Blueberry Wine Cake

I made this dessert for a Memorial Day cookout with friends. It was refeshing, yummy and very easy to make. Since the glaze on the cake has wine in it that isn't cooked out, it is NOT a dessert for anyone under 21 years of age. At least not in the state of Indiana. I hope you enjoy this as much I do!

Ingredients:

1 box white cake mix
1 box (3 ounce) Berry Blue Jell-O mix
3/4 cup vegetable oil
1 cup "good" blueberry wine
4 eggs
1/2 cup pecans


Glaze:

1/2 stick butter - room temperature (cold butter won't work)
1/2 cup blueberry wine
1/4 box of powdered sugar (1/4 pound by weight)

DIRECTIONS:

Grease and flour the bottom of a bundt pan or other pan. Line bottom of pan with 1/2 cup of pecans. Mix all ingredients for the cake mix and pour over top of pecans. Bake at 350 degree for 50-60 minutes for bundt pan. Once cake is done, poke holes in the cake witha toothpick or fork and pour glaze mixture over hot cake. I like to use a skewer to poke the holes...more of the glaze gets into the cake that way. Once the cake had cooled, I filled the middle opening of the bundt cake with fresh blueberries.

**Note: Make sure glaze mixture isn't too warm and runny - like if you heated the butter in the microwave. I did this because my butter was cold and the glaze ingredients weren't mixing together right. This made it too runny and the glaze was so liquified that it mostly ran off the cake instead of slowly melting into the holes.

You can make this cake with just about any flavor of wine that you like. Just use the appropriate flavor of Jell-O to match the flavor of your wine as close as possible. If you use strawberry wine, then use strawberry flavored Jell-O, blackberry wine, you would still use the berry blue Jell-O, etc.

Red Velvet Twilight Cake

I made this lovely, blood red, red velvet birthday cake for the daughter of a friend last year. She's a HUGE Twilight fan. Just like me. Since she loves Twilight so much (we've had Twilight marathons) I thought it only appropriate to give her a really cool cake that I knew she'd love just as much as the movies. And to make it even cooler...more "vampire" like, I made red velvet cake. Alice and Jacob are her two favorite characters so I made sure to put "Team Alice" and "Team Jacob" on the cake along with Kierra's name and "Twilight." I painted them on in gold in the "Be Safe" script.

Naturally I HAD to take a picture of the inside of the cake as well. It was just too cool not to. Yes, I'm weird. And yes, I'm obsessed with vampire novels...and cake, lots of cake. I made a 16" round double layer cake for the bottom tier and the top is a 4 layer 8" square cake. I was going for some "WOW" factor with this cake. I'm pretty proud of this cake and I had a blast making it.

Happy Birthday Kierra!

Pistachio Cupcakes



I made these for the daughter of a friend last year. They were soooo good. Everyone seemed to like them quite well. I ended up making her an awesome Twilight themed cake but that's another story I haven't yet posted.

Ingredients:

1 (18.25 oz.) pkg yellow cake mix
2 (3.2 oz) pkgs instant pistachio pudding mix
1 cup water
3/4 cup vegetable oil
4 eggs

Directions:

In a mixing bowl, combine dry cake and pudding mixes, water, oil and eggs. Beat on low speed for 1 minute. Pour into a greased 9-inch or 10-inch fluted tube pan. Or in my case muffin tins lined with cupcake liners.

Bake at 350 degrees F for 60-70 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes before removing from pan to a wire rack to cool completely. Adjust the baking time for cupcakes. I can't recall how long I baked these as cupcakes as it was last year when I made them. I would use the baking time suggested for cupcakes on the cake mix box as a guideline.

I topped the cupcakes with a pistachio buttercream. I used a standard buttercream recipe replacing the vanilla, almond and butter flavorings with pistachio flavoring instead.

Happy Baking,
~Kat~

Adding Recipes

Good evening everyone! I just wanted to let ya'll know that I'm working on adding recipes to their respective posts. So far I've added the Cherry Limeade Cupcakes and the recipes needed for the Black Forrest Cupcakes. Recipes and credits are listed at the bottom of the post.

I'm looking forward to having more posts for ya'll soon. Until then, Happy Baking!

~Kat~

Black Forrest Cupcakes!

My niece Kayla came to visit us for a week before she had to start college classes again. I always try to bake something with her while she's here and since her birthday was the following week she picked out these for her birthday cupcakes.

This is my lovely niece Kayla. We baked Devil's Food Cupcakes and topped them with chocolate ganache. Kayla especially likes the ganache...can you tell? 

Once the ganache sets up and cools down on the cupcakes, we topped them with homemade whipped cream mixed with a wonderful dark cherry sauce topped with a stemmed cherry. They were so darn yummy the whole batch was gone in 24 hours. So naturally we had to make another batch. Recipe to follow in a separate post. I hope you all enjoy making and eating these as much as my family did! 

Devil's Food Cupcakes:

1 cup all-purpose flour

1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup firmly packed light brown sugar

4 tbsp unsalted butter, at room temperature

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 cup lukewarm water

1/4 cup buttermilk

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a standard 12-cup muffin pan with paper or foil liners.

Sift together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt into a bowl. In another bowl, with an electric mixer on medium-high speed, beat the granulated sugar, brown sugar, and butter together until light and fluffy, 2-3 minutes. Add the egg and vanilla and beat until combined. Add the flour mixture mixture in 3 additions, alternating with the water and buttermilk, beating on low speed until just combined; scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed. Beat on medium-high speed just until no traces of flour remain, about 30 seconds; do not overbeat.

