Triple Chocolate Muffins

So I told you yesterday I was trying a new recipe. Oh my goodness! They are amazing. So if you didn't see that post and want to see what I am talking about you can find the recipe Here.

So I quickly made them yesterday before work. I had time to quickly try on e while they were still warm. They're so chocolatey and gooey. Yummy. I came home from work and my husband had eaten three of them. Three of my healthy muffins that I can feel no shame in eating. three of them just gone! Lol. The funny thing is that three of those muffins are probably still less fat, calories and sugars than a Tim Hortons muffin. I can't say much, I had two muffins for breakfast.

These are her version of them. Mine definitely did not turn out this pretty. Ha ha. 

So for those of you who like to have more than just calorie information, this is for you.

She based her calories on 12 large, 24 small. I was going for small, but ended up with medium I guess, so my batch made 18, and this is what my info is based on.

Calories: 77

Carbs: 12g

Fat: 3g

Protein: 3g

Also, tried flavored Greek yogurt yesterday. It is surprisingly tastey. I don't know why I originally thought that the thickness would be gross, because I generally like the thicker yogurts. So Greek yogurt is definitely worth trying. 

Hi Out There

Sorry I have been awfully quiet lately, but I have had no cakes to blog about! Isn't that sad? So Instead of talking about a cake, I'm just here to catch up.

This will be a short post, as I am currently baking and then I have to go to work in like 45 minutes.

Anyway, lately I have been trying to get into a healthier lifestyle. I've been exercising and eating healthy. And while I still really like my sugar and crave it, I have needed to find some healthier options to satisfy my sweet tooth. I love reading chocolate covered katie (Found Here If you haven't heard of her before) but a lot of her recipes seem to have strange vegan ingredients that I often don't know where to find them. (Like vegan butter. What is that?)

So I have found some other alternatives, and I still plan to try some of her recipes, and I plan to share my experiences with you guys out there. Right now I am working on Triple Chocolate Chunk Muffins (recipe found here) They're supposed to have only 58 calories per muffin. I made mine a little bigger by accident, so mine are really more like 75, but still, that's pretty good for a muffin. I hope they turn out well. I will let you know later.

I'm still here.

So, It's hard for me to believe it's only been a month since I have posted on here. It feels like forever ago. It probably feels this way because my last post was a Christmas one, which is months past. I know I don't really need to tell you how long ago Christmas was, but I did anyway.

In any case, I only have a couple cakes left till I'm all caught up and have nothing left to share. I have my aunt and uncles wedding cake to show you, my pirate themed cupcake creation (if I can ever get pictures for it... I asked, but none were sent.)  and my latest cake, which I made wednesday, which is music themed.

So I actually have nothing to show you today, just updating you, letting you know I am still around. (although it seems some drivers have it out for me. My car has been rear ended three times now) And also, there's the fact I'm pretty sure I have no regular readers. If you are out there and you are reading my thoughts, please let me know. I mean I'm normally quite content talking to myself seeing as I do it all the time, but these thoughts were meant to be shared.

So, what's new with me? A whole lot! I've been working a lot on individual desserts and stuff. Muffin cup sized treats. You know, to attempt to control sweet intake. However, that doesn't work when husband eats more than one portion at a time, so I'll just have to try to make them as healthy as possible. The last thing I made was nutella no bake cheesecake. It was actually pretty good. Today I'm just trying to clean up the chaos that was left over from my cake fiasco on Wednesday. Thursdays I work all day, so I didn't get to do it then, so my apartment is horrid right now.

So I should probably wrap this up soon.

On another note, I have decided to go back into fashion design. So I have been working on a lot of things on that front. So If you are interested in what I have been doing on that front you can check out my deviant art here: Here. <3 I think I even update my journal a little more often than my blog.

I'll post again real soon, okay? Okay!

Christmas Time is here!

Vroooom vroooooom vrooooooom.

Yeah, my husband is playing video games and I make car noises as he races. Whats it to ya?

However, this cake has nothing to do with cars, so Onward my fellow readers! -warp-

I apologize for the weirdness tonight, I don't really know what's wrong with me. So, as you know, a couple months ago it was Christmas! Fantastic right? I hope yours was good. Mine was excellent. Busy, but good. In my family it has become tradition (tradition) to make a birthday cake for Jesus. Since I have become the family cake artist, it was my turn to make it. Now more simple pan cakes with "Happy Birthday Jesus" piped on. Oh no. 

Once again I made a chocolate cake. But for some reason this time i didn't feel my normal cake would cut it. So I made the cake and instead of using icing to hold the layers together I decided I would use fudge. Thick gooey, great-grandma's recipe fudge. this stuff is superb. So I had the cake in a springform pan, then I poured the fudge in and added the top layer of cake. Then it needed time to cool.

Mmmmmm Fudge. Seriously, fudge instead of icing just makes the cake so decadent. And then to make matters worse I iced it so that the fondant would stick. This cake would send anyone into a sugar coma.

As for the decorating, It was a little un-cohesive. (what is the opposite of cohesive? Hmmm.) I wanted to do a regular christmasy theme around the side of the cake. So I cut out Christmas trees and presents. then I painted them all with food colouring. This didn't turn out as nice as I would have liked. 

The figurines on top are an old nativity set that I used to play with as a child. Considering I was making the cake on christmas eve, before two family get togethers and an evening church service, I didn't have time for a complex cake. So I set up the nativity and then used a garlic press to make hay. I added a little banners to serve as a stable of sorts and had it saying Happy Birthday Jesus! I thought it was brilliantly thought out. 

Look at the cute little holy family. 

Enjoy!

DIY Cake/Cupcake Stand

Well, since I need other people to send me pictures of cakes I've done before I can continue I figured I would give you the instructions for making your own cupcake stand.

