Miss Apple's Sweets

Last Valentine Post...

2012-02-14T18:41:00.004Z

And here I finish the Valentine's Day combo. These mini cheesecakes are the same from here. I just wanted to try the perfect match: the tiny pans with these tiny plates!

Valentine's Day No Bake Mini Cheesecakes

2012-02-14T15:53:00.020Z

Those who know me also know that I looove miniatures. All miniatures, not just food, but I go crazy with every tiny little thing I see, a tiny cupcake earring, a tiny souvenir doll, a tiny chair for tiny dolls. And this has been since I was a child. I loved to play dolls with tiny little pots and fake cook tiny little pasta and put on the dolls tiny little shoes. I remember when I used to have art classes at school. We learned how to make origami and had to make a project (like a maquette) in the end with the pieces we'd made. I chose to make a mini zoo. The zoo wasn't that mini, but the origami animals were. They measured up to 1,5 cm height and I just had so much fun making them and appreciating how tiny they were. I have a friend (Carol) who never forgets that and if she reads this, she will laugh.

And here I am, baking and decorating, not just mini desserts, obviously... My passion when decorating is the detail, the tiny details that make the difference. When I bake, if I can make something very little, makes me have fun. It is all also a challenge.

As it is Valentine's Day, I think these little treats could make a nice surprise. Unfortunately, hubby won't have them because they're gone long time ago :)

The original recipe is from Nigella and I changed a few things because I made them in those little forms. I added gelatin because it was the first time I was using the tins, so I wanted to make sure the cheesecakes would come out nice and clean.

Valentine's Day No Bake Mini Cheesecakes

Ingredients:

125g graham crackers

75g soft butter

300g cream cheese

60g icing sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon lemon juice

250ml double cream

1 tablespoon of no flavored gelatin powder

1 jar of strawberry preserves (or other of your preference)

Directions:

Blitz the biscuits in a food processor until beginning to turn to crumbs, then add the butter and whiz again to make the mixture clump.
Press about 0.5cm of this mixture into tiny springform tins. Don't add too much here or you won't have enough space for the cream.
Beat together the cream cheese, icing sugar, vanilla extract and lemon juice in a bowl until smooth.
Lightly whip the double cream, and then fold it into the cream cheese mixture.
Hydrate the gelatin in about 2 tablespoons of warm water. Before it hardens add it to the cream mixture stirring slowly.
Spoon the cheesecake filling on top of the biscuit base and smooth with a spoon. Put the tins in a bigger form and leave them in the fridge for 3 hours or overnight.
When you are ready to serve the cheesecakes, unmould them and spread the preserves over the top.
Additional information - for vegetarains make sure the cream cheese is a brand suitable for vegetarians.

These mini cheesecake pans I bought in Brazil while visiting my family in 2010. The moment I saw them, I knew I had to make something :)

Enjoy!

Valentine's Day Brazilian Butter Cookies

2012-02-13T17:34:00.018Z

As bakers we all have those nostalgic recipes. This one brings me back funny - now they are funny - memories of my childhood. My mother still mentions this in our talks some times. I loved to make those cookies when I was, I don't know, maybe 10, 12 years old. But the point was that I always got angry with them because I never got the right consistency to roll them out, every time. It was so frustrating that many times I threw the dough on the floor and then, MY MOM got angry with me because again I was making a mess and wasting the ingredients. She tried to helped me when both of us calmed down and everything was fine. But a few months later, there I was again trying to make those cookies, not getting the right consistensy and so on.

When I decided to make them for this blog I knew everything was going to work out because, well, I'm much more mature now LOL and as the dough started drying out, I just had to knead it a little longer so my hands would warm the butter making the dough pliable again. And this happened very naturally and made me think "that was the point, and it was so easy... if only I knew this at that time... " :)

I do have a recipe for them but, as I mentioned before, we just moved and our things haven't come yet and the recipe is not here with me. I only have the pictures because I brought the backup cds.

The ones with little stripes have the classic design (they will be subject of another post in the future) and as part of Valentine's Day's ideas, I shaped a heart in the center with my fingers and added some strawberry marmalade before baking.

Here they are, fresh from the oven. They are great with a cup of tea or a glass of milk...

Enjoy!!

Miss Apple has moved :)

2012-02-13T12:22:00.003Z

And also Miss Apple's Sweets, but not the web address :)... I don't know if somebody still comes here, but I'm about to do a big change in my blog. I want to take advantage that I was blessed with the possibility of living in 3 different countries and now I've just moved to the 4th one!

I am from Brazil, moved to the USA in 2007, met my lovely Polish husband there, lived there for 4 years and then we moved to Poland and stayed for 1 year. Now, by the forces of the destiny or something like that, we are living here, my 4th country and here we hope to stay.

Anyways, I want to explore much more my baking, decorating and desserts passion and share some of my sweet experiments from all the cultures I've known, the one that I'm about to learn and why not some of the ones I don't know yet too? so lots of new things will be posted. I believe it will be much more interesting, especially for me because I've got lots of ideas. I just hope I can keep up with them. I have been practicing some photographing, digging in and searching for lots of inspirations.

