2 more cakes.

So, I found a couple more pictures of cakes I've done.  This one, to the left, I'm particularly proud of.
"What is that?" You may ask  Why, its a Companion Cube!  Its from a video game called Portal.  I've never played it, but just about all my friends have.  Apparently, the game involves this cube, and a cake at the end of the game.  Apparently, also, the cake is a lie.  This cake, though, was most assuredly NOT a lie.  And it was a birthday cake for the aforementioned Groom of Chocolate Love, so, of course, the cake was chocolate.  Never mind the mess in the back...that's all my decorating stuff.  Right after finishing the cake, I took a picture.  I was rather proud of this cake.  I feel I made up for not being able to do the d20 cake.  I hope so, at least.
  


This next cake was for a birthday, of course.  The girl liked pink, and liked polka dots. 
So she got both.   My writing is better on this one than on some of my previous cakes..
see, I get better at it!  I rather like writing on cakes now.  I got some practice doing it at a bakery I worked at for a while, and that helped.

So, that's 2 more cakes.  as I find more pictures, I'll post more.
I took last Wednesday off from baking cupcakes, but this Wednesday,
I shall be baking Yellow cupcakes with Chocolate frosting-it's a classic
combo, and it's sooo tasty.  I'll be delivering them to my friend Cyndi's
salon. I'm also going to be making chocolate chip cookies, for an event at work.  I'm also going to be experimenting with meat pies..more specifically meat tarts..like PopTarts, but with meat.  I will be sure to blog about those.

The Kitchen Sink.

Today is my day off, so I decided to spend the day doing laundry and vegging out in front of teevee.
I was watching the Cooking Channel, and on one of the shows, they were making pizza. I suddenly decided that I needed pizza. But do we have the ingredients for pizza? I go through the list in my head- I know we have flour and yeast, and I knew we had cheese. The rest, I'd just wing it. I looked through the fridge, and saw lots of left over things, so I used them. This, my friends, is why its called "The Kitchen Sink".
I will admit to cheating on the crust. I used my bread maker. DON'T JUDGE ME. I'm all about new technologies! So as the dough was being made, I started on the pizza sauce. I started by chopping up some leftover onion that had been languishing in the fridge for a couple days- I saved it from a fate worse than, em, something. I sauteed those on medium, then added a balsamic vinegar. Now, this vinegar, I love this vinegar. I bought it last year at the Flower Mart, which is an annual street market in Baltimore. It's a balsamic vinegar with fig and vanilla. I have used it on everything- so good on veggies, so good on pork, so good on chicken, so good on salmon, so good in hamburgers..so I wanted to try it with pizza sauce. I let those work together to caramelize the onions, as I prepared the tomatoes. We had 1 tomato, and a handful of little grape tomatoes left over. So I took the tomato, squeezed out the seeds, and coarsely chopped it. I just cut the grape tomatoes in half. Added them to the onions, and added some salt and garlic. Cooked that on medium for a few minutes, then set it to low while the dough rises.
Meanwhile, I got the rest of the toppings. I found a container with about 12 olives, left over from a meal a couple days ago. So I got those and coarsely chopped them. Found an artichoke heart- Just one. Chopped it up, mixed it with the olives. We had some spinach! Chopped it up (I don't like big leaves of spinach on my pizza, but I do like spinach on my pizza). 2 leftover italian sausages, perfect! Some provolone slices, and some shredded cheddar. So, those were my pizza toppings.
I have a pizza stone somewhere, but I suspect its in the garage, with much of my other stuff, so I just used my rectangular stone, so the pizza wasn't round. But the shape doesn't matter.
So, after baking it at 350 for 24 minutes, I couldn't wait to taste it. And mmmmmmm was it tasty. I like my pizza crust thick, so I made it such, but not too thick. the sauce was thick, tangy, maybe a little sweet, from the balsamic, and sooo good. the different toppings worked super well together.
Making pizza from scratch isn't hard. (especially if you have a bread maker). And the toppings can be anything. You should try it, too. Its so good!

Banana Bread Recipe.

Since posting about my Banana Bread yesterday, I've received several requests for the recipe. Gladly I share! But let me give you a few tips about flavorful and delicious banana bread.

