Happy Birthday Wesley!!

So clearly I would do anything for my little man... aka my nephew Wesley.  My special birthday surprise to him was to make him a cake.  When I called the week before to see what he was interested in, it turned out he was having a Transformers/Iron Man cake and he requested it to look like Bumblebee.  He specially requested chocolate so I used my creative genius to turn it into a S'Mores cake.  I used the same triple chocolate cake recipe but as my middle layer I crushed up graham crackers and used a big old tub of fluff in the middle.  It was oozy sweet and delicious how the flavors all played in together.  When it came to the decorations I went with just his face.  I covered the whole thing with a layer of yellow fondant.  Over half of that I covered it with additional grey fondant.  All of the accent pieces were made using rice krispies treats that I cut and molded to fit my needs.  His ears, eyes, nose, mouth and helmet piece were all rice krispies treats.  For the logo on the front, I sketched out the Transformers logo and used a food writer pen to finalize the drawings.  Of course the little man loved it and there were enough rice krispies treats add ons for all the kids there to have one... with Wesley keeping the ultimate logo for later :)  Just for added sugar rush factor I used the leftover chocolate cake mix I had to make Peanut Butter Cup Cupcakes.  I filled each cup about half full and placed an unwrapped pb cup in the middle.  It didn't fully melt but created a great gooey center.  All the desserts were big hits!!  SO HAPPY 6TH BIRTHDAY WESLEY!!

Happy Birthday Greg!

Toni asked me to make a cake for Greg for his birthday... and Greg loves his basketball.  He's always talking about playing it all the time so it's the perfect way to celebrate his day!!  I used a triple chocolate recipe with extra chocolate chips and a whipped cream frosting.  Light and delicious!!  The icing was definitely a find and I'll be using it way more often!!  I used half of my ball pan to create a topper for the round cake.  I iced the bottom using the whipped cream frosting and covered the half basketball with orange fondant.  After long debates with Patrick about what the lines should look like on a basketball, I took control and winged it!!  And turns out... my design was correct!!  He was trying to overlap all sorts of crazy lines but it ended up looking great :)  So Happy Birthday Greg!  This was one of the few cakes that made it into work and out without being cut so I hope your family enjoyed!!

Fox Racing Cake

So after I brought my Harley Davidson cake to work, Leigh asked me to make her son a Fox Racing cake.  His birthday was actually a few months ago, but she couldn't find anyone to make it for her then... so SURPRISE!!  You get a bonus cake!!  I can't imagine a better surprise then a second birthday cake... especially since I'm one of the biggest birthday princesses ever!!  So anyway, I made this cake with just a simple yellow cake mix and chocolate frosting.  I then just used pictures of the logo as a base to cut out my fondant decoration.  I cut out the base of the fox face using blue... then another overlay in black.  On top of that I added some more blue accents to give the logo some life!  It came out just the way I had hoped and apparently Leigh had to coerce Jeffrey into eating the logo rather than trying to save it on his bulletin board :)  Might as well enjoy the sugar while it's good!!  Take a look and enjoy!!

More Boss' Day Cakes!!

So working with a billion people, there were plenty of opportunities to take advantage of Boss' Day!  Lauren asked me to make a cake for Andrew (or Phil as I like to call his mean alter ego).  There was a lot of debate about what to put on top, but the final decision was for a squirrel!!  Long story about chasing people is like chasing squirrels... running up trees and whatnot... but here it is!!  I printed out pictures of real squirrels and character art of squirrels and freehanded my way through it!!  I cut the base of the squirrel out of fondant and added brown buttercream icing to make his fluffly tail extra fluffy.  Some additional fondant and buttercream accents finished him off (and his trusty acorn) and I was once again proud!  I'm not going to lie, looking at the squirrels outside my apartment the next day, I was impressed!!  Take a look and let me know what you think of my Squirrelio!!

