BakeAwayGirl

Strawberry-topped version from this summer A few years ago, a friend of mine was getting married and asked if I would make cupcakes for her wedding.  As an amateur baker, I was both incredibly flattered and terrified.  What if people were just indulging me and my cakes were secretly garbage?  What if I messed up?  What if I forgot an ingredient?  What if.. what if... what if! I immediately set to Pinterest to find recipes.  Originally I had grand ideas of espresso frosting with chocolate cupcakes and lemon cupcakes with a light raspberry frosting.  But I abandoned those ideas pretty quickly as 200 cupcakes was daunting enough without getting fancy beyond my capabilities.  So I decided to do 100 white cake cupcakes and 100 chocolate cake cupcakes.  I had a chocolate cake recipe , but I didn't have a quality white cupcake recipe.  So to Pinterest! They turned out wonderfully, and all my "what if"s were put to rest.  One of the...

Believe it or not, folks, this was not  a Pinterest find.  I know, shock and awe.  You see, while I spend many hours browsing Pinterest, Jeff reads articles and browses pictures of ridiculous people and cats.  He sends me so many links that I ignore half of them, but I was lucky I looked at this one.  It was a Buzzfeed article on the best one-bowl cakes. I had offered to make cupcakes for a friend's baby shower, and I knew she wanted chocolate, so when I stumbled on this Buzzfeed article, I made sure to pin it for later.  The original recipe only made 12 cupcakes, which is just ridiculous to me.  Who eats only 12 cupcakes?!  Silly. These were a hit at the baby shower and the few leftovers I had went quickly.  I will admit that I did not eat one.  There were fantastic cake pops at the shower as well, and I hit those hard.  So, personally, I cannot vouch for these cupcakes.  However, based on how fast they went, I will gues...

If I have a weakness, it's Oreos.  Ok fine, I'm a sucker for Doritos too, but Oreos might be even worse.  I don't allow myself to buy a package of them because I will eat the entire thing in two, maybe three days.  No, that's not a joke, yes I recognize that's sad.  Hence, I don't allow myself to buy them! But when I saw this on Pinterest, I couldn't resist.  Can you? Taken from MyBakingAddiction.com Right, so now that we're all on the same page, I immediately went out to purchase the goods.  I didn't make the cake from her recipe, because I already have a favorite chocolate cake recipe (that will be a later post).  I stuck with my cake, and I used her Oreo buttercream recipe.  My anticipation was so great, I could hardly stand it! But I was disappointed :(  That light, fluffy, creamy frosting that we associate with Oreo deliciousness was missing, and I should have seen it coming.  That kind of frosting comes from a whipped cre...

I can't believe I haven't posted this recipe yet.  It could be argued that this recipe is what kicked off my obsession with cooking and baking.  I loved baking and cooking, but it was about how it tasted, and it didn't usually look all that great.  My parents bought me some cake decorating stuff for Christmas, and my cousin asked me to take a cake decorating class with her. I was hooked. Problem was, the recipe the class gave me looked phenomenal... and tasted like plastic.  So I did some research and discovered that the problem was the shortening.  I needed butter.  Be real, people, butter makes everything better. Now, I've done my research.  The general consensus, along with my own experience, is that the butter makes it softer, so it doesn't hold up for much real decorating.  If you're trying to make flowers or something along those lines, you're going to need a straight up shortening/confectioners sugar concoction.  However, fo...