I just need to get everything on track first. WE are here, but not all of our stuff, so I don't have a lot of my baking tools with me. Also, I still need to do some paper work.

However, I did prepare some pictures before I left Poland and I have to post them soon, as some of them were about Valentine's Day!

Enjoy!!

Christmas Cake (Cracow, Poland - 2011)

2012-01-07T02:12:00.002Z

This cake was for the Christmas Eve we had at work about 2 weeks before the real Christmas Eve :P Each one had to take something delicious and I chose the ones below.

This is the chocolate and walnut cream cake decorated and covered with fondant and I hand painted the Santa Clauss. It was my first time painting on a cake, but I loved it how it turned out and I loved making it, as always :)

Here I cropped the picture for a close up of the inside :)

This is a Brazilian Lemon Pie, very popular in my country and one of my favorites. Unfortunately, I didn't have time to get a more professional picture of it, I borrowed a friend's camera for this shot before the pie was gone. :)

Bombons (Poland - Easter 2011)

2012-01-07T02:01:00.001Z

I made these bombons for my in-laws for Easter. The fillings flavors were: orange, poppy seeds cream (very popular in Poland), rum and raisins chocolate ganache. I added the little toppings for easy identification (the little box with yellow cream is also orange filling). They are Brazilian recipes adapted to their tastes.

Christmas Cookie Decorating Class (Brazil 2010)

2012-01-04T20:07:00.002Z

I took this class in December 2010 in Brazil with Vera and Camila Madeira, mother and daughter together in the sugar art world :) They are great artists. But I haven't practiced this technique for a year and must check if I can remember to make them.

Photo from Cursos Vera Madeira

Christmas in Brazil (2010)

2012-01-04T19:57:00.002Z

My husband and I spent 2010's Christmas in Brazil! Yay! Since my family had only seen my cakes through internet, they were expecting a cake when I'd go there. I took some basic tools because our suitcases were already full. I did what I could, the cake wasn't perfect, my family loved it. It was a pineapple cake with pineapple cream filling. Very tropical!:)

I also made those passion fruit brigadeiros for the first time (below)...

I wanted to test a recipe. Approved! :)

Fondant and Royal Icing Class with Nicholas Lodge (Atlanta, GA - September 2010)

2012-01-04T19:33:00.000Z

I loved taking those 2 classes. I learned a lot there and had fun too :) Unfortunately, my memory card broke and I lost all pictures I took on those days, but a friend borrowed me her camera so I could register the details before they were destroyed during the trip or something... I can't remember why, but I didn't took detailed pictures of the royal icing cake :( or I can't find them, very sad :( Anyways, there we go...

Pastry Course at ICE in New York (July 2010)

2012-01-01T14:59:00.000Z

Very late pictures. This course was in July 2010 at the Institute of Culinary Education in New York City and it lasted a week. I loved it. I learned a lot there. I just wish I had more time to practice everything :( But here we go...

Me and my baklavas :D

More baklavas

Our spinach triangles and baklavas

Everyone opening the strudel dough with the chef

Strudel ready to bake

Apple Strudel ready to eat :P

Cream cheese and raisins strudel ready to eat :P

Cream cheese and salmon triangles

Napoleon and fruit strip

Cinammon and herbs sticks

My fruit tarts (my favorites!)

Pecan tart

Our tarts and pies

The kicthen

Me and Chef Faith Drobbin

Camera Cake (Manhattan, NY - October 2010)

2012-01-01T14:51:00.000Z

I made this cake for my husband's graduation photography exhibition in October 2010. It was again a chocolate cake with coconut filling (this flavor usually pleases people a lot :))

And I hand cut the camera out of fondant.

Fondant Doggies Cake Toppers (New York, NY - October 2010)

2012-01-01T14:44:00.000Z

This was an from October 2010. Nicole wanted me to make dogs just like hers and her sister's dogs (if I can remember well). It was quite fun to make them :)

Yoga Cake (New York, NY - October 2010)

2012-01-01T14:26:00.000Z

I made this cake in October 1st 2010, still in the USA for the 2nd birthday of the Yoga Studio I was going to.

It was a moist chocolate cake with a coconut filling... It is a very popular flavor for party cakes in Brazil.

I hand cut the yoga poses and used an airbrush for the sunset effect.

New Year, New Post, after a very long break...

2012-01-01T14:09:00.000Z

I am posting again, I don't even know if somebody still comes here.... anyways, lots of changes, lots of news... only one thing hasn't changed: my passion for baking :) which by the way had no break and I am very glad for that.

But one thing at a time... first I will post late pictures from 2010... after that, more news!

Those were chocolate fudge cupcakes (2010) decorated with fondant little flowers.

Apple Caramel cupcakes (2010) with fondant apples as decoration :)

Noah's Ark Cake Topper...

2010-08-25T14:43:00.000+01:00

This was a cake topper I made for a cake designer friend of mine for a baby shower. First time I've done a "freelance" work lol Inside was styro foam, the rest of the decorations and animals were marshmallow fondant. She's gonna take a picture of the whole cake set up and then I'll post it here.

