Happy New Year

Ahhh, a new year. I love the beginning of a new year. It's like a new car when it still has that "new car smell", still all pretty, hasn't been dented yet or had coffee spilled all over it. This is how I feel about the beginning of a new year...I haven't had time yet to blow my resolutions, I have a whole year to accomplish whatever it is I plan on getting done, and it also means that December is over. While I do love the holidays, December is a particularly busy month in my family. We have 5 family birthday's all in December, that combined with the traditional Christmas baking and the holiday parties leaves me with little time for anything else. So to officially put a close on 2008 I wanted to post the pictures of some of the baking I have been doing (I was sooo busy I didn't even snap pictures of some of the stuff) I hope the new year brings you happiness :) Thanks to those who have stopped by to check out my blog, offered words of encouragement, or just passed through. I plan to continue baking and sharing my stories of such with you in 2009!

My Grandma's birthday cake - Devil's food with raspberry filling and raspberry buttercream and buttercream roses (it was a little messy but she loved it)

My birthday cupcakes - Devil's food with raspberry buttercream and devil's food with coconut buttercream and then topped with mini chocolate chips, coconut and chopped roasted almonds (HEAVENLY!!)




Cupcake tower I did for a little girl's dress-up themed 4th birthday party. It was a 6 inch devil's food cake and mini-cupcakes and yellow buttercake cupcakes iced with pink and white buttercream.

My mom's dessert party

Devil's Food cake with coconut buttercream, toasted almonds and coconut.

Yellow Butter Cake with raspberry whipped cream filling and lemon buttercream icing paired with yellow butter mini-cupcakes with raspberry buttercream or lemon buttercream.

Some traditional Christmas cookies

Almond Crescents or Christmas Trees

Russian Teacakes or Snowballs

Two-bite brownies with peanut-butter buttercream and mini-chips

And last but not least my mom's birthday cake and her request. Chocolate Devil's food cake with raspberry buttercream.






Happy New Year!

Friday Fun

On Friday I hosted a play date at my house for my daughter and 10 of her friends. Since she didn't get to help me with the cookies I did for the baby shower I decided to host her very own cookie decorating party. I made the cookies and had the icing in little zip locks for the kids to use. I'm not sure what I did wrong but my cookies didn't come out quite right. They spread (just a little) which is not supposed to happen. I'm thinking it was caused by one of three things...

1. I didn't let the eggs come to room temp.
2. I beat to much air into the dough.
3. I didn't let the dough chill enough.



Whatever the reason, it didn't really matter, the cookies were fine for a party for 3 year olds! I also decided to try out a different icing recipe (Wilton's poured cookie icing) that didn't call for meringue powder so I used the kids cookies as Ginny pigs so to say. I did not like the icing as much as the recipe I generally use. It was fine for piping edges and filling in but you could not do any detail work with it. Here are the cookies I decorated after the kids were gone. I like the shininess of the icing but like I said you can't do any detail work with it.





Since play dates are as much about the mama's as they are about the kids I wanted to make something for us to enjoy. Being fall (even if it was like 85 degrees today with 200% humidity) I choose a cranberry-pumpkin bread with a cranberry-pecan streusel on top. The recipe calls for you to drizzle a simple icing on top after they've baked but I never got around to doing it and IMO they didn't need it. I decided to make the recipe as muffins rather than as a loaf..easier to serve and prettier presentation wise (again IMO).



Cranberry-Pumpkin Mini Loaves
By Publix (my local grocery store)


2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
2 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 tsp. finely shredded orange peel
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. ground ginger
1 cup canned pumpkin
1/3 cup cooking oil
1/3 cup milk
2 eggs, beaten
1/2 cup chopped pecans
1/2 cup cranberries, coarsely chopped
1 recipe Cranberry Streusel Topping
1 cup powdered sugar
1 to 2 Tbsp. milk



Cranberry-Pecan Streusel


3/4 cup coarsely chopped cranberries
1/2 cup coarsely chopped pecans
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp. ground ginger



Stir well to combine.

Prepare your muffin pan (or 6 mini loaf pans as the recipe calls for) and set aside. In a large bowl combine flour, sugars, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, orange peel, salt and ginger. make a well in the center and set aside.

