Cookies, Cupcakes, and Cardio

Bear Poop Cookies: Backpack Baking in the Canadian Rockies

October 22, 2014 by Jenn

It’s bear country here in the mountains of British Columbia, Canada. In fact, there was just a horrific grizzly attack recently, a couple of hours from our house. The man survived, but still, attacked, and mauled by a grizzly! Yikes!

This video is definitely one that is to be taken with good humour. We are having more fun with our videos, and I want you to have fun while you’re watching as well! Stepping outside the box (of our kitchen) keeps us interested, challenged, and hopefully adds an element to life that you might not see where you live. We are so lucky to live where we do, in the Canadian Rocky Mountains, and with our Backpack Baking series, we love to showcase our home turf!

This hike takes place on a local hike called “The Butte”, and it is located halfway between our city of Cranbrook, and the nearby one, Kimberley. It is about a 30-45 minute hike, and is one that can be done easily with kids, but when filming and hiking, it takes a couple of hours! Paul has recently started a new hobby, flying remote control aircraft’s (quadcopters, wings, planes etc), so we were loaded our backpacks up with the ingredients needed for baking, the quadcopter stuff, and the tools needed for the filming. It was a heavy load for the two of us. We need to hire a pack mule next time.

These bear poop cookies could be done a with a number of different add-in ingredients. I chose to use coconut, white chocolate chips, and pine nuts for optimal “poopness”. You could use other nuts, and ingredients if you prefer to have your scat look like something else. Black bears tend to eat a lot of berries around where we live, so the pine nuts were an essential add-in for my version.

Thanks to my mom for lending me her bear costume. Doesn’t everyone’s mom have a bear costume on stand-by for emergency bear videos? No? Oh. Well, my mom does! It must be the Kindergarten teacher in her. It’s her tickle trunk.

Devil’s Food Cake Halloween Cupcakes

October 19, 2014 by Jenn

I usually put my blog posts up when the video goes live in the mornings, but Paul and I have been fortunate enough to have spent the last four days in Toronto hanging out (and working) at Buffer Festival! Which means the Paul end of things (the video) was scheduled and ready to go before we even left, and the Jenn end of things (the blog post) was not. I apologize to those of you who wait to hear my insightful additions to our current video in the form of the blog. Thanks for that Mom. Actually, I don’t even think she reads it! She’s really great at sharing on Facebook though 🙂

The last couple days, and months, and pretty much year have been incredible ones for Paul and I. We are incredibly fortunate to have dream jobs as creators on YouTube. Neither of us had been to Toronto before, and I love it here! I love the shopping, I love the culture and I love that there is any kind of food you could imagine here! We had the most amazing Thai food right behind our hotel our first night here. I haven’t seen a cupcake though. It’s been a nice break from them. We attended the Buffer Festival Industry day on Thursday and set up a booth to serve our Pumpkin Spice Latte cupcakes. Make sure you check us out on Facebook and Instagram for pictures of all the fun things we did that day. On Friday we attended a couple of screenings; Rhett and Link, and Epic Meal Time. Rhett and Link seem like incredibly nice guys, and their screening was great to sit through. They showed the audience the evolution of their channel(s) and we even got to watch Monday’s upload ahead of time! It’s a great one! The EMT screening was a showing of a couple of episodes of their new TV series, Epic Meal Empire. It was great to see those guys in person as well, and I even met Harley on the street . . . and totally fan girled on him. I was supposed to be professional, but that didn’t happen! I’ve watched him for so long, that I was just honored to be able to talk to him. Last night we finished the night off with a creator party at the pop-up YouTube Space TO, and had a blast. Google always treats us incredibly well. At the party, we were in the company of amazingly talented people . . . to name drop unabashedly, my friends Harley, Rhett, Link, and Shay Carl. There were soooooo many others that I knew were amazing creators, but being so busy, I don’t have a lot of time to consume my own medium! This morning, with very little sleep, we headed off to YTSTO again, for a couple of workshops. One on Creator Development, which we have had before, but it’s always good to have a recap and check in, and then another presentation from Rhett and Link. They have created themselves quite the empire and they have so many exciting things in store- including a new morning show with women!

Anyway, that’s the long winded reason why my blog post is late. “Jenn,” you ask, “can’t you schedule your blog posts like Paul schedules the videos?” Yes, I can. But I can’t figure out our server’s time zone!

I’ve been wanting to do these devil cupcakes since last October. I wanted to do them last year, but we ran out of time. I figure waiting a year to see if I really like an idea is probably a good thing. If I still really liked it, then I would definitely make it. I don’t have any regrets when it comes to cake videos we’ve uploaded, but there are some ideas that looking back, I know I could have done them better. When I’m developing an idea/recipe, I want to make it as fabulous as possible. So when thinking about what would go well with a devil cupcake, devil’s food cake was the obvious choice!

The difficulty for this recipe came when attempting to dip the cupcakes. If you do not place them in the fridge, the buttercream is likely to plop off and fall directly into your red melted chocolate. Make sure it’s solidly set on the cupcake before dipping, or you’ll ruin your red chocolate like I did while practicing!

If you’re still with me and reading, thanks again Mom, I won’t take up anymore of your time . . . so here is the super simple video for how to make your own Devil Cupcakes.

How to Make Edible Fake Blood & Bloody Halloween Cupcakes

October 15, 2014 by Jenn

This idea is gross. There’s no way around that. If you don’t want to think about squeamish things, don’t keep reading! But, if you need something for Halloween that is disgusting, then this is perfect for you!

In this tutorial, I show you how to make edible BLOOD! If blood covered cupcakes doesn’t revolt you enough, then definitely add our Heart and Brain Cupcakes to your dessert buffet. The combo of the two cupcakes is sure to scare and frighten people away from eating them! Who needs a diet when you serve bloody, heart and brain cupcakes?!?

