimented with quite a few batches, before settling on placing a frozen egg into the cupcakes 15 minutes into the baking process. I tried putting the frozen ones in immediately, at the 10 minute mark, and found that those 2 times were too long for the egg and the creme filling would leak out of the melted chocolate. But, like I say in the tutorial, it will still taste good if it is melted.

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Filed Under: Cupcakes, Holiday Baking, Tutorials, Videos Tagged With: cadbury, cadbury chocolate, Cadbury Creme Egg Cupcakes, cadbury creme eggs, cadbury cupcakes, cream eggs, creme egg cupcakes, creme eggs

Giant Peeps Cake with Surprise Inside

April 5, 2014 by Jenn

Has the lead up to this cake been dramatic enough? I’m so excited to finally be able to share it with you! I don’t know what it is about Peeps, but they are the cutest things ever! I don’t like eating them AT ALL, but they are so fun to create with. I caught myself on a couple of occasions playing with them . . . “Um, what am I doing?” You can check those photos out on my Instagram account! Or don’t, it’s kind of embarrassing.

This is my first official “surprise inside” cake. I’ve done a couple of cupcakes that have hidden gems inside, but I’ve never done a cake. What I love about a surprise inside is that from the outside, you have no idea that there is something hiding underneath all the cake and icing. You can also choose to make this cake without the surprise and have it all be cake, but then you wouldn’t find all those cute Peeps faces gazing out at you on that first slice!

If you choose not to hollow out the cakes, it will definitely feed more people, so if you are looking to serve a crowd, make sure that you take into account that a lot of the cake is removed after baking. You might want to have some back up cupcakes or another small cake on hand if you have a hungry crowd.

The marshmallow buttercream that we use is absolutely delicious! It has a ton of butter in it, which makes it taste amazing, and also makes it super easy to spread. I’ve found that the higher the butter level, the easier the spread-ability of the icing! I’m also a scientist on the side, can you tell?

If you’re going to be making this cake and prefer to use box mixes, I have to tell you that I’m not sure if the box mixes will hold up in the bowl after the carving. Box mixes tend to be lighter, and weaker than cakes from scratch. I would worry that when you’re carving out the centre of the bowl cake, that you might have some problems with the sides collapsing. But, hopefully you don’t! If you try it with a box mix, and it works out, make sure you leave a comment about what you did to help it be successful!

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Filed Under: Cakes, Holiday Baking Tagged With: Easter Cake, easter peeps, Giant Peeps cake, Peeps, Peeps cake, surprise cake, surprise inside, surprise inside cake, surprise inside peeps cake, yellow cake

Pot of Gold Cake Pops for Saint Patricks Day

March 1, 2014 by Jenn

Happy March! Now that it is officially March, I can start thinking all things St Patrick’s Day! And all things Spring, but that is WAY too much to ask here in Canada. So I’ll stick to Leprechauns and Pot’s of Gold. I think that every kid has once thought that if they could just get to the end of that rainbow, there would be a gleaming pot of gold at the end of it. I’m still trying to find it, aren’t you? I think I’ll have better odds if I take up playing the lottery. Aren’t your odds of winning the lottery less than they are of being struck by lightning? I guess that means that my odds of finding a pot of gold are even slimmer than the lottery. Besides, playing the lottery is a lot less work! It’s mountainous around these ‘ere parts. It’s me and the lottery now.

Since now that I’ve given up trying to find the end of the rainbow, I’ll just have to stick with making a pot of gold!! Making these cake pops is pretty standard, but with a little twist of putting them upside down, voila, you have the rim of the pot!! Genius, I know. Since it takes the royal icing rainbow so long to dry, you might want to start with those a day early. If you can’t find black melting chocolate, you can also use brown. I tried brown in my practice versions, and it looked great too! Also, when it comes to the yellow sugar pearls, you can use any small round sprinkle/candy for the “gold”, or even just regular yellow/gold sanding sugar.

Have fun, and good luck searching.

I’m off to buy a lottery ticket.

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Filed Under: Cake Pops, Holiday Baking, Tutorials, Videos Tagged With: cake pop, gold, lucky, pot of gold, pot of gold cake pop, rainbow, saint patrick, Saint Patrick's Day, saint patricks day cake pop, st patrick's day, St Patricks, st patricks day cake pops

Dessert Fruit Pizza

February 16, 2014 by Jenn

The only thing that could possibly make pizza better than the greatest food it already is, is turning it into a dessert!! This pizza is not the ordinary kind; it has a shortbread crust, cream cheese and cinnamon sauce, and is topped with tons of fresh fruit!

