Buttercream Dreams

For my dad's birthday, I decided to bake him a cake. I must preface these pictures by saying this is the first cake I've ever made with more than one layer. Also, this is the first round cake I've made. Also, this is the second time I've made frosting from scratch (the first was last week for these cup cakes, that didn't turn out so well). So you can see, I am not very weathered at this whole baking thing.



Since my St. Patrick's Day cupcakes didn't turn out very tastey, I figured I should take a step back and use a box mix for the cake, and make the frosting from scratch (also, we happened to already have a yellow cake mix).




Although it may not have the prettiest frosting job, let me tell you, Bakerella's buttercream frosting recipe is the best I've tasted.







Yes those are the same exact candles we used for my mother's birthday. I really don't like wasting things. Call me cheap!




Can't you just see the utter joy my father exudes as he welcomes his 53rd year?!

St. Patty's Cupcakes!

Chocolate Muffins.

Since I could no longer use Christmas as an excuse for baking and indulging in fattening desserts, I thought I'd bake up some lower fat desserts. I asked Morgan if she'd like to bake some, and she was kind enough to oblige. She even found this scrumptious recipe for us!

There were many ingrediants needed.

So we mixed everything up...

...and placed them in the oven to bake.

They looked and smelled delicious.

They really did turn out well.

I will most definitely be making this recipe again, and you should too!

Updated: Christmas Baking.

**Update** Morgan has posted some much better pictures on her blog. Click the picture below to see!Picture courtesy of the lovely Morgan.

**Original Post**

Here are some of the [very few] pictures that I got while baking at Morgan's house.


These first few are from when we made these read velvet cake balls.


Everyone who tasted them absolutely loved them [except Morgan, who was not impressed ;) ].






And here are a couple from the next day, when we made oatmeal chocolate chip cookies for Morgan's family's Christmas Eve party.


Yes, these are made from Morgan's scrumptious recipe, found here.



PS: I recall taking many more pictures, but my camera seems to have eaten them :(

Morgan's Cookies

My mom asked me to make cookies for her school's cookie swap, so I thought it would be a great time to try out Morgan's cookies.

FYI: I doubled her recipe.

1 stick of butter

2 sticks

3 sticks

4 sticks of butter [no, this is not a low fat recipe]

into the bowl and add 2 cups white sugar

2 cups dark brown sugar

mix it

add 1 egg

2 eggs

3 eggs

4 eggs and mix well

1 tsp. salt

2 tsp. baking powder, 2 tsp. baking soda

pour in 2 tsp. vanilla

add 4 cups all purpose flour

mix in 1 at a time

add 5 cups oatmeal

mix in 1 at a time

add chocolate chips

mix well one last time

first attempt

way too big

second attempt

getting better

third attempt

left them in a little too long (they only took about 6 1/2 minutes in my oven)

last attempt of the night

perfection

I baked about half of the dough that night, and the rest of it the next day. I think I finally got a feel for how big to make them and how long to leave them in after the third try. This was my first ever attempt at baking cookies from scratch (shocking, I know!), and I think I did pretty well. You all should definitely try out Morgan's recipe yourselves!

P.S: I'm so in love with this apron that Morgan got me, and I finally got my Nie Tee. You should get one, too! [Please forgive/ignore how awful I look in this picture.]