Monkey Bread

So today at church, my family was to provide refreshments and I decided I will make semi-homemade monkey bread. Everything went well except when dealing with two toddlers, plans gets derailed. Instead of taking it out of the pan immediately, I did it about half hour later. Needless to say, the result was less than what I expected. There is a reason why they suggest to serve warm. The caramel crystallized in the pan and there was no way I can get it out of the pan without breaking it apart.

Immediately told my husband he will have to stop and pick something else on his way to church. Oh and I ended up missing church because my oldest is sick. Before hubby left he took a ziplock bag full to eat on the way.

So this was a fail in presentation, but a pass in flavour and process. Will definitely try it again.

Cakes

I can not believe that I haven't blogged for months. Having two toddlers to deal with is proving quite tiring, but that's another blog.  I haven't felt inspired much lately except to bake birthday cakes for both kids.

My little man munchkin turned 2 in July so I made him a train cake. I came across the pan at the thrift store and figured why not. I had an inspiration site for the design, but can't find it right now. Once I do, I'll link it here.

I think it turned out better than expected. I made a yellow cake and bought the Wilton's icing from the party store. Mixing bright red icing was not my way of having fun.

Hence the end result. It was denser that I like, but the flavor was good.

My little girl munchkin turned 1 this October and boy is she a handful. I decided to go semi homemade for her cake and keep it simple.  Simple for me was trying my hand at Tres Leches cake.

What an awesome cake it turned out to be. Everyone enjoyed it very much. I used http://www.mommyskitchen.net/2008/11/tres-leche-cake-semi-homemade-style.html as an inspiration. I also made my own whip cream icing.

Yum

Caramel Macchiato Cheesecake

This is by far my most successful experiment.  We had a graduation cookout and I wanted to try my hand at something no one would think I would try.  I went full force ahead and tried a cheesecake.  Everything I read online made it sound really scary, but I was not to be put off.  Not only did I make the cheesecake, but I also made the caramel! Crazy I know, but that took me less than 10 minutes. Who knew!!!!




The crust

Before going into oven

Final product

 

With caramel

 

I need to learn how to take better pictures because that doesn't look so good.  I've gotten many compliments on the cheesecake and even some request to make more. Yah me!!!!

Here are pictures of the caramel in progress, thanks to DH for his great camera work.


Melting sugar

 

Adding butter

Adding cream

All done, easier than I thought

    

Roundup

This is a quick recap of items I baked but didn't get a chance to blog about.

1. Strawberry Clafouti - Fail
I had strawberries and needed to make something for lunch at church.  It looked great right after it was cooked, but once transported, it was ugly. Will have to try again with Cherries (what the recipe calls for).



2. Round Scone - Fail

Not sure if it's the fact that I tried to bake these early in the morning with two kids crying for my attention, but they were hard.  The taste was so so, but I didn't like that they didn't flake up like I wanted.  What saved the day was the strawberry jelly that I had made after picking twelve pounds of strawberries from the orchard.

 

 

3. Semi Homemade Graduation Cupcake - Success

I wanted to make something unique for my nephew's graduation and came upon a recipe from "Cake Mix Magic" magazine that called for using cake mix to make these cupcakes.  Getting the colors to match his schools' was a bit hard since I had never played with coloring, but it was fun to see how they turned out.  Everyone loved them. I would definitely make them again.

 

 

 

4. Semi Homemade Strawberry Shortcake - Success

Yes I know two successes from cake mix, but it was so easy to work with.  I didn't have my camera, so the phone did the job. Picture does this cake no justice. It was topped with homemade whip cream and fresh picked strawberries. Can you tell it's strawberry season? LOL