Vanilla Birthday Cake

This week is, for sure, a special Birthday week in our family. My little, and youngest, sister Shaina, turns 21 today!! That's an exciting year to celebrate. When I see her on Sunday, I either want to make her a cake as pretty as the one I made yesterday for my BFF Colleen's 30th Birthday, OR we are going out for Rita's water ice, and i'll spike her water ice with Vodka ;) My one and only niece, Genevieve, celebrates her birthday tomorrow! So many birthdays, and all for the ones I love dearly. I absolutely love making Birthday cakes. Yesterday, I attempted my first Naked cake. If you haven't already heard the term, you likely have seen a naked cake and didn't know that's what it is called. It's when a layer cake is exposed, and the filling and frosting only coats the edges of the cake where the cake layers meet and sometimes (like this cake) the surface edges are thinly and sparingly coated with a little of the frosting. It has been a wedding cake trend for a while now, but finally I made one of these rustic and natural beauties for a Birthday. To top off the prettiness, I cut some fresh flowers and leaves to decorate the top. The cake turned out to be as delicious as pretty. See Country Living's recipe below (or click HERE) for vanilla cake and my buttercream frosting. I wrote in some basic directions on creating the perfect 4 1/2" round naked cake. Happy Birthday S, G, & C! xo RCN

Cake Ingredients:

1½ c. sifted cake flour

1½ tsp. baking powder

¼ tsp. salt

½ c. unsalted butter

1 c. sugar

2 large eggs

½ tsp. vanilla extract

½ c. whole milk

Buttercream Frosting Ingredients:

Mix and combine all ingredients until it becomes a smooth frosting texture.

3 cups powdered sugar, sifted

1/3 cups butter, softened

3 tablespoons milk

Baking Directions:

Heat the oven to 400 degrees F. Lightly coat four 4 1/2" cake pans (I used spring form) with butter and dust with all-purpose flour. Sift the cake flour, baking powder, and salt into a large mixing bowl. Place mixture in electric stand mixer with whisk attachment. Beat in the butter one 1/4 teaspoon. Mix on low speed until the mixture resembles coarse sand (may be a 'bit larger grains than sand). Next, beat in sugar one tablespoon at a time, until the mixture resembles fine damp sand. Beat in the eggs one at a time. Add the vanilla and milk, and beat on medium-high, just until blended. Do not overbeat. Pour equally into four 6" cake pans. Bake for about 30 minutes, until toothpick inserts at center of cake and pulls out smoothly without wet batter. Remove from oven and let sit for a few minutes. Remove from cake pans and set to completely cool on wire rack.

Wilton Icing Smoother

4 1/2" Springform Round Baking Pan

KitchenAid Electric Stand Mixer

Assembling and Decorating Directions:

First, decide what cake stand or platter you want to use to display your cake, set aside. Once cakes are cool, trim off the dome of each mini cake with a serrated bread knife. The goal is to cut the tops off each cake to create flat surfaces that will allow you to easily stack each cake on one  another. Grab cake stand or plate and buttercream frosting. Place a smudge of frosting at center of plate. Grab one layer of cake and place centered on the frosting on plate, push down to help secure the cake. Cover the top surface of the cake layer with about a 1/2 inch of frosting, frost all the way to edge of cake, its even better to let a little hang off the edge. Place next layer on top of first layer. Continue all steps until you reach your 4th layer. Frost the top of the cake and smooth the top surface. Take an icing smoother, link below, and smooth out all edges of the frosting insides of cake. Continue using edge all around the sides of the cake and at all layers of the cake to smooth and spread a random and sparing amount of frosting on the cakes exterior, just like images below. Lastly, cut fresh flowers, leaving no stem for small flowers, and a tiny stem on big flowers (bigger flowers may shift more so a little stem allows you to stick more firmly into cake and frosting). Leave stems on leaves as well, as they will be the last decoration to add, underneath flowers and you will need stem to stick in from underneath flowers. That's it! 