In a medium bowl combine pumpkin, oil, milk and eggs. Add all at once to the dry ingredients. Stir just until moistened. Fold in the cranberries and pecans. Using an ice-cream scoop, spoon the batter into the muffin pan (or spoon evenly into loaf pans). Sprinkle streusel over batter.

Bake at 350 degrees for 15-18 minutes (35-40 minutes for loaf pans) or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Cool in pans on wire rack for 10 minutes. Remove from pans and cool completely. Just before serving combine the 1 cup of powdered sugar and milk, then drizzle over the tops.

Notes: As you can probably see in the picture I didn't use very many cranberries in the streusel. I didn't measure what I did use but it was probably only about 1/4 - 1/3 cup. And I used Sun Maid Cranberries (the kind you find by the raisins) NOT fresh or frozen cranberries. And as mentioned before I didn't put the icing on top.

No Fail Sugar Cookies

By Fancy Flours

6 cups flour

3 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. salt

2 cups sugar

2 tsp. vanilla

2 cups butter

2 eggs

Make sure all ingredients are at room temperature. Cream butter and sugar until fluffy (about 5 minutes). Add eggs, and flavoring (you can also use almond). Mix dry ingredients in separate bowl and add a little at a time to butter mixture. Mix well.

Put a handful of the dough between two pieces of parchment paper (or wax paper) and roll to desired thickness. Repeat with the remaining dough. Put the rolled dough, including the parchment paper, on a cookie sheet and refrigerate for 10 minutes or longer. Your dough will be ready to cut and bake with no added flour! Repeat with scraps after cutting cookies.

NOTES: If you have not yet discovered Fancy Flours, I highly recommend you check them out. They have the most wonderful products, they even have a catalog you can receive for FREE, that is filled with ideas. I just love it!

Poured Cookie Icing

By Wilton

1 cup powdered sugar

2 tsp. milk

2 tsp. light corn syrup

Place sugar and milk in bowl. Stir until mixed thoroughly. Add corn syrup and mix well. For filling in areas use thinned icing (add small amounts of corn syrup until desired consistency is reached).

How to Build a Cupcake Tower

I promised I would explain how I built the cupcake tower I did for my step-dad's 50th suprise party (just in case the 4 of you read this blog are curious :)) As I've previously disclosed, I don't do math, so building this thing to accommodate the correct number of cupcakes was a bit of a challenge. I actually never figured it out, my lovely husband stepped in and rescued me and thank goodness or I'd probably still be sitting around trying to draw it out on graph paper (that or I'd be sitting in the corner beating my head against the wall). So here it goes.

1) I started with 4 inch thick floral foam, found at Michael's or JoAnn's or whatever craft store you have in your neck of the woods. I bought two 36x12x4 inch pieces. Each of those was cut to be 24 inches long (save the extra pieces for the next two levels).

2) Next, the two 24 inch long pieces were tapped together, both down the middle and around the edges so that when I picked it up it didn't fold in half.

3) One of the extra pieces from step-one was used as the second tier, which was 12x12. And the last extra piece was cut down to be 7x7. We cut it as small as we could leaving it big enough to accommodate a 6 inch cake.

4) Next, we wrapped each tier. I used Wilton's Fanci Foil wrap. I was going for a black and silver look so this worked perfectly. I wrapped each tier just like I would a present.

5) After they were wrapped, we glued the black ribbon all the way around.

6) Stack the tiers and TaDa you now have a cupcake tower.

I needed it to accommodate 60 cupcakes and the little cake on top. Since the tower was placed up against a wall I wasn't able to place many cupcakes on the backside so I simply placed them on the table, essentially creating a 4 tier tower. If your building a tower that is to accommodate a cake on the top then I would start with how big the top tier must be and then work down ( I first tried to do it the other way and it wasn't working out)

Cookies, Cookies and more Cookies

This past weekend I had my first paying baking job!! I was enlisted to make sugar cookies for a baby shower; 100 cookies to be placed in bags as favors and another 30 in the baby's name to be displayed on a tray. The shower was on Sunday, I started baking on Thursday morning and in true Nicole fashion there were some speed bumps along the way...