Lions inspired by Elayne Moura :)

My ThreadCakes Contest Entry!

2010-08-17T13:59:00.000+01:00

I know I haven't posted here so much. that's because I haven't done so much. Lots of things to plan and deal with, besides, this cake took me a lot of time too. I do have a Pastry Class draft post to finish, but I'll finish it later.

This one I had to post sooner. Here is the link to the entry http://www.threadcakes.com/entries/view/964 and about the cake, so I won't right all here ... Laaaaaazy!! The video I'll post in the end.

I chose a simple design because I really wanted to take the risk to sculpt something bigger, so it couldn't have so many details. As I said in the entry, I started with other design that had lots of details, but, not so much cake. I mean, it'd be very cool when finished, but still, I felt like I had to make it big and 99% cake. I know the ducks look freak :P big beaks! but that's what I felt when I saw the original design. They were scaring the little guys.

But I liked it. I've learned a lot with this cake and we have lots of cake after all, even though my husband took 1 duck and the boat to work next day lol.

I used cream cheese pound cakes most of all... I love this recipe. It looks dry in the pictures, but it's because they were frozen or chilled. At room temperature, they were awesome. My husband loves it! I didn't use so much filling because, well, I was practicing the sculpting, so I didn't want to mess up with tons of fillings, but now I can try a more filled cake for next time.

I never thought I'd like so much to carve a cake like that. The Threadless Designs are awesome. I want to make so many cakes based on the designs lol they make me want to challenge myself, not just coping, but inspiring too..

The video I made in the last day of submission, so it was very simple too :P

Below I'm posting the translation to Portuguese of my entry for my Brazilian viewers and friends :) Also, I'm planing on writing here in Portuguese as well, like, in the same post. Hope I won't be lazy lol. But I guess it's gonna be in the next post. This one is already way toooooo long :)

Quando eu descobri o concurso e fui olhar os designs, eu queria fazer todos! Mas claro, eu tinha que escolher um so. Eu comecei com um que tinha muitos detalhes que nao era bolo na verdade. Eram comestiveis, mas o bolo mesmo nao era tao importante. Entao eu deixei de lado e escolhi o Quack Attack feito por Brian Walline, porque eu poderia fazer 99% de bolo e esses patos de plastico (pra mim eles parecem de plastico por causa do brilho :P) estavam assustando os homenzinhos! Eu achei bonitinho :P

Entao eu fiz um bolo de limao e cream cheese... muitos deles!! Eu ate perdi a conta dos ingredientes. No final estava tao automatico que eu ate esqueci que eu poderia tentar outros sabores. Apenas no ultimo eu me dei conta e fiz de chocolate. No entanto, bolo de limao e cream cheese e uma delicia e o meu marido Marek adora come-lo durante o cafezinho dele. Mas ele nao e fa de buttercream :P Ainda bem que eu nao usei muito.

Eu fiz umas 3 ou 4 receitas de buttercream de limao e mais ou menos o mesmo tanto de pasta americana de marshmallow.

Eu usei a camera do meu marido pra registrar o processo, mas talvez eu tenha exagerado um pouco. Quase alcancei a marca de 300 fotos, mas foi divertido ve-las no final. Ah, e deu muito trabalho tirar as fotos e fazer o bolo ao mesmo tempo. A camera ficou meio melecada no final e por causa disso tudo resolvi fazer o video. Nao podia desperdicar todas aquelas fotos.

Eu levei cerca de 30 a 36 horas pra completar o bolo, divididas em 12 dias porque eu so podia trabalhar nele algumas horas por dia. Alguns dias eu podia mais, outros apenas em alguns detalhes e outros nao dava nem pra encostar. Mas nao se preocupem... o bolo nao estava velho, estava uma delicia!! O buttercream e a pasta americana conservam o bolo fresco, ainda mais na geladeira. Eu arrisquei, coloquei a pasta americana na geladeira. Transpirou depois que pus pra fora, mas ficou bom depois de algum tempo. A calda de confeiteiro (nao sei como e em portugues :P) ajuda a secar bem. Eu usei pra dar aquele efeito de plastico brilhante que tem no design original. Depois que o suor do bolo secou, o bolo estava lisinho de novo, seco, nada grudento, perfeito!! O bolo parece um pouco seco, mas e so porque estava congelado ou gelado. Depois que atingiu a temperatura ambiente, estava bem umido. Adoro!!

Eu achei essa uma boa chance pra praticar um bolo grande esculpido e minha nossa, deu trabalho. Mas eu gostei!! E aprendi muito. Porem, chegou uma hora que so queria e termina-lo!!! :P

Os homenzinhos nao tinham muitos detalhes, como no original, mas eles fazem o bolo todo fazer sentido :P O capitao foi corajoso!

Os patos, bom, eles parecem loucos, mas essa era a ideia. De alguma forma eles me lembraram o Coringa. Aquele sorriso na cara.

Eu nao usei canudos ou palitos para suportar o bolo. Porque esse bolo (pound cake) e bem firme e foram congelados ou resfriados, eles se suportaram muito bem. Usei glace real pra colar o barco e espaguete pra suportar os corpos dos homenzinhos.

