marble glazed donuts

My mom loves donuts, as do I, and I have many memories of us happily eating donuts together! From when I was in high school and we would (quite often!) get donuts from Happy Donuts down the street; fast forward to the time we took a trip to Boston with my daughter and the three of us had donuts for breakfast almost every day that we were there. (The three of us later took a trip to New Jersey together and spent a morning searching for donuts to eat for breakfast!). So when I saw this PureWow post right before Mother's Day last year, I knew I had to make them!

And even better, the recipe was for baked donuts, not fried!

For the glaze, I used lemon juice (instead of milk, which the recipe calls for), and I was glad that I did because it offset the sweetness of the glaze perfectly. And while the glaze was simple to make, I had a hard time dipping the donuts without making a mess! Guess I need more practice!

After dipping, I let the donut dry on a wire rack to let the glaze set. I think in the future, I would make the glaze a bit thicker, and I would also use a knife or something to smooth out the edges of the glaze to get a cleaner donut without messy drips.

While the donuts came out soft and fluffy, they unfortunately did not come close to the texture of fried donuts. The only other time I've made baked donuts was when I made these pumpkin donuts, which had a denser moist texture that more closely resembled (cake) donuts. But still, these weren't bad, and of course we at them all up anyway.

Hope you had a happy Mother's Day!

purple and white flower bouquet cupcakes

Since I have three kids in two different schools (my youngest is still in preschool), I had two sets of cupcakes (on two different days) to make for Teacher Appreciation Day last year. Since everyone seemed to like the flower bouquet cupcakes that I made for the elementary school so much, I decided to do the same for the preschool, except with a different flavor cupcake and a different color frosting. So I decided on carrot cake cupcakes with purple and white frosting!

Once my cupcakes were baked and cooled, I was ready to start decorating!

As I discussed in my last post, the piped flowers were made using these Russian piping tips, and during my first time using them I learned two important things:

1. Your frosting needs to be at the right temperature. Too warm and your flowers will look like shapeless blobs. Too cold and the frosting won't squeeze through the holes in the tips.

2. Use a very large piping bag. I normally use 12-inch piping bags, but I would suggest using a larger one so that you won't have to refill the bag and the coloring on your flowers will come out more consistent.

But once your follow those two points, the flowers were pretty easy to pipe, and they come out pretty darn cute!

Again, I used green frosting and a leaf tip to pipe leaves in the gaps between the flowers, and the pop of green makes each flower stand out.

Enjoy!

pink and white flower bouquet cupcakes

Last year for Teacher Appreciation Day, I signed up to make dessert for the teacher luncheon, and ended up making these flower bouquet cupcakes for the elementary school! I've made floral themed cupcakes for Teacher Appreciation Day before (see here and here), but this time I decided to test out my new set of Russian piping tips. 

Let me just say that the tutorials I saw on these tips made them look so easy, but I actually had a hard time with them! For my first attempt, I popped the piping tip into my pastry bag, filled it with frosting (I used an offset spatula to place white frosting on the sides of the bag and pink frosting in the middle), and excitedly piped my first flower ... but the frosting must have been to soft, because the "flower" came out as a big blob, with no flower definition at all. So I placed my pastry bag (still full of frosting) into the fridge to let it firm up a bit. But I must have left it in the fridge too long because when I attempted to pipe my next flower, the frosting was too hard and wouldn't squeeze through the holes in the tip! *Sigh*

Anyhow, once you get your frosting to the right temperature and piping consistency, the tips do end up piping cute and easy flowers. Once my chocolate cupcakes were baked and cooled (recipe in my book, The Hello Kitty Baking Book!), I started on the decorating. For the "flower bouquet", I piped once flower in the middle ...

... and then piped flowers around the center flower, until the top of the cupcake was full of flowers.

Then I filled in the gaps in between the flowers with green frosting and a leaf tip.

I thought they turned out pretty cute!

The other thing to point out is that every time you refill your piping bag, the placement of the center color may come out differently. In the ones above, the pink isn't really in the middle of the flower, and kind of seeps to one side. Below are the flowers that came out after I refilled my piping bag.

The pink came out more centered and even.

So I suppose if you want flowers that are all consistent, then use a large piping bag (mine are 12-inch) so you can fit more frosting without having to refill.

I've also seen people do only one color, which came out nice as well, and in that case you won't have to worry about the inconsistency in color placement.

Enjoy!

buttercream flower floral wreath cake for mother's day

Last year for Mother's Day, I made a wreath cake with easy pink rosettes for the flowers. It was my first attempt at a floral wreath cake, and since then I've still been longing to make a more complex wreath cake like the ones I've been seeing all over Instagram and Pinterest. So this year for Mother's Day, I decided to make another wreath cake, this time with more realistic piped roses.

The day before making the cake, I prepped by piping out my buttercream roses. For each rose, I took my flower nail, smeared a bit of frosting on it in order to attach a little square of waxed paper that I had cut ahead of time, and then used a piping bag fitted with a petal tip to pipe my rose petals one by one. (You can see this technique on the Wilton website to get a better idea.) Then I pulled the wax paper off of the flower nail, with the rose still on it, and placed it on a small tray which I then immediately placed in the freezer. Once all my roses were done, I placed them all inside an airtight plastic container, which went back into the freezer until the next day.

The next day I made the cake, using my favorite vanilla cake recipe (in my book, The Hello Kitty Baking Book). I only made half the recipe, which with give you two 6-inch round cakes. Once baked and cooled, I sliced each cake in half, giving me four layers of cake. Then I filled them with freshly whipped cream, sliced strawberries, and freshly grated lemon zest.

Next I covered the top and sides of the cake with more whipped cream, and used an offset spatula to smooth it out as best as I could. (I did this twice - first for the crumb coat, and second for the final coat.)

I let it chill in the fridge for about 30 minutes, and then I was ready to add the roses. I started by piping a ring of whipped cream on the top of the cake, for me to nestle my frozen buttercream roses. I placed them on one by one, as quickly as I could so that the roses wouldn't break or melt while I was handling them.

When I was satisfied with the placement of the roses, I put some green buttercream in a piping bag fitted with a leaf tip, and piped little leaves around the roses to fill in the gaps.

And then ... I breathed a sigh of relief. It was done!

I loved the way it turned out! From the color combination of the green leaves against the white flowers, to all-white roses on the all-white cake. It was the perfect floral cake for Mother's Day, and I think it would be great even for a small bridal shower or wedding!

Happy Mother's Day!