ShortBread

Some late night shortbread cookies made with girl friends Michelle and Jessica.

I wanted a chance to whip out my new cookie stamper.

The stamper made them too big but over all they turned out pretty well.

We made three flavours Vanilla, rasberry and chocolate chip

The raspberry were my favorite and I highly recommend adding a drop of extract next time you make shortbread.

I think they look like soap...but in a good way.

Macaron Miracle!

Oh my gosh!

After my macaron disaster last time, I had lost faith in my ability to ever conquer them. But tonight after getting frustrated with real work, I decided tonight, I was going to conquer something.

And I did

 Mint Chocolate Macaron

Not only did i few scrumptious cookies turn out, but every single one!

Now that I've done it once I can try experimenting with flavours.

Cake of Thrones

Thought I would try my first two tiered caked for a "Game of Thrones" inspired potluck.

My Boyfriend and I had a tender moment icing this cake late at night. 

I have to credit him with the building of the actual throne out of chocolate.

...And piping the snowflakes, while I nattered about where and how I wanted them.

Chocolate Coffee Cake, With Coconut Cream filling and Vanilla Icing

Cupcakes

Cupcakes I made for an Outreach Event at Sheridan College

I was asked to make a variety of thing but the cupcakes are by far the cutest

Vanilla and Chocolate Cupcakes, with Vanilla Frosting

I Love left overs, especially when they look like this!

Vanilla Cupcakes, With left Over Vanilla Frosting in left over colours.

Cake decorating

My mum and I just finished the Wilton Cake basics Course.

Here is out final attempt to decorate a cake.

The first cake is my decorating. It is a chocolate coffee cake with coffee cream filling.

I was really trying to avoid the "bought at the grocery store look" so I free handed some paisley designs instead of loading it with buttercream.

Chocolate Coffee Cake

This second cake my mum actually decorated. But I'm posting it because I baked the actual cake, and made the icing.

The cake is classic chocolate chocolate.

Chocolate Chocolate Cake

When were designing the second cake, we kept attempting to make roses hoping some would turn out nice enough to put on the top. However being unsuccessful at piping roses, we settles for our strengths and did the drop flowers instead.

Chocolate Poopies

After the challenge of Macarons I wanted to make something safe. 

So I made a family favourite, No Bake Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Cookies. However at my house they are known more commonly as Chocolate Poopies.

They are delicious and  take the skill level of Rice Krispies Squares to make.

 

Chocolate Poopies

 Here is the recipe, by request of John. 

It make about 2 dozen cookies

Ingredients:

• 2 cups sugar
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/2 cup cocoa
• pinch salt
• 1/2 cup butter
• 1 cup peanut butter
  

• 1 tsp. vanilla

• 3 cups quick-cooking oatmeal
  
  

  Preparation:

  In large saucepan, combine sugar, milk, cocoa, salt, and butter and mix well. Bring to a boil and cover saucepan for 30 seconds to allow steam to wash sugar crystals down sides of pan. Stir mixture and bring it to a boil that can't be stirred down for 1 minute. Then remove from heat and stir in peanut butter and vanilla until smooth. Add oatmeal and mix well. Do not use regular or instant oatmeal; quick-cooking oatmeal is essential to the success of this recipe.
  Let the mixture stand for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally to let the oatmeal absorb some of the liquid.
  Drop mixture by spoonfuls onto waxed paper or parchment lined baking sheets or Silpat sheets. Let cool until you can touch the mixture; then reshape the cookies to make them more a ball shape. Let cool completely; store tightly covered at room temperature.
  
  

Macaron Mayhem

My first attempt at macarons, and it was a much more delicate process then I imagined.

 First of the batter is so runny the why I tried putting them in piping bags the batter just ran everywhere. I even had three helpers holding bags, scraping and scooping for me.

 I made three flavours, Mint, blueberry, and raspberry.  Overall they tasted amazing. They just need help in the beauty department.

They were all sloppy mishappen except for 1!

Mint Coconut Macaron

Pumpkin Cheesecake

Extremely successful recipe I got from Anne Olson

Really light and creamy pumpkin cheesecake, with a brown sugar crust and egg yolk and cream swirl.

I used a chop stick to swirl the cream and make the pattern on the top.

