Happy Kansas Day!

While working on a story about Kansas Day events the other day, I noticed on the Kansas sesquicentennial website that it was challenging Kansans to bake a cake for Kansas Day. So, I did. Of course. I made this how-to video to go with it and did a write-up for the LJWorld. The method and recipes are there, but basically this is a yellow cake with fudge frosting and a sunflower on top. It turned out great, and after a day of video editing, I made this. So, happy Kansas Day!

Daring Bakers' challenge: Biscuit Joconde Imprime around an Entremet

The January 2011 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Astheroshe of the blog accro. She chose to challenge everyone to make a Biscuit Joconde Imprime to wrap around an Entremets dessert.


When I first heard of this challenge, I was pretty intimidated. I had never heard of such a thing. Turns out it's a pretty fun dessert that's incredibly customizable. The biscuit jaconde imprime was a flat almond cake that you poured the batter of over some designs made of pastry cream. That cake became the outer rim to hold a filling, or the entremets.


Aunt Betty and I had a few problems, mainly in that the pastry cream we made hardly turned out. We had to thicken it a LOT, which meant the cake baked a little funny and the pattern became less crisp. I decided to ignore the fact that there was lots of snow outside and make this a nice summery key lime entremets filling. So we had the almond cake around the edge, then made a nice graham crust for the bottom. Then a layer of key lime filling, a layer of more graham cracker crumbs, then more key lime. Our last problem was I was too impatient to wait for it to set completely. But it was so darn tasty I just wanted to try it!

I want to make this again when I'm more patient and work out the pastry cream recipe better. It's definitely provides limitless options for customization, and I think would make a pretty snazzy birthday sweet for a friend!

2010 baking goals recap

So back in August, I gave myself some goals. I'm one of those kinds of people who really struggles without a constant in my life. For the last 17 years, I'd had school there to pace my life, with homework to come home to and breaks to plan vacations for. I knew that when I left school, I would get really bored really quickly without some goals. I wrote this post to give myself eight baking goals to complete before the end of the year. Granted, I'm a little late writing about it, but here, in pictures, are my seven of eight goals. I failed on one...whatever.


1. Macarons. I actually made these a couple times, once with Aunt Betty and once at Mom's in Michigan. I got reallllly tired of egg whites by the end of this goal. Maybe this year I will experiment more with flavors, but for now, I'm happy not beating egg whites.

2. Jayhawk cake pops. This is the goal I failed on. I only recently perfected just plain old cake pops, so shapes are coming soon.


3. Fondant-covered cake. Okay, so it's only a fondant bow, but it was still covered on top with the fondant bow. This cake was for Grandma's 90th birthday party, and she loved it. I will try more fondant work later, but this bow dyed my fingers pink for about a week, so I will go for a different color next time.


4. Maple leaf candies. While these aren't leaf-shaped, this maple fudge ended up tasting exactly like those leaf candies I love...like pure maple-y sugar.


5. Marshmallows. I've made these a couple times now. This first time was just for fun, and the second to give as gifts with Grandma's famous hot chocolate mix. Perhaps I should try some flavored ones soon.


6. Buche de noel. This tasty French tradition is something Aunt Betty and I tackled, and it was so worth it. It's my first jelly roll-style cake, and I know I will be making plenty more. Giant Swiss roll, anyone?


7. Doughnuts. I've actually made three styles now: apple cider, chocolate glazed and maple glazed. What I've learned? Oil is very temperamental.


8. Frosted sugar cookies. I gave this to myself as only a partial goal, but then it became a Daring Bakers' challenge, so that was perfect. Aunt Betty and I made the cookies and did the icing all in one day, and that took a LONG time. Not doing it again any time soon.

So seven of eight isn't too shabby. Coming in the next couple days: my new baking goals for this year.

Tiramisu cake, candied almonds and champagne cupcakes

First, I have a few fairly exciting announcements. I'm going to be on TV, doing my baking thing. More on that later, though. Second exciting announcements: last week's Sour Patch Kids cupcakes were wildly successful online. They made Foodgawker and Tastespotting. They made the blog Cupcakes Take the Cake, which I've never been on. A Martha Stewart Twitter account retweeted my post. I got reblogged on Tumbler. A few other blogs reblogged it (TipJunkie and Ediblecrafts), and Bake It Pretty included it on a post. I'm pretty darn excited after that. Third exciting announcement: I'm a real person now. As in, I got moved to dayside. That means I get weekends off. I think only someone who's worked nightside at some point really realizes how monumental this is. Granted, I've never been (and probably never will be) a morning person, but it's amazing how much time I have to do other things after work. Like go to the gym. I have a new goal to go every day after work, except for today, of course, when there was a snowpacalypse. Still got my workout shoveling the driveway, though. I'm also starting to watch The Wire, about an episode per night. And I get to do stuff with friends at night after work. I'm pretty darn excited to have a life.


One of my night-time friend nights resulted in this tiramisu cake. I like taking requests for desserts because it presents me a challenge. Brianne requested tiramisu, and since I didn't feel like making homemade ladyfingers, I went with this cake I'd seen. Two layers of white cake soaked with a coffee syrup with a mascarpone-whipped cream filling and chocolate chips and we have a very tasty cake, even for someone like me, who doesn't like coffee.


Part of this going to the gym thing is also monitoring what I eat. I'm a snacker, and being at work during the day means I get pretty hungry. These candied almonds were the perfect portion-controlled sweet for work — that is, until the Girl Scout Cookies were delivered. Oh well, it worked for a couple days.


Finally, my exciting TV news. I'm going on Jayni's Kitchen, our local station's cooking show. Via some people at work, Jayni heard about this blog. She saw the champagne cupcakes I did for the holiday cupcake challenge and asked me to do those for the Valentine's Day episode. I had to test the recipe again, just because I improvise a lot and had to nail down amounts for the recipe she'll post. So I tape on Monday and then the episode will air the first time on Tuesday, Feb. 8 at 6:30 p.m. on Channel 6 here. I'm hoping to get a video of my segment to post on here. I'm pretty nervous; I'm sure I'll make a fool of myself. Here's hoping I don't!