Creme Bakery Review

It's been a while since I've posted, and it's mostly because I've been too poor to buy many ingredients for cupcakes! I now have a job that pays well and treats me well, so there will be more posts soon to follow. For now though, I wanted to share the awesome news that Blowing Rock has been graced with a new bakery!

It is in the cutest little yellow cottage on Main Street, and boasts a wide selection of both sweet and savory treats. I decided to go all the way and buy an "Artesinal Cupcake," a lemon and blueberry beauty.

It was a little crumbly, so I had to eat it with a fork. Flavor-wise, it hit all the right marks in my book. The lemon was not too tart, but was just present enough to complement the blueberry nicely. I wasn't sure if the icing was cream cheese or not, but if I'm right in guessing, I believe it was lemon cream cheese.

The only slight problems I had with the cupcake revolved around texture. The blueberries had mostly sunk to the bottom, an issue easily solved by freezing the berries pre-baking. The frosting looked like it had started to separate, making it look a little less professional. As I said before, the cake itself was rather crumbly, almost as heavy as a muffin.

The service was a little awkward, as you could've heard a pin drop when I walked in, and I initiated every bit of conversation.

All in all, this was a delicious cupcake, and I would recommend the bakery to anyone. With a little more practice and a little more business, this bakery will soon move to the top of my list.

Little Slice of Heaven

I know this is a food blog, but I just couldn't resist posting pictures of my apartment. I think I'm basically finished decorating, but there's always CraftGawker and DwellingGawker to tempt me into changing things up.

If I were to describe my room in one word, it would without a doubt be cozy.

I found my headboard at a local thrift store for $15, and the quilt at Walmart for $19.

The shelf is a utility shelf from Walmart to contrast with the warm colors of my room. The binder says "Be Responsible Please!" and holds important things to do :)

This is the easiest wall decoration you can possibly do. Just take a bunch of your favorite pictures and arrange them in whatever shape you want! I chose a grid because I like how it looks like a huge piece of art, but I've seen photo murals in the shape of hearts, letters, etc.

I decided that I like my closet door open, so I put an old blue suitcase in front of it and purchased a spring rod and single sheer curtain panel from Walmart to hide my messy clothes.

Rabbit ears! :)

With a simple garland, my room is complete.

It's one of the most important criteria in determining my stress level that I have a relaxing environment to come back to. I love my room, and I hope you can take some amount of inspiration from it!

8 tiny reindeer

This post is inspired by the books "What's New, Cupcake?" and "Hello, Cupcake!" by the ever creative Karen Tack and Alan Richardson.

First of all, Merry Christmas! I have been neglecting this blog lately because of my school issues, but will be beginning a "regimen" for my New Year's Resolution. My dear darling boyfriend bought me The Golden Book of Desserts and I will be working my way through that as well as recipes from the above mentioned books.

The school issues, however, are the real reason I am going to be able to keep up with this better. I am no longer a music major! I have decided to switch to Management with a concentration in Entrepreneurship. In other words, I can pretty much do what I want with my future. We'll see where that leads...

Now lets get real. This is a cupcake blog. It's time for some tiny goodness.

Yes! Those ARE tiny chocolate cupcakes in the shape of reindeer!! I was amazed at how simple they were to put together.

Ingredients

1 box chocolate cake mix

buttermilk* check your cake mix recipe to see how much water it requires, and replace the water with buttermilk.

2-3 eggs* again, depending on the mix

2 cans of chocolate frosting

jumbo marshmallows

mini marshmallows

pretzels

mini m&ms

1. First, bake your cute little chocolate cupcakes and let them cool.

2. Take the jumbo marshmallows and secure a mini marshmallow to the flat end using chocolate frosting. I squished my mini marshmallows for a cuter snout.

