Featured Fan Favorite: Carrot Cake Lamb.

A while back, I had been doing this Featured Fan Favorite thing – where someone finds a recipe on the blog that strikes their fancy, makes it themselves, and tells me all about it – including a picture of their results, Well, I’m happy to say that the Featured Fan Favorite has returned, and what better way to bring it back than with a reader’s very own Lamb Cake!

Juli Eberts created her Easter Carrot Cake Lamb based on the recipe from the blog!

it’s b-ewe-tiful!

I especially love how she did the face – I may have to try it that way next year! Juli says, “The kids named him Sammy the Lambie and everyone loved the cake!  Thanks for the great recipe!”  (Sammy the Lambie!! I wish I’d thought of that!)

Thank you, Juli, for sharing your fabulous cake and for following Small Indulgences! xoxoI

I bet you’re now asking yourself, “How can I be the next Featured Fan Favorite? Why, it’s simple! Pick a recipe – any recipe from the blog, create it, and tell me all about it in an email to  - smallindulgencesbakery [at] gmail [dot] com. Don’t forget to include a photo! There’s nothing I love more than sharing the work of fans! (except maybe eating the work of fans.)

 

 

Once, Twice, Three times a Lamb-y.

Yep, I did it again. For the third consecutive year, I’ve upheld the tradition of making the Lamb Cake for Easter, using the trusty old cast-iron pan that my aunt gave me.

 

where the magic happens.

I also kept up the tradition of making it a carrot cake, with cream cheese icing. The only thing I did change were the color of his eyes.

my brown-eyed lamb.

I went with the same jelly bean nose as seen on  Lamb #2; but I liked the larger ears Lamb #1 had, so I made sure to make them a little bigger this year. 

the better to hear you with.

I will say this – this year’s lamb appears to be a tad “shaggy-er” than the previous two. Some lambs are just shaggy-er than others, I suppose.

shag-a-delic.

Either way, the lamb once again survived the ride to Easter dinner at my parents house, and this year, his arrival was anticipated, and my mom had set up a special table, specifically for the guest of honor

 

it’s a lamb in a box. on a table.

We didn’t finish the entire lamb, and I  again took the head back home with me – which I will definitely be sharing with others (the lamb has a big head).

Until next year….the Lamb will be baaaaack!

 

Cake of the Living Dead.

My friend recently had a birthday, and I wanted to make him a cake – not just your everyday cake either. This is a friend I’ve known for quite some time, and who is fully aware of what I can do in the kitchen. So, I couldn’t just slap something together and call it his birthday cake – no – this cake needed to be….different. It also needed to be personal. I wanted it to be something that reflected my friend’s interests…something that he’d cherish always, and think back on for years to come. “Remember when you made me that awesome blah blah blah cake in 2013? Best. Cake. Ever.” Yeah, I wanted him to be able to say that. I wanted him to look at this cake and feel like he was looking in a confectionery mirror of his own life…

the baking dead.

Yep. It’s a zombie cake. Not only is there a zombie on top of the cake, but the cake itself is strawberry – so it’s like you’re taking a bite of mushy brains – just like a zombie would.

cake or brains?

My friend loved the cake, and I do believe it will be one he’ll always remember. After all, not many people can say they ate a zombie.

 

Shimmy, Shimmy, Coconut Cake (with Lemon Buttercream).

My Mom’s birthday recently passed (she share’s her special day with Abraham Lincoln, as a matter of fact), and of course I did what I do best, and baked her a birthday cake. Last summer, I had made a Lemon Coconut Cake that she was particularly fond of, and went as far as saying that I should make that cake for her. So…that’s just what i did. I used my recipe for the cake (you can find it here), but I did something a little different for the frosting this time. Instead of using lemon juice or real lemons, I used lemon extract. I know, it sounds like cheating; but if you had tasted this icing, you’d cheat too. It may have been my favorite icing to date, and I’m not even a big fan of lemon desserts! If you don’t believe me, try it for yourself – the recipe is at the end of this post You can thank me later.

baked birthday bliss.

Once I had iced the cake with the lemon buttercream and covered it with fresh coconut, I felt like something was still missing. It needed a topper. The cake I made last summer had a cherry on top – that looked great! But I didn’t have any cherries…so I began scanning the kitchen for something that could work. Being it was just before Valentine’s Day, I had a container of conversation hearts just sitting on the table. I scoured them all, in search of the perfect message for the top of my mom’s cake. And there it was: “For You.”  Because, that’s what is was, after all.

pure and simple.

My mom loved the cake, and just as I  had hoped, she sent me home with about a third of it. Don’t worry, I shared it with friends – only after eating a large piece myself, of course.

Anyway, as promised, here is the new Lemon Buttercream recipe. Enjoy!!

Lemon Buttercream (new and improved version!).