O unico suporte que usei, foram os palitos de churrasco pra colocar os bicos nos patos. Nao tinha outro jeito de colocar esses bicoes no bolo. Falando nisso, os bicos foram feitos com cereal de arroz e marshmallow. Moi o cereal no liquidificador e misturei com marshmallow derretido pra formar essa especie de massa.

O bolo estava uma delicia. Meu marido adorou e ele levou um pato e o barco pro trabalho no dia seguinte e dividiu com os colegas de trabalho (que ficaram contentes por ganharem tanto bolo de graca :P) porque era muito bolo pra nos dois. A gente ficou com um pato. Eu cortei em fatias e congelei e congelei, assim meu marido tera bolo para o cafezinho por um bom tempo ;) e eu pro cafe-da-manha. Acredite ou nao, o bolo ainda esta gostoso!! E por isso que eu adoro essa receita!

Eu fiquei bem feliz com o resultado e nao vejo a hora de fazer mais, assim posso guardar as fotos pros proximos concursos. Os designs me dao um monte de ideias e eles sao muito desafiantes!!

Obrigada pessoal por esse concurso!!!

Girls on a pillow cake...

2010-06-27T21:37:00.000+01:00

This was my first experience sculpting a cake.... I'm glad I chose because I didn't feel it was so hard to sculpt it. I chose mud cake and pound cakes to use, as I've read a lot in the internet and they are really good for carving. I didn't even need to freeze them. Just fridge was enough, but I do want to try to freeze them next time on a cake for myself, to try the consistency later.

The filling was ganache and all the cake was covered with marshmallow fondant. The girls were made out of a ready-to-roll fondant because I still haven't gotten the right consistency for modeling with the MMF.

I had to take a picture of it :)

And then...

Crocks and converse shoes :)

Teddy Bear's Bday Party for the American Cancer Society...

2010-06-07T14:40:00.001+01:00

This event was celebrating the cancer survivors, the ones who lost the battle and those who are still fighting it. There was this special Happy Birthday Party for them and I donated this cake that I made with all my thoughts and heart :) I have somebody in my family fighting it and I really hope she will win it.

It was a lot fun to make this cake. I just love making figures and tiny stuff and they turned out better than I expected. It was a cherry pound cake with chocolate fudge filling. I was there to help serving and was very happy to see people liking it and appreciating. It makes me very happy seeing people smiling when they see my cakes or other sweets. There were 4 more cakes also which were great as well! The idea was to be a contest, but not enough people signed up, so they decided to celebrate only the Party, which was very nice!

I am still trying to work with my husband's camera, but I just don't get the focus!! grrr anyway, they don't look so bad, I did many close ups and stuff... I reduced a lot the sizes of the pictures to post, so they might look a little worse than they really are. Next time I'll not reduce that much.

Here are some pictures of the Birthday Party during the event:

Once upon a time, there was a cake... :P

Red Velvet Cake with a "Heart" filling...

2010-05-03T04:59:00.000+01:00

I didn't think it would work at all when I bought this Wilton set of pans, but it did!!! I'm very surprised and loved the result!!! But I have to say I was very careful. I greased a little with that easy cake release spray and made sure I filled the cavities all the way to the top, with cream cheese icing, by the way. And I carefully, put them together as well. Then, I decorated and it was time for pictures, which I did very careful too (lots of "careful") :P I didn't want to mess up the heart and the picture. I had to put my cake back into the fridge every 5 minutes because of the weather, it's getting very warm. For this I couldn't try something WOW for the decoration as well. I needed to take back the pastry bag to the freezer many times.
And that's it...
I love RED!!!

Marek's Birthday Cake...

2010-04-27T22:21:00.000+01:00

This was my husband's birthday cake. It was really fun to make it :D and he loved! He looooves pizza and photography so....
It's a coconut cake with a coconut cream filling covered with chocolate MMF and the figure was made with fondant as well. By the way, I'm falling in love with figure modeling. Even though I don't make them so much, I'm always checking something about online and will start doing it more.

Gum paste flowers class with Nicholas Lodge...

2010-04-19T22:05:00.000+01:00

A few weeks ago I flew with Giselle, a friend of mine, to Atlanta, GA for a 5-day Gum Paste flowers at The International Sugar Art Collection by Nicholas Lodge. It was busy. I was rushing all the time to follow the schedule, but it was worth it. It was fun and Nicholas filled us with information and knowledge. We're planing on going back there later in the year for other classes.

Because we were very far from Downtown Atlanta, we didn't have a chance to do some tourism :( Next time maybe.

Some pictures of the class:

My flowers in progress...

All of us working on our flowers...

My flowers almost ready...

My flowers at home, after taking them out of the box...

Chef Nicholas Lodge, me and Emily, his assistant...

My Lily, together with Lizianthus (the purple one above), are my favorites:

Now some of Nicholas Lodge cakes:

Some of Nicholas Lodge flowers (I love the tiny ones :P)

Peach Cheesecake...

