Orange Vanilla bean Cupcakes with Pomegranate Hearts

...whipping up a Valentine's treat ♡

♡ Filling the mini cupcake liners with batter.
(on our new very very favorite placemats: Puppy Dogs 3D Lenticular Placemats)

Push one or two little chocolate-chip-kiss hidden surprises into the batter of each mini-cupcake. (Because Valentine's day demands chocolate.) A perfect job for kid-sized fingers.

A warm & special delivery of the goods ♡

Here's what you'll need:

a batch of Vanilla bean + orange cupcakes
a batch of buttercream
pomegranate foam (optional)
a touch of pink or red food color (optional)
pomegranate seeds for decoration
chocolate chips

♡Recipes:

Vanilla bean + orange cupcakes
makes 48 mini-cupcakes
*original recipe from Martha Stewart

4 ounces (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup sugar
2 vanilla beans, split and scraped
1 tablespoon finely grated orange zest
2 large eggs
3/4 cup heavy cream
1/4 cup fresh orange juice
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
*aprox. 1/4 C chocolate chips

♥ Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line standard muffin tins with paper liners. Cream butter for about 3 minutes, then slowly add the sugar, vanilla seeds, and orange zest and continue to beat until the mixture is pale and fluffy. With mixer running, add eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition and scraping down sides of bowl.

♥ Combine cream, orange juice, and vanilla extract in a small bowl. Sift together flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. With mixer on low speed, add flour mixture to butter mixture in 3 batches, alternating with cream mixture, ending with flour; beat until just combined. Make sure you are scraping down the sides of the bowl between additions.

♥ Divide batter among muffin cups, filling each 3/4 full. Push one or two little chocolate-chip-kiss surprises into the batter of each mini-cupcake. Bake, rotating tins halfway through, until testers inserted in the centers come out clean, about 25 minutes.

*For the Pomegranate Buttercream we made our meringue buttercream and added Pomegranate foam (recipe below), but this works just as well with a vanilla, lemon or orange flavored buttercream.


Favorite Meringue Buttercream
5 egg whites
1-1/2 cups sugar
pinch salt
1 lb unsalted butter
1-1/2 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
*1 drop red food color (optional)
*Pomegranate Foam (recipe follows)

♥ In a mixing bowl, cream the butter. Blend in the vanilla. Set aside.

♥ In the bowl of an electric mixer, combine the egg whites and sugar. Set the bowl over a pan of simmering water and whisk continuously until the sugar has dissolved, 3 to 5 minutes.

♥ Mix on high speed using the whisk attachment, until firm, glossy peaks form, about 5 minutes.

♥ Reduce the speed to low, and add the creamed butter, about 1/4 cup at a time, to the meringue. Add a tiny drop of red food color. Beat until smooth.
*Don’t worry if the buttercream seems to break down and curdle when the butter is added to the eggs. Just continue to beat it until it smooths back out to a soft, creamy texture.

♥ Mix in the pomegranate foam until blended evenly

Pomegranate Foam
1/2 cup pomegranate juice
1 tablespoon sugar (plus more to taste)
3 egg whites

♥ Heat pomegranate juice and sugar in a small saucepan over medium-high heat. Stir until sugar is dissolved and mixture is boiling. Reduce to a simmer.

♥ Simmer mixture until its reduced by half about 5-8 minutes.

♥ Beat egg whites in the bowl of your electric mixer with the whisk attachment until foamy, about 3 minutes.

♥ Slowly pour the very hot, reduced pomegranate juice into the egg whites while whisking at medium speed.

♥ Continue to beat on medium-high speed until the mixture cools, about 5 to 10 minutes more.

Eat This Book:

A mountain of books and flavors for a passionate
young reader.

above photographs: David Levinthal

I've long admired the amazing David Stark Design and Production, and LOVED making this cake for this event. Arriving at the location, we were completely awe-struck by the attention to detail and the magic of the setting transformed into an Alice In Wonderland larger-than-life dream of endless and fascinating stories.

above photograph: Susan Montagna
event produced by David Stark Design and Production

above photograph: Susan Montagna

a very happy ending.

Lovin' Spoonfuls: A few of our Favorite Gingerbread Houses 2011

As small as a typewriter, as big as a house... really, a house!

Fit for a president or wrought for a cause,
Here's a photo & video round-up of a few my favorite gingerbread homes

Big: The Incredible Edible Gingerbread House at the Brunswick Centre, in Bloomsbury London created to raise money for the Great Ormond Street hospital.

Click here: to see the finished Incredible Edible House video

A typewriter! Baked Ideas made this gorgeous super colorful and nostalgic, completely edible gingerbread typewriter (like a house for stories) to benefit City Harvest. It's displayed at NYC's Parker Meridien Hotel. The Gingerbread Wonderland is located in the 56th Street atrium of the lobby: December 1st – January 6th created by local restaurants & bakeries:

Gingerbread the White House: weighing in at over 150 pounds of gingerbread dough and 250 lbs of white chocolate and an amazing attention to detail:

How to: I came across this wonderful Gingerbread Brownstone through a tweet from my friend Elisa Strauss. Its from Kitchen Table Scraps.com Check out their Build a Gingerbread Brownstone post for really great photos and details on how to build your own brownstone & Gingerbread house basics:



Behind the scenes: with our friends at Cake Alchemy building their Penguin House. Here's my question: How did they get the amazing and beautiful pulled sugar to hold up? Lauri?

