Thanksgiving - A Bit Delayed

It now feels like we're close to Christmas and Thanksgiving is well in the past, but I had some pictures from the desserts I made that I wanted to share. The dessert menu started off even more ambitious, but when I realized we were only having nine people for dinner, I scaled it back so that everyone didn't have to eat two whole pies each.

The whiskey apple pie

On the menu was apple pie (my favorite recipe from the Baked cookbook), salted caramel ice cream, and pumpkin cupcakes. Apple pie is my favorite type of pie (and apparently my father's least favorite). This was the very first time I made my own pie crust, and I'm not sure why I haven't tried it sooner. As long as you have a food processor, it's so easy. The Baked pie recipe calls for a tablespoon of whiskey, so on the morning of Thanksgiving, I had the bottle of Scotch out on the counter. Every single person who came down the stairs felt the need to question me whether that was what I was drinking for breakfast.

Salted caramel with salted caramel ice cream

I almost tossed the ice cream after I cooked the custard on the stove. It seemed lumpy and like it was not going to turn into a good finished product. My mom convinced me to just strain it one more time and put it in the ice cream machine (one of my favorite impulse purchases we've ever made). Moms are so smart. After coming out of the machine, it was a really beautiful texture - very smooth and rich. I made it with a salted caramel I had made the day before (also from the Baked cookbook). There was extra caramel sauce left, and everyone ended up pouring it over all of the desserts.

Pumpkin cupcakes

The pumpkin cupcakes were as delicious as they always are. I had really wanted to make all the desserts for Thanksgiving. At one point, I was even talking about making the chocolates that we serve with fruit course, but that plan had to be scrapped when I realized there was just not enough time to do everything, especially since I was going out to the bars Wednesday night. My dad apparently didn't know the plan was for me to make everything, and he ordered a cheesecake from someone who was selling them at his work. All throughout the dinner, I talked trash about the cheesecake. By the time dessert came, no one would touch it, I think out of fear that I would throw a fit at the table. I ended up feeling bad that the only person who ate a slice was my dad, but fortunately my mom was able to reserve it a couple nights later at a holiday gathering she had. Sorry, Dad! For Christmas don't be ordering any outsider cakes!!

My sister with a cupcake - Meliss, you finally made the blog!
(Eric, hold your comments)

My 25th Birthday Party

Mini pumpkin cupcakes

On November 17, I turned the age that when I was much younger I considered to be officially "old" - twenty-five. I was not psyched to be passing this age milestone, so I decided to deal with it in my favorite way - plan a big party. With the party to look forward to, I happily started planning all of the details of the party - most notably the desserts.

Center of the top cake tier

I decided I really wanted a birthday cake - like a big birthday cake. I've been really wanting a Wall-E shaped cake, but decided it didn't really fit with the theme I was going for. The color scheme was purple - my favorite color, and I decided to go all out.

Top chocolate cake tier

From the outer space order I did, I used the remaining pumpkin spice batter to make two dozen mini cupcakes in bright purple liners. Once I topped them with cream cheese frosting, I sprinkled them with purple sugar.

Cakes chilling in the refrigerator with the party beverages

The next piece of this was the cake. I baked a 6 inch chocolate cake that I filled with chocolate frosting and chopped Reese's. I then covered it with more chocolate frosting. The 9 inch cake was vanilla bean, frosted and filled with vanilla frosting. After refrigerating both cakes, I covered them in a lavender fondant. The cakes were then refrigerated again. I stacked them using wooden dowels as support in the 9 inch cake. Then I painted the cakes with an edible sparkly paint and wrapped a darker purple ribbon around the bottoms of both cakes.

Sugar cookies set up on the table

I also made some sugar cookies cut into circles. These were iced with royal icing and covered in purple sugar. Everything came out really well and looked really nice set up. The party was as much of a success as the desserts were.

Side view of the table

These Cupcakes Were Out of This World

White chocolate spaceships

Really terrible subject line, I know, but the second order I had last week was for five dozen assorted flavors for a surprise 30th birthday party. The birthday boy is apparently a big fan of all things outerspace related, so I brainstormed with his fiance to come up with cupcakes to reflect this. She was able to find a chocolate mold online of tiny spaceships, and I used this to make white chocolate rockets.

Box of space cupcakes

The flavors of the cupcakes were red velvet, cookie dough, chocolate Oreo, vanilla, and pumpkin spice. On the pumpkin and vanilla, I piped a swirl of dark blue frosting and sprinkled some edible gold glitter and silver dragees over top before putting on the spaceships. I thought these looked pretty cool, although again I had the same issue with the edible glitter migrating all over my face when I accidentally touched it. I looked like Edward stepping into the sun (geeky Twilight reference there...).

Close up of the space cupcakes

I Love Fall (And Apparently Pumpkin)

I know I've been negligent with my blogging lately; things have been very busy for me and hopefully within the next few weeks, I'll have a very exciting announcement to make which will explain partially what I've been up to.

My baking rack is set up for Halloween - I love those cake plates Kate gave me

With that out of the way, last week I made pumpkin spice cupcakes. Having never had pumpkin anything before, I was fairly confidant that I wouldn't like pumpkin, so I decided to make these to bring to work. With such frequent baking, it's hard to avoid gaining weight and I'm trying to do the best I can. Thus, I figured it would be best to make something I wouldn't be tempted to eat 10 of. This plan clearly backfired because pumpkin is apparently delicious. I know I've said this before, but I really think these were the best cupcakes I've ever made.

In the cupcake carrier

The cupcakes were a pumpkin spice cake I adapted from this Martha recipe. I paired it with a simple cream cheese frosting. While these were in the oven, my entire kitchen smelled like fall, which is my favorite season. The cake was incredibly moist, which probably has something to do with the pumpkin. It was a really wet batter, which I was initially concerned about, but it baked beautifully. You can bet these will be on my table for Thanksgiving this year.