LiveStrong

For Boss' Day, Toni asked me to make anything related to our boss' favorite... Livestrong.  This same person also speaks like Bruce Willis so ideas were tossed around of LiveStrong and Die Hard... but I decided to play it safe!!  I just freehanded a big fist and gave it the classic yellow LiveStrong bracelet.  Next time I would definitely cut the individual letters out of fondant... I just squeezed it on using regular buttercream icing this time but I would have preferred a cleaner look.  Anyway, simple cake and still delicious!!  Happy Boss' Day Kevin!!

Happy Birthday Leigh

The more cakes you bring to work, the more you get solicited to bake!!  This was the case with Leigh's birthday cake.  Toni asked me to make her a "cowboy country" themed cake so the options were endless!  I know Leigh's favorite country singer is Trace Adkins, but I had no idea how to incorporate that into a cake.  Not quite as easy as a Hannah Montana Cake!!  I decided to make it a little bit more simple and stick with a cowboy hat and some paisley finishing to make it look sort of like a bandana.  This is definitely my favorite cake I've made so far.  It came out greater than I could have planned!!  It was a simple lemon cake with plain vanilla icing and it was perfect!!  I decided to go with a pretty teal color and covered the whole cake with a thin layer of that fondant.  Around the bottom I used brown fondant, made two thin strips and twisted them up to look like rope.  I used the same brown color for the hat.  Now this is where things get fancy!!  I stacked 2 Rice Krispies treats and molded them into a hat shape... rounding the corners and making an indent on the top.  I covered that and made a brim and VOILA!!  COWBOY HAT!!  The last step was taking some plain icing and freehanding the paisley decorations on the side.  I'm so glad everyone loved this cake because I was definitely a huge fan (even though I'm not a big country fan... just don't tell Leigh!!)

Hannah Montana Cake

I'm not going to lie to you... yes I have watched Hannah Montana and yes I somewhat enjoyed it.  And yes my middle name sounds like Miley (as in Cyrus) but it's spelled better (Meyle) and I had it first!  So needless to say, I was pretty excited when Lina asked me to make a cake for her daughter Mayra's birthday.  I was definitely not going to attempt drawing a likeness of Hannah Montana so I went with the next best option... a guitar.  I found a billion pictures of her purple guitar so that's what I went with.  I then cut out "Happy Birthdya Mayra" in the same text format as the logo and i was veeeeery happy with the way it turned out.  And from the look on Mayra's face when I dropped it off, she was happy too!  I made a strawberry cake and filled the inside with a strawberry icing with lots of chopped fresh strawberries.  Check out the cake recipe and the pictures!!

Strawberry Cake
1 box vanilla cake mix
1 3oz box strawberry gelatin
15 oz frozen strawberries, thawed and pureed
4 eggs
1/2 c vegetable oil
1/4 c water

Combine all ingredients and mix well.  (Make sure strawberries are completely thawed prior to pureeing them to avoid issues).  Bake in 2 round pans at 350 degrees for approximately 20-25 minutes.  The layer I put in the middle was just a vanilla icing with lots of chopped fresh strawberries. 

Gummi Bear Cupcakes

So a few weeks ago I felt the dire need to have a Mom & Kate Day.  These are official holidays (or mental holidays) in my book and this one was exceptional in its simplicity!!  Of course, being in Allentown, I felt the need to go to my favorite place... WEGMANS.  I have had serious supermarket withdrawal since moving to Delaware because no food store comes near to comparing to this glorious place.  Everything you can possibly imagine... and then some... they have it.  Of course I had to take some time to galavant around the candy section and while there, I found baby gummi bears.  I am definitely a gummi fan, whether bears, worms, sharks, fruit, octopus, eggs, etc and these were great.  They were each only about half an inch long and they packed a flavorful punch.  I figured it was worth a shot to try and bake them into cupcakes!  It wasn't my most successful venture, but I was happy with the flavor.  Basically, even though they floated in the batter just fine, they eventually sank to the bottom of the wrapper while they were baking.  It caused an ooey-gooey sticky mess, but I still liked them and so did everyone at work!!  I basically just put them into a white cake batter and topped it with strawberry frosting.  Sweet and delicious!  Thank you Mom and thank you Wegmans!

