boston cream pie

boston cream pie
Originally uploaded by Sparkling Peach.

so it's not the most aesthetic of the cakes i've made...it's actually supposed to be a trifle and the layers put into a bowl, but i didn't have a glass bowl, and thought i could make it work in a cake form. i hope it's not too much of a disaster cutting it!

raspberry tartlets

raspberry tartlets
Originally uploaded by Sparkling Peach.

a little different from before...tartlet shells are brushed with chocolate, filled with pastry cream, topped with raspberries glazed with red currant jelly. whew! unfortunately, they don't taste as sassy as they look :)

Pumpkin cupcakes with cream cheese frosting

Pumpkin cupcakes
Originally uploaded by Sparkling Peach.

Having six pumpkins in the house has made me a little pumpkin crazy. I'm envisioning pumpkin pies, pumpkin creme brulees, pumpkin bread pudding, and pumpkin cupcakes. Unfortunately, they didn't come out how I wanted (as usual, when I bake). I started piping pretty swirls with the frosting, but the swirls required too much frosting, and the sight of that much frosting on each cupcake made me ill. So instead, there's just a smear of frosting on them. Not as pretty, but more edible, I think. Only if you like cream cheese though. Unfrosted ones for those of you who don't.

Pecan bars

Pecan bars
Originally uploaded by Sparkling Peach.

For Lucia's party...

raspberry lemon tartlets and tuiles

raspberry lemon tartlets and crispy corkscrews
Originally uploaded by Sparkling Peach.

When shaping the tuiles, I thought about the Joy Luck Club in which one of the women worked in a fortune cookie factory. They were docked pay for each improperly shaped cookie, so she would eat her mistakes. I ate my mistakes, too, at first because of the tuiles' crisp, sweet addictive qualities, and then simply out of compulsion. I hate seeing the mistakes.

Chocolate frosting experiments

Chocolate frosting experiments
Originally uploaded by Sparkling Peach.

Chocolate on vanilla and chocolate on chocolate cupcakes. Not as gorgeous in reality as they were in my mind, but I was experimenting with the frosting. Next time will be the real thing...

Pecan and lemon meringue tartlets

Pecan and lemon meringue tartlets
Originally uploaded by Sparkling Peach.

Wish I could have made more, but I'm still waiting for Ben to make me that tartlet dough molding machine :)

Sorry some of the lemon meringues are a bit wrinkly...my timer got stuck on 2 minutes, 1 second. I must have been sleepy since it took me ten minutes to realize it.

Miniatures!

Friands, meringue bubbles, macarons
Originally uploaded by Sparkling Peach.

I'm taking a break from cakes for a bit to do miniatures. If I were to open a bakery right now, I think I would specialize in miniatures...everything looks so tasty in miniature! I've found they're somewhat time-consuming, though.

But here are the first set. From the left, friands (almond sponge cake), meringue bubbles (chocolate meringue on a butter cookie), macarons (french cookie with buttercream).

Mango bavarian cream/Strawberry mousse cake

Mango bavarian cream/Stawberry mousse cake
Originally uploaded by Sparkling Peach.

- Mango bavarian cream on genoise
I followed a recipe for bavarian cream and added mango, but I think it's really a mousse.

- Strawberry mousse on genoise
I think I put too much sugar in the mousse :(

Blackforest cake (again)

Blackforest cake (again)
Originally uploaded by Sparkling Peach.

I wanted to make this again with more layers and a little less cream, but messed up slicing the layers, so it's pretty much the same cake :) If you like Chinese cakes, you'll probably like this one. (This uses a chocolate genoise base, which tends to be drier than American butter cakes).

devil's food cake

devil's food cake
Originally uploaded by Sparkling Peach.

A new chocolate cake recipe! It's supposed to be moister. Two layers of devil's food cake with raspberry jam and glazed with chocolate.

Oh, and if the cakes look smaller, they are! I'm now experimenting with 6 inch pans. Cute is the new cake.

stawberry shortcake and fudge and raspberry trifles

stawberry shortcake and fudge and raspberry trifles
Originally uploaded by Sparkling Peach.

I'm making lots of sample cakes and tasting them, which means I have some half eaten cakes in the kitchen (my "archives" as Ben calls them). Rather than toss them, I added some sugar syrup and whipped cream to make trifles. If you want one, they're sitting in a Google mini-kitchen near you!

Raspberry chocolate cake

IMG_2877
Originally uploaded by Sparkling Peach.

Three layers of chocolate butter cake, layered with raspberry jam, Chambord, and raspberry silk meringue buttercream.

The dilemma with this cake...more buttercream, less, or none? I couldn't decide so I layered it with raspberry jam haphazardly.