Week 15- Strawberry Pinwheels

This week I made strawberry pinwheels. They weren't bad, but something wasn't right about them. The 'dough' part was actually part of another recipe called, 'sweet roll dough'. That in itself says how it should be, like cinnamon roll dough or something. However, once I baked them and they cooled, the texture of the 'dough' was more chewy, hard, and just not right. Wasn't bad, but it didn't go well with the cream cheese frosting or strawberry jam.
I think the dough wasn't right for two reasons. I didn't really knead it that much ( next time I'll put it in the food processor I got for Christmas) and when it was supposed to be rising, the directions said it should be in a warm draft free place. I didn't know what was considered warm, so I just let it rise in the kitchen (68 degrees Fahrenheit).

These could have been really good if I just made those corrections, the kind of treats that hit the sweet tooth perfectly.

Week 14- Mom's Apple Crumb Cake

This week I made a recipe that runs in the family, my mom's apple crumb cake. In fact, I made this for my mom because it was her birthday. It was a bit rushed because of how things turned out, but all was well in the end.
Some things I would do differently: I would add more apples, maybe juicier ones for a more moist crumb because I thought the crumb part was a little too dry (well dryer than usual). Also, my mom always adds a lot of cinnamon for that kick, so I'll add more cinnamon next time. I also incoorporated the butter a little too much so a lot of the crumb part was more 'sandy' than little bits of crumb.
Despite my changes I'd make, my dad was supposed to give the rest of the cake to my mom the next day, and of course he finished it off throughout the day. He tried to go out and buy an apple pie to compensate for the one he ate. Store bought apple pie is not match for any home baked apple pie.

'Scuse the picture, I need a better camera. Mine is not good at taking up close shots. By the way, I use a flip video camera, record a 'shot' very still, upload it on my computer, and then take a screen shot of what I recorded.

Week 13- M&M Bites

This week (kind of late, sorry!) I made cute, little m&m bites. They were the bomb, in my opinion. Since I love peanut butter, I 'accidentally' picked up peanut m&ms instead of regular chocolate filled ones. Kind of nervous on how it would turn out to be, I put them in anyways into the bite size cookies. I thought the cookie part was awesome, like the soft Auntie Annes (a little fast food place in the mall) cookies. The m&ms with the peanut went really well, though. In fact, I feel like they would be even better than chocolate ones because it compliments the soft cookie. I nice variety of texture and hardness in the cookie.
For people who don't like peanuts, use chocolate filled m&ms and they'd be a great hit at a party, those type of bite sized cookies people just tend to keep sneaking into their mouths every here and there.

Week 12- Baklava

This week I made baklava. I followed the recipe on the phyllo dough box and it came out okay.
My dad loved it because it was very sweet. It was a good combination of flakey pastry, crunchy nuts, and sugary sweetness. I cut the recipe in half because I only had one roll of phyllo dough. I cut the honey glaze that you pour over it in half, and there was still too much. I poured the whole thing in it but ended up draining the rest of it out so it wasn't sitting in a puddle of liquid (like how the strawberry scoop ended up being).

I thought it was good but it fell apart really easily and made a sticky mess. I just needed something to do with my leftover phyllo dough.

Week 11- Pineapple Upside-down Cake and Blueberry pie

This week on the 16th, was my dads birthday. I asked him what he wanted, and he tol dme blueberry pie and pineapple upside-down cake, favorites of his. Both things were pretty easy to make. The blueberry pie was an easy recipe I found, and the cake was something my mom passed down to me.

After going out to dinner, everyone dug into the cake. It was delish! It's just butter cake with a brown sugar and butter mixture poured over the pineapples, to put it in short. If you like sweet, fruity desserts, you'd looove this.

The blueberry pie was something for my dad to take home since no one had any room for pie left in their bellies. I've yet to hear from him about it, but as I was making it I tried the blueberry mixture and it tasted like sugar coated blueberries basically. Nothing advanced, but not bad!

Oh and I forgot to dab this top crust of the pie with the butter, and that's probably why it came out of the oven so stiff. Oh, well.

Week 10- Sacroiliac Joint cake

This week I had an anatomy project that challenged us to take it in our own direction. Everyone had to present a different joint of the body in some way, so I made a cake! It was a regular yellow cake with  vanilla pudding spread in the middle. I was surprised because I expected something to go disastrous.

So I made the two 8x8 cakes, let them cool completely, spread the vanilla pudding on one and then put the cake on top of it if you know what I mean. Then, I cut it very carefully in the shape I needed it to be (the pelvic girdle) which went very smoothly. I then put a very thin layer of leftover pudding so the fondant could stick to the cake.

Then I worked with fondant for the first time ever. I didn't make it from scratch because I couldn't afford to screw up. So I rolled it out and carefully placed it on top of the cake. The hard thing with rolling it out is that it stuck to the countertop even though it was powdered with conf. sugar. I used my cake tool to lift it up (the one that smoothes the frosting on cakes, like a tiny spatula).
The hardest part of the whole thing was fitting the fondant to the cake. Like, since it wasn't a perfect circle, it folded in different places and it would NOT stick to the sides. I should have probably put a thin layer of pudding on the sides as well because it stuck just fine to the top of the cake. In places where the fondant would absolutely not stick I would dab a little water on it and smooth it better.
Lastly, I used colored icing to label the cake and certain parts of the girdle. That went just fine.

Thankfully, everyone in the class seemed to like the cake! I was skeptical at the pudding part (it needed some flavor of course), but it actually complimented the cake just great.

Unfortunately, as I was bring the last part of the cake home from the bus, it fell off the plate. Oh, well. And sorry about the picture, I stupidly put the plastic wrap on before I took the picture and I didn't want to mess up the icing that may still be a little wet.

Week 9- Banana Cupcakes

This week I made banana cupcakes and frosted them with cream cheese frosting. They were good! One person said without the frosting they were really dry. I felt that there was something missing from the cupcakes. Maybe if I mixed a little bit of chopped walnuts, pecans, something into it they would be more distinctive from a regular cupcake.
I also think the cream cheese frosting went really well with the banana flavor.
The cupcake part basically tasted like banana bread, maybe a little sweeter.

I think these are definately easy and worth making for something like a bake sale or a dinner party dessert for those who want some nutrition out of their sweet, baked goods. :)