3rd anual cookie cook off

So today was our 3rd Anual cookie cook off. This year we did 6 different kind of cookies, all made from scatch. So from 11am to 5pm there was non stop baking. All in all cookie day was a success.

What makes the cookies


Magic in a bottle, real Italian Anise

All of our cookies

A platter of cookies

Sugar Cookie

Gingerbread Cookie

Snowball Melt Away Cookie

Anisette Cookie

Kolache Cookie

Chcolate Chip Cookie

Homemade nougat anyone?

So I've moved again, I'm in Delray Beach now. To break in the house I decided to make some homemade nougat. I had never made it before and I think it came out pretty awesome, it's like marshmallow, but doesn't have that gross marshmallow taste and there is no gelatin in it yay. So the process was a bit of a pain, because it's not baking, it's cooking candy, which means you have to cook it just right, with different stages, ex: hard ball stage, soft ball stage.. tempatures. Then you have to whip egg whites to a certain texture, then cool for about an hour and then finally are allow to cover the nougat in chocolate. I would do them differently next time, not whats in them, but the way i coated them in chocolate, but they taste amazing.

Cake Auction

So at my step father's work there was a cake auction. All the money made from the auction is going towards breast cancer research, so I had to make a cake for my Nana.

Pumpkin fudge

So, whats Halloween without some good old fashion pumpkin fudge? I used the basic fudge recipe thats on the back of a fluff jar, but i added pumpkin and some nice pumpkin spices and used white chocolate instead of milk chocolate or semi sweet, bring on the fudge!!!

Aloha! Pineapple

So I love Jamba Juice's Aloha Pineapple smoothie, but they're so exspensive and we don't have one of those around here, so I figured that I would make my own and it came out pretty fantastic, I bought all of the ingredients to make about 20 and it cost me the same amount to buy one. I also added some orange juice, which jamba juice doesn't use in their aloha pineapple.

Milk Chocolate Truffles

My second try at truffles. This time I wanted to make a nice creamy milk chocolate truffle. The first time I made my truffles, I did it the messy way, and I wasn't content on the finished product. So this time I figured that I would use a candy mold, instead of going out and buying a candy mold, I just used an old quice tray. I tempered the milk chocolate coating using a heat blanket, the heat blanket is great for tempering chocolate because the heat is just perfect and won't over heat the chocolate which result in burnt chocolate, which is never tastey and won't melt, so you get these peices of hard chocolate on your truffle. I had a little trouble getting the chocolate extremely thin, so it was kinda diffuicult to work with, I have to find a chocolate that melts well, the chips that you buy at craft stores melt well, but taste horrible, but all and all, they came out looking pretty descent, I will use this technique again!

My trusty heat blanket!!!



Coat a thin layer of chocolate onto the tray.



Put into the fridge until firm.



While waiting for your chocolate cups to firm up, start making your milk chocolate ganche. Heat your heavy cream and butter in a sauce pan until boiling and then pour over your chocolate, don't stir for 5 minutes.



Finished ganache.



Pour your ganche into a pastry bag or a ziploc.



Fill your hallow chocolate cups with the ganche and put into the freezer until the ganche is firm, then use your melted milk chocolate and coat the bottoms of your chocolate cups, put back into the freezer until firm.





Your finished truffles!



Yum!

Monkey munch!!!!

So I was watching Jon and Kate plus 8 and they were making this stuff called monkey munch, the kids seemed to like it alot and I'm a kid... in my head. So I figured that I would give it a try. It's very easy to make, you can find the recipe here. I will definitly be making this again, next partay, I'll bring the monkey munch! But I might just change the name to "awesome munch".

Pumpkin Cake

So I decided to make some pumpkin cake, it was gonna be that or a pumpkin cheesecake, but we did not have the condenced milk for the cheesecake, therefore no cheesecake. But I did get to use my little cake pans!!!! So here is my pumpkin cake with creamcheese frosting.





pumpkin cake batter, all from scratch (even the pumpkin)









creamcheese frosting











Yum.



Drunken iguana?

Alkaline Trio cake!!!!

For my friend's birthday I decided to make her a cake with her favorite band's logo on it. Alkaline Trio are prettay awesome. I did the black fondant myself, only took about 2 hours haha, black fondant can be quite a pain.

Jack Daniels sauce

I give you the best sauce in the whole world. Friday's Jack Daniel's sauce.. once it touches your lips.. its so good!!!! I decided to make this on my birthday, this recipe is the same exact sauce from Fridays. It is amazing.




The ingredients



Combine everything.



Roast garlic.



Your amazing sauce!

Hmm pancakes

Pancakes with a compound cream cheese of brown sugar, pecans and cinnamon.

Cadbury Eggs!

The recipe.. dun dun dun.



The Secret Ingredients are....



Combine the corn syrup and butter and beat until somewhat thick.



Add the powered sugar.



You get this nice fondant.



Take 1/4 off the mixture and add your orange food coloring, this is your yolk.



Your egg white and yolk.



The yolk.



Wrap the egg white around the yolk.



A complete egg.



All of your eggs in one basket.




Melt the chocolate that your coating your eggs with in a microwave with the shortening.



Set up your dipping station.



dip



Put on your candy mat.



Refrigerate until the coating is hard and then dip them for a second coat, refrigerate again until hard.




Your eggs after being refrigerated.



Finished product.



Milk chocolate on the outside and gooey goodness in the middle.



Enjoy!