2010-04-19T00:04:00.000+01:00

And I finally got it!! :) My first experience with cheesecake wasn't even worth it the picture 1 month ago. It was such a disaster. This time I decided not follow a recipe and just judged what would be necessary to make a basic cheesecake without trying too much and voila! My peach cheesecake. And I'm organizing the post about the Nicholas Lodge's Gum Paste flowers class :)
The photo is by myself, I'm trying :P

A cake for my hubby :)

2010-04-06T05:38:00.000+01:00

When I made the Easter cake, I had some left over of the filling and my husband tried a little. Then, he told me he'd love to have more of it 'cause it was delicious and I said I'd make it for his birthday, which is just on the end of this month :P He seemed a little disappointed, so I surprised him yesterday with this cake. I thought it'd be nice to leave him a cake to eat while I'm gone ;) Today, I'll be flying to Atlanta, Georgia, for a 5-day Gum paste flower class with the Chef Nicholas Lodge at The International Sugar Art Collection School of Sugar Art. I'm very excited about it!

It's exactly the same cake as the Easter cake: a very moist chocolate cake with strawberry cream filling and fresh strawberries. I might get a shot of the inside before I leave later. Also, I'm still working on the pictures. This was the best I got out of the bunch. It still has focus issues, I know, but I'll get there. And I didn't use my husband's Cannon 'cause I couldn't find the charger, so, I had to use my simple one.

Easter Cake...

2010-04-05T04:17:00.001+01:00

This is a very moist chocolate cake with a strawberry cream filling and also fresh strawberries. It was simple, but I found REALLY fun to leave the fondant a little aside and explore other ingredients for decorating. Of course this kind of decoration is nothing new, but for me it was totally. But I loved it. The flowers didn't turn out as I wanted. They were supposed to stand as normal flowers, but it wasn't working and I was so tired that I just decided to do like that. The final consumers wouldn't mind, I was pretty sure. The nest, is made of tinted coconut and the eggs are peanut butter eggs. The dirt is cookie crumble and the "fence" is built out of Oreo wafer sticks. :) I thought it'd be pretty to take the picture on the grass as there were flowers and nest on the cake and the day was sooooo beautiful!
Happy Easter!

Late St. Patrick's Day Brazilian Truffles...

2010-03-23T21:07:00.000Z

Those I made for that day, just I'm posting very late. It's brigadeiro inside :) but a sweeter one, I got to make a recipe less sweet which is much better and tasteful.

And I am really really trying to learn more about photography because my pictures suck :P I just need to get buy the right supplies and my husband will teach me some techniques and I will try to remember what I learned about photo in college. What a shame! :( well, I didn't need to take good pictures before, my little digital was enough for travel pics. :P

Brazilian Candies for Baby Shower...

2010-03-14T06:18:00.000Z

I made those for Stephen and Michelle's baby shower. The ones with chocolate jimmies are brigadeiros (let's say Brazilian chocolate truffles) and the ones with white nonpareils are beijinho (made with coconut), humm I read somewhere they translated as coconut kisses.

A little close up of the inside of the brigadeiro, yummy!:

And here the beijinho:

Ready to go:

St. Patrick's Mini Cake...

2010-03-12T03:07:00.001Z

I made this last week. It is a chocolate cake with a strawberry mousse filling and decorated with MMF. And like the previous cake, no pictures of the inside :( It was a really nice contrast. It also looks like a hat :P

Flowers Mini Cake...

2010-03-12T03:00:00.000Z

This is a chocolate cake with strawberry mousse filling. Unfortunately, they didn't get a picture of the inside for me :( lol but it's ok. It almost looks like a hat :P and it would make a pretty hat, in fact.

Girly "Rubber" Duck in Bubbles

2010-02-18T01:19:00.000Z

I made this cake for practicing molding. I used an angel food cake recipe and as we can see, it didn't look nice. It was too soft and the fondant was too heavy for it. Anyway, it was fun to make the duck. :) and it was an almond cake with chocolate filling.

Valentine's Little Teddy Bear...

2010-02-18T01:01:00.000Z

This mini cake a made for my husband as one of my Valentine's presents to him. He loved it :) It's a 3.5'' x 2'' (I'm not sure. I have to check the bottom of the pan). It's a vanilla cake with truffle filling. All decorations made with fondant. The Teddy Bear sometimes looks like a mouse to me :) and I don't know why it was kinda falling sidewards, even with toothpick I used for holding the body. And next time I'll try to make it a little happier. I followed a video from Lorraine Mckay, since was my first fondant bear ever.

Valentine's Day Cake...

2010-02-11T04:21:00.000Z

This is a vanilla angel food cake with brigadeiro truffle filling and I covered and decorated with marshmallow fondant.

And here, just showing the details of the ribbon fondant roses with pearl luster and tiny little flowers I cut out to surround the cake.

I'm very happy with the results! :)

Danila and Danilo's Baby shower...

2010-02-01T14:15:00.000Z

Those are strawberry cake pops I made for their baby shower. I wrote the letter L (of Lucca) as she had asked, like written by hand. Also, she wanted them bigger than usually. And I decorated the back of them with a few different designs.