What you’ll need:

8 oz butter (room temperature)

4 oz shortening

1 lb 6 oz confectioner’s sugar

1 tsp lemon extract

1/2 oz water

What you’ll do:

In a large mixing bowl, cream together the butter, shortening, and sugar until light and fluffy, using the paddle attachment. Add the lemon extract and water, mix until shiny. If you want a thinner consistency, just add more water.

 

 

Stevia. Sweet Stevia.

I assumed that baking with Stevia, the all natural herbal sweetener, would be simple enough. I’ve baked with Splenda before, and the results frankly, were splendid. I just did some minor adjusting to the quantity used compared to that of regular old sugar (I used less Splenda), but everything else remained the same and the cakes all turned out just fine. In fact, one could hardly tell that no real sugar was used in the making of those cakes. I figured baking with Stevia would be exactly the same. It even says on the package to use half the amount of Stevia that you would use of regular sugar (i.e., 1/2 cup Stevia for every cup of sugar). I don’t think so, Osbourne.

I figured I’d try a pound cake, because, really, how can you screw that up? Well, apparently you can, and I have the cake to prove it. I can’t really even figure out exactly what the issue is. It looks like it might not be cooked all the way through – but it was starting to burn on the edges, and no batter stuck to the toothpick when I inserted it, multiple times. i wound up taking the cake out, and cutting a hole in the bottom to see if it cooked all the way. I still couldn’t tell. I ate some. It tasted relatively cooked, but something seemed “off”.

if it looks like a cake, and it smells like a cake…

This cake was not the quality I’ve become accustomed to, so I decided to cast it aside, and try again .It’s a shame, too – it looked rather pretty, on the outside.

stevia: my new pet peevia.

Well, I had to try again. No only to save my pride, but because this cake was supposed to be for my diabetic friend’s birthday tomorrow. I began flipping through the recipe binder, and settled on an apple cake – one of my specialties. I had apples on-hand, so it seemed like kismet.

stevia success.

This time it worked. I don’t know if was because it was an apple cake, or because I switched from bundt cake to cupcakes, or because the sun was out – the world will never really know. All I can say for sure, is that apple cupcakes baked with Stevia work and taste like regular cupcakes.

even better than the real thing.

There are many brand names out there for Stevia – I use Truvia. I also use it in my coffee, and have been for a few years now. So, give it a try in your favorite cake recipe – you may wind up with a winner! But you can’t win unless you try.

 

The Day After.

When I was a little kid, I saw this made-for-TV-movie called “The Day After,” and was scarred for life. It was about an atomic bomb going off, and basically everyone was getting zapped instantly into skeletons. It was horrifying. I cried for days and couldn’t sleep for many nights. However, that’s not The Day After I’m referring to here. I’m talking about the day after Christmas.

It’s always such an odd day. Suddenly, everyone shifts into “time to change the sheets and clean the house and lose weight and take charge of my life” mode. And of course, there’s food everywhere you look. Particularly desserts. And nothing pains me more than to see a perfectly good dessert go to waste. It’s a crime, I tell ya. This year, however, I came much closer to my goal of “no dessert left behind,” at least as far as the ones I baked go. I’m down to the last few cookies, there’s only two slices of gingerbread cake left, and a couple of mini cheesecakes. Well played, self.

Anyway, just for the heck of it, here are a few pics of the aforementioned almost-gone Christmas Day desserts. Feast your eyes on these seasonal sweets:

Christmas Cookie Platter.

pretty maids all in a row.

from left to right: chocolate chip, oatmeal cinnamon chip, honey whiskey balls, breakfast cookies, cottage cheese cookies, and good old sugar cookies shaped like Christmas trees.

Mini Cheesecakes.

the “original” small indulgence.

These were a last-minute addition, but well worth it.

Gingerbread Cake with Cinnamon Sugar Glaze.

my masterpiece.

One of my specialties – I look forward to making it every year, and like a fine wine, it just keeps getting better.

Put them all together, and you have a lovely Christmas dessert table, sure to put a smile on the face of even the grumpiest Scrooge.

all together now.

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas, and may your lives be filled with sweets, love, and harmony not just on Christmas day, but every day.

 

The Curious Incident of the Red, Red Velvets.

I have a funny story to share, and all you bakers our there will really appreciate this having, I’m sure, been there and done that at some point yourselves. The other night, I was making red velvet cupcakes for a dear friend’s birthday, as red velvet is her favorite. I planned on topping them with a sour cream buttercream I had made once before, that was uber delicious. So I got to work.

i hope i didn’t just give away the ending.