Pumpkin Cheesecake

Taro Chiffon Cake

I love taro, and when I was invited to a Chinese New Year Potluck, I jumped at the chance to try this out. 

Taro Chiffon cake, dyed extra purple and topped with Taro frosting swirls.

I couldn't find any Taro icing recipes so here is the one I made up on the fly, and it turned out pretty well. It's not to sweet and still maintains the potato-ish flavour.

Ingredients

1 1/2 cup Taro (cubed)

2 cups icing sugar

1/4 tsp vanilla

1 tbsp butter

1-2 tbsp milk or cream

Process

Boil the taro until soft enough to mash. Drain and beat with butter, milk and vanilla until firm but smooth. Slowly add icing sugar until desired sweetness. If it becomes to stiff add milk until it loosens.

Taro Chiffon Cake

Quick Mini Sponge Cake

Made muffin sized cakes one night to use up left over condensed milk

Simple Vanilla sponge cake, sprinkled with pondered sugar.

Vanilla Sponge Cake

My First New York Style Cheesecake

This cake was an emotional ride. I've never had such a nail biting experience watching the oven window and praying for it to bake properly.

My friend Michelle's, favourite dessert of mine is my quick and easy fruit tart, so for her birthday I wanted to supersize and make a large, creamy, fruit filled cheesecake.

The recipe called for a 9x13 dish, but being the avid baker I am I wanted to get good use out of my cheesecake: drop bottom pan. (bad idea) the size and shape meant it took my cheesecake twice as long to cook, and me turning to my friend Amy for emotional support on facebook. 

The cake recipe has a graham cracker crust and is loaded with Philadelphia Cream Cheese.  It also has a cream cheese and heavy cream sauce and is then finished off with strawberry reduction, fresh strawberries, kiwis, and blackberries

New York Baked Cheesecake

 

Double Layer Chocolate Cake

This for week 2 of the decorating class. 

Our homework for this week was to bring a double layered, filled, but un-iced cake. I made two cakes - one chocolate and one vanilla, filled with a white chocolate centre. 

My mum, who is taking the class with me ended up frosting the chocolate cake and putting the little ink stars on top out of buttercream. I decorated the vanilla cake the same way as shown.

Double Layer Chocolate Cake with Vanilla Icing

Double Chocolate Tarts

My friend Michelle was craving chocolate tarts from Second Cup, so I decided to take on the challenge to make some myself! But healthier ;)

We ran to the store and bought chocolate cookies, scraped off the frosting and crushed them in a food processor to make the tart crust. We carefully moulded each cup in a muffin tray.

We topped it with whipped cream and melted a sheet of chocolate to break it up into leaves to decorate the tarts. We topped each with a chocolate covered blueberry.

They turned out delicious but VERY decadent and I hope to do it again sometime!

Cupcakes!

 Here are some cupcakes I've made in the past few months!

Halloween Red Velvet cupcakes decorated by my boyfriend, Mike

Chocolate Coffee cupcake with Avocado Lime icing

Red Velvet cupcake with Cream Cheese frosting for Amy's birthday!

Vanilla cupcake with Vanilla frosting with help from Michelle!

Double Stack Cheesecake

An old experiment I tried a year ago by creating something new from two of my favourite recipes.

It has a baked Japanese cheesecake base and a simple refrigerator cheesecake cream topping.

 

The cake was so rich I decided to top it with fresh fruit. 

For those of you who don't know, a refrigerator cheesecake is a cheesecake that doesn't need to be baked because it has no eggs in it.

Chocolate Coffee Cupcakes

Entering week three of a Wilton Decorating course at Golda's Kitchen in Missisauga, ON!

So far it's been an amazingly fun experience, for more info please visit them online!

 This week we were asked to bring in six un-iced cupcakes to decorate in class.

I chose to make a rich chocolate coffee cake batter, with some cayenne pepper thrown in for a kick.

 

The decorating portion was done in the class.

We made the leaves and flowers from butter cream frosting. It was a lot of fun to do, and overall I think it was successful and I would definitely do this recipe again.

Welcome!

Hello and welcome to my baking blog!

My name is Laura, a fourth year student studying Animation at Sheridan College, and I love to procrasti-bake! 

I bake and try new recipes each week and I also love to decorate them.

Please visit back each week to see updates! See you soon!