Here, after packing them:

But I have to confess that they gave me more work than I thought they would.
But it's a fun process anyways!

Mini merengue cookies...

2010-02-01T14:13:00.000Z

I made them for my friend Luana :)

And here, all packed:

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

2009-12-29T05:36:00.000Z

Those are a few treats I made for the Holidays. Nothing decorated 'cause I didn't have time.

This is called Pave, it's a Brazilian dessert and there's a sweetened condensed milk based cream, bananas, cookies and meringue, very very sweet. I forgot I wouldn't unmold it and I used this "ugly" pan:

These are meringue cookies I made for the first time. They turned out delicious, just like from the bakery, seriously!! They just don't look as nice because I "iced" them like a swirl icing for cupcake, them they sort of cracked out, but I know next time I have to use another tip and make it in, let's say, one piece:

And here they are, all packed for presents:

Here are some of the panettones I made. It was kind of hard to find the right recipe (I've tried 3). I still haven't found it, but the ones I tried turned out very tasteful, however, I still don't like the consistency. They feel like bread or loaf, not panettone. Panettone is really soft, like a pillow in my opinion. I bought a branded one and comparing to mines, they do feel like a pillow lol. At least I got to give them the same taste and smell. Everybody loved them, as bread with a panettone taste :) :

Just testing...

2009-10-08T23:08:00.000+01:00

This was just a test. It's a Brazilian Wedding Favor. It's filled with Dulce de leche. I was testing a brownie bites silicon pan, which disappointed me a little bit because I read somewhere that it wouldn't be needed to grease it, but it wasn't that easy to take the cake out of the pan as well as wash it out. But the shape was pretty nice, though. Next time I'll just spray a little butter or oil. However, I have to use another Dulce de Leche Brand or make it by myself 'cause it wasn't supposed to be so liquid and be sucked by the dough lol, but it was supposed to be thick and look like a mini sandwich.

I've been thinking about what's gonna be my next challenge... I hope a birthday cake or a wedding cake.

Cupcakes 4 Charity...

2009-10-06T23:55:00.000+01:00

Last October 1st my husband and I joined the event that Cupcakes4Charity organized. It was really fun and full of delightful cupcakes. We had music, drinks, raffles and fun :)
Those are the ones I made for the event. The pink ones are strawberry cupcakes with one of the Brazilian strawberry truffle fillings iced with strawberry buttercream. I tried to ice the cupcakes with the filling but it was way too soft, I guess 'cause I used the white chocolate morsels instead pure white chocolate :(

The dark ones are chocolate cupcakes filled and iced with Strawberry Chocolate truffle. I didn't get a picture of the inside, but it's pretty much the same as the strawberry, but dark brown lol And yes, the truffle was perfect for icing!!! I called strawberry chocolate because I mixed in some strawberry preserves, but honestly, I think it didn't add too much taste. I needed to have added some candy flavor maybe.

Autumn Cupcakes for a Cause...

2009-09-21T02:04:00.000+01:00

Those were the cupcakes I made for Cupcakes for a Cause. It was a Bake Sale at Brooklyn Flea Market organized by Cupcakes Take The Cake. I hope we got to sell all cupcakes the volunteers took. I made them in Autumn Theme.

Coconut cupcakes decorated with marshmallow fondant and chocolate icing and coconut filling (Beijinho in Brazil):

Close up of the inside:

Chocolate cupcakes with chocolate icing and chocolate filling (Brigadeiro) decorated with a marshmallow fondant pumpkin:

Close up of the inside:

The tine brown ones are chocolate mini cupcakes iced with brigadeiro and the flower ones are coconut cupcakes decorated with marshmallow fondant:

Here is just a picture that I set up with all of them:

Wedding Cake Course with Brazilian Cake Designer

2009-09-19T06:04:00.000+01:00

In the picture, it's me receveing the certificate from Flavia Millas, a very famous Cake Designer in Brazil who came for a 3-day class in Stamford, CT last weekend.
It was great!! She gave us really important tips and taught us her techniques and recipes. Everything delicious and beautiful!! She's been working with sugar for 21 years. And she is a very sweet person :) in both meaning lol.

PS: I did finish Wilton Course 3 and 4, just forgot to take pictures of the certificate which I'll do soon.

Mini Banana Dessert Cups...

2009-09-03T02:25:00.001+01:00

Banana pudding topped with banana sweet (banana and sugar boiled together). It can be a banana pie filling as well.

Leo's Birthday Cake

2009-08-30T07:46:00.000+01:00

It's a chocolate cake filled with 3 layers of coconut cream. It's called Prestige Cake in Brazil.

Just to show the detail of his hair and accessories lol:

YAY!!!!

2009-08-23T06:22:00.000+01:00

Yay!!! I figured out what was wrong with my blog that didn't let me add links and other stuff: THE BROWSER!!! I was using Mozilla Firefox and now Google Chrome. Viva!! Let's organize things over here. Or at least, try it.

Brazilian Mini Carrot Cake...

