Fall is in the air

It's been awhile since I last blogged. I've kinda been taking a break from baking - as in less orders and more baking for myself :) I'm also enjoying fall quite a lot this year. I've always considered myself a summer person, but after this crazy heat wave we had in the DC area this summer...I think I am REconsidering what my favorite season is.

Last weekend was beautiful! We took a metro ride down to the Eastern Market in DC. I have lived in the MD/DC area my whole life and have never ever been. We enjoyed it so much we brought family friends from London, down to the market this weekend as well. Look at all the beautiful fall colors at the market:

(click to view collage larger)

Waited in line for a good 30 minutes for this crepe!

We decided to make dinner based on whatever we bought from the market. Here is what we ended up with on our menu that evening:

~Fresh Raviolis (2 flavors - Mozzarella and roasted tomato; goat cheese, butternut and apple) half of it I toasted ("St. Louis style") and the other half I boiled. We made a few different sauces on the side: marinara, vodka sauce, and a brown butter sage sauce with bacon (which went great with the goat cheese!)
~Homemade meatballs (a mix of pork, veal and beef)
~Brussel sprouts (my BFs family recipe...and it includes bacon and butter! I think bacon and butter can make anything taste good)
~Salad (fresh mesculin mix with grape tomatoes served with a homemade citrus honey mustard dressing)

~Topped off with a bottle of Vidal from the Lailey Winery we got on our trip to Niagara on the Lake this summer.

AHmazing dinner...

It was SO good! I kinda felt like how I feel after I eat a thanksgiving meal lol... but it was worth it! Oh and I can't forget the most important part of the meal... DESSERT :) Our family friends have never had a Cara Lee Cupcake so I whipped up some homemade Orange cupcakes scented with fresh zest topped with an orange zest swiss meringue and filled with a Grand Mariner raspberry filling. The jam I had bought on our trip to Niagara this summer as well. I mixed in a teaspoon or so of GM and some orange zest into the jam before filling the cupcakes.

Got to use my new orange with polka dot liners

The inside...

It's been such a great weekend and I'm loving fall... not ready for the cold weather to move in just yet though. In the meantime I will be getting ready for Halloween the rest of this week ~Cara Lee

100th post: Black Bottom Cupcakes!

Wow! So I just realized this is my 100th post!! Time really flies when you're blogging I guess ;-) Well good thing I have a fun post today for my 100th.

One of my managers will be leaving us this week to go on to bigger things. I won't be there on the last day since I will be away, so I made them today instead. For flavors she said chocolate and raspberry... I came up with a Raspberry Black Bottom Cupcake. I took my favorite chocolate cake recipe and found a cream cheese filling recipe. I modified the cream cheese recipe by adding frozen raspberries that I thawed out and drained though a sieve. I took that left over syrup and added it to the cream cheese mixture. I also portioned off some of the cream cheese mixture to make regular black bottom cupcakes with tiny chocolate chips.

I don't like naked cupcakes, so I thought a light smooth swiss meringue buttercream would compliment the cupcake quite nicely. This is my first time successfully making a swiss meringue and it turned out so beautiful and yummy.

For decor, I was inspired by my manager's pregnancy. Sounds weird I know, but she always talks about how she misses sushi. So I made some fondant sushi toppers: california roll, sashimi, ginger, wasabi, and a good luck fortune cookie :)