Spongebob Cake!

Who lives in a pineapple under the sea?! SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS!

I made this cake for my good friends Michelle and Bill. Bill's brother wanted to surprise his girlfriend's daughter with a Spongebob cake for her birthday.  What an awesome idea! 

This is a vanilla bean cake filled with a vanilla whipped cream buttercream and iced with a vanilla frosting.  I will admit that I cheated and bought a Wilton black frosting tube for the outlines for 2 reasons.  One, black frosting is hard to make considering how much food coloring you have to use and two, the tube saved me sometime and a pastry bag!  I used some dark brown sugar for the sand and added some blue food coloring to some piping gel for the ocean effect.  Other than that, the cake was 99% home made!  Check out the pics below!

xo,

Daniella :)

Minis and a Birthday Cake

My coworker Zach wanted to give his wife Jen an awesome birthday surprise.  Since he has sampled some of my baked goods, he asked me to make an assortment of mini treats.  I was totally honored and flattered that he chose me over Crumbs! :)

I baked chocolate brownies, blondies (with mixed nuts, milk, dark, extra dark and white chocolate, and butterscotch chips topped with sea salt), chocolate chip cookies, chocolate chocolate chip cookies, and red velvet cupcakes! I also made him a chocolate cake filled with a chocolate ganache whipped cream and frosted with a chocolate ganache buttercream!  Check out the pics below and thanks for everything Zach and Jen!

xo,

Daniella :)

Chocolate Lava Cake

I baked chocolate lava cakes during the second hurricane lock down.  I wanted something that was easy to make, fudgey, cakey, and delicious.  These turned out to be the simplest and most decadent desserts I've made thus far.  The cake barely set and the middle was oozing with chocolaty goodness.  I used a mix of milk and extra dark chocolate to get that perfect balance of creamy and flowery notes.  Check out the pic of the last lava cake topped with fresh whipped cream!

Enjoy!

xo,

Daniella :)

Blueberry Lemon Tart

I survived the hurricane by baking! There was seriously not much else to do since all New Yorkers had to stay home.  Luckily, the hurricane wasn't as bad as predicted.

I bought this tart pan (which was insanely sharp) at the NJ chef store a while ago.  I had a few pints of blueberries and a ton of lemons on hand and I thought, why not.  Blueberries and lemon work perfectly together and adding them into a buttery tart crust makes the perfect union. Check out the pics below!

xo,

Daniella :)

Apple Pie!

I love traditional recipes and this apple pie is a classic!  I decided to use some organic apples I bought in NJ and turn them into a delicious treat.

I made my favorite buttery crust with a touch a cinnamon since it pairs so nicely with apples.  I then sliced a few Granny Smith (since they hold together well during baking) and some New Zealand apples (for flavor) paper thin and sprinkled them with some brown sugar, cinnamon, flour (to thicken the juices), butter and salt.  After adding base dough in the pan and slicing the rest of the dough for the lattice cover, I added the apples and all of their goodness into the pie pan and baked it at 350 degrees for about an hour.  Forty five minutes into baking, I brushed some warm honey on top to get the crust golden brown.  You can also easily substitute milk or a lightly beaten egg.  Here are the before and after pics!

P.S. I still need to work on my lattice design but it's not so bad for my first try! :)

xo,

Daniella :)

Vanilla Bean Nutella Sandwich Cookies

Vanilla and Chocolate.  It doesn't get more classic and simpler than that.

I baked these cookies during my vanilla bean paste phase.  I love how a few quality ingredients turned these cookies into pure deliciousness!  Since I am a chocoholic, I added some Nutella in between two of the buttery cookies.  For photo purposes (well not really), I sprinkled some powder sugar over the cookies.  Check out the pic below!

xo,

Daniella :)

Vanilla Bean Birthday

Last week was my aunt's birthday and I wanted to use some of the great ingredients I bought at a NJ Chef store (thanks to Michelle and Bill).  I found, and have now fallen in love with, vanilla bean paste.  It is so versatile and it's much easier to use than a vanilla bean (it's also less expensive). 

I also decided to try a new type of buttercream with meringue.  It is similar to an Italian or Swiss buttercream which is typically used in wedding cakes.  The process takes a while considering you have to cook the egg whites over simmering water to ensure they are safe to eat.  You then have to whip the whites into a meringue and slowly add chunks of soften butter into the mix.  I was lucky that the buttercream did not get soupy like most recipes warn.  In any case, if it does, continue to whip it until it comes together.

I made a buttermilk vanilla bean cake iced with a meringue vanilla bean buttercream and filled with dulce de leche cream.  I also used the dulce de leche cream to pipe some decorations and "Happy Birthday!" It was all sorts of delicious and I was pretty proud with the results.  In case you're wondering, those tiny pearls were added individually (just saying).  Check out the pics below!

xo,

Daniella :)