Aurora Bakery Sweets is on Facebook!

I'm very excited. I've finally set up a Facebook page for Aurora!
To check it out visit www.facebook.com/AuroraBakerySweets
As a Thanks for Liking us, the week before Thanksgiving, Aurora will be 'Thanksgiving' away one dozen fall cookies to a random fan. If we get 50 likes by November 14 we will give away a second dozen fall cookies to a lucky fan!
Go check us out, Like us, say Hi!, win cookies.
How awesome is that?

Cowboy Cookies! And how to take them on a plane.

I cant believe I forgot to show you all the cowboy cookies! I had so much fun making these western themed sugar cookies!

So last July I flew out to North Dakota for a family reunion. These happen every three years and each year they are somewhat themed. This year, for the western theme, each division of the family was color coded by bandanna  :) 

Well hey, I have to hop on three flights and then drive almost two hours to get to this thing, why not make that trip easier and add 5 dozen sugar cookies detailed in royal icing for really no particular reason? 

Should no one have said, ever. Except I did. 

I'll be honest. I got the decorating ideas off of Pinterest. (There was no website linked to the pin, so I dont know who to give the credit to.) It was a lot of piping, but totally worth it.

The crazy part was, I live in Texas, and could not find a boot or hat cookie cutter. I had to buy some extra random metal ones and bend my own. The Texas shape one I already had. Not that it was relevant  I took these to North Dakota...

As usual I set up shop in the living room so I could watch a movie. :)

How does one take 5 dozen cookies on a plane? 

In a medium flat rate USPS box of course!

Step one: Wrap cardboard squares that fit in large ziplock bags, with wax paper or plastic wrap. You don't want the moisture to be sucked out of the cookies and into the cardboard.

Step two: slide cardboard into plastic bags, then carefully place cookies on cardboard. 

Step three: stack in box. I used egg carton pieces to keep the 'trays' of cookies from moving around. Then added packing paper to the top to keep it all snug. 

Note: Instead of taping the box closed, I tied it with ribbon. I did this for two reasons. One, this made it easier to carry when I only had one hand, and two, I could open the box easily to check on the cookies or if security needed to check out the box.

Lesson of the day: If you walk away from a piping bag, and it falls over, this is what happens. 

Its a good thing we have tile in the living room....

Shabby Chic Lemon Blueberry Cake (with recipe)

So it's fall, which means I'm busy. Every year, we run into this. Too many party's to plan or go to. Too many costumes to finish. Too many Texas Renaissance Festival weekends to attend... And too many holidays. Ok, so really its not too much of anything. I LOVE the fall. The only time I have an issue is when I get this phone call.

"I know two professional bakers, and I need a cake for the other one."

The week before Renfest camping and I had two costumes on my plate to finish. One of them just didn't get done. That's a whole other story. (See my other blog)

 

But the phone call came from a friend of mine. And the whole point of the camping trip was his wife's birthday party. You guessed it, she's the other professional baker. So how could I say no?

So as any professionally trained baker would do, when I heard she wanted Blueberry Lemon Cake with Blueberry Frosting, I went to the internets.

Out of habit I would have used round pans. But mine were loaned out. Remember  I was making costumes this week. No need for pans.

But the cake baked up shorter than I expected. Change of plans again.

Cut, stack and trim. Thought process: This is a tall cake. I have to transport this an hour and a half away. Finished cake so pretty in my head. What if it falls over!!!! ...think...think...think... Got it!

How to transfer a tall cake. Cut foam board to fit in cake carrier. Cover with pretty cake foil. Stick cake on top of covered board. Run sticks through cake and into foam. Perfect. (Ok not perfect. The cake was too tall for that carrier, I had to but it in a larger carrier, where it had space to slide around in and baby sit it all the way to the campsite. But, it did not fall over!)

I've been wanting to try ruffles and rosettes for a while now. So glad I did!

Lemon-Blueberry Layer Cake

Ingredients:

2 cups plus 6 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
3 cups fresh blueberries
1/2 cup sour cream
1/2 cup whole milk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3/4 teaspoon pure lemon extract
1 teaspoon lemon zest
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened about 20 minutes out of refrigerator
1 1/2 cups white sugar
4 large eggs

Method:

Preheat oven to 350°F. Prepare three 8" round cake pans with parchment paper, butter and flour. Sift dry ingredients into medium bowl. Transfer 1 tablespoon flour mixture to larger bowl. Add fresh blueberries and toss to coat them with flour. Set remaining flour mixture and blueberries aside.