2009-08-21T18:22:00.001+01:00

This is the Brazilian Carrot Cake. Very different than American as we can see in the last post. Usually, the Brazilian Carrot Cake is not filled, but I wanted to try the new set of pans I bought for mini cakes. It's covered and filled with Semi Sweet Chocolate Ganache. The flowers are made of Royal Icing.

After refrigerate, the ganache gets uniform and the fill looks perfect, just like the box shows:

Same cake, same filling, different decoration:

Brigadeiros and Trufles with strawberry...

2009-08-17T22:59:00.001+01:00

The brown ones are truffles and the ones with the sprinkles are brigadeiros (Brazilian chocolate balls, but they are made with condensed milk instead table cream as the truffles). All of them involve a strawberry. Yummy surprise.

Brigadeiros:

Truffles:

American Carrot Cake...

2009-08-11T02:22:00.001+01:00

First of all, I've finished Wilton Course 4, but my cake didn't work at class and I couldn't finish it. I have to make it again, but I still didn't. I made my first American carrot cake and I liked it. Specially because this one is GLUTEN FREE and my husband and I are surprised with it. It tastes just like the "regular" carrot cake: delicious!! However, next time I'll make it, I won't fill it. There's no need for it in my opinion. The cake has a particular taste that doesn't need to be distracted by the icing filling, just like any other carrot cake. Some day I'll make the Brazilian Carrot cake, just to register and it's as good as the American version, but very different.

I do have to practice a lot how to icing a cake. I still don't get it. It's always full of mistakes grrrrr. I like so much to cover the cake with fondant because it looks so much nicer lolol.

Halloween Premiere...

2009-08-11T02:11:00.000+01:00

I know, it's too early, but the stores are getting full of Halloween stuff already, so I decided to do some ...

Those pound cake bombons (or simply cake balls) were a test. I covered them with chocolate and decorated with royal icing:

Butter cookies packed individually. Those ones were decorated with royal icing:

Some of those were decorated with fondant:

Mini butter cookie:

Friendly Cows cake...

2009-07-28T19:58:00.000+01:00

This cake I made for my friend Suelen, just like she wanted: with the cows and the black circles.

It's a vanilla cake filled with doce de leite (a sweet cream made of milk). She loves doce de leite so I carved a little the center of the layers, then I could put more filling in it. But I guess it was too much filling lol. I followed the step-by-step from Loja dos bolos e dos Doces.

Wilton Course 4 - Fondant and Gum Paste

2009-07-16T20:36:00.000+01:00

We have practiced a few flowers in this course, but I forgot to take my camera :(. At least we didn't have time to finish this cake there, so I could take pictures at home. In the 2nd class of this Course we tried to finish our carnations and learned how to make fantasy flowers with gum paste. I finished decorating the cake just yesterday at home. It's a vanilla cake filled with a coconut cream, it's a kind of creamy macaroons or macaroons dough colored with green gel coloring. This cake I was gonna give to my friend Luana, who's going to visit her family in Brazil, but I just saw her on Sunday (I said that somewhere in this blog). That's why is yellow and green outside and inside. It's yummy! My husband took it to his work and they devoured it lol The fondant I made with marshmallows again. Also, we learned how to make marble effect and used it for covering the plate, but this was 2 weeks ago.

Ooops...

2009-07-14T20:49:00.000+01:00

Sorry, I'm late... We didn't have time enough to finish the cake yesterday at the class, so I'm finishing at home...
AND I FORGOT TO SAY, the last cake (the blue one) I covered with marshmallow fondant made by myself! It's easy and cheap! It dries well, but I haven't tried it for any decorations yet, just for covering. And it tastes SO MUCH BETTER than Ready-to-use rolled fondant. It's edible lol. It's very sweet, but at least it doesn't taste plastic. I can't give a cake with something that doesn't taste "edible". Once, I gave a piece of cake covered with ready-to-use rolled fondant to a friend of my husband and he went straight to try the fondant and after that, he didn't even want to try the cake. It was awful! But he was right, even my husband and I don't eat it lol .. So, I decided to try the MMF and it worked. My friend and the other guests ate it, not all, because it's very sweet, but at least I heard "Humm! it's sweet, but it tastes good!!" I don't care if people don't eat it because it's too sweet, I care if people try something it's on my cake and say "Eeeeww what is that? it's disgusting!", then my name is on the game. Nothing like a proverb we have in my country "You want it well done, do it yourself", or something like that haha Next one I'll try, it'll be the Brazilian Rolled Fodant, which I'm sure tastes awesome too, even if it's sweet.

Practicing...

2009-07-13T21:12:00.000+01:00

This cake I made for my friend Luana who's going to visit her family in Brazil in 2 weeks. It was supposed to be the cake I'm finishing today at Wilton Class (I'll post tonight when I finish it), but I made this one because yesterday was the last time I would see her before she travels. I made it blue, because it's her favorite color. :) It's a chocolate cake (Sandra Dia's recipe) filled with a coconut cream, prestigio in Brazil.

Independence Day Butter cookies

2009-07-09T20:20:00.001+01:00

Wilton Course 3 Last class...