It looks something like this. So, you cut four squares out of plywood. I did a 6", 9", 12" and 16" square.

You also need:

 pvc pipe

 a 3ft 1/2" threaded metal rod. (I suggest using 3/8" though, cause you can find a T nut in this size and not in a half in, at least I couldn't)

 White wrapping paper (I couldn't find any black)

white glue

2 T nuts

newspaper

wooden knobs (4, for feet)

So, first I cut the wood and drilled holes for the metal rob and the screws. Then I cut the pipe into 3 sections of 7 1/2" lengths. (seven and a half inch lengths, not seven half inch lengths. Just to specify. :]) Next I traced all the squares onto the wrapping paper, twice, then added an inch border to half of them. I also drew some rectangles to wrap the pipe in. then I cut them all out. 

If you're using white wrapping paper, make sure you use pencil, or then pen will probably show through.

I mixed the white glue with water and then used a sponge and covered the wood in it. Then I applied the paper to the wood. I used my fondant smoother thingy to smooth out the air bubbles.

Also covered the pipe.

Then I added some feet.

Time to assemble!

So, we need t nuts. For those of you who don't know what T nuts are, they look like this

So, you stick these in the bottom board and the top board. Screw the metal rod into the bottom board. then stick the first pipe on it. Now since the pipe is this thick hollow thing, it'll keep wiggling around. so I made sure mine was centered and then I stuffed it with newspaper to keep it in place. Then you do the same thing with all the rest of the tiers. Screw the top piece on and you're good to go!

Yay! You now have you're very own stand. And it didn't cost upwards of $60. Cause who wants to do that?

So, this is what it looked like with the cake and cupcakes on it, I'll give some more info on the other projects later.

And then I turned it into a pirate ship for a different party.

Enjoy!

It's another Baby Cake

So, my sisters friend had a baby a couple months ago and I was asked to do the cake for the shower. I decided I wanted to do a rubber ducky theme. Turns out that was the perfect idea because the blue I chose for the fondant matched the colour they chose to decorate the shower with, which happened to also have a rubber ducky theme. Although I didn't have any idea who the host was, so we didn't even coordinate it. Funny how things work out eh?

I'm a little rubber ducky, I love my bubbles! Swim swim swim....

Yeah, I may have gone off the deep end. Oh well.

So, this was for little Anakin. The dad's a Star Wars fan, but apparently the mom liked the name anyway, so both parties are happy. He's a cute little baby too.

Anywho, this is a yummy chocolate cake. I believe it had chocolate icing as well, but it's too long ago to remember. 

So, I covered this in blue fondant. Cause water is always depicted as blue. Well, usually it is. Then I molded a rubber ducky out of some yellow fondant and with lollipop sticks I secured him on top of the cake. Then I made some duck silhouettes out of more yellow and put them around the cake.

Then came the time consuming part. Bubbles. I made 3D and 2D bubbles. I arranged a bunch of the 3D bubbles around the ducky. And I did a border of the 2D bubbles around the cake, filling in blue spots with some 3D bubbles. I really like the effect that it had.

Another simple and cute design from the colourful cake princess. (I love being a princess)

Ducky.

Hope you enjoyed this!

BABY BOY

I was in Fashion Design once upon a time (before I decided that I didn't want to go into fashion) but while I was there I made some good friends. Over the summer I learned that one of the girls was pregnant. I was so excited, cause really, if anyone would be having a baby, Denise would be the one. She's the only one I knew of in our class who wants to go into children's wear. So It just seemed perfect she was pregnant.

The fashion girls had been seeing my cakes on facebook and get commenting on how they wanted to try my cakes. So when I was invited to Denise's shower, I immediately volunteered to do a cake for her. Chocolate, classic for a group of girls. Did we expect anything less?

Sadly, I forgot to take a picture. So right before they were about to cut into the cake I was like "Crap! I need a picture!" So this is why my picture isn't the best one ever. Although I must admit that my cell phone takes a decent picture.

I didn't have a name to use, cause the baby hadn't been born and I don't think they had chosen a name yet. Once I finished decorating it I had a little mini heart attack wondering if I had remembered correctly about them expecting a boy. But I was pretty sure they had. 

I saw this blog online from another girl who makes cakes and she made this really cool, really tall cake that had these circles that were half attached to the cake and folded over slightly. She used rainbow colours and I thought it looked really cool. I decided to give it a try on this case. So I made a bunch of blue circles and started "gluing" them to the cake. I immediately started regretting this idea. It wasn't like I could just stick it on and move on. I had to sit there and hold it on until it dried enough to hold the weight of the top folding over. I'm an impatient person, so this wasn't working for me. But some were stuck on already so I couldn't even change my mind. 

I forgot to mention this before, I had a wedding to go to the day before the shower. So I was decorating this cake between the wedding and the reception. I didn't have time to wait for these pieces to adhere to the cake. Then I had a stroke of brilliance. If I could find some way to hold them one while I continued on it would be perfect. I finally decided to tie a ribbon around the cake, holding the circles on. It went a whole lot quicker after that. It ended up looking something like this.

Hey, I just realized I do have pictures!

So After the ribbons were taken off it looked like this

That's cool isn't it?

On the top of the cake I went fairly simple. I marbled some blue fondant to roll out and cut the words "Baby boy" out of. And I cut a start out of  some yellow fondant to place the words around.

Lastly, I needed a border around the cake. So I rolled out a cord of fondant. I wanted to make it textured, But I had no tools yet. So instead, I used a jelly bean to make round imprint in the fondant. I'm a genius, I know. XP

My cake was a hit! Everyone loved it. By the time I made it to the dessert table my cake had disappeared. I didn't even get to have a piece. I love easy cakes.