Divide the batter evenly among the prepared muffin cups, filling each about three-fourths full. Bake until a toothpick inserted into the center of a cupcake comes out clean, 18-20 minutes. Let the cupcakes cool in the pan on a wire rack for 5 minutes. Transfer the cupcakes to the wire rack and let cool completely, about 1 hour.

Spoon the chocolate glaze over the cupcakes. NOTE: I found that spooning the glaze over the cupcakes didn't work so well for me. I actually dipped the tops of the cupcakes into the ganache, swirling them around the edges of the cupcake to cover the entire top of each cupcake. Then I held the cupcakes sideways and let the excess run/drip off. I found that this leaves a shiny, smooth ganache topped cupcake. Aesthetically it just looks better.

Rich Chocolate Glaze:

1 cup heavy cream

1 tbsp light corn syrup

Pinch salt

8 oz semi-sweet chocolate, chopped

Makes about 1 3/4 cups.

In a small saucepan combine the cream, corn syrup, and salt. Bring to a simmer over medium-high heat. Remove the pan from the heat, add the chocolate, and let stand for about 3 minutes. Using a wooden spoon, stir the mixture until the chocolate is completely melted and the mixture is smooth. Let cool to room temperature and use right away. (The cooled glaze can be refrigerated in an airtight container for up to 3 days; before using, soften the glaze by gently heating it in a heatproof bowl set over, but not touching, simmering water in a saucepan.)

Dark Cherry Whipped Cream:

1 1/2 cups fresh Bing cherries, pitted and cut in half, plus 12 whole unpitted cherries with stems for garnish

2 tbsp granulated sugar

1 tbsp kirsch

1 cup cold heavy cream

1 tbsp confectioner's sugar

In a small saucepan over medium heat, combine the halved cherries, granulated sugar, and kirsch. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the cherries soften and the juice becomes syrupy 5-7 minutes. Transfer to a small bowl, cover, and refrigerate until cold, at least 1 hour or for up to 1 day.

In a bowl, combine the cream and confectioners' sugar. Using an electric mixer on low speed, beat until slightly thickened, 1-2 minutes. Gradually increase the speed to medium-high and beat until the cream holds soft peaks, 2-3 minutes. Using a rubber spatula, gently fold the cherry mixture into the whipped cream, leaving streaks of red. Top the glazed cupcakes with the cherry-whipped cream mixture, garnish each with a whole cherry and serve.

All recipes listed are from: "Cupcakes by Shelly Kaldunski. Luscious bakeshop favorites from your home kitchen."

Cherry Limeade Cupcakes

So I made these cherry limeade cupcakes as part of our Mother's Day celebration. First recipe I've tried for the cherry limeade cupcakes. They turned out very pretty but I need to find a way to get more cherry flavor into the finished product. These are limeade cupcakes with maraschino cherry icing. I love the way they look but perhaps if I switch the flavors of the cake & icing they will have more of a punch of cherry taste. Enjoy!

Cherry Limeade Cupcakes:

Makes about 24 cupcakes.

Ingredients:
3 cups cake flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1 cup (2 sticks) butter
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup + 2 tbsp limeade concentrate
3 eggs
3/4 cup plain yogurt (you can use milk)

Directions:

Preheat over to 350 degrees.
Mix together the flour, salt, baking soda and pwder and set aside. In a medium sized bowl, cream the butter until smooth then add the sugar and cream together. Once the butter and sugar are creamed add in the limeade concentrate. Mix in one egg at a time. Add in flour mixture 1/3 at a time. When flour is thoroughly mixed, mix in the yogurt (or milk.) Batter will be slightly lumpy but should be smooth kind of like pancake batter. Divide the batter evenly into lined muffin tims and bake for about 15-20 minutes. Allow to cool.

Once the cupcakes have cooled, poke a few (5-ish) holes in the top of the cupcake, not quite to the bottom of the cake. Mix together the remainder of the limeade concentrate (about 3/4 cup.) Whisk the mixture well, so there aren't any lumps. Pour about a tablespoon of the syrup over the holes in the cupcake, slowly, so that the syrup absorbs into the cake. You can add more if you like, just go back over the cupcakes a second tiem if there is any syrup left.

For the icing I made a standard buttercream, but I used the maraschino cherry juice in place of the milk and vanilla extract. I added a little extra food colouring to the icing ot make it even more pink. Cupcakes are better when cold.

I'm here...really, I am.

I know it's been a long while since I've posted anything. That doesn't mean I've not been baking things, because I have, really I have. I've been working on some posts today but for some reason I can't seem to get my pics to upload from my laptop to the site. So I'll keep trying and when I'm able to get the pictures to cooperate, I'll publish the posts. I also discovered today that I either had a piece of adware, spyware or a virus that was jackin' with my text and my mouse. Everything I typed was showing up in reverse order and when I tried to type in a different webpage address to see if it was just that one page, the cursor was backing up one space at a time, no matter where I clicked, it backed up and then it started putting in the address to web sites that I wasn't typing!

After some time spent updating my anti-spyware and anti-malware software programs and then running them, I was able to "fix" the issue (at least it seems I have) and am working on getting things back up and running and posting some new things for you all!

Much cupcake love to you all!
~Kat~