Sesame Street Cupcakes

 

So... I had taken a lot of pictures of these... without my SD card in my camera so these cupcakes that you see here are actually the leftover cupcakes (and probably not the prettiest, I mean the bottom Cookie Monster looks likes he's going to cry! There weren't even any leftover Cookie Monsters, I made two more for the picture!)

Elmo's got a little bit of Big Bird's icing on him... oh well.  These were all made from scratch and took a really long time but I hadn't baked in so long that I wanted to try something different. I have a lot of stories for the long process that these took (Ran out of ingredients, using A LOT of food coloring for Elmo only to realize that I was using pink instead of red, pastry bag bursting from too much pressure when icing Oscar the Grouch, etc....) All the icing except for the black and white icing was made from scratch and is vanilla buttercream.  Here's the link for the vanilla butter cream and vanilla cupcake recipe I used... very highly recommended!

And of course, here's the tutorial on how to make these decorations from Annie's Eats.  She did SUCH an amazing job with these and even had a whole Sesame Street themed party for her son and if you get a chance, you should look it all the party decorations/invitations/food/etc.

Green Tea Macarons with Dark Chocolate Ganache

Ok... I honestly don't remember which recipe I used.  I had three different recipes and I kind of combined all of those.  Honestly, you can do a google search and find some great recipes but here are some tips:

THESE TAKE A LOT OF PREPARING! And are very time consuming.  I'm glad I made 'em... but I'm probably never gonna make these again.  I just wanted to try and see if I could do it.  I also read a lot of advice on how to make them so I wouldn't mess up ten times and get frustrated and give up.

Tips:
Keep eggs out for about 2-3 days.
Don't freak out if the batter is runny... it should be!
Line baking sheet with parchment paper.
After dolloping the macaron mixture onto the baking sheet, pick up the sheet and rap the baking sheet on the counter 2-3 times. This will even out the top and helps make frills.
Let the pipetted macarons dry on the baking sheet for 15 minutes before placing in the oven.  If you touch the top of one macaron lightly, it should not stick to your finger.  If it does, let it dry for a little longer before baking.

Here's a good recipe and one that pretty much has the tips I listed: Basic French Macaron recipe

Balled Melons

It's been almost a year!  And I haven't made a single birthday cake.  That's kind of weird.  I had to cut back on the baking this year because it was actually becoming stressful and taking up too much time (and money).  Also, still in school so gotta get studying done.  But I did make cupcakes this weekend for a birthday party that I will be posting shortly and I have a couple pics of stuff I've made so I figured I'd go ahead and post those up as well...

Balled Melons

Ingredients:
Cantoloupe
Watermelon
Mint
Lemon Juice

Cut watermelon in half.  Use melon baller to make rounds.  Same for cantaloupe (after scooping out the seeds of course).
Mix rounds in lemon juice and mint.  You don't have to use that much and I don't even remember what quantity I used.  Put all the balls bag into the watermelon.... and done!

Tea Party pics

Just because.

Berry Creme Brulee

Creme Brulee is SO easy to make!
Here's the simple recipe I used.
Of course I modified the ingredients by choosing whatever brand of cream, sugar etc. that was cheap/I had around the house.

I don't really have a good broiler or a cook's blowtorch so I didn't get to crystallize the top of the creme brulee but it was still yummy!

Pear and Almond Tart

OMG.
I don't know how I've lived my whole life without ever having eaten a pear and almond tart.  My favorite kind of desserts are things with chocolate, coffee or cream.  So I tend to stay away from anything and everything else.  But I'm so glad I forayed into this little realm of the dessert world (by that, I mean, tarts).

The only changes I would make to this recipe is that I would use less sugar overall in all of the steps.  I would also use 1 tablespoon less of the butter and add a dash of almond extract to the filling.  And just add more almonds in general.

 Definitely making this again!

Cauliflower, Caramelized Onion and Mushroom Tart

A smittenkitchen recipe.  I just added mushrooms to the mix because I had mushrooms I needed to use up much to my friend Allison's dismay.

I also did not have Gruyere cheese and I'm not a fan of Swiss cheese so I just left that out.  I may have used mozarella to top one of the tarts (I made two of these) and it really doesn't make a huge difference.