Holiday cookies
Posted on: December 31, 2013
- In: General | Pictures
- Leave a Comment
This December, I apparently decided that making cupcakes and cakes wasn’t good enough. Instead I opted to make cookies, brownies, more cookies… and did I mention some cookies?
Starting off with gingerbread cookies with a Peppermint Kahlua frosting. 
Next up were macadamia nut sugar cookies with the Peppermint Kahlua frosting or Bailey’s frosting, some brownies with peppermint candy bits, and chocolate chip and ginger chip cookies. (Forgot to take pictures) All were well received and it was fun to come up with new holiday flavors!
Needless to say this has been a holiday of cookies… I think I’m ready to return to cupcakes. Or maybe muffins.
Halloween and birthdays at work
Posted on: December 19, 2013
- In: General | Pictures
- Leave a Comment
Every month we celebrate the birthdays in the office on one day, mostly because as much as we all love cake – a person can only eat SOO much of it. Seriously. Now my birthday being in October, I tend to get the most excited about what cakes we have for the October birthdays, and this year we opted to celebrate on Halloween (my favorite holiday). So, big surprise, I asked to make one of the cakes.
I found a picture of a 3 tier cake that had some fun colors and shadow cutouts, so using that as my inspiration – I came up with a single tier version (we don’t have THAT many employees for a cake that big!!), and because it’s a birthday cake… I thought I’d try sculpting a birthday Frankenstein’s Monster.
I was very happy with the cake (spiced cake with apple jack and a spiced rum frosting), but my sculpting still leaves much to be desired. Still, other than looking like he’s about to fall over asleep (or drunk), Bday Frankie turned out alright.
Cake in progress, me mostly having fun making little ghosts.
Completed cake, with some fence piping. It always amazing me how much food coloring it takes to make not-gray frosting.
And the final cake! Yes indeed, it was a very happy “Boo-thday” for all!
Baby shower times two
Posted on: December 13, 2013
Time for another baby shower, only this time there was a need for two cakes! The first one matches the save the date invite that was sent.
Cake: spice cake with cream cheese frosting. Lesson learned: cream cheese frosting doesn’t work well when going under fondant.
The second cake matched the shower invitations – for this little boy it was all about rockets!
Cake: car bomb cake. Lesson learned: I like making rockets. 🙂
And I’m excited to report, that this shower was long enough ago that the baby is now a few weeks old! He’s adorable and healthy, as are the parents.
Playing catch-up
Posted on: December 10, 2013
- In: General | Pictures
- Leave a Comment
While I haven’t posted in awhile, that is not to say I haven’t baked in awhile. Just means I keep forgetting to upload pics from my phone.
For my husbands birthday this year (August) he asked for a non-cake/cupcake or cookie treat. This type of request typically results in one thing (since my pb/choc-o-holic friend moved to LA), brownies with bacon! (Not bacon BITS but properly thick bacon cut into small pieces.)
Then sometime in September, early I believe, my boss tried to be stealthy about his birthday as did a colleague of mine. Both people should know me better than that, because when I *do* find out about your birthday… there will be baked goods! This time it was a macadamia nut sugar cookie with Baileys frosting.
While both of the birthday people are too shy to announce to the world it is their birthday, they both enjoyed the cookies in proper old skool cookie monster style.
20 years?? seriously?!
Posted on: August 5, 2013
- In: General | Pictures
- Leave a Comment
Yes indeed, 20 years ago many of my CSz High School League friends and I graced the improve stage for our last time (at least as high school students). To celebrate, those of us who happened to be on the West Coast got together to laugh, watch the video tape (Yes… VHS ON THE VCR BABY!) of our last match and of course, eat baked goods.
Starting with a Butter Smucker cake decorated in the CSz red & blue:
And the non-alcoholic option – Cherry Chip cupcakes with vanilla frosting:
And yes, I’ve had to take a break from baking as we were remodeling our kitchen. Ourselves… yea. SO – now that it’s mostly done, I can return to baking. The best news of all? I HAVE LEVEL COUNTER TOPS AGAIN! I can roll out a pie crust and easily level a cake!!! Oh man, simple pleasures that to this baker, make ALL the difference. Expect more baking to come soon as I might have to make sure I can bake everything from pies to cookies to bars to cakes on these new counters.