  

Harley Davidson Cake

Yes, I admit, I have been missing forever!!  Well, maybe not actually forever, but it feels that way.  My laptop cord is broken which essentially puts me out of a computer.  But no worries, I am back with lots of pictures and lots of recipes!!  So first, a cake for Jackie... or her husband to be more exact.  I was tasked with anything motorcycle related, specifically Harley Davidson.  I decided to go with the logo and I'm extremely happy with the way it came out.  The cake itself was chocolate fudge chip with chocolate icing.  Then for the logo I just colored and rolled fondant and cut out the lettering using a very sharp and very tiny knife.  It was time consuming, but it came out great!  Now eveytime I see the logo I think of this cake :)

Cinnamon Cupcakes

So once again I decided to use a National Food Holiday as cupcake inspiration!!  Turns out that September 11th also happens to be National Hot Cross Buns Day!  Of course the first thing I thought of was learning to play the clarinet and that obnoxious tune getting stuck in my head for days.  I didn't really know what a hot cross bun was so I searched it and found out it's a bread like roll that has raisins or some little candied fruit in it.  I was less than inspired... which got me to thinking about different buns... CINNAMON BUNS!!  I decided to go with a cinnamon cupcake with a cream cheese frosting.  I have to give a shout out to JustJennRecipes.com... her recipe with the applesauce was great.  Moist and delicious!!  I didn't want the cinnamon flavor to be overwhelming... nor did I want it to be non-existent.  They really came out great and made me want to try adding real apples next time!!  Possibly later this fall :)

Cinnamon Cupcakes
2 c flour
1 tsp baking soda
5 tsp cinnamon
1 c sugar
1/3 c brown sugar
1/2 c butter, softened
2 eggs
1 c applesauce

Whisk together all dry ingredients.  Add butter, eggs and applesauce.  Bake at 350 degrees about 20-25 minutes.  They get beautifully rounded tops.  I decided to cheat and buy simple cream cheese icing... but just to get a little crazy I added some more cinnamon into the icing (about 2 tbs) and I ground a little nutmeg into it for a little kick.  Definitely a hit!!  Happy Hot Cross (Cinnamon shhhh) Buns Day!!

LuLu Cakes

One of the perks of taking baked goods to work all the time is that people are asking me to bake for them!  It's nice doing something that I really love and making a mini profit.  Two weeks ago, Lulu had to work an overnight shift and had two birthday cakes to handle... one for her mom and one for her boyfriend and I had the honor of making them!!  By special request I made a cake version of my Black Forest Cupcakes.  I have a pan from Wilton that bakes a heart into the middle of a round cake that you can fill with whatever floats your boat.  In this case I made a chocolate cake and filled the center with a cream cheese cherry mixture.  The cream cheese didn't fully mix in, but I kind of liked that there were mini pockets of cream cheesey goodness waiting as a surprise in the center!!  For the second cake I went with a staple (partially because I was craving some cookies) of Oreos.  It was just a plain chocolate cake and in the middle layer i mixed a vanilla icing with a billion crushed up Oreos.  The filling came out super sweet and complemented the chocolate cake well!!  When it came to decorating I wanted to keep them pretty simple and be able to tell them apart since they looked identical from the outside.  For the Black Forest, i made some little cherries and cherry blossom flowers out of fondant and piled them in the center of the cake and I just placed some full Oreos around the outside of the second.  Take a look at the pictures, I was EXTREMELY happy with the cherry decorations!!  They looked so freaking cute and girly!!  I guess it worked out because that cake went to LuLu's Mom :) 

