Wedding Wednesdays: The Cake & Cupcakes!

Welcome back to my next Wedding Wednesday post. :) Thanks for joining me!

Today I thought I'd share our choices for our wedding cake! Mike and I decided to go for cupcakes for our guests and a small, round cake that would be our wedding cake for the ceremonious cutting of the cake. I love the look of tiered cakes, and we considered going that route, but ultimately, cupcakes just felt so fun and are such an easy way for guests to enjoy a sweet treat at the end of the night, so that's what we went with! 

Several people asked me if I'd be making our wedding cake and my answer was always "definitely not!" Yes, I love baking, but there was no way I was going to add one more thing to my wedding planning plate. I was more than happy to let someone else do the baking! And that "someone" was our venue, Jimbo's Club at the Point. They have a pastry chef right on site, and after our tasting, we were incredibly pleased with how delicious their cake flavors were, so it was an easy decision to go with Jimbo's and not have to search for an off-site baker to make our cake/cupcakes.

At our tasting, we sampled several different cupcake and frosting flavors (see pic below). The frostings were amazing! Several of them had booze in them, which was fun. ;)

There were such frostings as cabernet chocolate, Grand Marnier, and cannoli! In the end, we chose two different frostings: Bailey's chocolate and creme de menthe Oreo. Both were incredible! We went with a vanilla cupcake underneath the Bailey's chocolate and a chocolate cupcake for the creme de menthe Oreo. For our own wedding cake, we decided on a pumpkin cake with a classic vanilla frosting. Oh man, was it amazing. I definitely wanted a fall flavor in there somehow, so that's how we decided on pumpkin for our own cake. And, just in case any of our guests weren't huge fans of chocolate (or booze in their frosting), we thought we could offer our pumpkin cake with vanilla frosting to them instead of a cupcake.

Here are some pictures of our delicious wedding cake, cupcakes, and the cake cutting! :)

(Note: these pics are a mix of professional ones and ones taken by our guests)

Mike picked out the fun cake topper we had. He loves to fish (and got his love of fishing from his dad!), so this cake topper was perfect for us. And it fit our Adirondacks venue nicely too!

We had made some signs to put next to the cupcakes so our guests would know what flavors there were!

I love the background of these pics, with so many guests having their cameras and phones out to take pics. 

I love this pic below, as it's when Mike was pointing to a little bit of frosting that I had on the side of my mouth after he fed me a bite of cake.

And I also love the reflection of the lights from inside the room in the window. It looks like there's fireworks outside!

Sealed with a kiss, of course!! ♥

Isn't that the cutest little sign?! My mom gave this to us, and it was such a perfect, sweet addition to the cake table. :)

See you again later this week for some fun Valentine's Day ideas!

Easy Pumpkin Crumble Cake

Greetings, friends! About a week ago I was busy making this pumpkin crumble cake to have for Thanksgiving dessert with my family the next day. The adjective easy is incredibly accurate for this dessert. Talk about simple! This recipe was just what I was looking for - no fuss ingredients, takes very little time, and delicious, of course! Delicious is always a requirement.

This recipe is from the tried and true, always yummy blog, Our Best Bites (I've mentioned this one a few times before). The original recipe can be found here but I've written it below for you as well. Note: part of what makes this so easy is that it uses yellow cake mix. Although I do love making things from scratch, you also know that I love a shortcut from time to time (as evidenced by my beloved cake mix cookies here, here, and here!).

Ingredients:

-1 box yellow or white cake mix (I used an 18.25 oz. box of yellow)

-1 to 2 sticks of butter (see notes in instructions)

-1 can pumpkin (15 oz.)

-2 eggs

-1 can sweetened condensed milk (14 oz.)

-1 tsp. cinnamon

-1/2 tsp. pumpkin pie spice

-1/4 tsp. ginger

-1/8 tsp. cloves

-1/8 tsp. nutmeg

-1/2 tsp. salt

-1/3 cup chopped pecans

-1/2 tsp. additional cinnamon for topping

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place 2 cups of the cake mix in a bowl. Cut in 3 Tbsp. of chilled butter. I used my fingers (as the original recipe suggests) to crumble the butter into small pieces. Place this cake mix and butter mixture in the bottom of a 13 x 9 pan (I greased mine even though the recipe didn't specify) and press flat with your hands/fingers.

Mix the pumpkin, eggs, sweetened condensed milk, and spices until smooth. Pour on top of the cake mixture in the pan. Take the rest of the dry cake mix and mix in 1/2 tsp. cinnamon. Sprinkle it all over top of the pumpkin mixture. Before you put the remaining cake mix in the pan though, measure it so you know how much you have, and here's why: for every cup of cake mix, you'll need about 3 Tbsp. of melted butter. Since cake mixes vary in size (they're not all 18.25 oz.!), you may have a different amount of cake mix left than the next person after you use the first 2 cups of it for the bottom layer.