Everything was going along well – I’ve made red velvets from this recipe a handful of times, so I knew what results to expect. I started measuring, mixing, pouring, and beating. When all was said and done, I added the red food coloring and mixed well. At this point, I realized something was amiss. It looked very red – too red. This was a clown-nose red, as opposed to a deeper almost maroon red – the color red velvet batter should be. I tasted the batter, and it tasted good – a little sweeter than previous batches, but still a good batter. Did I use too much food coloring? No, the bottle is always the same size! Maybe there was something wrong with the food coloring and it was heavier on the dye. I convinced myself that must be it and lined the pans with cupcake papers. I grabbed my trusty scoop and was about to dip in for the first cupcake, when I paused, and contemplated the extreme redness one more time. “What would make the batter darker?” I silently questioned. Then, like a bolt of chocolate lightning from above, it hit me – I forgot to add the cocoa powder.

nearly lost you.

Hoping that it wasn’t too late, I quickly added the key missing ingredient, and tasted the batter again. This time, it looked and tasted like a red velvet should. The mystery of the red, red velvets was solved. I scooped, baked, iced, and served. And all was once again right with the world.

simply red.

 

Seeing Stars.

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a post (Star-Glazing) about how I was asked to make chocolate covered star-shaped cake pops. Never one to turn down a challege, I accepted the task and enthusiastically dove right in. I Well, the time has come, and the pops have been made. But not without a bit of drama. I mean, that’s what being a star’s all about, right?

I should have taken a picture of the natural disaster-like conditions that had taken form in my kitchen. Chocolate was everywhere; cake was everywhere; sprinkles (those tiny little ball-shaped ones used on nonpareils) were everywhere and then some. I literally had to vacuum my kitchen (it has hardwood floors). Not to mention the lack of sleep. But ultimately, in the end, the huge mess was worth it. Through all the hard work, the sleepless nights, the cleaning up again and again, a star was born. Kinda like life.

These stars came in three varieties:

dark chocolate…

stars shining right above you…

…purple….

the stars are bright, and big at night.

…and pink.

pretty in pink, isn’t she…

Sometimes, wishes do come true – you just have to be willing to work for it…and have lots of patience..

 

Viva La Twinkie.

When I heard about the end of Hostess, I nearly suffered a mini-breakdown (or should I say, “cakedown”). No more Twinkies? No more Ho-Ho’s? And if that wasn’t bad enough, NO MORE SNO BALLS??? I am utterly beside myself. The Sno Ball is and has always been my all-time favorite snack cake. It’s got chocolate. It’s got marshmallow. It’s got coconut. And best of all, it’s pink. If I were a snack cake, I would be a Sno Ball.

sno no more.

In the midst of wallowing in my soon-to-be-sno ball-free existence, I had an idea – I should round up some other snack cake lovers and buy Hostess! I ran this by a few folks, and it was met with the same response every time – a raised eyebrow and a “look how funny you are” type comment. Ok, so that was not realistic. Then someone said, “why don’t you just make your own versions?”

Well, I’ll be. Now THIS was something I could do! This, in fact, may be what I was born to do. I didn’t go to pastry school to be a cake decorator (although I do dabble in it). I went to school to master the chemistry of baking. Recreating Hostess products at home, from fresh ingredients, making them possibly even slightly better for you is like my dream job. So, I decided to get started right away. I ran out that very day and purchased every hostess cake I could find. Sadly, there were no Sno Balls to be had.

farewell, old friends.

Let the fun begin. What better way to dive right in then go straight for the big guns – The Twinkie.

I don’t have a Twinkie pan, but I had something close – a small loaf pan. I decided to begin my experiment by using my standard vanilla cake recipe for my first attempt. Although they turned out a little squarer than the Twinkie we all know and love, so far, they were looking pretty good.

it’s hip to be square.

I let them cool, then turned them out onto the rack. They remained intact and unburned.

cool it down.

While they cooled on the rack, I made the cream filling. I started with a recipe I found online that claimed to be authentic Twinkie filling, but I made some tweaks to make it a little creamier, including swapping the milk with half and half.

how ’bout that awesome retro hand mixer I scored from my aunt.

I then filled them, with three holes in the bottom, just like a real Twinkie.

fill ‘er up.

After they were all filled, I had to try one, for research purposes, of course.

even better than the real thing.

So there you have it. And this is just the beginning, folks. There are binders full of Hostess Cakes I need to recreate. I’ve found my reason for living.

 

Star-Glazing.

As I mentioned in my last post, I was working on star-shaped cake pops, and my first attempt had not gone quite as planned. There was some breakage and a little star and stick detachment. However, I didn’t give up. After a period of rest and regrouping, I returned to the kitchen with a new plan of attack. I made a handful more “cake stars” using a star shaped cookie cutter. I let them chill in the fridge for a bit. I melted the chocolate (a different kind this time). I dipped the sticks, and inserted them into the stars. I put the stars-on-sticks back in the fridge to chill a little longer. I re-warmed the chocolate. I removed the star-pops from the fridge and dipped each one in. They remained intact and on their respective sticks. The experiment is complete and the results are favorable. Star-shaped cake pops are now a reality. It only took courage, proper planning, patience, and an indomitable spirit. I suppose this is what it takes to be a star.

and we all shine on.