To make the edible blood, all you need is corn syrup, chocolate sauce and red gel paste. You can get away without the chocolate sauce, but it adds a bit of flavour to the mixture, rather than the pure sugar rush of just using the corn syrup. Don’t worry, you’ll still get a sugar rush from this combination, it will just taste better! Also, the chocolate tames down the brightness of the red gel paste, which makes for a more realistic blood colour. I don’t have a ton of experience when it comes to blood, but I do know that it’s not fluorescent red when it comes out of my mishaps. Adding a small amount of chocolate helps with that.

If you want to add an additional element of gore factor, fill the middle of the cupcakes with a bright red cherry filling that will burst out when you first bite into the cupcake. I’m sure that will be gross enough for the goriest, gore lover! Also, teaming these cupcakes up with “broken” fingers, and “blood” filled syringes, like we have in the final shot of the video, will help make for the perfect Halloween scene. If you can handle it, that is!

We have lots of other Halloween ideas up on our YouTube channel, so make sure you check out our Halloween playlist!

3D Spider Cake / Halloween Cake

October 11, 2014 by Jenn

This weekend we’re celebrating Thanksgiving up here in the great white north (Canada), but Halloween is already on everyone’s minds! I can tell because I’ve received dozens of requests for new Halloween recipe requests. We’ve done a number of treats over the last couple of years, so if you’re looking for more ideas, try these: Halloween Candy Bark, Spider Chocolate Chip Cookies, Heart and Brain Cupcakes, Halloween Cake Roll, Spider Web cupcakes, and a Black Velvet Cake!

This cake is a fun one to do as the inside of the cake is bright and the outside is black and spooky! You can pile the cake batter into the cake pans however you like, and I’ve shown a number of other ways to make marbled cakes, but this time, I tried something new, and made the cake by squeezing cake batter out of a piping bag. I found this way to be slightly less messy

Making the marshmallow web is super messy, but super fun as you can get the marshmallow’s anywhere and it looks good!! Washing up from the messy is surprisingly easy, and a little hot water and scrubbing is all you need!

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Filed Under: Cakes, Tutorials, Videos Tagged With: 3D, 3D cake, cake, Halloween Cake, halloween colors, spider, spider cake, surprise cake, surprise inside

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!!

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!!

Toffee Pecan Cake INSIDE a Pumpkin

October 1, 2014 by Jenn

Sometimes getting to be an old fashioned baker is just want I need to kick start myself again. I love making cake designs, but sometimes I miss the excitement of a new, flavourful recipe. Feeling the need to experiment with a new recipe, I went in search of a Fall way to spruce it up, after all, I can’t let down my followers on YouTube! They like exciting things!! So, with those requirements in mind, I came up with a Toffee Pecan cake INSIDE a pumpkin!

The toffee pecan cake itself is delicious. The flavour of the pecans and their crunch, combined with the crunch of the toffee bits makes for a delicious cake. You could put any kind of cake inside the pumpkin, but like I said before, I was really wanting to try out a new flavour combination.

Baking a cake inside a pumpkin takes a long time, and it can take an even longer time than “long” (haha,) depending on the size of the baking pumpkin. My pumpkins averaged between 5″-7″ and took between 1.5-3 hours to bake completely through. It will seem for the first hour or so like you didn’t put enough batter in, but the cake rises up through the top of the opening near the end. So, don’t fret like I did. I managed to refrain from adding more batter while the cake was in the oven though, and I’m glad I did. The cake ended up rising perfectly.

The cake stays incredibly moist, despite the amount of time it is in the oven. The pumpkin meat around the outside keeps the cake moist, and the foil wrapped around the outside helps with this as well. When taking the pumpkin out of the oven and off of the baking tray, be careful as it softens a bit while baking.

Finding baking pumpkins proved to be the most difficult task in this recipe. I had to travel to a nearby town, about a 30 minute drive from my home. It was to a market that specialized in local produce from nearby farms and orchards. The baking pumpkins are smaller, and therefore sweeter than a pumpkin used for a jack-o-lantern.

Rubik’s Cube Cake – Surprise Inside Cake!

September 27, 2014 by Jenn

Rubik’s cube has been around longer than I have been alive, but it’s still a popular toy that exisits in many stores. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that, and was quite shocked to be able to find one in the store on my first try.

The point of the Rubik’s cube puzzle, is to have each side of the cube (9 squares) be one solid colour. You have to do that without taking off the stickers!! Unfortunately the new cubes don’t have the stickers, so there is no cheating by way of the 80’s!

I’ve never had the luck of being able to solve it, but in all honesty, I haven’t really tried. I made this cake because I think it looks cool!! I know there are genuis’ out there that have actually tried to solve the puzzle and CAN solve it! I applaud you! Apparently, the current World Record is held by a gentleman in the Netherlands and is attempt was completed in 5.5 SECONDS!!! I can’t even imagine how he could do that!! It takes me 5 seconds to figure out how the thing moves.

Making this cake is a little time consuming, but the WOW factor when your guests cut into it will definitely cake it worthwhile! You can prepare your cake batter ahead of time, as well as prep your fondant squares. The cake batter should be coloured in the colour theme of the Rubik’s cube- red, orange, yellow, white and green. The fondant squares work best if they are a little bit pliable, but I ended up putting on some that were rock hard, and they worked fine too. The hard ones don’t mold to the side of the cube as well, so some of the corners stick out.

When you’re lining up the rectangles to make your cube, make sure you’re paying attention to the side the will have the 9 blocks shown when the cube is cut. Otherwise, if you cut on the wrong side, you will be shown only three rectangles. Other than that, making this cake is pretty fool-proof!! Unlike the Rubik’s cube itself.