3. Secure the jumbo marshmallow to the cupcakes using chocolate frosting, and chill in the fridge or free.

4. After the cupcakes are nice and cold, melt the remainder of the chocolate frosting in a bowl.

5. Dip the cupcakes into the melted frosting one by one, being careful not to let any parts fall off. I found it difficult to get the frosting to cover the entire cupcake, so I drizzled some of the bald spots with my spoon.

6. After dipping the cupcakes, let them dry slightly and place a mini m&m on the nose.

7. Break pretzels into antler shapes and press them into the sides of the head, poking holes for eyes.

8. You know Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen.....

Bagel time!

Bagels are my favorite breakfast food to get at a restaurant. That's a hard race to win, since I subscribe to the thought that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Whether it's the Bagelicious(Everything bagel, muenster cheese, egg, bacon, no ham) from Boone Bagelry , the Cinnamon Crunch bagel with hazelnut spread from Panera Bread Company, or a simple McDonald's Bacon Egg and Cheese bagel, I'm sold.
I received an email from my subscribtion to AllRecipes' baking newsletter with a recipe for Boiled Bagels, and I knew I had to try them.

Boiled Bagels

Ingredients:

4 1/2 cups flour
2 packets active dry yeast
1 1/2 cups warm water
3 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp salt
1 tbsp sugar

Do it:

1. In a large bowl, mix 1 1/2 cups of flour with yeast. In a separate bowl, combine water, 3 tbsp sugar, and the salt. *To be the right temperature for the yeast to rise, the water needs to be about 110 degrees F. This is just a little warmer than body temperature.

2. Beat with a mixer on low for about 30 seconds, then scrape the sides and mix for another 3 minutes.

3. Form bagels slightly smaller than how you want them after completion, and set them aside to rise (covered) for 15 minutes, at least.

4. Place bagels on a greased baking sheet. I found it less greasy to sprinkle cornmeal on the baking sheet. At this point, go ahead and start your pot of water boiling.

5. Broil the bagels on high for 1:30 minutes, flipping once.

6. Boil a few bagels at a time for 7 minutes each, flipping once.

7. After they are boiled, bake them for 20-25 minutes.

I came back to this recipe a few weeks ago, and tried a few variations:

Blueberry: Make a dough ball, and place about 1.5 tsp of blueberry preserves per bagel. Carefully swirl the dough to incorporate the jam, then broil, boil, and bake as directed.

Cheddar Garlic: Add garlic powder and shredded cheese to the top before baking.

Chocolate Chip: Add about a 1/2 cup of chocolate chips before forming bagels. (amount can be easily adjusted)

Enjoy!

Crêpes pour mon homme

Bonjour! Today was convocation day, so I decided to take this morning easy and hang out with my man. He had a gig last night, and I wanted to make something special to congratulate him.

I have no pictures, because I left my computer in my dorm, but I can share the recipe for....

Crepes!!!! Yumyumyum.

I have waited so long to make them because I was afraid of them. Little paper thin pancakes with the fewest ingredients.... I didn't think it could work. Lo and behold, it is one of the simplest and easiest breakfast/lunch foods I have ever made. Ever.

Here's the lowdown.

Ingredients

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/2 cup water
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoons butter, melted
• 2 tbsp sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
  

1. Mix together all the wet ingredients.

2. Add all the dry ingredients, mixing until smooth.

3. Heat a lightly oiled frying pan on medium.

4. Pour approximately 1/4 cup of batter into the frying pan, let cook until you can see the very edges turning brown.

5. Flip, cook until browned on both sides.

6. Repeat with the rest of the batter.



This will give you about 8 basic crepes. Here's the awesome thing about crepes: You do whatever you want with them! I added the sugar and vanilla to my recipe because I wanted sweeter crepes. You can leave those two out if you decide to put more savory and salty things on them instead.

I, however, had a few Fuji apples on the verge of going bad, so I made a glorious apple topping.

Ingredients:

• 2 apples, diced
• 2 tbsp butter
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 2 tbsp sugar

Adjust as desired.

