Today is my boss’ birthday so, in honor of him and his love for carrot cake, I decided to bake carrot cake cupcakes.
All week I searched for what I thought would be the perfect recipe, finally landing on Ina Garten’s carrot cake cupcakes. The recipe seemed simple enough, and most importantly, it contained all the classic ingredients: cinnamon, raisins, walnuts, carrots and of course, cream cheese frosting.
Sunday afternoon, the baking process began. Everything was going very well, until I took the cupcakes out of the oven. DISASTER! I don’t know what I did wrong exactly, but what I ended up taking out of the oven was not a pretty sight. The edges were baked to a crisp and the middle sank las if the cake were being sucked into a black hole. What a mess…
But if there is one thing that I have learned over the years it’s that, in baking, when one (oven) door closes, another opens. I had been smart enough, in my shopping, to buy extra carrots and raisins, so I regrouped and decided to ditch the cupcake idea and go with something a little safer…Martha Stewart’s Carrot Cake Cookies.
The result…well let’s just say they looked a lot prettier. Now it’s just a matter of time until I see if they are a hit with the birthday boy.
Monday, April 25, 2011
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
A Cake Ball by Any Other Name Would Taste as Sweet
This past weekend, I had a small get together at my house. Ok, so it was one of those silly jewelry parties, but the way I looked at it was just a good excuse to have some good food and good company. I made sure I had plenty of wine, and some good afternoon snacks cheese and crackers and veggies with roasted red pepper hummus.
The biggest decision, of course, was deciding what to have for dessert. Originally I was thinking of making cupcakes...chocolate chip cupcakes with chocolate chip frosting to be exact. But then I remembered a go-to crowd favorite, Cake Balls! They are perfect party dessert finger foods, basically a piece of cake and frosting rolled into a ball coated in chocolate. What could be better? And for this particular day I decided to go with a yellow cake, in which I mixed honey Teddy Grahams, with white frosting covered in semi-sweet chocolate. Um, can we say delicious!?
The word 'cake balls', however, doesn't have the most elegant ring to it (as my boss pointed out). So he presented me with the challenge of renaming this scrumptious, bute-sized dessert. I posed the question to my guests this past weekend and here are a few names we came up with:
Cake Bon Bons
Cake Rocks
Torta di Palle (cake balls in Italian)
Cake Ballz (the z makes the name a little cooler, was someone's rationale)
Cake Conglomerates
TriCakes (since there are 3 components)
In the end, though, we all agreed that cake balls might just be the best. But really whatever you want to call them, a cake ball by any other name would taste just as sweet!
The biggest decision, of course, was deciding what to have for dessert. Originally I was thinking of making cupcakes...chocolate chip cupcakes with chocolate chip frosting to be exact. But then I remembered a go-to crowd favorite, Cake Balls! They are perfect party dessert finger foods, basically a piece of cake and frosting rolled into a ball coated in chocolate. What could be better? And for this particular day I decided to go with a yellow cake, in which I mixed honey Teddy Grahams, with white frosting covered in semi-sweet chocolate. Um, can we say delicious!?
The word 'cake balls', however, doesn't have the most elegant ring to it (as my boss pointed out). So he presented me with the challenge of renaming this scrumptious, bute-sized dessert. I posed the question to my guests this past weekend and here are a few names we came up with:
Cake Bon Bons
Cake Rocks
Torta di Palle (cake balls in Italian)
Cake Ballz (the z makes the name a little cooler, was someone's rationale)
Cake Conglomerates
TriCakes (since there are 3 components)
In the end, though, we all agreed that cake balls might just be the best. But really whatever you want to call them, a cake ball by any other name would taste just as sweet!
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