- In: General | Pictures
- Leave a Comment
Even though my little lemon tree (grown from a seed) is still a few years from fruiting, a co-worker has a lemon tree that is exploding with lemons. I managed to take more than a few home, and was inspired to add them to cupcakes.
Plus, I also wanted to take a picture for the gallery on my web site.
The result: Lemon Drop cupcakes. A lemon cake, with fresh squeezed lemons and fresh lemon zest, and a triple sec frosting.
A tastry treat the disappeared well before lunch time. Can’t wait for the next batch of lemons!!
Temptations and BBQ
Posted on: April 9, 2013
So I’ve had a mini donut pan for awhile now but haven’t had the chance to use it. I happened to find an apple cider flavored donut mix especially designed to be baked and not fried. WOOHOO! With the ingredients on hand, and a bit of hard apple cider added just because, I ended up with tons of mini donuts. Some were rolled in cinnamon-sugar and some were dipped in a melted cinnamon frosting.
I took them to work and they magically disappeared!
Next up, in the “Somethings are not meant to be in frosting” category – we have BBQ sauce. A friend of mine had a birthday coming up, as always I asked what alcohol he liked. The response was Miller High Life. Seriously. I wasn’t sure quite what to do with that – so I made an MGD cupcake (which actually came out GREAT) but was stuck on the frosting.
I ended up trying a BBQ Sauce frosting. Oddly enough – it came close to being good, but then it made a last minute turn to “what the hell is this”. There was a bit of BBQ sauce in a plain frosting base, a little liquid smoke, but unfortunately it was still too sweet. The tang was actually good – but just too sweet. Hard to get away from that when your main ingredient is powered sugar though. I’ll put this in the “lessons learned” category and next time go with my triplesec frosting instead.
BABY TIME!
Posted on: April 5, 2013
- In: General | Pictures
- Leave a Comment
I was a little excited to find out that an old friend of mine was pregnant. Even more so when I found she was having twins! And when I had the chance to make the babyshower cake and party favors – well, I might have made a few too many.
All of this was non-alcoholic so momma could enjoy. The cake decorations matched the picture on the invitation (crib with a blanket over it and blocks above that read “baby”). I altered it for the twins of course.
Next up the party favors: two mini cupcakes placed in a small box (forgot to take pics of them all finished. oops!). Two different flavors, because twins are still unique!
Lemon cake with strawberry frosting and fondant flowers. Pink and Purple flowers because I knew the babies were girls but the parents didn’t want it “super girly”.
And then my favorite: chocolate cupcake with cinnamon frosting and pink edible pearls. Oddly enough during taste testing, I had to have a few of these… to make sure the frosting was flavored properly of course. *grin*
I’m happy to report that since the shower (which was held back in January) the twin girls have since joined the world happy, healthy and adorably. The parents currently miss sleeping – which sounds like an excuse to send them more sugar filled cupcakes.
Catching up from the holidays
Posted on: April 4, 2013
During the holiday season of 2012 I did bake. Really. Now baking and having time to post about it… two totally different topics. That being said… I’m playing a bit of catch-up.<p>
First up, in early November with all of the glory that is fall or “winter” in Northern California, I couldn’t let the season pass without making Spiced Cupcakes, complete with fresh ground nutmeg on top (and lots of Captain Morgan’s too).
Next up, I was stage managing a holiday play, which means my poor cast had to eat more baked goods than people should. This included strawberry cupcakes with Bailey’s frosting and awesome (come on – you know they are pure awesome!) holiday sprinkles.
And some holiday cookies, with chocolate chips and crushed candy canes. Maybe some Bailey’s as well, because I could.
Fortunately everyone enjoyed the treats and there never seemed to be any left over.
LOOK! It’s a new website!
Posted on: December 22, 2012
I have finally redesigned the bake-a-holics.com website!! New logo and new flavors available. Happily accepting local orders. 🙂
Most posting to come with cookies as my recent group of actors have been encouraging my crazy cookie combos! Until then… HAPPY HOLIDAYS EVERYONE!
The Bake-A-Holics Blog 