1. Heat butter in frying pan.

2. Dump everything else in, cook for about 5 minutes.



To serve the complete dish, put the apple topping in a line in the middle of the crepe with a bit of honey and butter, and roll burrito style. Serve with coffee or juice.

I literally teared up when we ate these, they were so satisfying and delicious.

Enjoy!

Nacho Libre Cake

Hey! It's August! According to my sister it's also Nacho Night at the church. She wanted a Nacho Libre themed cake, so I happily obliged.

Here's the inspiration:



Homework before beginning your nacho cake:

Encarnacion song.

So, I went and put on my stretchy pants and began to frost the cake my sister had so kindly prepared from a white cake mix with blue food coloring added.

When you are a baker, sometimes you wear stretchy pants in the kitchen. Is for fun.

I started with a crumb coating. For those of you who are as clueless as I was last week, that is a thin layer of basic white icing, meant to help you end up with a cleaner finish with your prettified icing.

Beneath the clothes, we find a man... and beneath the man, we find his... nucleus.



After I finished the crumb coating, I mixed a little over a cup of white icing with 4 or 5 drops of blue food coloring. Now, I do have the neon food coloring pack, so that may make a difference.
I then covered the entire cake with the blue.

These are my recreation clothes.



I then mixed a little icing, maybe 3 tbsps, with 2 drops of neon green and 2 drops of red food coloring to make that lovely Latino glow. I filled in where the skin shows through his mask on my cake.


I was wondering if you would like to join in my quarters tonight... for some toast.

I then added grated chocolate for the eyebrows by folding a piece of paper in half and tapping it out of the side to make a relatively straight line. After adding white and black for eyes, this is where I stood:

That's where I fell in love with this cake and knew I had to finish.

Red icing piped around the eyes, nose, and mouth area, and a darker tan (add a tiny bit more red) for the lips, and we have a finished luchador.



Comment with my luchador name:


o o x x o o X o X X x

More recipes coming soon!

Earl Grey Cake with Lemon Buttercream

I haven't written in a while, and I feel bad about that. Mostly because I haven't baked enough to satisfy my soul. I just got some bad news about my job and I want to bake a batch of cupcakes or make some cookies or some ice cream. To suffice, I will share with you my Earl Grey Cake recipe. It was originally a recipe for Earl Grey Cupcakes, but I wanted to make a cake.
Tangent: Buttercream. I didn't think I liked it. Making my own changed my mind entirely.



Maybe....




Anyways, I got the recipe from Patent and the Pantry. (here's a link to her recipe, I changed a few things) I also did this recipe entirely by hand, using electricity only in the baking part. Therefore if you want to use a mixer, don't worry about the fork. That's just what I used instead.


Earl Grey Cupcakes with Lemon Buttercream.

2 sticks butter, softened
2 cups sugar
4 eggs
3 cups self-rising flour
1 cup milk
3 bags of tea

Supplies:
mixing bowl
fork
3 layer cake pans



1. Preheat to 350. Grease your cake pans and set aside.

2. Beat butter until creamy, add sugar and cream until fluffy.

3. Add eggs one at a time, mixing each one until it is fully incorporated before adding the next.

4. Heat milk until warm, but not boiling, and steep one of the bags of tea in it.

5. Beat in half of the flour with the remaining two bags of tea.

Delicious!

6. Add milk and the rest of the flour until combined.

7. Distribute evenly among your three layer pans.

8. Bake for 20-25 minutes.

9. Cool thoroughly.



Lemon Buttercream
2 sticks butter, softened
4 cups powdered sugar
zest of one lemon
juice of one lemon

1. Cream butter until smooth. Beat in powdered sugar gradually until fluffy.

2. Zest the lemon into the mix, and add the lemon juice. Stir until smooth.

Transfer one of the cake layers to a serving dish or cake platter, securing to dish with a dab of buttercream underneath. Frost cake, adding a few slivers of lemon peel as decoration.

Yum!