Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Spiderman Cake

I made this cake last night for my brother's birthday. Thankfully, he's young enough not to care about the appearance. As long as Spiderman is recognizable and the cake tastes good, everything is right in the world :)


Saturday, February 19, 2011

Amazing Thin Crust Pizza :D

I made pizza tonight for dinner and it was SO GOOD!!! I guess I have this thing for thin crust pizza with lots of sauce, anyway, I have to say that it was delicious :)



So, here's the recipe for the crust (it makes 2 pizzas):

3/4 cup lukewarm water
1/2 tsp. of active-dry yeast
2 cups of flour
3/4 tsp. salt
Herbs (optional)
Garlic powder (optional)

Preheat the oven to 500 F
Disolve the yeast in the water and set it aside. Next, combine the flour and salt (and the herbs and garlic powder if desired). Pour the yeast water into the flour mixture and stir them together. Knead the dough until it's elastic then divide it in half.
This next part is super smart, I discovered it from a website and it works so well. It helps the pizza crust to be super thin. Here it is: Roll the crust out on a piece of parchment paper. The dough sticks to the paper, helping it to stay stretched out and thin when it's uncooked. But as it cooks, the dough releases from the parchment paper. It's so simple but it really makes good crust!
Next, put all the toppings on the pizzas, except for the cheese, and place them (with the parchment paper) onto cookie sheets and into the oven. Bake them for 5 minutes, rotate them, then bake them again for 5 more minutes. After that, add the cheese and put them back in the oven for 10+ minutes, until the crust is golden (or close to golden).

This is one of the best recipes for thin crust pizza that I know of...mmmm...enjoy! :)

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Vanilla Buttercream Frosting

I have a confession to make: when it comes to buttercream frostings, I improvise. I don't have set recipe, but my vanilla buttercream consists of 4 components:

Softened Butter (of course)
Vanilla
Powdered sugar
Whipping Cream (makes the frosting fluffy)
Milk

It's a pretty basic recipe but it tastes fabulous.
For the purpose of this blog, here's a recipe (with measurements) for vanilla buttercream frosting:

1/2 cup of softened butter
1 1/2 tsp. of vanilla
4 cups of powdered sugar
1/3 cup of whipping cream
Milk (to add if the frosting is too thick)

Directions:
Cream the butter and vanilla together then add the powdered sugar and whipping cream. Whip the frosting until it's fluffy. As I said in the list of ingredients, if the frosting is too thick then add some milk. Be careful though, because a little bit goes a long way :)

Sidenotes: This frosting works best when used right away. Also, after icing cupcakes or a cake, refrigerate it. That helps to keep the frosting in the right shape.

Enjoy this tasty recipe!

Cream-filled Valentines Day Cupcakes

Ok, so I made these cupcakes for Valentines day a couple days ago. They turned out really well and all my friends and family loved them (except for my little brother who was appalled at the lack of chocolate)


Here's the recipe:

3 cups of flour (all-purpose, I rarely use cake or self-rising flour)
2 1/2 tsp. of baking powder
2/3 cup of softened butter
1 3/4 cup of sugar
2 eggs
1 1/2 tsp. of vanilla
1 1/4 cup of milk
10 drops of red food coloring
1 tbs. of red sugar sprinkles

Whipped Cream

Vanilla Buttercream frosting (dyed light blue)

Rolled fondant (white, pink, and red)

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 350 F and line 2 muffin pans with cupcake papers.
Sift the flour and baking soda together in a bowl and set it aside. Meanwhile beat the butter, sugar, eggs, and vanilla until fluffy. Next, add the flour mixture and the milk alternately into the butter mixture, beating until smooth. Mix in the food coloring and sprinkles, then spoon the batter into the cupcake pans.
Bake for 15-20 minutes until a toothpick inserted in the center of a cupcake comes out clean.
Remove the cupcakes from the oven and let them cool for about 10 minutes before taking them out of the pan.
After the cupcakes have cooled completely, cut a quarter-sized circle out of the center of each cupcake. Pull the piece of cake out and cut the top off of this piece. Fill the hole with whipped cream then put the top of the cake piece back to cover the whipped cream.
To frost the cupcakes, fill a pastry bag (tipped with a large star-shaped decorating tip) with the blue buttercream frosting. Swirl the frosting on the top of the cupcake to make it look pretty.
As for the fondant decorations... it's pretty self-explanatory. I rolled the fondant into little balls and I cut the heart out with a steak knife, no fancy cookie cutters here :) The stitching on the heart is just red food coloring painted on with and toothpick.

So, over all, this recipe is really simple, but super delicious!

Hope you enjoy!

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

My first post :D

Hi! I just wanted to welcome you to my 5 minute old blog :) It's a site of recipes, pictures, small stories, and random posts. But first, two things you need to know about me: 1) I'm a little strange, and 2) I never use unsalted butter :)

I hope you enjoy all my posts from this point forward!

~Danielle