First Speed Bump: On Wednesday night I decided I would measure out my flour and other ingredients to save me a few steps in the morning. Upon pulling out my bucket of flour I came to the realization that I had been so excited about the fantastic sale on butter at Publix that I totally forgot to check how much flour I had (it was $2 per lb!!!) and from the looks of it I didn't think I'd have enough. This time I lucked out and had almost exactly the 18 cups I needed. Breathing a sigh of relief I headed to bed to get a good nights sleep since the next day was to be a busy baking day!

Second Speed Bump - So much for that good night's sleep. I woke up at 3 AM not because I was anxious to get started but because I had to puke! Great I'm thinking, now I have the flu and I'm supposed to make 12 dozen cookies AND hand decorate them. Thankfully I was only sick once, however, after that one time I lay in bed for the remainder of the night panicking about whether I would feel well enough in the morning to bake and worried about contaminating the cookies.

Third Speed Bump - Thursday morning comes quicker then I wanted. Tired and starving but to afraid to eat in case I really do have the flu I help my little one get ready for pre-school and get her dropped off. I race back home, sterilize my kitchen (in case of the flu) and get baking. I started by preparing the dough, rolling it and then placing it in the fridge to chill. At 11:45 I raced back to pick the little one up and then made a quick stop at Publix for more flour and sugar just in case I needed it ( I also got Sprite to help settle my tummy). As soon as I get home I start baking the cookies...it is at this point I realize I'm in for a really looooooong day. You see I only have 2 cookie pans and these are big cookies I'm making so I could only fit 8 on a pan. Do the math 12 dozen divided by 8 is 18...18 times 10 minutes of baking is 3 hours. Now three hours doesn't sound so bad except I had to wait for the pans to cool before I could place the next batch on them and then there was the cutting of the dough, re-rolling the scraps, re-chilling and cutting again, and again, and again. This combined with the constant interruptions from my 3 1/2 year old made for a very inefficient day. Thankfully my mom stopped by and offered to take the nugget home for the evening. At 10 pm I had all the cookies baked, cooled and put away for the night. I headed to bed and crashed as soon as I my head hit the pillow. Here are most of the cookies waiting to be put away (they're stacked so you can't see all 144)

Friday morning, I popped out of bed, headed straight for the coffee pot and got right down to making icing for the cookies. And here is the next dumb thing I did. I knew I was going to need several batches of icing and I also knew I was going to need 4 colors. Now, you'd think I'd just make a batch of each color...yeah, so not what I did. Instead, I made one batch, separated it into 4 bowls and then made my three colors (the 4th color was white). So once that was gone, I had to make another batch and then make the colors again. Well anyone, whose colored icing knows it's damned near impossible to match the colors (unless your super anal and count how much food coloring you use in each batch...which I don't do). So I caused myself some considerable delays by doing it this way. I did manage to get all of the cookies outlined and filled by the end of the day. So on Saturday I would just have the final decorating and bagging to do. (here's a pic of getting ready to outline)

Saturday morning I get up and again get right down to business. I get the cookies out of the fridge and discover I've made another error. I was up so late the night before icing the cookies, some didn't have enough time to dry completely and when I covered them, the foil stuck to the icing and ruined the lovely smooth finish you want in this sort of cookie. GREAT! It was only about 10 that needed to be fixed, so I simply smoothed the icing as best I could using my handy paintbrush ( a must have when doing decorated cookies of this nature) and then re-iced them to cover the flaws. Those few still didn't look as good as I would have liked but they were still nice enough to present and hey out of 12 dozen if only 10 got screwed up that's pretty good! I worked on the cookies until almost midnight; I had to get done by then so I could watch Sarah Palin on SNL!!

Sunday morning all I had left to do was bag them and put them in the basket for the party, which I was also attending. Me and the cookies were all ready to go by 12:30 leaving me just enough time to snap a few photos..

All in all this project was a success. I completed it on time, the customer was very happy with the finished product and I got paid!! There are of course things I would do differently (like perhaps trying to be a bit more organized) but there is always next time. And my hope is that the more I do this the less my nerves will get all twisted up. I felt such a huge weight lifted off me once I had finished; I put a lot of pressure on myself and worry constantly about whether what I do is good enough. I suppose this sort of pressure is good...it ensures that I always strive to do better than the last time.

After a much needed weekend away with the girls (and the 4 days needed to recover) it's time to get back to baking. I've taken on the task of making cupcakes for my step-dad's upcoming surprise birthday party to be held at a local steakhouse. It's gonna be 72 cupcakes and a 6 inch cutting cake. I'm also building a cupcake tower which I've never done. It became immediately apparent that I'm a much better baker than I am a builder. After searching through pictures on Flickr to decide on the style of the stand, trying to map it out on graph paper, and then making 4 trips to Jo Ann's to purchase supplies I still couldn't figure out how big each level had to be. So with only a week left until the big event my hubby finally came to my rescue; in one hour late Friday night he did what I hadn't been able to accomplish in 3 weeks (and I think 15 of those minutes were spent laughing at me and explaining my layout options...yeah he even gave me options...I can't come up with one complete design and he has options???!!!)


With the cupcake tower ready to be wrapped and ribboned (I will post pics & instructions on how I did it when it's finished so that perhaps I can save another math challenged soul from the frustrations I experienced) I moved on to finally decide what combo. of cupcakes to place on the tower. I know, I know...nothing like waiting until the last minute. I've been thinking about this project non-stop but somehow have been unable to make any real decisions. I'm a procrastinator by nature and seem to operate a little more efficiently under the wire?? Any who, I've known I want to do black and white cupcakes but what flavor????? Well I've settled on a white chocolate and raspberry cupcake for the white and a chocolate hazelnut cupcake for the black. Each cupcake will also be topped with a photo pic (depicting one of 5 images of the birthday boy from throughout his life). The cake on top will probably be a chocolate raspberry combining flavors from both versions of cupcake (this way I can cover all my bases and my brain can settle down over whether I've made the best choice).


Yesterday, rather than do laundry and iron my man's work shirts I choose to make some sample cupcakes so that I could place them on the unfinished cupcake stand to be sure it would look like I pictured (yep, I still can't fully visualize it, I need to physically see it). I decided to try out the white chocolate raspberry version. I made a white chocolate and raspberry cupcake and then iced it with a white chocolate butter cream. I first made a white chocolate ganache but I must have done something wrong as when I was adding the melted chocolate to the slightly beaten whipped cream it curdled...the more I beat the more it curdled and it never would have been thick enough to pipe onto cupcakes like a whipped chocolate ganache so I dumped that and started over. I started with a basic butter cream recipe and then added the melted white chocolate. The end result was visually what I was looking for. Taste wise....it's very sweet and IMO needed more raspberry flavor to balance out the white chocolate, I'm partial to chocolate chocolate so I always find myself saying "it's good but not as good as devil's food". But they were pretty, displayed nicely and did taste good so I'm sticking with them short of a few minor changes I will make. So here's the recipes I used...my changes are listed in pink



White Chocolate and Raspberry Cupcakes
by Shelly Kaldunski in Cupcakes


yields 12 cupcakes



1 1/4 cups cake flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
3/4 cup sugar
4 Tbls. unsalted butter - room temp
1 large egg - room temp
1/2 cup whole milk ( I used 2%)
3 oz. white chocolate chopped

1 cup raspberries (I used raspberry jam pushed through a strainer to remove seeds- read below)

White Chocolate Butter cream adapted from Betty Crocker



1 stick unsalted butter, room temp
4 cups powdered sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
3 oz. white baking chips, melted and cooled
2-3 tbls. milk




Beat butter and sugar until combined. Add milk and vanilla and beat until smooth. Add melted chocolate and mix to incorporate.



Sift flour, baking powder and salt into bowl and set aside. On medium-high speed of electric mixer beat sugar and butter until light and fluffy, 2-3 minutes. Add the egg and beat until combined. Add the flour in 3 additions, alternating with the milk in 2 additions, beating on low speed until just combined. Scrap down the sides of the bowl as necessary. Add the white chocolate and beat on low speed until combined. Divide the batter evenly among the prepared muffin cups, filling each about 3/4 full. Bake at 350 until lightly golden and a toothpick inserted comes out clean, 18-20 minutes. Let the cupcakes cool completely in the pan on a wire rack, about 1 hour. Remove from pan. (cooled cupcakes can be refrigerated in an airtight container for up to 3 days; bring to room temp before finishing). Place Raspberry's in a bowl and use a fork to crush them lightly. Spoon the crushed berry's on top of the cooled cupcakes, dividing them evenly. Frost the cupcakes with butter cream, garnish with white chocolate curls. Serve right away.


