Baking Pro Tips

A lot of times when people try something we've baked we receive a very similar reaction to the product: "I make this all the time and it doesn't taste anything like what I'm eating now!"  It's not a bad thing...people are just awed that something they may be familiar with can have a different taste than what they're used to.

We usually don't share full recipes with people (it's taken us awhile to develop some of them), but we figured we'd take some time to let you in on a few tricks and tips we use in our kitchen to reach the desired results in our desserts.  Some you might have heard of, others you might be shocked to read, but we hope next time you're baking you remember a tip or two and try it out in your kitchen.

1. We use a lot of salt in our icing.  A lot.  Most recipes you see for call for a "pinch".  Depending on the amount of icing we're making we will use anywhere from a teaspoon to a tablespoon.  We feel like it really helps to balance the sweetness so it's not too overpowering.

2. When you want to make a chocolate icing from scratch, melt down good chocolate in a double boiler.  Yes, you will pay more, but you will definitely notice a difference.  And before you ask, no, Hershey's is not considered a "good" chocolate.

3. We mentioned this before in a past post, but you really need to start using buttermilk in recipes that call for buttermilk.  The taste is just the tiniest bit different, but it's definitely worth the extra effort.  Try it once, and you'll never go back to cheating with regular milk again.  We promise.

4. If you love vanilla cake (and really who doesn't), make yourself a batch of vanilla sugar.  Take a whole vanilla bean, split it open, and put it in a plastic container full of sugar (one that seals tight).  Put it on the shelf and forget about it for awhile.  Next time you go to bake a vanilla cake, use the sugar in the container.  Sugar takes on flavors of objects around it, so your sugar will be infused with vanilla, adding to the ridiculous amounts of vanilla you're about to add to the batter already.  This will send your cake into the vanilla stratosphere.  Trust us.

5. A lot of cheesecake recipes out there tell you not to "over mix" the egg/cream cheese mixture you're creating.  We couldn't disagree more.  We like our cheesecake to be a bit on the airy side, still thick and full of bad-for-you calories, but with just a hint of a whipped surprised.  If your cheesecake weighs the same as a small child, we feel it's a little too dense.  We over mix our cream cheese mixture, and love the results.  Sure, there are probably some cheesecake connoisseurs reading this who are cursing at the very idea of over mixing their batter, but if you're up for a fun challenge, try it next time.

6. If you ever make a Boston Cream Pie (and really, they're so easy, who wouldn't?) there are lots of ways to cheat on the recipe a little.  Use a boxed mix, microwave the chocolate topping, etc.  One are you do not want to cheat, though, is the cream center.  DO NOT use Jell-O mix, guys!  It takes just as long to make the pudding as it does to make some delicious from-scratch cream.  Just google a recipe.  It's worth it.

Hope this helps you guys next time you're in the kitchen!  Share all the yummy things you might cook up, we love fun stories!

Cookie Cakes and Cream Puffs

^Could you get a higher calorie count in a blog title?

Hello friends!

Happy Labor Day Weekend!  We love extra long weekends, they make everything seem sooo much more relaxing.  Instead of 48 hours to squeeze in all the fun you want in your life, you can stretch it out for 72.  That sounds much better!

So we've been a little busy these past few weeks, and our blog posts have been limited.  Sorry about that. Sometimes the world just kind of gets ahead of you.  Since we have 72 hours to enjoy our weekend, though, we thought we'd update.

We told you in our last post that people have really been loving cookie cakes this summer, and last week was no different.  We made a fun cookie cake for a co-worker's dad's birthday as a surprise.

Apparently he loves cookie cake but didn't ask for one for his party, so his daughter decided to make sure he had a fun surprise waiting for him.  He thought he was getting just a regular old birthday cake, but instead had a PSR original cookie cake.  Yum!!

Cookie cakes are a ton of fun to make, because the time we have to devote to real cakes isn't involved.  Bake the cake, let it cook, decorate it with some icing, it's very, very minimal.  Not that we don't love decorating, but if we only spend 2 hours in the kitchen instead of 8, well...that's a win in our books.

In addition to updating our blog this weekend, we're also going to try our hand at an old standard, the cream puff.

We've made cream puffs before, but it was eons ago, before we learned all of our important baking knowledge we now possess.  They're fairly simple if you pay attention to them (think of them as an adorably cute puppy that will pee in your house if you're not careful) but our biggest challenge will be trying to find a good pudding/icing combination to stuff them with.  Any suggestions?  Hit us up in the comments.

It's September, folks.  Where did this summer go??  Have a fantastic extended weekend with friends and family.  We'll be updating the blog a few times in the coming week as we have two big projects coming up. Chocolate lovers...you're gonna wanna buckle up for the one order we have!

Cheers everyone!

Chocolate Whisky Cupcakes

As you guys have seen in the past 10 months this blog has existed (has it really been that long??), we bake a lot.  Cakes, pies, cookies, cupcakes, we do a lot throughout the year to create some pretty awesome sweet treats.  While we taste test and sample all of our goods before we deliver them, after doing this for so long there's very little we create anymore that completely blows our mind.  This weekend, though, we met our life-ending equivalent.  Game, set, match.  Mind blown.

To back up a little bit, though, last Monday we got a call from a good friend of ours asking if we could make a birthday cake for her husband's 30th birthday.  Oh my word, we're celebrating friends turning 30 already!  Where has our life gone?!?  :-)  Anyway, we bounced around a few ideas until she messaged us and said, "What about some whiskey cupcakes?"

Whoa.  Hold the phone.  Whiskey cupcakes?  This was new, and exciting, and a great idea!  We love making alcohol cupcakes, and have used rum, vodka, beer, wine, and tequila in past cupcake creations.  Whiskey, though...this was a new challenge.

When we're creating new flavor combinations, we like to spend some time on google looking up other similar recipes.  Not so we can rip off other people's ideas (we've had that happen to us before, and we know how awful a feeling that is), but to get some inspiration, and some ideas of where other bakers have gone in the past.  It helps us focus our thoughts and make a nice list of "Where to Start".

The overall theme we kept reading was chocolate and whiskey.  Chocolate, whiskey....hmmm, we had a plan forming.  We messed around with some flavor combinations, trying to find something that really hit the spot.  We added some espresso to the mix, because we liked the acidic with the whiskey, and then went about creating some cupcakes.

When the cakes came out our kitchen smelled like a man cave...strong coffee, whiskey, lots of chocolate.  It was a pretty fantastic smell.  Now we needed a great icing to go with it.

We believe that icings are the best part of any cake/cupcake combo. It's a make or break deal in our opinion.  Icings should not be flat and tasteless, they should be full of flavor, rich and creamy, and make you want to lick the bowl clean.  We hate when a promising looking cake ends up being dull because the icing isn't any good.  It's SUCH a disappointment.

This order was no different, the icing had to be pretty unreal.  So we took some whisky, and some melted dark chocolate, some butter and cream cheese and whipping cream, and set out to create a masterpiece. 

As we said in the beginning of this post, there's very little anymore that absolutely floors us anymore when it comes to baking.  This whisky icing...holy crap was it a show stopper.

The best part about these cupcakes was that they ended up going to a good friend for his 30th birthday.  It doesn't get much better heading to a party with some cupcakes you made knowing they're about to rock everyone's world.  Sharing in the party is half the fun in our opinion!!

So happy 30th to our good friend John.  Nothing says "manly cupcakes to celebrate the last few days in your 20s" like chocolate whiskey cupcakes!