Sugar Swings! Serve Some: March 2011

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

a birthday bundt cake....!

.....this was for my mother in law's 71st birthday today.....it's a cream cheese pound cake recipe....well for 1) because someone bought a ginormous tub of cream cheese at costco recently ...and 2) a good pound cake recipe is yum....and 3) decided to rainbow it up because all girls like rainbows no matter if they are 7 or 71...right??!

.....seriously who needs this much cream cheese?....guess the kids will be eating cream cheese sandwiches for lunch for days.....or maybe i'll make a vat of cream cheese icing just for emergencies....

...anyway, this batter is pretty thick and rich but what wouldn't be with 3 sticks of butter, a load of cream cheese, and 6 eggs (used 5 because we also have super extra large eggs as well---what's with the double yolks??).....


...once the batter is all mixed up, add some to cover the bottom of a bundt pan then transfer about 1 and 1/2 cups of batter to 4 different bowls.....and add some food coloring.....(thought i had pics of that but apparently not....oops!)....once the colors are added....plop the tinted batter into the bundt pan as well.....


....use a butter knife and pull it through the batter to swirl the colors around.....then just smooth out the top (which will be the bottom) a bit....


...bake at 300 degrees for 1 and 1/2 hours.....yep 1 and 1/2 hours exactly....let cool and add a little powered sugar on top.....


...and you get.....

rainbow bundt cake

....also you may have noticed i had pink tinted batter in the pics.....wondering where it is?....yeah me too.....for the pink i used india tree natural decorating color in red (it's made from beets---wrote about it here).....this is the first time i baked with them (before i only used them in icings or fillings)....so it seems the pink color baked out....maybe with the heat and long baking time?....i'll have to google that one....but i'd be interested to know if anyone has ever found the same with baking with natural food colorings.....and hope you enjoy the rest of your week!

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Friday, March 18, 2011

easy petit fours...!



...so i've always loved petit fours more specifically petit four glaces (iced)......there's something about little mini decorated cakes....!...but i've always been a little leery of making them.....they look so pretty and delicate but seem like a load of work and preparation.....these are much simpler than traditional petit fours....first off i started from a "petit four" pan that i got for christmas....

....much simpler in that there is no layer in between of filling or jelly....so maybe that's cheating but trust me these are sweet enough and don't really need a filling!....i used a boxed pound cake mix....i tried this pan once before using a regular boxed cake mix and the cake was too light and didn't hold the petit four shape as well once it was baked....(actually once covered with the glaze...you can't really see the shape much anyway...)


....the glaze is actually a recipe that came with the pan....i looked up a few recipes and they were all kinda similar....but this one used the microwave so seemed even simpler to me....

glaze:
4 cups of powdered sugar
1/3 cup of light corn syrup
1/4 cup of water
1/2 teaspoon of almond extract (i used lemon extract b/c my kids have nut allergies)
-food coloring

mix all the ingredients together (except for food coloring)....which looks like this.....


...then microwave for 45 seconds and stir.....separate into bowls and add food coloring.....microwave each bowl for another 30-40 seconds until glaze is more runny.....


...spoon glaze over petit fours....you can cover entirely or i left some of the cake showing through.....you have to work kinda fast because the glaze starts to set pretty quickly....


....i did 2 batches with the pan....and then let them set for about 10-15 minutes......


....originally i wasn't going to decorate to save some time.....but since the glaze was a little thicker than i was thinking it would be and you can't really see the pretty design from the pan....i used a little vanilla buttercream i had to do some simple decoration on top....


...all in all i think from start to finish this took about 2 and 1/2 hours.....which i guess is not super fast, but it's faster than regular petit fours from scratch....!...then again you also need the pan...but you could always just buy pound cake and cut out squares....i think i've seen that as a short cut too.....

...either way make them!....because they are cute and yummy, and this way is pretty easy....and you can do all different colors for birthdays, weddings, showers, holidays (they would be great for easter coming up!), or just to say "yay....it's friday and it's almost spring!"......have a great weekend and thanks for stopping by!


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Sunday, March 13, 2011

rainbow cupcakes....!


......i've had some kiddo withdrawal since i've been traveling the past 2 weeks for work....at first a couple days alone in a hotel room seems pretty awesome.....you can watch all the csi you want without anyone requesting yo gabba gabba or thomas the tank engine or any other of the nick jr shows that they seem to enjoy watching endlessly......or you can eat dinner with some grown up conversation.....but that gets old after a day or 2.....and i miss having to get up for something every 2 seconds when i sit down to eat dinner or hearing my name yelled with outside voices inside the house as in "MOMMMMMMMMMM" ....or playing babies for the 100th time for the day.....missed the kiddos a lot and all that goes with it....

.....so made them some really colorful cupcakes (because they are like me and like anything with lots of colors).....they are for st. patrick's day too....they are *supposed* to be rainbows with pots of gold....but upside down....!...i'll let everyone decide on their own if that worked or not....(i'm not so sure but regardless they are definitely rainbow cupcakes :)

rainbow cupcakes

...start with your favorite flavor cupcakes.....i used a doctored boxed yellow cake.... separate the batter into 5 or 6 different bowls....and tint with your favorite rainbow colors.....bake as usual....then freeze (at least for a couple hours...i froze mine for at least a couple days because they were baked ahead of time)........

......slice into 4 or 5 layers......(the freezing helps with slicing the cupcakes evenly)....

...layer cupcakes with different colors (add a little bit of frosting between layers to keep together).....then frost with some vanilla buttercream (or whatever your favorite frosting currently is)....and top with a "pot of gold"....

...the "pots of gold" are made with these...


.....which were found in an asian grocery store...the bottoms were colored black with a food writer.....

.....these were pretty fun to make and the kids got a kick out of them....!

rainbow cupcakes

...happy st. patty's day to all....i'm on a mission this week to find me a shamrock shake!

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