More Birthday Baking

I enjoy making people desserts for their bdays :D. A couple weeks ago was Camilo's and due to the fact that he is totally amazing and that I feel endlessly guilty about my mass imposition on his living space, I definitely wanted to bake him delicious. He was very not picky and just requested some type of "cupcake," so I tried to choose something beyond awesome: cinnamon coffee cake. 

I am a huge proponent of anything snickerdoodle, so I was very confident in the choice. Things were going well, the recipe itself is pretty easy to follow. I am always careful to pick stuff on all recipes that is from scratch because it seems lame to me to doctor a cake mix :p. The batter was very yummy, and as I put the cakes in the oven, I was already congratulating myself on being awesome. 

Even though the recipe didn't call for it, I thought it would be a great idea to add on cream cheese frosting... because let's be honest, cream cheese frosting is pretty much never a bad thing. I found a simple recipe for the spread and whipped some up. Then I got inspired, why don't I make it cinnamon cream cheese?! How could this go wrong?? >: |. 

DO NOT PURCHASE

My mom always sends me giant boxes of random crap that I have nothing to do with. One such item was a Walmart's own "Great Value Imitation Cinnamon" extract. It came in a small bottle similar to vanilla. I was like, hey, why not? Faiiiiiiil. After a couple drops of this stuff, the whole room smelled like nasty fake cinnamon crap. I freaked out and tasted the large bowl of frosting... but the flavor had already penetrated the entire batch. I started adding in mass amounts of powdered sugar and regular cinnamon to counteract the flavor, but like nothing was working!! It was a tough battle, and I didn't decide to give up until the cupcakes were totally cooked and cooled. 

At first I thought that maybe it would be ok so I frosted the first cake. The smell alone made me know it was not worth it, and I decided to leave the rest dry. I had some cute little sugar decorations for them, so I risked using a drop of the frosting on each to glue them on. Even that was too much!!

All the frosting issue aside, the cupcakes were REALLY tasty :). They were very soft and home-made feeling. It was a terrific light cake with a subtle but very noticeable cinnamon-sugary flavor. I would definitely make these again any day, and this time be less ambitious with the frosting :P

Birthday Baking

I figured I'd also start recording my baking/cooking adventures :). This weekend I promised Katelyn I'd try to make her some gourmet cupcakes as a post bday present. She doesn't actually like gourmet cupcakes, so I had to try to stealthily pick a regular recipe with some exotic twists. Other problem was she likes choco cake which I freaking hate! Such a dilemma :S

cream cheese, sugar, egg & choco chips

Since cream cheese makes everything good, I settled on this Creamy Chocolate Cupcake recipe. It was really simple and straight forward- easy for anyone. You basically just add all the stuff in a bowl, and put it in the oven. The one interesting ingredient I found (and spent 20 mins in Safeway searching for...) was vinegar! Not sure what it did, but I think it had a positive effect.

I was really surprised when I tasted the batter, because it was DELICIOUS! My favorite part of baking is licking the bowl, and I was most certainly not disappointed.

The cream cheese filling also was awesome to lick, but since it contained mostly raw egg, I only let myself spoon out a little :(

they kind of looked like fudge :D

I was really excited about the way they looked going in to the oven! And I was lucky and they cooked perfectly

The end result was good :). It ended up being more muffin-like than cupcakey, but it was still awesome. Basically a light chocolate cake/muffin with a gooey fill/top and walnuts. I actually initially planned on making an additional chocolate glaze to put on top, but after seeing them cooked, I thought it would be overkill.

mmm final product!

Only complaint was that they could have been squishier. I was impressed I made a choco cake that I enjoyed though. Sharon win!!

Token Bakery Visit

Being Sharon I had to hit up a bakery. I actually was very set on finding one that was similar to Meryl Streep's in "It's Complicated," but after some research, I found out that the majority of the film, including the bakery scene, was filmed in NYC. LAME!

By default, I hit up the local trendy, Food Network featured cupcake shop, Crushcake. They had the typical selection of flavors, and I wasn't actually too impressed by their novelty choices. I think today was something gross like Lemon Drop; however, I did see that Weds was Blueberry Cheesecake! That sounds awesome. I decided to get their specialty "make cake not war" 60s cupcake.

they always look so cute

Although the cake was simple, vanilla with tye-dye buttercream, I REALLY enjoyed it. The frosting was the best buttercream I've had in years, and they were almost overly generous with it. I like the soft, but not shortening-ey, texutre. The cake was also good.

bad photography, good cupcake

Check it out if you are in SB! :)

groupon ftw

It pisses me off to no avail how you always see the groupon banner ads with pictures of cupcakes, macaroons, and froyo and claims of 90% off. Then i get the email every day and it's like "$150 for $350 worth of upholstery cleaning in Berkeley!" f.t.s.

One day a couple of months ago I did score though, $15 for 2 dozen gourmet, delivered cupcakes from Cupcakes on the Go. This Fremont operated bakery offers a great selection of gourmet flavored treats. I ordered "Peach Pie" which consisted of: peach cupcake, whipped frosting, peaches, and a cinnamon crust cookie. Needless to say they were delicious :)

Sibby's

I am such a cupcake/baked good enthusiast. One day last year, I was sitting at work and whinnnnnnning to Dave about how much I wanted a cupcake. Luckily he was on board, so we started researching the area for the best places. I stumbled upon a hole-in-the-wall place, Sibby's Cupcakery, in San Mateo. Long story short, we shelled out $40 a dozen and discovered our total favorite bakery. Since then, we look for any excuse to order them :). My favorite flavor is by far the Snickerdoodle <3 mmm. Sibby's is great about making their cupcakes very moist. The other great part about Sibby's is their willingness to decorate the cupcakes.Yesterday, we sadly had to celebrate Sarah's last day (....again), and got some awesome Pony themed goodness! I love this place, but I think the pics will speak louder than words. 

STABLE OF HORSES ;)

Hasbro Themed 

Game of Life Spinner!! Adorable