Cacti Cookies

I am overly obsessed with everything cactus. I decided to put together a small treat table for this upcoming Cinco de Mayo (tomorrow!) and went with cacti as my fiesta theme. Sugar cookies, are similar to my banana bread theory, in that you can't try too many recipes in order to get you to your absolute favorite. So this time around, I used Alton Brown's cookie recipe from Food Network. They are not very sweet, which is perfect, especially because I decided to dose them in green icing and sprinkles. I mean...how cute are these? Perfect for any summer fiesta! Ingredients and directions all below OR click HERE for link to original recipe. xo RCN

Cookie Ingredients:

3 cups all-purpose flour, and some extra for rolling out dough 

3/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup unsalted butter, softened

1 cup sugar

1 egg, beaten

1 tablespoon milk

Baking Instructions:

Sift together flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside. Place butter and sugar in large bowl of electric stand mixer with whisk attachment and beat until light in color. Add egg and milk and beat to combine. If dough and mixture clump towards center of whisk, take a second to pause your mixer and use a spatular to clear out the whisk, continue to mixing. Put mixer on low speed, gradually add flour, and beat until mixture pulls away from the side of the bowl. Divide the dough in half, wrap in waxed paper, and refrigerate for 2 hours.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

Sprinkle surface where you will roll out dough with flour. (Alton uses powdered sugar- this will make your cookie sweeter) Remove 1 wrapped pack of dough from refrigerator at a time, sprinkle rolling pin with flour (or powdered sugar), and roll out dough to 1/4-inch thick. Move the dough around and check underneath frequently to make sure it is not sticking. I use a silicon baking mat + a little flour and it works excellently! Cut into shape with cactus cookie cutters, place at least 1-inch apart on greased baking sheet and bake for 7 to 9 minutes or until cookies are just beginning to turn brown around the edges. Rotate cookie sheet halfway through baking time. Let sit on baking sheet for 2 minutes after removal from oven and then move to complete cooling on wire rack. 

Decoration Directions:

You will need a clean surface, wire cooling rack, paper towel, toothpicks, mini faux floral buds,  green cookie icing , and white sprinkles.

Snip off flower blooms from fake stems, leaving 1/4"-1/2" of wire on end (to stick into cactus arm). Set flowers aside. Set up cooling rack, and place paper towels underneath. Once cookies are cool, move to a clean surface. I reused my silicon baking mat. One at a time, place cookie on mat and begin covering top of cookie with green icing (follow directions on bottle as to how to warm up in microwave, etc.). Let the icing drip over the sides of cookie. Take a toothpick and continue to smooth out icing on surface and spread icing to sides and cover sides, as well. Take white sprinkles and lightly and sporadically sprinkle onto top of green icing. Take one bloom and fluff out the petals. Hold the little wire end and stick it directly into the cactus cookie arm. Using another toothpick, stick the toothpick under a corner edge of the cookie to lift it off surface. Once it is tilted up, grab cookie from underneath and transfer to a cooling rack to let excess icing drip off. Continue all steps until all cookies are decorated. After a few more minutes, transfer into air tight container. If possible, try to keep cookies in a single layer, or use a sheet of wax paper in between stacks.

Hip Hop Carrot Cupcakes

Easter is a very special holiday for my family. This year will be the first that I will not be at my Mom Mom's Easter brunch - a tradition. I will miss being with the family, watching my niece, nephew, and cousins searching for eggs, and I will miss the delicious french toast casserole, danish, bagels, fruit salad, bacon, peanut butter eggs, list goes on. BUT, I decided to bring the brunch to Miami for me and Zach. No egg hunts, but there will be bacon...there usually is, almost every weekend. We also, of course, need a dessert or two ;) These hippity hoppity carrot cake cupcakes are perfect for Easter and any Spring time occasion. I chose the flavor based on the bunny theme and decided to search Pinterest for the most moist and tasty sounding recipes I could find. I picked a good one! Recipe below and link HERE for original from American Heritage Cooking. Hoppy Easter! xo RCN

Carrot Cake Ingredients:

2 cups all purpose flour

¾ teaspoon baking soda

¾ teaspoon baking powder

1 ½ teaspoons cinnamon

3/4 teaspoon kosher salt

3 eggs 

1 2/3 cups granulated sugar 

1 ¼ cup vegetable oil 

2 tablespoons lemon juice 

1 cup shredded & chopped carrots, packed 

½ cup walnuts, chopped 

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350˚F and line muffin tins with cupcake liners (I filled 22 liners). Sift together flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon and salt in a medium bowl and set aside. Combine lemon juice to the vegetable oil and set aside. Shred and chop carrots into small shavings, set aside. Chop walnuts, set aside. In a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, whip together the eggs and sugar on medium speed until fully combined. Turn mixer to high speed and add in oil/lemon juice mixture. Mix until combined. Remove bowl from stand and fold in dry ingredient mixture, followed by walnuts and carrots. Fill liners using a small baking scoop - the best! I used two scoops per liner. Bake at 350 F for about 18-20 minutes. Remove from oven and let sit for a few minutes. Remove cupcakes from tin and let cool on a rack until room temperature before frosting and decorating.

Frosting Ingredients:

4 Cups Powdered sugar, sifted

1 Cup Softened unsalted butter, 2 sticks

1/4 teaspoon Salt

1 Tablespoon Vanilla extract 

4 tablespoons Milk

Malted milk eggs + shredded coconut (for decorations)

Directions:

Combine all ingredients in a large bowl and mix thoroughly until frosting is smooth. Use a fork to help flatten out any remaining clumps. Remove half of the frosting and place in another bowl. Squirt 5-7 dashes of red food coloring in one bowl, 5-7 dashes of yellow in the other. Stir food coloring into frosting until completely combined. Place 2B Wilton Tip into 2 clear piping bags. Fill bags with frosting. Ice half cupcakes with pink icing and half with yellow. Add bunny toppers, malted milk eggs and a sprinkle of coconut onto cupcakes. Mix and match decorations on each cupcake and add a second contrasting liner to make all cupcakes a little extra special and individual.

Shamrock Sundae

Forget about the shake. How about a few scoops of mint chip ice cream covered in chocolate sauce, marshmallows, and sprinkles. It doesn't take much, when it comes to ice cream, to make me happy. Keep it simple and enjoy a quick and easy festive sundae for St. Patty's. All the extra awesomeness, like green straws and sparkling clover trimmings make the dessert that much better, without too much of a fuss. To avoid sticking wire wrapped embellishments (like the one pictured above) directly into your food, slide the accessory into a straw first, then add to decorate. A sweet treat that looks as great as it tastes will impress the kids and maybe a husband, too. xo RCN

Confetti Cookies

I spent the last few nights in NOLA celebrating my girlfriend Roxie's bachelorette. We had a wonderful time. I won't mention too many details about the trip, but we thoroughly enjoyed the food and drinks in New Orleans. We ate dinner at Seaworthy and Sylvain, brunched at Wilma Jean and Commander's Palace, munched on beignets from Cafe du Monde, and of course tried pork belly, shrimp, and roast beef Po'boys from a few different places.

I brought along some colorful celebratory cookies to have back at the house for when we weren't eating a million other snacks. These were simple to make, as I didn't use a homemade recipe. Sometimes, you just don't need homemade, especially in a time crunch! 

Instructions:

I divided pre-made Pillsbury sugar cookie dough and rolled into small balls and flattened with my hands. I varied the cookie sizes, the smallest being the size of a dime. Once the cookies were baked and cooled, I prepped the cookie icing. When following the directions to heat the icing, I only zapped in microwave for 10 seconds on 50% heat. I also let the icing sit for a minute before beginning to spread onto the cookies. Most importantly, I used a tooth pick to evenly divide and spread the onto the cookies. The alphabet cookie cutters and icing came from Michael's Craft Store. The icing portion part of this project took the longest, so give yourself a little time to work on this if you are making a lot of the confetti cookies. In the end, they are fun and worth it! 

This weekend was full of champagne, sweets, and lots of other food and drinks. I think I am in need of a little detox these next few weeks! xo RCN