Firstly, make sure your bananas are ripe. And by ripe, I mean black. They really should be as dark as possible. The darker they are, the sweeter and more banana-er they are. That really adds delicious flavor to the bread.
Second- most banana breads call for vegetable oil. Not mine. I love butter. Butter make everything better. I'm told that oil makes for moister breads. I call bollocks on that. My breads and cakes are perfectly moist and more delicious because butter has more flavor that vegetable oil. Plus, butter is more natural than veg. oil. And I'm a fan of natural foods.
Thirdly- Don't use iodized salt for baking. It imparts a tinny flavor to your food. Use sea salt, or Kosher salt. AND DON'T FORGET TO ADD SALT TO YOUR BAKED GOODS. It makes a huge difference in flavor.
And Finally for the love of all that is holy, NEVER use Artificial Vanilla, or Vanillan. Spring the extra bucks for real Vanilla Extract. You'll thank me for this. Really, you will.

Now, make some banana bread, and tell me how it turns out!

Tanya's Tasty Nanner Bread
makes 2 full loaves
preheat oven to 350.

1 cup butter
2 cups sugar
4 eggs
5 bananas, very ripe
1 cup sour cream
1 teaspoon vanilla
4 cups AP flour
2 teaspoon baking powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt.
1/2 cup raw sugar

In bowl, sift together flour, powder, soda, cinnamon, and salt. Set aside.

In mixer, cream together sugar and butter until fluffy. add bananas and sour cream. Then eggs, one at a time, and vanilla. slowly add dry ingredients. pour into 2 greased loaf pans. Sprinkle Raw Sugar on top of loaves.
bake 50-55 minutes.

The adventure of the Grooms Cake.

A few years ago, some friends I had made when I first moved to Baltimore asked me to make the groom s cake for their wedding. They asked me if I could make the cake in the shape of a d20. Without thinking, I said "Of course I can!".For those non geeks out there, let me help you out. a "d20" is a 20 sided dice.
Here, let me show you a picture. As you can see, it is 20 sided. You may say to yourself "Ah, Tanya, that must have been difficult, making a cake in that shape." I would answer with. "Yeah. Frakking impossible, in fact."
I couldn't do it. I tried, or lord, how I tried. But a cake in that shape just wasn't working. If I could get the shape, it wasn't stable. If I got it stable, it wasn't that shape. I was frustrated, sad, and felt like a failure. So I called the happy couple to give them the bad news, they didn't seem too terribly upset. In fact, Dave, the groom, had just gotten a D&D Dragon that he thought would look cool on a cake. So, if I could just make him a chocolatey chocolate cake, we could put that figurine on top, and that would make a fine grooms cake.
So that is what I did. I made a dark, rich chocolate cake, with a whipped ganache filling, a chocolate buttercream, with more ganache poured on top. I then took some chocolate morsels and put them in the the food processor for just a few seconds, and sprinkled those on top. And atop that, the mighty dragon. The cake was devoured, and everyone loved it. Most importantly, the groom. He still speaks of the gloriousness of the chocolate cake with chocolate, and some chocolate with chocolate on top. With maybe some more chocolate?

Also, for that wedding, I made Aphrodite Cakes, with the recipe I found at http://www.tigersandstrawberries.com/2005/06/20/whispered-secrets-of-a-kitchen-tantrika/ . Aphrodite cakes are delicate, and have rosewater in the icing. They were very good, and the bride was pleased with them, as well. I'm very glad I found that recipe, and I would like to make them again.
All in all, it was a lovely wedding, and I'm very glad they gave me the opportunity to contribute to its success.

Mocha cupcakes and banana bread.

First of all, my lemon cupcakes with the raspberry buttercream were a success. Words like "sublime"...actually, the word sublime typed twice, and in all caps. That's always cool.
So, this week, I made cinnamon scented mocha cupcakes with chocolate buttercream. I delivered them to my friend Liz and her co-workers at WordCom, and also to my BFF Destiny and her co-workers at Pennwell. And, a second week of success. Everyone loved them. I hear the most compliments about my buttercream, which is cool. I make my buttercream with (gasp!) BUTTER! Butter makes everything better. Everything.
But, I must admit, my first batch of mocha cupcakes were a fail. They didn't rise, and were too heavy. Not delicious. But, I laugh in the face of adversity, and I reworked the recipe, and tried again.
Success! The cupcakes came out fluffier, lighter, and yummier. And the buttercream came out divine-like.
Mocha Cupcakes FTW is all I have to say about this.




I made the banana bread tonight, after work. I bought the bananas 2 weeks ago and let them ripen. Its important to make sure they're very very ripe. I also use sour cream in my recipe. It always turns out moist, and yummy. I don't add nuts, but someone (or many someones, actually) recommend chocolate chips, and that doesn't sound like such a bad idea. But tonight, just plain banana bread. (though, to be fair, ain't nothin plain about it..)



Yeah, I totally had a piece of it. Or perhaps 2 pieces of it. It was quite good. I shall wait til morning for another piece, because I think its very possible I could devour the whole loaf tonight. Yeah, I love banana bread.