Banana Nutella Cupcakes

So it turns out that just about every day is a National Food Holiday!!  I randomly decided to google this and found out lots of interesting facts!!  Turns out today is National Trail Mix Day, September 3rd is Welsh Rarebit Day and September 9th is Weinerschnitzel Day!!  While these days are amusing... they weren't as inspiring to me as National Banana Lovers Day last week on August 27th.  While I had all the best intentions to have these cupcakes to share on the actual holiday, I got completely sidetracked celebrating the departure of The Colonel aka my boss.  So here we are a few days later and it was well worth the wait!!  The fresh bananas create a soft but dense cake and the creamy nuttiness of the Nutella on top are a perfect combination.  If you want a rounded top on the cupcake, make sure you fill them up almost all the way... I filled mine about 2/3 full and most of them didn't clear the top of the cupcake liner.  Look forward to two birthday cakes that I'll be making later this week!!  My mind is already wandering to the possibilities :)

Banana Nutella Cupcakes
2 c flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp nutmeg
2 sticks butter, softened
1 c sugar
1/2 c sour cream
3 tsp vanilla extract
4 eggs
5 ripe bananas
2 c Nutella

Beat the butter and sugar together until smooth and creamy.  Add the sour cream and vanilla extract, followed by the eggs one at a time.  Slowly mix in the flour, baking soda, baking powder and nutmeg.  After everything is well mixed, peel and chop the bananas and beat them into the batter being careful not to over mix.  Fill each cupcake liner and bake at 350 degrees F for about 20-25 minutes until golden brown on top.  To frost, smooth about a tablespoon of nutella over the top of the cupcake and ENJOY!!

Black Forest Cupcakes

So I figured out the trick!!  You don't need a party or a wedding or any celebration reason to bake... you just have to work in a department with hundreds of people!!  Two weeks ago, we celebrated "National Cupcake Day" and I decided to test out a stuffed cupcake.  I had seen them stuff cupcakes a billion times on Cupcake Wars but didn't feel like cutting out the core, so I stuffed them prior to baking!!  I HIGHLY recommend these... the inside is sweet and creamy... and as one coworker told me... "It tastes like heaven!"  Tested and approved!!

Black Forest Stuffed Cupcakes
1 pkg chocolate cake mix
8 oz cream cheese, softened
1 egg
3 tbs sugar
1 tbs vanilla extract
20 oz cherry pie filling
chocolate frosting

Prepare cake batter as directed on package.  Beat cream cheese, egg, sugar and vanilla until soft and fluffy.  In cupcake liners, place a spoonful of cake batter, followed by a spoonful of cream cheese mixture and a spoonful of cherry pie filling.  Cover with more cake batter.   Bake about 25 minutes at 350 degrees and ENJOY!!

Dymer Cupcakes (Aka Cherry Lemonade)

Donna and Kristy love lemonade mixed with cherry vodka, so I came up with these refreshing cupcakes to match their signature wedding drink!!

Cupcakes
1 box lemon cake mix & necessary additions
1 lemon
Icing
5 1/2 c powdered sugar
3/4 c butter, softened
6 tbs Maraschino cherry juice
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 c chopped Maraschino cherries

Prepare lemon cake mix as directed on box, adding the zest of one lemon.  Distribute batter into cupcake liners until about 2/3 filled.  Bake as directed.  Remove from pan and let cool.  To prepare the frosting, combine all ingredients in a large bowl and beat with an electric mixer until smooth.  To make thinner, add a bit more of cherry juice, to make thicker add powdered sugar.  Fill large food container zip bag with icing and cut tip off of corner to create an even flow of icing.  Once cupcakes are cool, simply squeeze icing onto fresh cupcakes and enjoy the Dymer cupcakes care of Donna and Kristy!

Chocolate Chip Pound Cake

This recipe is great for tiered cakes... it came out thick and the chocolate chips added such a sweet touch!!

