Bake-a-thon Saturday

I had the baking itch today.

The feeling that I had all these goodies I wanted to bake but my little kitchen can't hold all the crazy desserts.

1) French Macarons
2) Madeleines JOY OF BAKING RECIPE
3) Turtle Brownies minus the nuts NESTLE RECIPE
4) Williams Sonoma Chocolate Cake WS RECIPE
5) Zucchini Bread COOK'S ILLUSTRATED RECIPE
6) Donuts w/royal icing glaze WHITEPINES RECIPE
7) Lemon Shortbread Cookies shaped into Buttons :) MIETTE RECIPE



My cousin Pola was generous enough to open her kitchen and her insane baking stash of gadgets and gizmos of plenty. I had to quote Ariel for the Little Mermaid :) Tons of counter space and freakin' insane oven to boot. I was in baking heaven! And boy did we crank out the desserts! We started around 2 and finished around 11. We were determined... seriously to make all the goodies.

We tried, well more-She tried, to record me bake but it got a little out of hand because of all the desserts. I started the desserts faster than she could get it on camera. Which was to my benefit mwAhah.

It was a perfect day of rainy weather and lotsa, lotsa, baking.

Now... pictures:



Madeleines & Turtle Brownies



Lemon Shortbread Button cookies



French Macarons



Zucchini Bread in stoneware pan



Donuts w/ pink royal icing



Williams Sonoma Chocolate Cake with Chocolate buttercream



So that was my Saturday :)


xoxo,
Noeybakes

And I'm back...

Wedding. Quit my job. Vegas. Started new job/career. Vegas. Wedding. Vegas. Birthdays. Vegas. Stroller shopping. LA. Baby Amelia on the way. Oh did I mention I went to Vegas?! Cheese and rice.

Vegas is definitely a great place. As I was boarding the plane back to wonderful SF, I get a phone call from my mom:

Me: "Hola Mamacita!!"
Mamacita: "We're going to Vegas maybe the weekend of the fight or in Dec."
Me: "Errr. Umm. Okay?"
Mamacita: "Do you want to have dinner tonight?"
Me: "errrr ummm. I'm in Vegas. On the way home actually. So maybe?"
Mamacita: "YOU'RE STILL THERE FROM 2 WEEKS AGO?!!"
Me: "No. I just came back 2 weeks later."

Lol. Love Vegas much?! I mean who doesn't? Some trips this summer were more memorable than others but we will not disclose such details.

Anywho, that's what I've been up to in a nice, compressed paragraph.

You know what else is nice and compressed? Ellie. The chocolate cake, fondant covered baby owl I made as a topper for the babyshower cake.


Her eyes are ginormous just like baby Amelia's will be when she gets here. Which can be any day now :) Ellie's sitting on a rose tip decorated cake inspired by I AM BAKER. I've already expressed on numerous occasions how much I love her but what's one more? I FREAKING LOVE HER! She's a decorating genius!

I made a Choket Cake with 2 different cocoa powders. Instead of the 3/4 C, I did 1/2C dark cocoa and 1/2C regular cocoa. Everything else in the recipe stayed the same.


Then there are Ellie's little red velvet owl cake pop friends I made as favors. This one I named Maddy. She's too cute for words. My coworker put her in the freezer to preserve the cutesyness. Lol

That's what I've been up to. Now. It's just waiting time for little Ameee (Amelia) to show her cute little face :)

<3 [noeybakes]

THE wedding cake: finale

Is it ok to eat stale food? Like chips or croutons that weren't sealed properly?
I mean really, who is it REALLY hurting?
No one, right?
Right.





=) Look at that happy couple!Congratulations to Derek & my BFFF Dianne 03.19.11

I hope you guys enjoyed my journey of my first wedding cake as much I enjoyed making it. Sooooo.... if you missed a few posts, here ya go:

The beginning
The middle
The break


... and now I bring you the finale.

There was lots of rain, lots of craziness, lotsa people and oh did I mention that crazy rain?!

The crazy rain that wanted to pour when the cakes were being transported?

The crazy rain that wanted to storm when the cakes were being brought from my car to the venue?

The crazy rain that wanted to try my patience as I put the cake back into my car from the venue because of the crazy site controller lady?

The crazy rain that THANKFULLY made my car into a mini refrigerator over night because the crazy site controller lady at the venue wouldn't let me leave it there due to "vermon, rats, ants and outside animals" that may want the wedding cake. CRAZY LADY. I think she made everyone crazy and frustrated.

NONETHELESS.... the entire process went wonderful. The wedding was wonderful. Tears were shed, hugs were exchanged and the bride to be helped me with taking pictures for you all. So thank her for documenting all the steps.

Thank her for saying prayers to calm my insane nerves that didn't want to stay still to stack the cake.

Thank her for showing you my dress with the rain boots due to the wacky weather.

Thank her for sharing her special day with you all.

