Wednesday, November 10, 2010

All this baking is getting in the way of my blogging!!

Really? No blog post since October 27? YIKES! I suppose too much baking and not enough blogging is the sort of balance I should be hoping for!

I have had so much fun in the last couple of weeks with new cake and cupcake creations. I've been asked many times recently if I have recipes I follow or a book I get my ideas out of. The truth is an absolute NO to both questions. I probably should have recipes, but I prefer to just tinker around with flavors and different combinations until something yummy comes out! I take much of my inspiration from conversations I have with friends and family about the types of flavors they enjoy. I had a friend mention that she really loves Oreo cookies, so an Oreo flavor was born. My mom adores carrot cake and applesauce spice cake, so those cupcakes were born! I'm most thrilled about a flavor I'm working on that involves pretzels! I won't give any more away than that! But be looking for that flavor to be revealed soon!


Last week I had the opportunity to create a chocolate buttercream cake for a dear friend's mother-in-law's 80th birthday. There were going to be lots and lots of children celebrating with this lucky grandmother, so I opted to do buttercream rather than a full fondant covering. I have been experimenting with a new buttercream smoothing technique, so this was a good place to try it out. It wasn't 100% perfect, but I loved the way the remainder of the cake turned out! The cake was chocolate butter cake with truffle filling and deep chocolate buttercream icing! YUM-O!



My darling little friend, Eliana, was on hand to help me with this cake. She arrived at my house dressed in her CUPCAKE outfit and it was even BROWN AND BLUE! She's such a themey little helper! I couldn't avoid the picture!

A new cupcake was also created this week! The 'Tracy's Tasty' joined the Just Like Mom's family! This cupcake is named after Matt's Aunt Tracy who makes a family-famous chocolate mint cookie. We adore the flavor combination and I knew a cupcake version was a must. The cupcake is chocolate butter cake with a chocolate mint ganache filling topped with whipped ganache and diced Andes mints! Don't you think you need some for your holiday parties?




I've also had many people ask me lately why I decided to start my business. Truly it's all because of this.....



...this is truly the cookie that started it all. I have always made a pretty killer chocolate chip cookie. I've been told time and time again that I should sell them. I have several secret ingredients that I use in my cookies that make them work. After realizing that I bake approximately six dozen chocolate chip cookies in an average week, I thought "what the heck?" and the business was born.


Finally, I'm an obsessed organizer. In fact, I probably have an unnatural attachment to my label maker. However, after years of digging through a Rubbermaid container each time I wanted to locate a cookie cutter, I had had enough and off to the hardware store I went!





This is the cookie cutter organizational wall in progress. I LOVE pegboard and all it can do. It's hard for me to leave open space for the cutters that will continue to join my collection, but I suppose it does give me permission to add! If you come across any funky cookie cutters, shoot me a message with where I can find them! My current favorite 'weird' cutter is a buffalo! You never know when someone will call and ask for a buffalo cookie!

Good eats,
Jill

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