Pittsburgh Wedding: Jessica + David

Catching up on some blogging this weekend, because June has been an absolutely crazy month for us.  You never seem to realize how far behind a vacation will throw your schedule until you look at the calendar and realize next weekend is Independence Day Weekend.  Yikes!

Earlier this month we made a wedding cake for Jessica and David, who were getting married in the North Hills.  We met Jessica and David back in February (remember when it was so cold you could barely move) and we all had this idea that it would be fun to have some creative flavors for their wedding cake.  And who doesn't love creative flavors??  We decided to go with a strawberry and chocolate cake AND a lemon raspberry cake.  Who doesn't love options??

About to head into the oven for some major baking. 

Raspberry icing, yummmmmmm

The cake was big enough that we needed to use some dowel rods for structural support, which is a very nerdy way to say the cake was pretty heavy.  Oops, did we just let a secret slip??  Yeah we probably did, but it's true, heavy cakes require additional support to keep them together.  It's not all smoke and mirrors, guys!

We're pretty pleased with how the end result turned out.  Humidity was working against us that day, and the minute we stepped outside the fondant started to pull apart.  It happens to the best of us sometimes.  We had to do a quick repair job to keep it stabilized, but in the end it came out how we had hoped!

A final congratulations to Jessica and David for getting married, and another order completed by PSR.  Yay wedding season!! :)

We'll be back blogging some more soon, don't miss out!

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!

Macaroon 2.0

A bit of honesty here: while all of my Pittsburgh born-and-bred friends are gearing up for the Steelers game, I am working on business ideas and plans in my bedroom.  My cable-less bedroom.  And at 9pm I'm watching Revenge on television.  Let me know when hockey's back, and then you'll see the true sports fan within me come out.

We're not here to talk about hockey, though (sad :-( ...)  We are here to talk about my second attempt to make the perfect macaroon!

As you know, my bakery skills are self taught, from my Easy Bake Oven days forward.  I have never sat for a single class (that will change soon), and everything I've learned has come from friends, family, the internet, and maybe 20 bazillion Food Network shows.  Oh, and a little common sense too ;-)

That being said, sometimes my first tries are far from perfect.  My first tiered cake was, well, a disaster.  It took me 3 times longer than it should have to actually get enough cake to use, and then it heavily leaned to the one side.  My first chocolate cupcake was either the best or worst cupcake in the world, depending on who you ask.  My original attempt at spritz Christmas cookies almost burnt the Mexican crack den I live in to the ground.  Sometimes my baking classes are nearly catastrophic.

For those of you who are brand spanking new to this blog, last week I tried and failed to make an edible and beautiful macaroon.  It was edible, but it looked awful.  You know those macaroni projects your kids bring home that look like a train wreck, but you post them on the fridge anyway because you want your kids to feel like something they invested time and energy in is worthwhile??  Yeah, that's how I felt about these macaroons.  I was happy I had tried, but man I couldn't wait to throw them away.

So take two was today. And I have to admit, I was bound and determined to make this recipe correctly this time.  Sometimes, when I'm impatient, or think I know everything, I'll tend to edit recipes to my liking.  For example, the recipe I was trying said "sift the powdered sugar, cocoa, and almonds together once to properly mix ingredients before stirring", but, thinking this was a dump step, I skipped it last time.  I'm not saying it was the deal breaker for my Round 1 Macaroons, but you better believe I was going to follow every darn step perfectly this time.  To a T.

About an hour later (after my food processor had had enough), I pulled my first batch from the oven:

Perfection!  Finally, it seemed I had mastered the tricky art of macaroon baking.

Here's what I love about recipes like this: once you understand how the base recipe works (i.e. how a macaroon becomes a macaroon) the creativity you have is absolutely endless!  I made chocolate because, well, I have a weakness for the flavor, but I was already dreaming up flavor combinations and designs I would love to try out.  Definitely a mint chocolate recipe.  What about a lemon cookie with a raspberry glaze icing between?  An apple cinnamon combination, or even something more daring like rose and almond?  This is why I love baking!!  It's almost like a complex science experiment, and once you understand what needs to be done you can have as much fun as you'd like with it.

Any other suggestions for some delicious macaroon flavors and fillings?  What about a PB&J macaroon?  Would you eat that?  Let me know if you have any other fabulous ideas for macaroon flavorings!  This could become my new favorite thing to make!!

Lis