On display at the New York Botanical Gardens through January 16, 2012

On Location: our Dog Gingerbread house for the NYBG.
Click here: to see how we made it.

Lastly, a perennial favorite: Baked Ideas tiny houses, too small for even a mouse:

Gingerbread Dog House: (three bedrooms, no baths)

It's that time again♡---friends and neighbors are smiling and commenting on the smell of cinnamon and ginger in the halls. We're well stocked on molasses and brown sugar, and we are ready to build.

(above: let it snow)

Every year right around this time we make a Gingerbread house for the New York Botanic Garden. Not surprisingly, all of my houses revolve around things my son is interested in that year. One year it was a train station, then a rocket, a dinosaur, the three pigs, and the Nutcracker Suite (which admittedly was a bit of a stretch, since he'd never heard of the Nutcracker Suite, but the Nutcracker-soldier dueling with the evil mouse-king seemed to seal the deal).

Step by step: how to build a super-delicious dog.

We promised him that he could have a dog when he's nine, and at seven, he seems to be spending a lot of time thinking about and preparing to be part of that A-Boy-and-his-Dog thing, so this year we've made a dog house.
Not a house for a dog (see, it's a joke), it's a house shaped like a dog. Like a road-side stand you might find on route 66, or like a fantasy house in the imagination of a child. It has parts to climb, and parts to swing on, and lots of important amenities like a rooftop garden and a satellite dish so we can get ALL of the football games.

And kids. Tiny sugar & spice kids to live in it and enjoy it was essential, (I was told by my inside source), to the completion of the project.

(above: homework)

The Gingerbread Adventures exhibit can be found in the Everett Children's Adventure Garden and is part of the New York Botanical Garden Holiday Train Show which runs from Saturday, November 19th through Monday, January 16th.

JuSt fOr FuN! Cakes Dressed as Everyday Objects: BlackBerry Cake, Purse Cake, Record Player Cake, Wine Cake.

Sometimes, a cigar is just a cigar, but more often than not these days, its actually a cake, trying to pass itself off as a cigar, or a blackberry or a lovely purple purse.

60's Record Player Cake (A Portable Imperial Party Time, Solid State...)

Here's a little behind the scenes, like the original "real" record player, and some bits and pieces of the decorating stages:

Cynthia and Alejandra!

Cookie "Costumes": #1 Bride & Groom

My amazing niece Tara is all grown-up, and getting married. She wanted something little, and especially fun for photographs of her bridal party.

The first time mustache cookies came onto my radar was through my friend Liz and her Eat Cake Be Merry blog, and it really made me smile.

Watching my son play with them made me think we need to make some more variations on this theme for fun cookie dress-up photos...
LIKE THESE GREAT GLASSES AND EYEBALLS FROM my friend Patti Paige at BAKED IDEAS:

*To make sure the skewers didn't burn or spin around later, I soaked them in water before baking. Before putting the cookies in the oven, I also added an extra little piece of cookie dough over the part of the cookie where the skewer was inserted for extra strength.

BAKER-BOT: the Future of Kitchen Gadgets?

Fab@Home: imagine this- "the sun rises and the alarm clock chimes, you roll out of bed to be greeted by a freshly printed breakfast from the dining app that syncs with your alarm clock"

I was really looking forward to seeing my first 3D printer up close and in person at the NY Maker Faire this year. What we found was a whole "3D printer village"!
As we marveled at 3D objects being reproduced, layer upon layer right before our eyes, the silicone streaming out of the printer's tubes reminded me of icing being piped. Sure enough, tucked away in a corner of the show we stumbled across this printer, syringe filled with chocolate and fabricating these little chocolate turtles:

"The Fab@Home syringe tools have the unique ability to make objects out of multiple materials. They are compatible with a wide array of materials including silicone, cement, stainless steel, cake frosting, and cheese. Some of our finished products include a battery, a flashlight, a bicycle sprocket, toy parts, and various food products."

The video below is a little long... but fast forward to where the printer is piping icing onto a cookie, its pretty cool to imagine what the applications can become:

If a Maker Faire comes to your town, I say run, don't walk to check it out.

Here's another exhibit we loved: A game-controller-operated Gigantic Slingshot. (Hmmm, we're going to need a backyard.)

Attack of the Minifigure Cake!

"Caaaake!"

7

I've been making cakes for Aidan's family since he was three. Now he's seven. I love that age. They seem like they're all legs, like foals, and growing so fast that they're tripping over their own now a-full-size-bigger-than-thee-months-ago feet. Their imaginations are huge, and their super powers are at their best.

The 12 sculpted characters on the cake are formed out of a combination of fondant and sugar-paste. It took about three days to make them. Many disappeared within seconds, and clearly, a few were taken prisoner:

While I wouldn't say, "just try this cake at home", I would totally recommend the LEGO Minifig Popsicle mold (below). We used it to start off the basic pieces & shapes of our figures. With these iconic shaped molds, you can make a quick homemade super cool popscle with a big pay-off. An Orange-Banana Smoothie popsicle is just the right kind of yellow of the classic minifigure. (My personal favorite is Watermelon-Chocolate Chip: puree Watermelon, fold in chocolate chips, pour into molds, and freeze.)


The Red Lego "Brick" cake measures 12 X 16 X 5". Its chocolate cake filled with layers of caramel buttercream and chocolate-caramel buttercream.

This one goes out to all the 7 year-olds: