Chocolate Mud Cake- A different type of chocolate cake, finally!

      Ashley's birthday was coming up and there were two things I knew I had to do. The first was that I had to make a cake that was based on the lovely cake rings she had bought both of us and the other was that I needed a new chocolate cake to make! I love my standard chocolate cake recipe, maybe too much. I've made it probably more times than any other recipe. It's just so hard to find a chocolate cake recipe that isn't rather close to what I already make.
      It was quite a search, but I found this recipe for Chocolate Mud Cake. It's dense, incredibly chocolaty, and (hopefully through no error on my part) kind of flaky. To top the cake off, I knew I had to use a frosting that would come out very white. After a little searching, I found a wonderful vanilla buttercream frosting that was love at first spoonful. Easily one of my favorite frosting recipes that I've tried. It really helped balance out the serious chocolate-ness of the cake a bit, too.
      I liked the chocolate mud cake, but it really might be a little too much chocolate for anyone who isn't a serious chocoholic. It was nice to try a new recipe, but it makes me realize why I use the same old recipe again and again. You can't possibly go wrong with this cake!

Gaming Party.

     A couple of weeks ago, at our new apartment with our roomates, we threw a gaming party. There were three TVs in the living room, each one hooked up with a different console, lots of drinks, and of course, some baked goods!
     I ended up kind of overloading myself with tasks for the party, I think. I made World of Warcraft hearthstone cookies (lemon sugar cookies) by rolling the dough like a swiss roll and cutting them, Bomb-Omb brownie bites covered in chocolate and decorated with cream cheese frosting and little coconut fuses, and yoshi eggs and 1 up meringue mushrooms! I think everything tasted spectacular, but I wish I had started everything sooner, because they could have looked better.
The recipes I used are as follows-
Sugar Cookies - I made a half batch of these and added zest from a lemon
Meringue Mushrooms - I dyed a little less than half of the batch green, but otherwise followed the recipe exactly as written
Bomb-Omb brownie bites - I made these brownies, used a generous amount of cream cheese frosting to keep them together, then rolled them in melted chocolate.

Red Velvet Cake

    
     This was the last Winesday that I've managed to host. With moving into a new apartment, and all the other activities I've been working on, it just hasn't happened for a while. This red velvet cake was a recipe that was suggested to me by a friend and fellow baking enthusiast.
     Red velvet cake has always been something that I've wanted to try, but I've never had an excuse to until now. I barely had enough dye to make it, but I was very happy with how it came out. I wish I had had more time and materials to make it pretty, but taste is top priority, right?
Anyways, the recipe I used for this cake is found here. As always, I halved the recipe to make a much smaller cake. Instead of using the provided frosting recipe, I used a basic cream cheese frosting. I also added little slices of banana to the middle section. All in all, it turned out quite well!
     The Schmitt Sohne Riesling was one I decided to try for the first time with the red velvet cake. Riesling typically has a sweeter edge to it than most wines, so it usually goes fairly well with desserts. This wine, though, had a bit too much of a mineral taste to me, and tended to clash a bit with the cake. I ended up having to save the rest of the bottle for later in the evening. On a scale from 1-10, I'd say Schmitt Sohne 2008 Riesling would get a 6 from me.

The long break in things that are baked.

I know it's been a long time since I've posted anything, but I can assure you, it's not because of lack of inspiration and motivation! I've been very busy the last couple of weeks making and planning yummy things that will be up on this site very soon. Keep an eye out!

Piece Montee

            I've been seeing this dessert everywhere lately. I believe it was the most recent Daring Baker's challenge. The first time I saw it, I fell in love with the idea of making it. It looked like an adventure to make and I'd been looking for an excuse to make it for a while. I finally got to make it for a Not-Going-Away party that I attended recently. I was actually very impressed with how it came out, and it received some pretty rave reviews. I found the recipe here and the only change I made was to add a bit of lemon zest to the pastry cream. I think I may have also overcooked the sugar syrup a bit. It tasted good, but my cream puffs stuck together like their little pastry lives depended on it!

Wonderland.

               Early this last week, I was told that there would be an Alice in Wonderland party on Saturday. Naturally, when I hear the word party, I start brainstorming ideas to make cakes/cupcakes/sweets that fit within the theme. This time the cake was based off of my favorite character in the books and classic Disney movie- the Cheshire Cat! While I was making Cheshy, I had an idea to make little Mome Raths to go with him, so that's what those little guys are.

                Looks wise, I wasn't quite happy with the eyes and mouth that I made out of candy melts, other than that, I loved the swirled inside and the piping came out alright. The taste makes this cake one of my new favorite recipes! It's an almond white cake (found here). I wasn't as please with the vanilla buttercream, but everyone else seemed to like it. (Source)
              

                  The swirl effect is something I've done once before, also for an Alice in Wonderland party. 

This upcoming week on Winesday.

      My baking schedule seems to get busier by the day. I have two decent projects I get to work on in the next week or so, and I'm really looking forward to them! The first one is a Cheshire Cat mini-cake that I will start working on probably tomorrow. The second is a surprise!
      Here's a basic idea of what I want to do for the Cheshire Cat- it's a very rough sketch though!