I'm still a bit emotional from the event... it's not obvious, right?

For the cake recipes... Dianne loves--such a light word to describe her relationship with chocolate but it's gonna do- chocolate. So I made my:

SUPER MOISTEST CHOKET CAKE with chocolate buttercream and vanilla buttercream for the outside. I made 3 tiers: 2-10", 4-8", 2-4" & a half sheet cake.

The half sheet cake died, so I had to salvage it as best I could. Therefore turned into a quarter sheet cake.

Please don't ask me how much I made of each because then I'll have to show you my excel spreadsheets and trust me you'll have nightmares... scary, scary nightmares of numbers.

I'm very in love with this cake. Mainly because it matched her so perfectly. She hates symmetry hence the different sizes.

I'm very very very in love with it. Let's hope you all fall in love as well :)










Without further ado........... why people visit blogs.... THE PICTURES. Let me know what you think.









MUAHZ,
noey

THE wedding cake: intermission

Holy shnikies, will you look at Zoe? She's damn clean and shiny.


Had to give her a nice rub down before she starts work again later. Not that she's not always clean. She's just never as shiny. I thought I'd pay tribute to her since she's like my little Oompa Loompa behind all my creations. Well except that she's robin's egg blue.

Lotsa cakes... lotsa.... lotsa... cakes....


There will be almost 12 batches of frosting and 12 batches of chocolate ganache, which I pronounce gooooooonAshhhhhh. Just so you knew the correct way to pronounce it.

I think I'm procrastinating a bit because to tell you guys the gosh awful truth--i'm scared.

I had a dream, more like nightmare, that I was late to the wedding, without the cake, without my dress and all I had on were my Reebok easy-tones and my hula outfit. What the hekk kinda outfit would that be? How would that look if the maid of honor showed up like THAT!? Bad, all kinds of BAD.

So I'm here. Sharing my growing apprehension I have when I'm about to finish a huge event. Usually I break down, go all crazy female dogg like and start cursing every move I make.

Like "why did I ******* wait to do this ******* last minute?" "why didn't I ******* do it this way... or ******* that way" then yelling at my poor puppies in the process. They always look at me like "mommy, we didn't do anything to you. We just want to eat your cake, just in case it happens to fall on the ground."

So I'm writing to calm the nerves, calm my stress level and to calm my sanity to a normal, workable level. Don't judge me--you'll just enable the monster that's wanting to go nuts over making a beautiful wedding cake.

I guess what's really got me is that it's my bestfriend's cake. So of course it has to be PERFECT. Anything less would just make me want to die. But ok--- I'll just stop and smell the fondant flower...



does it smell good to you?

Happy St. Patty's Day.
Don't forget your green because I pinch--
I pinch, hard.

THE wedding cake: the maddness...

Do you hit snooze when your alarm goes off?

I'm very guilty of that. Every morning I wake up hitting the snooze button AT LEAST 4 times. Twice on my phone and twice on my actual alarm clock. That's a lot of hitting. I'm suprised they haven't hit me back yet...

I seem to want to wake up at the exact same time every morning, 5:27am, except when I'm feelling a little behind at work, well then it's 5:15am.

This morning was different, well sorta. Instead of dragging myself out of bed I got up instantly and thought "it's my Friday!" And I still woke up at 5:27, nonetheless.

The bestfriend is getting married this weekend.

Did I mention that yet? So in the midst of all the craziness that's going on let me show you what I've been up to....

I should have taken a picture of my hair. My crazy, out of this world, hair. It tends to get pretty funky on me when I'm in the zone with baking.




Do you see what evil my oven has done to this perfectly baked cake?
NOT COOL OVEN. NOT COOL.



I made flowers too. Check out the fancy flower formers, aluminum foil. I'm too cheap to buy the real kind at the store, but seemed to work better than I expected. But let me tell you these flowers are finicky, delicate, dainty little things. I take one look at them and a petal cracks. I did NOT sign up for THAT. Must amend gumpaste/fondant ratio.




I had to include the picture of my black fondant bucket. Every time I look at it a voice in my head cackles, "mUaHHahHahahHHHH AH."

Such an evil laugh for a fondant bucket. You're made of sugar, how evil can you be?

And that's what going on around my house...
tomorrow....

FROSTING the cakes...

wompppp wommmp wommmmmmmmmmmp.

THE wedding cake: And so it begins...

Have you ever had road rage so bad that you screamed loudly in your car hoping that the other person would hear you?

Well that was me today and the person did hear me, mainly because my window was rolled all the way down. I had to drive all kinds of crazy ways just to get all my errands done. Friday makes everyone crazy. CA-RAZY I tell you! I think I'm going a little crazy.

Also is it rude for me to ask, "can you please move?" after I've politely excused myself so I can pass your cart that's taking up the entire baking isle, at Costco might I add?

