The Adventures of a Frustrated Baker

A few days ago, this blog hit its 2 year birthday and what better way to celebrate than with a ridiculously indulgent cupcake recipe?!  After all, that is kind of what I am all about.  These cupcakes were actually a special request from my boss at Starbucks.  He found the picture and I hunted down a recipe.  I even brought them in as a treat on my last day! I don't know if any of you are familiar with monster cookies, I know I wasn't...I lived a sheltered childhood apparently!  That's okay though, these cupcakes more than make up for a lifetime without monster cookies, though after seeing some recipes for those I think they may make an appearance at our house very very soon!  These cupcakes are essentially peanut butter chocolate chip cupcakes, which pretty much makes them perfect, then to make it even more amazing, you top them with a "cookie dough" made of peanut butter, oatmeal, chocolate chips and m&m's!  (I say "cookie...

This weekend my baby girl turns 5 and in honor of the occasion I made her a super yummy cake.  She requested chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and Hello Kitty on top.  Big surprise...so I found a super easy and delicious devil's food cake recipe on the Food Network's website, through together some melted chocolate with some cream and butter to make a fudge filling and crumbled up some Oreos to sprinkle between cake layers.   The complicated part came when I was making the marshmallow fondant for the top of the cake and for the Hello Kitty.  I found a recipe from Wilton for the fondant, which does taste loads better than traditional fondant.  Biggest hints here, use a stand mixer if you've got one and read the comments left on the recipe reviews.  That is a good tip for any recipe, but particularly for this one.  I ran into some issues getting the consistency right, and although it worked out, I think I pro...

A few weeks ago, it was my birthday and true control freak and avid baker that I am, I made my own cake.  Now I'm sure there is some rule out there, just as my family tried to say, that states you are not to make your own birthday cake if you have family around that can do it, but I wanted this cake...and I wanted it to be pretty...and well see above comment about me being a control freak.  Sorry, its just who I am LOL!  So I stayed up late on the day before my birthday so that I could bake this most delicious cake!  (It is super moist and not too rich and very flavorful, seriously I love this chocolate cake...beats boxed cake mix by like 10,000!)  Then when I got home from work on my birthday I quickly decorated it...so quickly in fact I plopped the top layer of cake on top of the bottom before I put in the raspberries.  I was irked, let me tell you, but no worries I worked with it and by layering them on the sides and in between roses on top it...

As I said in my last post, we had two birthdays in our family last week and as such, it fell to me as the baker of the house to make their cakes.  No store bought cakes or mixes for my family!  No way, no how!  Anyway, my mother-in-law decided that she wanted an angel food cake.  A plain one...with nothing on it...how BORING!!!  Sigh, but she was the birthday girl and I guess she could have a silly, boring, nothing on it angel food cake if that is what she wanted.  I'm such a good daughter-in-law...she should know how blessed she is!  : D One note here...I hate to admit this but I screwed this cake up!  And as much as I would love to pretend like I know all about baking and cakes, I knew nothing about angel food cakes when I made this one and I didn't not turn the pan upside down to cool like I was supposed to, so mine sank a little bit, not too much but some.  So, sorry Dianne, that your cake was not perfect.  Maybe you don't have the...