The Art Of Baking

Remember when I reviewed those doughnut muffins and I mentioned how I would love to redo the recipe, for better results.Well just recently I had way more success with the recipe and I think its all because I had newer baking powder to work with and way more control over my mixing.These two aspects made such a big difference in the overall product and I'm surprised how well the recipe did even with the dramatic change of making these into mini muffin doughnut bits. Overall, I had better risen and structured muffin tops. Very few air holes and no tunnels, throughout the treat.This is a big difference compared to my last attempt and I'm moving up. Now when I started my redo of this recipe I made sure to NOT double the ingredients because I knew the plan was to create mini doughnut bits.I made the right choice in doing this because I ended up with an acceptable amount of 36+ muffins and they were very successful in their appearance.They came out to be puffy smooth muffin...

After making two cakes, I wanted my next treat to be a simple and quick recipe.So I chose to make cookies, but not just any ordinary ones,Italian style cookies.These treats are very similar to sugar cookies in texture;however, what really sets them apart to make them special is their flavor.They have vanilla and almond extracts paired together to bring a really great layer of flavor to transform a basic cookie.The almond is the star of the show and to be honest its my favorite extract. The recipe I chose to use to make these is for Italian rolled cookies,which directly come from my Italian Foods eleven course collection.By me saying that,this tells you I have made these treats multiple times and the recipe has most likely been adapted;however I have always kept the original recipe unchanged.This time in making these I did make a couple changes,but nothing to risky.Right in the beginning, I started with doubling the ingredients because most of the recipes in this collection m...

So my boyfriend Dave just turned 22 years old this passed Monday and ever since we've been together I always make him a birthday cake.So the day before, which was Mother's Day,I made him a 2 layer round cake along with making a second cake for my Mom.It was a very busy day of making treats. So since it was so busy I made it simple on myself and made another banana cake, following the same recipe.It was super simple to make and very quick.Which was great because it gave me lots of time to brainstorm in how I wanted to decorate this cake.So when the time passed, I figured out exactly what I wanted. For decorating, I prepared myself a batch of peanut butter frosting from a recipe in Betty Crockers Cookbook New Edition.It was  really easy to make and great to work with for decorating.It covered the cake layers really nicely and I didn't even have to worry about any crumbs showing through like in the last cake. Overall, the frosting gave the cake lots of height ...

I told you I be back to tell you all about my Mother's Day dessert.I spent many hours this passed Sunday, making two cakes! One for my mom and the other for my boyfriend's birthday;however for now I'll just be sharing about her delicious cake and I'll leave the other to share about next time :) Anyways, you probably want to hear about what kind of cake this is?It's probably quite obvious by the cut in the cake in this picture.So did you guess a banana cake? Well if you did, your quite right! This is a moist flavorful banana cake, very similar to its bread and muffin variation.So by that you know its going to be quite simple to make and very versatile. Hence why I chose this recipe. I found this simple recipe in Company's Coming Cakes, Cookbook By Jean Pare.It had straight forward directions and simple ingredients.I made very little changes to direct cake recipe beside adding a few steps such as greasing & flouring the cake pans,using frozen(thaw...

Happy Mother's Day Everyone!     Its a beautiful and warm day here on Vancouver Island! I'm already feeling that summer warmth coming through! So to celebrate my mom for Mother's Day I am making her a delicious treat for tonight.I hope she likes it! Now for everyone to find out exactly what I'm making you"ll have to tune on my new post about it.You"ll definitely want to try out the recipe I have lined up. I also have to mention that I'll be making a birthday cake as well for my boyfriend to celebrate on Monday,which I'll post about as well.I have a busy days worth of baking.So I better start! Everyone have a great day and for all the Mother's out there be sure to enjoy it!

Here in B.C, were finally getting our beautiful spring weather.This weekend is suppose to be all sunny and blue skies.So far that's exactly what were getting and I'm taking advantage of it for my photos.I'm excited for more warm weather and the summer season to come upon us.BBQ's,nature walks,swimming, the beach, and even ice cream.Now the warmth,is not the best time to bake, but I'll just have to find days where its cooler and try to make summer desserts.Yum! Anyways,I should let everyone know about the recipe I just recently made.Its a sugar cookie recipe that I slightly adapted from my Foods 11 course.Its really simple to follow and has very little ingredient.I actually highly recommend it because its actually a sugar cookie where no chilling has to done.You can cut out as many different shapes as you like and it will still come out as good as chilled dough. I was actually super surprised to revisit this recipe and find this out.Plus I was super...

At The Penny Hoarder there is an awesome giveaway going on right now to win this brand new Kitchen Aid Stand Mixer! . Its a 5 quart size and color is white.Its super easy to enter the giveaway.Its through Raffle-copter and there is lots of chances to win! Go check it out and read more details of what this stand mixer can do! Its open till May 23 for Canada And The USA.So get on over there to get your entries. Click the highlighted black words to find the link! Good luck everyone!

Just this past weekend,I got the chance to test out the design molds, I got for free.When I picked these items out at a yard sale, everyone thought they were for Jello molds; However I mentioned they might be great for little cakes due to the unique design on them.Everyone thought this was a great idea and so I grabbed them.They were still in good condition and all I had to do was clean them up.Free is Free! On Saturday,I was super excited to try this item out and see if the idea would work.Before I started baking,I knew it would be very important to plan out in my head how I wanted to create these.So at first I thought I only have seven molds to work with so each little cake that I make would have to completely cool before I could do another batch.So from there, I made sure to give myself  a lot of time to make these cakes.When thinking of time, I also came to the conclusion that the molds would definitely need to be placed on a cookie sheet to prevent any spilling and ...

If you have been a loyal reader of mine you have probably read that I always seem to say that homemade pizza is the only way to go and to revisit that I think its very true.This is because its way cheaper then any restaurant or delivery and way better in texture,flavor and freshness to any frozen pizza.Also, when its homemade you have the opportunity to experiment with your dough and toppings to see what works for you.The only thing anyone has to do is plan their time well enough to prepare and be able to fun while creating it, no rushing. Anyone can make a pizza.Its super easy! Now when I recently wanted pizza.I had experimenting on the brain, so instead of a traditional pizza I went with following a brand new recipe, to create mini deep dish pizzas.They are simply a different format of the delicious food, basically a muffin sized snack.I have never made these before and they actually became pretty simple to create.All I needed was some pizza dough (homemade or store boug...

I love yard sales and thrift stores.I hope you love them too and if you don't well your missing out on some great treasures and deal.They are actually the best places to find kitchen items,books and clothing etc.Who cares if its used.If the items are still in good condition might as well take advantage.For me, I just recently found some great baking items at a yard sale.Which are all in good condition and I'm super excited to try them out.Check out my video below to see the treasures!

Recently, I made my first batch of upside down buns, aka sticky buns. I've eaten my share of these and have made many other buns, such as cinnamon buns,hot cross buns,and rolls.However for some reason I have never attempted to make these?, until now. So now I have finally made them and they were delicious.Its the exact recipe my mom would make that I loved as a kid.Its actually a bread machine recipe that she slightly adapted from the recipe book that came with her Black & Decker Bread Maker.There are so much great recipes in this book that I would love to try with the bread maker. This recipe for example is originally for their upside down pecan bun;however no one here is a fan of nuts in bread so the recipe was changed to have delicious raisins for the filling and brown sugar glaze.This gives a chewy,soft texture while giving some more sweetness.Also when I made this recipe,I used real 2% milk instead of their ingredient of skim milk powder for the dough.Liquid milk...