After sprinkling the cake mix and cinnamon mixture on top of the pumpkin layer, sprinkle the pecans evenly over top. Then, depending on how much cake mix you sprinkled on, melt the appropriate amount of butter and then drizzle the butter evenly over top of everything. That's it!

SPICES. :) I used more than what the recipe listed.

Bake for about 40 minutes or so, or until a toothpick or knife comes out clean. Serve it warm, chilled, or room temp - whatever you prefer! I served it room temp on Thanksgiving. I also served it with cool whip, but you could definitely make your own whipped topping or serve it with classic vanilla ice cream or any other yummy ice cream flavor. Options options!!

Now, I have to confess that I somehow forgot to add the salt. Whoops! But, as far as the various ingredients go, that was a good one to forget since the lack of salt wouldn't affect the taste as much as say, a lack of pumpkin would. ;) Also, I didn't have pumpkin pie spice so I just added a little extra of everything (cinnamon, ginger, cloves, nutmeg).

Super simple and super tasty. It was a nice change from the more traditional pumpkin pie (even though I love that too!!).

I made this the day before Thanksgiving which worked out well since I didn't take up any space in the kitchen or need to use any dishes on Thanksgiving day. I stayed out of my mom's way as she was cooking. :)

Easy as pie! ;)

Devilishly Good Chocolate Cake with Decadent Peanut Butter Frosting

Welcome back! I am excited to be blogging again so soon. Now that our Internet is smoothly working again, I hope to keep bringing you recipes at least once a week. I'll do my best. ;-)

As you can tell from the title of this post, this recipe involves chocolate and peanut butter...always a winning combo. I really hope you try this recipe the next time you make a cake. It is delicious...or, rather, devilishly good. :)

The recipe is from my Cake Mix Doctor book, so yes, it's not from scratch. But I am okay with that and I hope you are too! The recipe is as follows:

-1 package (18.25 oz.) plain devil's food cake mix

-3 Tbsp. unsweetened cocoa powder

-1 and 1/3 cups buttermilk (or yogurt!)

-1/2 cup vegetable oil

-3 large eggs

-1 tsp. vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Generously grease two 9-inch round cake pans OR a bundt pan (which I used). Then dust with flour (or cocoa powder), and set the pan(s) aside.

Place the cake mix, 3 Tbsp. cocoa powder, buttermilk, oil, eggs, and vanilla in a large mixing bowl. Blend with an electric mixer on low speed for 1 minute. Scrape down the sides of the bowl, and increase the mixer speed to medium and beat 2 minutes more, scraping down the sides again as needed. The batter should look well blended. Pour the batter into the pan(s), smoothing it out with a rubber spatula. For 9-inch pans, bake 28 to 30 minutes. For a bundt cake, bake for about 45-50 minutes (that's how long mine took to bake; it may take longer). Remove from oven and cool on wire rack for 10-15 minutes. Then gently remove the cake from the pan(s), and cool completely on rack before frosting it.

Now, it's time for the most amazing peanut butter frosting. It's a Barbershop guarantee that you're going to love this frosting! :)

-1 cup creamy peanut butter

-8 Tbsp. (1 stick) butter, at room temperature

-2 cups powdered sugar, sifted

-3 to 4 Tbsp. milk

-2 tsp. vanilla extract

Place the peanut butter and butter in a large mixing bowl. Blend with an electric mixer on low speed until fluffy, 30 seconds. Add the powdered sugar, 3 Tbsp. milk, and vanilla. Blend again on low speed until the sugar is well combined, 1 minute. Increase the speed to medium and beat until the frosting lightens and is fluffy, 1 minute more. Blend in up to 1 Tbsp. more milk if the frosting seems too stiff. Use at once to frost the cake! The recipe makes about 3 cups of frosting, enough to frost a 2 or 3-layer 9-inch round cake, a 13 x 9-inch cake, or a 10-inch bundt cake.

I made this cake for a little thank you celebration we had at work for a great volunteer who helped us out  in the lab this summer. It was a hit with my coworkers, I must say! I personally think it was one of the moistest (that's a tough word to say!) chocolate cakes I've ever had. It was pretty dense too! And the frosting really just made it sooo good overall. It was like a giant peanut butter cup! There wasn't a slice of cake left...it went so fast that I completely forgot to take any pictures of a slice of it! All I have is a picture of the final product before I brought it in to work. Oops! Here's the cake in my handy dandy cake carrier before I brought it in and it quickly disappeared...

Hope you all have a lovely, relaxing Labor Day weekend...  I hope to bake something "fall-like" this weekend, so I'll keep you posted if I do! I am so excited that my favorite season is just around the corner!! See you again soon!

Pound Cake with Fresh Strawberries & Strawberry Coulis

Hello! Can you believe that I had never made pound cake before? I can't! When I chose to make this recipe, it seemed odd to me that I hadn't ever made it previously in my baking days...but there's a first time for everything! Do you know how pound cake got its name? No, it's not because you gain a pound after eating it (although it's certainly not a "light" recipe). ;-) Actually, the name pound cake originated because the traditional recipe uses a pound of four ingredients: flour, sugar, eggs, and butter. You can read more about that here if you'd like!

I looked at many different recipes before deciding on the one I used (I do this all the time - search for ages for just the right recipe!). I am pleased with my choice! I used the "perfection pound cake" recipe from Brown Eyed Baker. Yummm. The pound cake was going to be for a coworker's birthday, so I thought I'd need to dress it up a bit. How did I do that? With fresh, delicious strawberries!! It's almost Memorial Day, and this time of year screams fresh fruit (well, it screams fresh fruit in my head - maybe yours too? :)). 

Here are a few pictures of the batter as I was making it. If you ever make this, definitely follow the instructions closely. For certain steps along the way, you mix the ingredients for quite a while (e.g., the butter and sugar are mixed for 5 minutes). Be patient! At the very end though, it's important not to over mix when you add the flour. You only mix it until it's just incorporated (see the second picture below). Don't get me wrong though...the recipe was really super simple overall! Don't be intimated. ;-)

Here she is, all baked! I like its nice, light golden brown color.

Have you ever heard of a "coulis"? I hadn't until now! In my search for pound cake recipes, I came across one from Smitten Kitchen, a great blog. I did not use her actual cake recipe, but I did steal her strawberry coulis recipe. A coulis is a french sauce that can be sweet or savory, depending on the item with which it's paired. I want to make coulis more often!! This was really easy and yummy. The recipe is here (but remember, I did not use the pound cake recipe you'll see at that link). All you have to do is combine strawberries, water, lemon juice, and sugar in a blender until smooth, strain out the seeds, and then chill the mixture. Piece of cake!!

We enjoyed the pound cake, sliced strawberries (which I sprinkled with a little sugar and let them sit overnight to sweeten them a bit), and the coulis at work for a coworker's birthday, as I mentioned earlier. It was a hit!!

Here are the delicious toppings!

And the cake, half eaten!

Yummmm. I made sure to take a couple bites of the pound cake without any toppings, in order to form an opinion of the cake itself and see if I'd want to make it again. It was actually really tasty on its own! Since there aren't really too many flavorful ingredients in pound cake (other than vanilla extract really), I think it might get a bad rap of being not all that exciting of a cake. I would totally disagree! The cake wasn't too heavy; in fact, it was lighter than I thought it would be. It was also more moist than I anticipated...not dry in the least. So all in all, it was great! And of course, the strawberry toppings and cool whip helped quite a bit too. Any berries would be delicious with this really! :) 

Have a wonderful Memorial Day weekend, friends! See you next time!

Hummingbird Cake

I made this Hummingbird Cake for my mom and grandmother's joint birthday celebration this year (their b'days are on the 13th and 19th of January). I would definitely describe this as a "special occasion" cake! It's not particularly fancy per se, but it feels a bit more special, I think, because of the double layers, the filling, the frosting, the fun topping, the great flavors....well, it's special because of everything I guess! :) Not to boast, but the cake did get rave reviews from the whole family. I would make this again without any hesitation! It was quite flavorful and also very moist. It is a little bit on the rich side, likely because of the cream cheese frosting, so serving smaller slices is key.

This is another recipe from the Cake Mix Doctor cookbook that I've mentioned previously in my blog. I'm going to be lazy and provide a link to the recipe here, rather than type it out from the actual cookbook. Hope you don't mind! I checked, and it's exactly the same as in the book. And this is the recipe for the cream cheese frosting. Here are some pics of the process (I know, the one of the batter before it's mixed doesn't look all that appealing)...

Now, I did vary just a tad from the original recipe... I almost never follow a recipe exactly as it is! Maybe that should be a motto of Barbershop baking...something about improvising. Hmmmm. I'll have to work on that one. Anyway, the recipe calls for spreading some of the cream cheese frosting in between the two cake layers. Instead of doing that, I was inspired by Kraft Foods to spread pudding between the two layers, as is done in this cake from the Kraft Foods Kitchen. I used one box of Jell-O banana cream pudding, mixed with about 3/4 cup of skim milk. I also mixed about 1/3 cup of drained crushed pineapple with the pudding. Mmmmm mmmm good! I thought that would be a nice touch to tie in the banana and pineapple fruits that went into the actual cake.

You'll see here that I have the cake in the fridge before it was frosted! It's easier to frost a cake that's cold, so popping it in the fridge for a bit actually helps! Thanks to my sister for taking the picture of me frosting the cake... I don't usually have someone else around to take a pic of me at work!

All in all, the Hummingbird Cake was definitely a hit! Try it for your next special occasion! Oh, and I should mention that no hummingbirds were harmed in the making of this cake. ;-) Also, I was curious about the origin of the cake's name, and I found this explanation online in several places. Neat!