A Sweet Vacation

Last week, Kevin and I visited my sister in Phoenix. She bought us tickets to see Love in Las Vegas, so we road tripped it 5 hours northwest the day after arriving. We stayed at the Mirage for two days. It was our first time in Sin City and Kevin and I spent a lot of time wandering the strip. One of my favorite sights was the Conservatory in the Bellagio. The garden in there was one of the most stunning things I had ever seen. Here is one of my favorites:

Vegas is known for many things and one of those things is food. One goal I had while there was to eat a truly decadent pastry chef made dessert, however, this did not happen. Hopefully next time.

We did enjoy some great treats in Phoenix though. My sister, Heather, who is also a baker, took us to Sprinkles. For those that don't know, Sprinkles is one of the first cupcakeries that made it big. Oprah raves about these cupcakes. They started in Beverly Hills, I think, and now have quite a few locations, including a location in Kansas City opening in the near future.

On a side note, people can be quite picky about cupcakes, more specifically, the ratio of cake to frosting. For me, I enjoy a good frosting. I think that is why I am experimenting with lots of unique frosting flavors. But that is another blog post. However, I don't want the frosting to do all of the talking though. With Sprinkles, the amount of frosting is quite small compared to the cake. The cupcakes are average size and the frosting is spread on like a shell, not a rosette like mine. They have many flavors, but only offer certain ones each day. One such flavor was a Chai cupcake. I had never seen such a thing before and had to have one. It was good, but unfortunately, nothing special. Probably my favorite was the Vanilla with Milk Chocolate frosting. Neither one of those things are my go-to choice, but it sounded really good and in our dozen, I wanted to try as many different frostings as I could. It turned out to be fantastic.

Another fantastic sweet treat we found was Nothing Bundt Cakes. Heather told me about it and Kevin and I found it while wandering Scottsdale by ourselves. If you ever get the chance to try one, DO IT. The closest location is in Colorado and a bunch in Texas and California. We tried the White Chocolate Raspberry in the Bundtlet size (about 4-inch diameter). The cake was super dense, but oh so moist and tender. The frosting was piped on in pieces, in order to see the cake underneath. It was probably my favorite thing I ate all trip.

What to do with leftover frosting...

Make cupcakes!!! Chocolate cupcakes to be exact.

Kevin and I leave for Phoenix and Las Vegas on Wednesday and I had leftover frosting from the two sheet cakes for 3rd paying customer that I wanted to use before we left. Therefore cupcakes!

Many people at work were jealous and curious about the cakes that I made for Carolyn, that I decided to make the same chocolate cake recipe as I did for her. This recipe is probably my new favorite chocolate cake recipe. It's dense, but yet tender and airy, and oh so moist. The chocolate flavor is rich for only using cocoa powder. I expect a flavor like that to come from a melted chocolate and butter mixture. Butter is also another thing not included in the cake. The cake is really easy to make and without butter, I don't have to worry about having to let the butter come to room temp in order to make the cake. Read: Can make with little notice.

As for the frosting, it was just a simple buttercream, but I flavored it with almond. Since I was using oils instead of extracts, the almond flavor was strong. For some it might have been too strong, but most people liked it a lot. The decorating turned out as good as I expected. I have not had the chance to really frost and decorate many cakes, so I need more practice. And a few more tools, which will make Kevin very happy...

I also wanted to thank Carolyn for trusting me to make cakes for a large party she threw in honor of her husband's 60th birthday. She is my 3rd client and I was really hoping to make a good impression. She did say that the cakes were a hit especially the chocolate. Thank you very much Carolyn. I really appreciate everything.

Here are a few pictures of the cakes and cupcakes:

3rd time is the charm on the Cloud 9 Cupcake

Monday I decided to revisit the caramel cupcakes since I had leftover white chocolate buttercream frosting to use. I really like the combination of caramel and white chocolate. It's one of my favorite lattes at work, so I figured it would be a good in a non-liquid form as well. The first time around, the idea was good, but the final product was less then stellar. I was really not happy with it, but everyone else liked them a lot.

So Monday was attempt number 2...and 3. I figured out the recipe I used worked much better as a bundt cake rather than cupcakes. Therefore, I scrapped those and made a different recipe. It only made 14 cupcakes, but turned out much better then attempt #1 & 2 and I was even able to frost them and take half to work with me that afternoon. They were not quite as light as I would like them to be, but I finally feel I am on the right track.