1 c softened butter
2 c sugar
4 eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
4 c flour
1 tsp baking soda
4 tsp baking powder
2 c sour cream
2 c chocolate chips

In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar... once creamy add the eggs one at a time.  Beat in vanilla, while combining dry ingredients in a separate bowl (flour, baking powder, baking soda).  Alternate adding the dry ingredients and the sour cream, beating throroughly before adding more.  Once everything is creamy smooth and well mixed, fold in the chocolate chips.  Fill two 9 inch round baking pans and bake approximately one hour or until toothpick inserted comes out clean.  Cool for 15 minutes and remove from pans. 

*I put a layer of milk chocolate frosting all over the cake and in between the layers before adding a layer of fondant to make the clean lines.  It added a nice sweet touch.

Dymer Wedding Cake

Dymer Cupcakes :)

Donna and Kristy's Wedding Cake

A few months ago, two of my besties, Donna and Kristy, told me they were having a backyard wedding and I quickly jumped at the opportunity to give them an awesome present... aka a cake!!  I literally had about a month and a half to obsess over cakes... watch more shows, google pictures, recipes, peruse magazines... you name it I was trying to work it out in my head!  Being the extreme procrastinator that I am, I waited until the week of the celebration to try anything out!  I took the day before the wedding off and baked/decorated for a good solid 10 hours.  I decided to go with a pound cake because I was mildly terrified that the cake would cave in upon itself if I used a soft recipe.  I added chocolate chips as per the girls request and it came out rich, thick and delicious.  I'll paste the recipe below!!  In between making one and a half batches of this recipe, I started making my fondant hibiscus flowers.  I was super nervous because I had NEVER worked with fondant before... I had only seen it a thousand times on television.  i started by dying my fondant (and fingers) a dark creamy shade of pink.  I rolled out little bits of fondant until they were pretty thin and used a 5 petal flower cutter to start.  PS IF YOU'RE ROLLING OUT FONDANT... INVEST IN A SILICONE MAT!!  It's so much easier and cleaner than using little handfuls of powdered sugar to keep it from sticking... definitely one of my favorite tricks learned!!  Since I didn't have any of the fancy tools for fondant, I had to improvise!!  Once I had the flower cut out, I used the rounded end of a paint brush to press lightly around the edges to give them that scalloped look.  I used a toothpick to drag along each petal to give them a look of natural veining.  Once that was all done, I put a small dot of fondant in the middle and inserted a Wilton flower stamen.  I then just cupped them into a mini cupcake pan to give them the rounded shape and let them dry!!  A little luster dust and they were all set!!  All in all I ended up making over 50 tiny hibiscus flowers in both pink and teal, 48 lemonade cupcakes with cherry frosting and one and a half recipes of chocolate chip pound cake.  Hence the 10 hours of crazy!!  I'll also post the recipe for the Dymer Cupcakes below... they're sweet, fruity and refreshing!!  ENJOY!! 

Welcome to Katie's PudgeMuffin Page!!

For  the past year or so, I have slowly but surely found myself mildly addicted to every cake show on television.  My fiance Patrick would walk in the door at the end of the day and ask the default questions of "How are you?" and "What are you watching?"  I was usually doing pretty well since work was over and the second answer was always either Ace of Cakes, Cupcake Wars, Fabulous Cakes, Food Network Challenge, etc.  Being the loving girl that I am, I would let him flip over to the Phillies game every night because I would know the second it ended, I would have control of the television back. :)

Cooking and baking have always been an interest of mine and I love finding recipes and trying out new things.  I love taking a new recipe to any sort of get together and seeing what sort of reaction I get from everyone... I know if I go home with leftovers, it's probably not a keeper!!  However, on most occasions I find myself walking home with a dish that looks like it's been licked clean by a puppy!!

A few months ago, I found out two of my best friends were going to have a backyard wedding.  I jumped at the chance to give them the best present I could... a special wedding cake just for the two of them :)  I spent countless hours pouring over pictures, recipes, tips and techniques.  I guess it was this endeavor that threw me full force into the love of baking... so here we are :)  I figure I might as well publish my journey as I try out new flavors and decorations and hopefully end up helping someone else along the way!!