Reindeer Candy Canes

First of all...apologies for my absence but I'm back and just in time for the holidays!

I wasn't feeling the holiday cheer until this week. It started when I substituted in an after school workshop and watched Elf with the students. It is one of my favorite holiday movies.

"The best way to spread Christmas Cheer, is singing loud for all to hear." - Buddy

That quote motivated me to listen to Christmas music and got me into the holiday spirit. Also, there was an ugly sweater party at my office that I had to miss because I had an offsite meeting, where we went ice skating in Embarcadero, which is equally as festive. I decided to make a little treat for everyone in the office and at my meeting. I got lots of compliments on them on my train ride to work. Here they are...

 

Reindeer Candy Canes

Supplies Need:*

• Peppermint Candy Canes
• Brown Pipe Cleaners
• Small Googly Eyes (~7mm)
• Small Pom Poms (I used glitter ones)
• Thin Green Ribbon (cut into ~6 inch pieces)
• Scissors
• Hot Glue Gun

How to assemble:

1. Plug in your hot glue gun so it can warm up. 
2. Cut the pipe cleaner into about 3 inch pieces. Taking one 3 inch pipe cleaner center it at the top of the candy cane and twist. Taking smaller pieces of pipe cleaner (~3/4 inch) and twist onto the attached pipe cleaner to make it look more like antlers. 
3. Now your glue gun should be warmed up. Using it, glue on the pom pom and eyes.
4. Take the ribbon and tie a bow around the long part of the candy cane. 

*Note: These are the suggest materials that I used. I decided on these materials to stick with Christmas colors but its up to you what you want to use. Below are examples of other colors I did when I ran out of peppermint candy canes and red pom poms.

 

I can't wait to be home for the holidays!

A Twin Celebration

Two of my really good friends are twins. Though they are twins, they are very different, so for their birthday, I took two very different cake recipes and turned them into cupcakes. I got both recipes off the  Martha Stewart website. 

The first is the Sweet and Salty Cake from Baked Bakery in NYC, which was rich and decadent. Usually I'm not a fan of cake batter (I will always try the batter/dough/etc just to make sure it taste right before baking) but I was in love with this batter. It was almost chocolate mousse like. How I made it into a cupcake...I got rid of the caramel layer and just dolloped the ganache frosting ontop.

The second recipe is the Banana Bourbon Layer Cake, which was the best banana cake I've tasted so far (plus I'm a big fan of bourbon). Most banana cake recipes turn out like banana bread more but not this one. It was very cake like, moist and had lots of banana flavor. This recipe originally calls to make it a layer cake but instead I cored the cupcakes and filled it with some topping the cupcake. I topped each cupcake off with a slice of flambe banana. 

Both cupcakes were a hit, and I can't wait to try making them as they were originally meant to be, cakes!

Chocolate Vegan Cupcakes

For my sister's friend's birthday, I decided to make her chocolate vegan cupcakes. I got the recipe from Cupcake Wars winner, Chef Chloe. I've had several vegan cupcakes out there but most of them have been pretty dry. I remember watching the episode Chef Chloe was on and the judges raved about how moist and tasty her cupcakes were. Not mention that she beat everyone and their non-vegan cupcakes.

I didn't make them into strawberry shortcakes. Instead, I made a simple chocolate frosting. They turned out wonderful! They were definitely moist and delicious. Not overly sweet, which was nice.

Creativity

I have a friend who is a DJ and also enjoys making art. He mostly recreates pieces or draws characters (Peanuts are his favorite). One day we had this conversation:

Friend: Do you have a creative outlet?

Me: Not really, well at least like most people think. I make scrapbooks and I bake so I guess I'm more crafty than artistic.

Friend: Oh yeah, you bake but you use other people's recipes so that doesn't really count.

How dare he! Just because bakers are not artist in the traditional sense, doesn't mean they aren't creative. Music producers and DJ's use beats from other songs all the time. When he makes mixtapes, he uses songs from other people and alters it to make it his own. Bakers do the same, they use recipes from others and make changes to make it their own. Also when he makes his art pieces, he is replicating something another artist did already. Does that make him more artistic than me, when I use another baker's recipe?

Don't think so. No, it doesnt!

Budapest: Cakes and Bath Houses

One of the destinations on my backpacking trip in Europe was Budapest. I didn't know what to expect of Eastern Europe and I LOVED it! It's a beautiful city. The buildings are historical and gorgeous. The people are so friendly and helpful!


Budapest is famous for their bathhouses, which have been around since the ancient times. One of our days there we spent the morning sightseeing and exploring the city. Once afternoon hit, one of my friends went off on a caving adventure. (Because of the natural springs, caves have formed under the city) My other friend and I decided to go to a traditional bathhouse instead. On the way to the bathhouse, we stopped by a cute cafe to have a snack and expressos. We got a traditional Hungarian cake, Dobostorte, which had a hard top layer of caramelized sugar over alternating layers of sponge cake and chocolate buttercream filing. We also got the cafe special, which was a chocolate cake that had alternating layers of chocolate sponge cake and chocolate buttercream filling. Both were decadent and delicious!

Dobostorte and The Cafe Special Cake

There are several bathouses in Budapest. One of them turns into a nightclub pool party on summer nights. Since we were there in autumn, we were unable to go to that. The bath house we ended up at was more of a locals place. Since it was a women's day, you could go bare. My friend and I also got 1/2 hour massages for only about $12. It felt amazing especially after hitting the pavement for 3 weeks straight. The next day we went to another bath house with our friend who went caving. It was called Széchenyi, which is the big tourist bath house and it was the most pretty looking one. It was ginormous and all the baths and sauna and steam rooms were coed so bathing suits required. 

The locals bath house