No Recipe Today!

Okay so I know this is supposed to be a recipe blog, and a recipe blog it is! But some days I just want to share some really really neat things that I find, and share some websites that I love.  And today is one of those days! (: so bare with me and let’s get started!

First off, I want to talk about this wedding cake that my mom and I are making. I am so excited for it and having a lot of fun gathering all the items we need for it. All we need left really is the fondant, and we are going to use Satin Ice since it doesn’t taste like playdough. In the meantime I’ve been doing some practice cakes for flavours. So here is what the bride wants (I say only bride because the groom doesn’t even like cake, so he left it all up to her. how nice!):

-3 separate tiers of 16″, 12″ and 8″.
-They have a huge dessert table so she wants the 16″ cake to be fake, so styrofoam.
-The 12″ cake will be a tiramisu inspired cake. 3 layers: white cake brushed with kahlua/coffee mixture with mascarpone cream filling and then a moist chocolate cake (with a possible mocha layer in between the chocolate cake cut in half) and then more mascarpone cream filling and then another kahlua/coffee brushed vanilla cake layer. Frosted with a sweet buttercream and then covered in white fondant.
-The 8″ cake is their little take home cake, which is a lemon poppyseed cake. Layers of lemon poppyseed with a lemon curd and sweet buttercream filling. Frosted with sweet buttercream and again, covered with white fondant.

Now, for the decoration. On the 16″ and 12″ cakes, they are to be covered in white fondant. There will be black vertical stripes on both tiers, with a black bead border on top. In the middle there will be a black  fondant oval plaque with a small white bead border, and the bride’s name on the 16 and the groom’s on the 12.
On the 8″ cake, it will be covered in white fondant, with a black ribbon bow on the bottom third. But still with a black bead border on top and the plaque on top but with their last name.

Just in case you don’t understand, the picture at the top is a drawing I made in paint that took me a while…ha. I must say that I am not  fan of the new paint layout in windows 7! It’s all different and I don’t like it. Anyways, look up top to see!

So this is how it should look. In the beginning I thought the design was kinda ugly! Not gonna lie. But now after I drew it here, I think it looks okay. And kind of pretty! There is one thing that I left out though. The bride wants black daisies on the bottom of the 16″, and black eucalyptis on the bottom of the 12″, and I think that would make it too busy. I’m sure when it gets set up on the wedding day it will be nice.

There is one thing that my boyfriend has always asked me. In the future, if I had my own cakery (ha, my short form for cake bakery.) and someone asked me to do a wedding cake (or any cake) that I thought was really ugly and I was so not into it, what would I do? And this is my answer: If I really thought the design was something I wouldn’t do well for whatever reason, I would tell them that I didn’t think I was the right person to do their cake, and maybe recommend someone else that I thought would do a better job on it.

Okay this just turned into a huge jumble of words! And I don’t want to read over it to make sure there are no errors. Oh well!  I also just thought of a sweet name for my dream pastry shop! And I’m not telling (:

OH YEAH! the reason why I actually wanted to write this post in the first place is to share my love of CAKE STENCILS! ahhhh! I love them so much! I really really really want the Damask 5 tier stencil set and the lace 5 tier stencil set!!!! they are so cool! You can find them at www.designerstencils.com and I LOVE themmmm so much!

Happy Baking!

The Beginning: Salted Chocolate Cookies

I love to bake, I am an aspiring pastry chef and I have loads of recipes that are just laying around. So I decided to keep them all up to date and organized on the computer. And what better way to do that than to share them with the world at the same time?

This first recipe is one of my favourite cookie recipes. If you love the combination of salt and chocolate, these cookies are for you. They are packed with chocolate intensity and are soft! And they STAY soft! Enjoy : )

Ingredients:

1 cup of unsalted butter
1 cup of brown sugar, packed
1 cup of granulated sugar
2 tsp of good vanilla
2 eggs
2/3 cup of good unsweetened cocoa powder
2 cups of all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt

Directions:

Cream together the butter and the sugars until light and fluffy. Add the vanilla and the eggs one at a time and mix until well combined. Add the cocoa powder and mix. Sift together the flour, baking soda and salt and add to the chocolate mixture. If you are using a stand mixer, only let it go for a few seconds, then turn it off and switch to either a wooden spoon or a spatula. Do not over mix this batter or else your cookies will turn out semi-hard and cakey. Drop the cookie dough onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper or a silpat mat. I like to use a tool specifically for cookie dough, but an ice cream scoop works well too to assure you get even sized cookies. Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for 13 minutes. (The original recipe says 15 and no more, the cookies will seem underdone. I find 15 is too long in my oven and the cookies end up more like a flat hard cake. So just keep an eye on the cookies. They WILL seem underdone. When they come out of the oven and are still kinda hot I like to flatten them slightly with my full length of my (clean) fingers, I like the texture better this way and they end up more fudgey, and plus they get a fun little pattern on them.

These cookies are great to use for ice cream sandwiches, or to crumble over a sundae, or to just enjoy on their own with a cold glass of milk. Enjoy!

♥ Tara
(*the picture used is not mine, it’s just temporary until I make these later today and get to take a picture of them. The ones in the picture have white chocolate chunks in them. I’ve tried it and it’s yummy!)