6/22/11

Ice Cream Adventure

One day I realized Kitchenaid made an ice cream maker attachment and immediately needed to get my hands on one. I decided I was going to make a new batch of ice cream every week! I was flagging and printing all kinds of ice cream recipes while patiently waiting for my Amazon.com shipment.

When it came, I immediately put it in the freezer and read the instructions. I couldn't wait to try it out.
Then... it sat in the freezer for a few weeks. Doh!

Finally one night I had some free time and decided to make Kelly Neil's Baskin Robbin's-Style Chocolate Peanut Butter Ice Cream. My very first batch.
Isn't she pretty?
 
She wasn't so pretty earlier. My advice- make sure when you're asked to bring the ingredients to a rolling boil that you keep a close eye and a quick hand on the saucepan. Or else your stove top will look like this:

After that mess is cleaned up, the fun part begins. Just sit back and let it whir.

I didn't let the boiled mixture chill long enough and plus I lost a bit when it boiled over but I was still pretty happy with the tasty end result.

from Kelly Neil

2 Cups Heavy Cream
1/2 Cup Sugar
1/4 Cup Cocoa
pinch of salt
1/2 Cup Creamy Peanut Butter
1-2 Tbsp Powdered Sugar

1. Whisk cream, coca, sugar and salt in a saucepan to a full roiling boil (should be foamy) - chill
2. mix PB and icing sugar together (adjust amount of icing sugar to taste - I used 2 Tbsp)
3. Churn chocolate batter in an ice cream maker
4. In a container, layer churned batter with dollops of PB - freeze

Enjoy!

6/12/11

Hello Kitty Party Toppers

I was asked to create a custom Hello Kitty themed cake/cupcake combination for my good friend's goddaughter's 4th birthday. I was going to be out of town celebrating my own birthday and wasn't going to be able to bake her something fresh so I designed these fondant cuties to be applied to plain baked goods.


An 8" round purple fondant cake topper with hand-cut fondant details and sugar pearl accents was accompanied by 20 pink and purple Hello Kitty cupcake toppers. I used edible food coloring markers to draw on some extra highlights.

 
How perfect did the cake match the birthday girl?? Couldn't have worked out better!

6/8/11

Frog Lover Cupcake Toppers

I made these shippable fondant cupcake toppers at the request of a client's husband. He wanted to surprise his wife with something sweet for her birthday and requested a frog theme stating that "she collects anything frog related." I can relate... I am the same way with owls. Is it a coincidence that her birthday is the day before mine? Maybe collecting animal trinkets is a Gemini trait...


Pardon the picture quality- I'm going to be working on taking better photos. I usually take a few cell phone shots as I'm making things and then I sometimes forget to take better photos when I'm through. Plus, there's next to zero natural light in my apartment. Dragging cakes out to the park isn't very practical and photographing them on the fire escape sounds like a disastrous idea so we'll have to deal with the low quality images for now...


Cute, happy frog hopper toppers with gold dragees. Shipped with love.


Hippity Hoppity Birthday!