We're all on a mission here Lady, to buy baking ingredients. There's plenty of stock to go around. There are rules to shopping! Well there's gotta be rules posted about shopping etiquette somewhere. Maybe I should give Costco my copy so they can post it in the baking isle.

OKAY. Breaths in, and breaths out.

Much better.

Day 1 of wedding cake posts has commenced. There are pans of different sizes covering my dining room table... oh and that's Steven Tyler in the background, American Idol--one of my many guilty pleasures.

I'm making my bestfriend's wedding cake. I have all my ingredients and the baking starts...

tomorrow....

Stay tuned ;)

Red Velvet Birthday Cake

Ah, red velvet. I have yet to post my recipe for that so that's exactly what I'll do here. I've tried many recipes of red velvet and have sorta written my own. Weird, eh? I'm turning Canadian now. Let's move on to the recipe:

1/2 C unsalted butter, room temp
2 C sugar
2 eggs, room temperature
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 C unsweetened cocoa
2 T red food coloring
2 C APF
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp white vinegar
1 C buttermilk, room temperature

Preheat: 350 degrees F

1. Cream butter & sugar together.
2. Add eggs 1 at a time.
3. Add cocoa, food coloring & vanilla extract.
4. Whisk flour, baking powder & salt together.
5. Add flour mix and pour in buttermilk. Not too long.
6. Mix baking soda/vinegar together then fold it into batter.
7. Bake for 25-30mins.

Makes 2 layer 9in cake.

Cream Cheese frosting

8oz cream cheese
5 C powdered sugar
1 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla

Mix all that wonderful goodness together-- add a tablespoon of milk to obtain the consistency you want.


I heart my rv recipe. I'm not going to claim it's the best... but... it's the best. So shush. Don't judge and let me indulge in this. You should indulge too. Try my recipe... let me know how it goes!

I made this cake for a little girl named Noel. It was her 11th birthday. She has a cool name. And NOOOOoo I'm not just saying that because it's my name too... I spell it differently but we still have the same level of awesomeness ;)




Do you see that pretty lady below? That's my BFFF. She's getting married in a few weeks and I thought I'd share some of the bridal shower pictures with you :)


I made flower center pieces for the tables. We used them for decorations then as party hats. Well not really but we like to think that they're better as party hats.


This was taken during one of the wedding shower games, making a wedding dress out of toilet paper. My partner in crime was my bestfriend's older sister. We were eliminated the first round because, according to the bride, ours didn't have enough fabric. I liked it. Can't please everyone, I guess.


The big day is March 19th. Oh and guess what I get to make... any body? any guesses? .....

anyyyyy........... bodyyyyy?

Ok, ok I'll tell you.
Her wedding cake!

So from now until then...

I'll be googling, measuring, making a list (and checking it twice--- er ummm it's not Christmas and I'm not Santa but that's neither here nor there..), let's say I'll make more than one list and will be sketching tons of pictures... It will be my first wedding cake so I'm pretty excited. There's stacking, dowels, large layers and lots of testing my patience involved.

It's gonna be a crazy ride... go buy your ticket so you can ride with me. Oy, what is this a carnival? Well my kitchen will be in the next coming weeks.

Stay tuned.
-- Noey

Carrot Cake

"Let them eat cake!"
- Marie Antoinette
I've been hearing that a lot lately. I imagine her in this huge white wig with alot of cakes around her. Weird, I know.

Anywhoooo I baked a lovely carrot cake. With lotsa carrots and frosted with lotsa cream cheese for the one and only Max Bayer who leaves for the coast guard academy soon. I made the frosting with the CUTEST vintage hand mixer from the 70s.

Isn't he cute!? I borrowed it from the bf's cousin, who had it from their late Mama. It has the CUTEST beaters ever!!! So small yet powerful. Kinda like my cake. It's plain and simple yet delish.

So clean. I <3 it. Goodnight world it's waaay passssss my me-me time. Heart, Noey


Ps. I forgot to give credit where it's due: taken from Lovintheoven I made 3 layers but the cake only has 2. I'll let you figure out where the other layer went. Let's just say I should go for a long walk tomorrow ;-)

Ingredients
•2 cups AP flour
•2 cups sugar
•2 tsp baking soda
•2 tsp baking powder
•2 tsp cinnamon (I added 4 tsp for extra spice)
•3 cups shredded carrot
•1 cup chopped walnuts
•4 eggs
•1 cup vegetable oil
•1/2 cup water
Frosting
•8 oz cream cheese (only use Philadelphia brand!)
•1 cup powdered sugar
•2 tsp vanilla
•1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
•few drops of water

Bake @ 350. What I love most about this recipe is that it's very low maintenance. As much as I heart Zoe, and Tom (my hand mixer) I love using a wooden spoon and bowl. Life's joys are the simplest things. Of course for the frosting I wasn't about to make it by hand, hence the vintagey mixer =) Use any pans you want. I used 3-8in round pans.

Ok ok seriously. goodnight