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: 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.

Cupcakes and Crutches

Happy Holidays! Hope everyone enjoyed their holiday as much as I did! As you know one of my friends had her wedding the day after Christmas and she asked me to make her cupcakes/cake. 230 cupcakes and 1 baby cake. Everything was a hit! But boy was it a journey to the finish line. Without further adieu:



I think the stand came out beautifully! Thanks Dad for the help :) The flavors the bride chose:

cupcakes:

white cake filled with mascarpone kahlua whipped cream frosted with kahlua cream cheese
mocha frosted with frangelico (hazeulnut) buttercream
red velvet cake frosted with vanilla cream cheese frosting

cake:

6" red velvet cake frosted with vanilla bean buttercream

The bf also made a little video on the day of the wedding. It's cute. There's music so turn up your speakers! Check it out:



So as I was saying, it was a huge journey to this finish line. Let me explain. The bf, my cousin and I went snowboarding the day before Christmas Eve. It was the most BEAUTIFUL DAY.



it was sunny, the snow was powdery, my runs were perfect. I'm not a beginner and not really a professional so ya. I know how to carve small and big. I just don't know how I ended up like this:



and how the binding that ripped out of my board ended up like this:



SO, the diagnosis is that my left knee is sprained. I have an appointment with a specialist on Wednesday but YES I did bake, frost, setup and goto the wedding with the bummmed knee. Insane. I know. Tell that to my poor knee. I seriously wouldn't have made it without the help of my mom's ginormous, cupcake making oven, my brother who diligently helped me with everything during the baking process, my dad for the stand/driving me around town while it rained cats and dogs bc someone *ahem*the bf*ahem* forgot all the butter at our house, and my loving bf for pretty much being my legs/purse holder(for him this is a huge thing. he totally detests holding purses)/driver/cook/my everything during this whole fiasco! OH OH, and big thank you to Lucky's grocery store for being the only store open on Christmas Day that actually had UNSALTED BUTTER. I wouldn't have made it through all this crazy baking madness. Thank you. I love u all.

With all that said I think if I had a dollar for every time I wanted to cry during the cupcake madness I would be filthy rich. But when everything was assembled and I saw the bride & groom's face, it was all worth it. I felt very touched to be included in their special day and wish them the best!!

If I had a choice to do it all over again, I think I wouldn't. haha Just kidding. I would if it weren't the day after a major holiday. With every experience I learn a lot about my techniques, recipes, what works and what doesn't. I've taken away a lot from this experience and wouldn't change any of it. Well like I said earlier maybe just not after a major holiday ;)

x O X o,
Noey

Cakes and Cookies

Good Morning everyone :)

It was a crazy couple of days. I've been trying new recipes as well as re-baking cakes because flavors didn't come out well. So there were a lot of "oh crap!" moments but everything worked out.

The first cake I made was for a friend's dinner. I took the recipe from Pioneer Woman's cookbook called The Best Chocolate Sheet Cake. Ever. Let me tell you it IS the best chocolate cake I've ever tasted. I changed sheet cake to 8" cake with buttercream frosting. I felt insanely guilty for changing the recipe but I had to work with what I had and that was not a sheet cake pan.

I'm sorry Pioneer Woman, don't hate me.






The filling/frosting is to dieeeeeeeeee for. I wanted to eat it right out of the pot... but remembered there's almost 2 sticks of butter so I only had 1 T. haha

Next I made nutella cookies which I renamed to The Jeny Cookies. My cousin, whom the recipe is named after, is obsessed with these cookies. Try my recipe and you'll see why :) Anyways I took the original recipe from My Italian Grandmother and tweeked it a bit. With a lot of cookie recipes I try to give Zoe a break. Zoe if you didn't know already is my little handy dandy stand mixer. She's been working hard this year so with most cookie recipes I usually do the mixing old school with a trusty wooden spoon, I call him Alex, it's a strong name hehe he makes an appearance in the pictures! But I make sure the butter is room temperature because my biceps aren't as strong as Zoe's ;)

Nutella Chip Cookies

by Giada De Laurentiis
see original recipe here

Yields: 36 cookies (I only got 24)

Ingredients:

1 1/3 cups all purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp kosher salt
1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 1.5 cups Nutella
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
3/4 cup hazelnuts (or semi-sweet chocolate chips)

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

In a medium bowl combine flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Set aside.

In another medium bowl combine the butter, Nutella, sugar and brown sugar. Using an electric mixerUsing your strong muscles, cream the ingredients together, about 4 minutes. Add the egg and vanilla and beat until smooth, about 1 minute. Using a wooden spoon or rubber spatula, Stir in the flour mixture until just combine. Add Hazelnuts (or chocolate chips) and stir until combine.

Using a tablespoon measure, spoon out the cookie dough onto a cookie sheet, spacting the mounds about 4 inches apart. Use the tines of a fork to flatten the cookie dough. <== I didn't need to do this because they came out flat anyway. Bake until lightly golden around the edges, about 10-12 minutes. Use a metal spatula to transfer the cookies to a wire rack to cool. I promise this recipe will rock your world like it did mine ;)





Lastly, I've been experimenting with fondant, as you've seen in the last post. I also made a chocolate cake for my dear cousin. There aren't step by step pictures because frankly it was 2am and I was about to pull my hair out. haha But the cake was made with love. That's what matters.




There a ton of things I would have done differently but I was pretty pleased with the end result.

And that was my baking weekend, sorta in a nutshell :) This next week's challenge, the wedding cupcakes/cakes for birthdays on christmas and lotsa christmas cookie requests. Can't wait to start!

Until next time...
Noey

Yo Gabba Gabba cupcakes

Happy 4th Birthday Sal!! Hope you enjoyed the cupcakes!

These are basic chocolate cupcakes with buttercream frosting and vanilla cupcakes with chocolate fudge frosting decorated with fondant pieces Yo Gabba Gabba style.

The chocolate chip cookie craze will have to hold on until next week because I'm off to the great city of Los Angeles this weekend to visit some friends ;) Be sure to check back for cupcakery/bakery visits because I have a long list that I want to try!

Until then :)

x O X o,
Noey