Stir whole milk, sour cream, vanilla extract, lemon extract and lemon zest in small bowl. In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream butter and sugar, until pale yellow and very fluffy, about 5 minutes. Beat in eggs one at a time, until well combined. Mix in flour mixture alternately with milk mixture, starting and ending with flour mixture. Stir until just combined. Gently fold in blueberries. Divide batter equally among 8" round pans.
Bake cakes until toothpick inserted into centre comes out clean, about 25 minutes. Cool cakes in pans on racks for about 10 minutes, then invert onto racks until completely cool.

Adopted from: www.sweetapolita.com/blog

Frosting:

I didnt really use a recipe for the frosting. I made three different batches, not really on purpose.I blended blueberries in the food processor and strained them out for frosting on the outside of the cake. And then mixed the pulp into the buttercream (about two parts powdered sugar to one part butter). The frosting on the inside had all of the blueberry bits in it to add more flavor. The off white frosting on the outside of the cake was very buttery (not intentional) Italian Buttercream with what little blueberry puree I had left. Blueberries are expensive in the fall, and I didnt intend on using the full recipe of cake, so....

Doctor Who? Tardis Cake

  The good doctor is in. Well, he must be here somewhere. I see a Tardis. Ok, so its a Tardis Cake

I know. It doesn't look like much cake, but honestly, it's bigger on the inside?

Ok, actually its not bigger on the inside. To be honest, if I had looked at the original photo better, I would have made the cake larger and used fondant. As it was I was doing some sculpting with frosting. Not something I would recommend. 

But I think in the end it came out looking like a Tardis. And really, what more does a kid want!

Oh, and apparently I should have added a disclaimer.. "Warning, your teeth may turn blue on consumption." 

Vroom Vroom - Race Car Cake!!

Ok, I'm only a month late on posting this one. I was asked to do a race car cake with blue sides, checkered top and race car numbers on the sides. My first thought? OREO TIRES!!!! I don't know about you but I'm always looking for an excuse to buy Oreos. :) Like when target came out with Candy Corn Oreos!!! How cool were those! Ok, so they tasted like cake batter... but honestly I like that better than candy corn anyway, so... What were we talking about? Oh yeah. RACE CAR CAKE AWESOMENESS!!

I should probably have taken pictures of the process... I'm not quite sure what I did to make the checkered top...but I am surprised it turned out as well as it did.

And note to self, while it was super easy to wrap the blue fondant around the side of the cake, not a good plan. Apparently it started sliding down at one point. Oops.

I wish I could have seen the kids' face when they bit into the Oreo tires. They were expecting frosting. Not fondant!

I wonder if we have any Oreos in the pantry. 

Happy Anniversary

Happy Anniversary to myself!  I need to post more often I am noticing.

To celebrate, actually this was just a coincidence, today I spent 8 hours downtown at the All Things Baking expo Business for Bakers seminar. It was hosted by four guys with a good 20-30 years of baking business experience each talking about the business of baking. How to open and run your own bakery. I was afraid it would be boring but it was quite interesting the whole day.

Tomorrow I get to take two classes with Bronwen Weber, piping wedding cakes and a chocolate class. I would probably get more out of some of the other classes offered, but come on, its Bronwen Weber! Why not!! I'm also excited just to see the expo, to see what's new in the world of baking!

As a side note, as I've been working on the trade shows we have coming up for the office, so i'm interested to see the booth styles people are using at this show. The trade shows I will get to go to for work are oil and gas related, not nearly as exciting. Who knows, maybe I'll find an idea to steal anyway. Baking or marketing related. ;)

The Zebra Cake

So I walked into my boss's office and asked her what she was doing that weekend. She mentioned her daughters birthday. To which my response was "Want a cake?" Since I almost con'd her into buying a cake from me I grossly undercharged her. But the cake was still fun (and incredibly frustrating) to make.

The frustrating part was all my error. A baking and pastry certificate from the CIA Greystone and I completely forgot that chocolate mousse filling is not structurally sound to be a filling without a border to coral it in. I fought it all through the process because I didn't pipe a border to hold it in.

In the end I won. What do you think?