Here's what I did differently...


Spoon a heaping tablespoon of batter into prepared muffin cups, add a rounded teaspoon of raspberry jam to each cup and then top with remaining batter. Bake as directed, cool completely and then ice with white chocolate butter cream.


What I'd do differently next time...


Rather than use a prepared jam that contains sugar I'd like to make my own raspberry puree. I felt like the white chocolate and the sweetened jam was just too sweet for my tastes. I think I'll melt the chocolate before adding it to the cupcake batter to be sure it's spread equally through out rather than one cupcake have a few more pieces than the next. And, I also think I'll use a little more chocolate and cut back on the sugar in the icing...add a little more whipped cream to lighten it.

Week in Review

Fay Schmaye

Ahhh, yes, another false alarm!! Lexi's first day of school was postponed on Tuesday due to the small possibility of the wind blowing and the chance of rain only for the day to turn out to be a beauty. Roll to Thursday her actual first day...rained....and still freakin raining. But nothings canceled today, I still have to go out in the rain to head to the dentist (can you feel the excitement people) so annoying. It's been windier and rained more in the last 10 hours then it did during all 72 hours the local meteorologists stood around in a state of euphoria watching and waiting to see which way the wind blew. Even with all their fancy equipment and years of education they still can't accurately predict the direction of a storm, instead displaying the "cone of uncertainty" that generally encompasses most if not all of the state. To me that's the equivalent of a Dr. sending you for an MRI and a Cat scan only to tell you that you have a mass located somewhere in your body between the right ear and your left pinkie toe, then sending you home to "wait and see" what happens. And then there's "the preparers". Who are these people you ask. These are the individuals who run out to the grocery star as soon as they hear it's going to get windy and rainy and stock up on SPAM, water, peanut butter and bread, they board up their windows or even worse tape them (which is useless), and sit glued to their TV's or their weather radio's just "waiting to see what happens". Puhhhleeeease, I'll tell you what's gonna happen, it's gonna rain and the wind is going to blow...deal with it. Get out some board games, pop some popcorn and freaking relax! I've lived in FL since the late 80's, prior to that I lived on a cornfield in Illinois so I've weathered my fair share of hurricanes, tropical storms AND tornado's. I'd much rather sit through a hurricane than a tornado...

So what do you do when it's supposed to rain, everything is closed and your kid is home from school.....why you bake (that way IF the power does go out you'll have cookies to eat!). This is exactly what Lexi and I did on Tuesday, we made both chocolate chip toffee cookies, and peanut butter cookies.

Here's my little helper...

Balls of delicious dough...

Our sweet reward...

Jen's Chocolate Chip Toffee Cookies (adapted from the Nestle Tollhouse recipe)

What I do different is I use a combination of dark and light brown sugar, my grandma says that back in the day they didn't have light and dark brown sugar they just had brown sugar, so one summer my cousin Jenny was on a quest for the perfect chocolate chip cookie and she mixed the two together added, toffee and it's perfect. Then instead of one cup of chopped nuts I add ~ 1/2 cup heath toffee bits (just the Bits o' Brickle not crushed up Heath bar) and then a 1/2 cup chopped walnuts. Bake and enjoy!

Peanut Butter Cookies (adapted from the Jif irresistible peanut butter cookies recipe)

What I do different...I use butter flavored Crisco ( I prefer to bake with all butter but have found that all butter in a peanut butter cookie makes them to dry and I prefer my cookies a little soft) rather than the regular Crisco, I cut back on the vanilla using only abt. 1/2 tbsp., then I add about 1/2 cup salted peanuts. Finally I use a fork dipped in sugar to criss-cross the cookies and sprinkle a little extra sugar on top. Again bake and enjoy

The arrival

I did it, I created a blog! It took me some time to settle on a name and a template but I'm pleased with the results. I decided on the name sweet and sassy, well, because I love all things sweet and I tend to be a little sassy (plus it sounded better than baking and bitching...LOL). For the most part this will be a place for me to share my baking adventures, but I wouldn't be me if I wasn't bitching about something so from time to time I will share this with you as well. I welcome your comments but like my mother always said... if you don't have anything nice to say shut the hell up!