Ruffled Cake

I know everyone has done this cake by now.... but I think it is so cute and simple, I wanted to try my hand at it too. With the upcoming wedding, I had to test a cake recipe before hand and this was the perfect opportunity to test the recipe and my piping skills. I can't wait to do this cake again sometime :)


I ended up with a vanilla buttermilk cake with peach and black berry swiss meringue buttercream. Very summery! For the peach SMBC, I put a few tablespoons of peach preserves in the food processor before adding it to the frosting to ensure there were no peach chunks to get caught in the tip of the piping bag.

I love the contrast of the blackberry frosting inside the cake too!

Had a little batter left over to make a few cupcakes as well :)

Tonight I will begin preparation for this weekend's wedding! No life this week, but hopefully worth all the hard work in the end ;-)

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

Friday Cupcakes

Every other Friday or so I make cupcakes to bring into work. My co-workers are like my guniea pigs and so far they have liked every cupcakes I've brought in (unless they've been lying to me ;-) I brought a few different kinds into work this week.

First I made chocolate cupcakes with strawberry swiss meringue frosting and a nutella center. So yummmmmmy! I'm really liking the swiss meringue frosting lately and so does the BF :) I kinda got the idea because I love strawberry and nutella crepes! Next time I gotta put banana in there somewhere too.
My second creation is something I have been wanting to make for awhile now. Meat cupcakes! A co-worker of mine doesn't like sweets so I thought it would be perfect. I first heard about a meat cake on one of those wedding shows and it was for a grooms cake. I scaled it down a bit and made them cupcake size.Simply take your favorite meat loaf recipe and portion it into a cupcake pan. Top it with mash potatoes (I piped the potatoes on to make them look more like "frosting"). Then I used bacon, cheese, and chives for the "sprinkles". OH and I can't forget, I did a little ketchup in the center! I gotta have ketchup with my meatloaf. You could do gravy if you want. I put the meat cupcakes in the liner after they had cooled and I dabbed off the grease.

You can also go all out and do a bacon liner if you want!

Grad school has started up for the fall so I'm gonna be crazy busy between that and work. I'll squeeze some bake time in there somewhere :) Big order for next weekend! Have a good one ~Cara Lee