We filmed this video while we were down in LA last week and it was quite the battle. We were all set up to go when a security guard pulled up and asked if we had a permit for filming where we were. We, said yes, YouTube knows we’re shooting here, and she said that it was not YouTube’s property that we were standing on. We were literally five meters from the YouTube parking lot in some bushy area. So, rather than attempt to fill out a form, pay a fee and wait for permission, we packed up and moved all of our stuff onto YouTube property. The parking lot to be exact. You have to love LA and it’s over abundance of requiring filming permits everywhere! The security guard was just doing her job, but the property line was so close, it seemed absolutely ridiculous at the time. So there we are in the parking lot, trying to have it not look like we were surround by asphalt and cars, and the wind starts blowing. If you’ve ever been outside and tried to talk on the phone when the wind is blowing, you’ll know that it’s next to impossible for the person on the other end to hear you. All they hear is “shsshshshshshshhshsh”. The same goes with microphones when you’re filming! So the wind was causing problems with the sound, and the wind also stirred something up that had my eyes burning and watering, nose running, and skin itching! It was ridiculous! In every shot I’m sniffing, I look like I’m scowling (but really I just can’t use my eyes) and I want to scratch my skin off. It sucked! Somehow we managed to shoot a video through all of this, and Paul did his magic and turned it into something watch-able. It took him DAYS to edit. I felt so bad, and so guilty!

The positive aspect to this shoot was that I got to work together with Maangchi! She is a legendary Korean chef and has a YouTube channel of the same name- Maangchi. She is the sweetest and spunkiest person you will ever meet! Make sure you check it out, subscribe to her and check out the random costumes/accessories she wears in her videos . . . she’s an inspiration to me to be more relaxed with my videos and to have more FUN. Earlier in the day, before the security guard incident, we shot a video for her channel called Kimchi Stew and she showed me the ins and outs of how to make it, which is a backpacking type meal in Korea. It was so good. Like, so good. I hadn’t ever had Korean food before as I don’t count the one time I have tried kimchi as “Korean food”. The stew was spicy, hearty and crunchy, which is unlike any stew I had ever had in Canada before . . . and it had fish in it.

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Filed Under: Backpack Baking, Other Baked Goodies, Tutorials, Videos Tagged With: Backpack Baking, dessert, dessert pizza, fruit pizza, pizza

Heart Shaped Valentine Chocolate Fudge Recipe

January 29, 2014 by Jenn

If you are a fudge connoisseur, I’ll be the first to tell you that this is NOT a recipe for you. If you are a fudge dabbler and want an easy, cute treat for Valentine’s, then this recipe IS for you! How do I know it’s not for fancy fudge eaters? I had a tester.

Serving up this recipe in my practice round was the first time that I have ever doubted how someone was going to react to something that I had made. I know I make good cupcakes and cakes- look at the size of me, I clearly enjoy them! But, when it comes to something like fudge, I don’t really like it. I love chocolate, but not fudge. It’s a glitch in my system. One of my coworkers LOVES fudge and so she was my tester for this recipe. While she enjoyed it, she admitted that it wasn’t like a true fudge where you need a candy thermometer and hard ball/soft ball stages. I’m going to search for a real fudge recipe and see how I do with that one day! But in the meantime, with all of my extra Valentine’s candy hanging around the house, this easy-cheater fudge is perfect!

You can substitute any colour of melting chocolate for this recipe but I love the pink! The more artificial the better, right? That’s what all the people on YouTube tell me when I make rainbow coloured cakes . . . ha. Ya, right. “Do you know how many chemicals are in those colors?” No, and I don’t care. It looks pretty!! Life is short. Live it colourful.

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Filed Under: Holiday Baking, No Bake Desserts Tagged With: fudge, pink fudge, pink valentine's fudge, valentine's day, valentine's day treat, valentine's dessert, valentine's fudge

How to Make a Heart Shaped Cake / Valentine’s Day Cake

January 25, 2014 by Jenn

For this cake you don’t need to have a special pan. Though that would have been funny . . . “Here’s how you make a heart shaped cake. Take you heart shaped cake pan….” Annnnnnnnnd….CUT! Video done.

I have a sad sense of humour.

But seriously, this is a really easy way to make a heart shaped cake without the special pan. Collecting all of the awesome shaped pans is a storage nightmare. I recently just sold over 20 shaped character pans because seriously, when am I going to use those and they take up SO much room! I saved a couple of my favourites though to make a couple videos with.

The strawberries on top of this cake add a beautiful pop of red to the cake, and I love the white/red contrasting colours. You could use any fruit though and I think it would still look beautiful. It would also make for a great wedding cake and you could theme the fruit with the colours of the wedding party! The possibilities are endless.

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Filed Under: Cakes, Holiday Baking, Tutorials, Videos Tagged With: cake, heart cake, heart shaped cake, heart wedding, heart wedding cake, how to make, how to make heart shaped cake, valentine, valentine dessert, valentine heart cake, valentine's, valentine's day cake, valentines cake, wedding cake

Marbled Easter Cake with Rabbit Peeps and Easter M&M’s

How to Make Royal Icing Daisy Cupcakes (Spring Cupcakes)

How to Make Cadbury Creme Egg Cupcakes

Giant Peeps Cake with Surprise Inside

Pot of Gold Cake Pops for Saint Patricks Day

Dessert Fruit Pizza

Heart Shaped Valentine Chocolate Fudge Recipe

How to Make a Heart Shaped Cake / Valentine’s Day Cake

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