2009-06-29T20:43:00.000+01:00

And finishing Wilton Course 3, fondant roses and cake covered with fondant too. I loved it! :) The little cake is filling with passion fruit jam and for filling the big one, walnuts cream :)
Next week we will start the Gum Paste Course. Maybe I'll put a picture of the slices when we decide to eat it. I put a lot of hard work on this cake and I feel bad to cut it, I just want to look at it lolol like a decoration piece lol.

Getting ready...

2009-06-25T07:06:00.001+01:00

... for the next cake... Fondant flowers.... hopefully all of them will be on it lol... I'm afraid they will get hurt on the way to the school.

And here are the leaves :) maybe I'll make some more...

And here with the cakes...

Just to show inside...

2009-06-25T06:59:00.000+01:00

As I said before, orange cake with orange marmalade filling. I also moisture it a little with boiled orange juice and sugar, but the cake itself is moisture enough, also, the marmalade helps too. It's just because my husband and I love moisture cakes lolol and in Brazil too, of course :P

Wilton Course 3 - Class 2 ... Fondant

2009-06-15T21:31:00.000+01:00

I love it! It's kind of easy to work with fondant and I loved the result. The taste... no good lolol but as my teacher says, it's for the looking. What really matters regarding taste is what's inside in this case. Soon I'll try to make my own fondant to try something more tasty, because I think everything should taste good. This is an orange cake (Brazilian recipe) filled with orange marmalade. We haven't tried yet. We're waiting for getting dry to see how it looks like. Also, we've learned how to make fondant roses. It's much easier than butter cream icing roses in my opinion and they DO look beautiful even if you don't have practice, lol... butter cream roses require a lot of practicing.

The final Wilton Course 2 class...

2009-06-03T02:13:00.000+01:00

And the final cake of Wilton Course 2... the basket weave cake. I'm proud of me! :P I really liked how it turned out. Here is the picture of the front:

The back and the top:

The inside, vanilla cake filled with 2 layers of doce de leite and 1 of cherries. The white cream should have done with the same color as the icing, but I forgot.

And here is me, with both certificates and both tired eyes lolol. Course 3 is coming up next week.

PS: I am using low quality pictures because this blog is temporary, I am working on my own blog layout and there I will use good quality pictures. I was just anxious for publishing what I've done.

Getting ready...

2009-06-03T02:10:00.000+01:00

Here is what I had done for the basket weave cake. Unfortunately, the house and 1 of the birds made of color flow icing cracked when I was trying to take them out of the wax paper. And I didn't use all of the flowers. They were too many for the cake.

My wedding cake...

2009-06-02T02:13:00.000+01:00

I made my own wedding cake. Simple, but we liked. Vanilla cake filled with 1 layer of peach creamy and another layer with pineapple cream decorated with butter cream icing.

Practicing and practicing...

2009-05-21T21:41:00.000+01:00

Yeah, the Wilton Course 2 is more practicing flowers than anything. That's what we have done. Next class will be just in June and we will be finishing this course with a cake with all the flowers we've made.

Oh, and it's Royal Icing!! I loooooove it! It holds so much better than buttercream and after the flowers are dry, we can just put them into a container all together with no worries about breaking them. I just love it!! I just haven't have the brave enough to eat 1 of them, just because they look so nice!

My husband's birthday...

2009-05-02T13:12:00.001+01:00

This was the cake I made for my husband's Birthday barbecue. It's a Brazilian recipe called pao-de-lo and again, I think it's the same as Angel cake, filled with bicho-de-pe which I already explained what is in another post, then I covered with chocolate ganache, but I didn't get the shiny one and the consistency I wanted. I have to try again. The first picture has the real colors, the second one was taken with another camera and didn't get to fix it.

Those are strawberry bombons. Strawberry covered with "white brigadeiro" and melted chocolate.

And this is strawberry covered with brown brigadeiro and chocolate sprinkles. I used to eat those a lot during my years in the University. The coffe shop there used to sell them and they were reaaaaally famous!

Last Wilton Class Course 1

2009-05-02T02:38:00.000+01:00

This was the final class of the Wilton Cake Decorating Course 1. We mostly practiced flowers, leaves and roses. And there's the result. I iced the cake the night before at 12 am and I was sooo tired, then it doesn't look really nice. My first cake was iced much better lol I need to buy the tools for making details on the sides of the cake, they help hiding the mistakes. :P The bow wasn't that pretty because I left the icing open while practicing, so it was getting stiff which was making it hard to work with.
I used a Brazilian cake recipe and filled with chocolate ganache and bicho-de-pe, another Brazilian filling recipe. Those fillings were left over of my husband's birthday cake which I'll post here soon.
Next Monday I'll be starting the Wilton Cake Decorating Course 2! :)

2009-04-22T14:53:00.000+01:00

I've had problems in adding the section "About me" and "Links", I'm trying to fix it. I guess I'll have to find or make another template 'cause this one has a problem and it hasn't allowed me to add those sections.

Third Wilton Class...

2009-04-22T00:59:00.000+01:00

The third class of the Wilton Course 1 was really productive. I got to learn a few things that I've always thought it would be impossible to do hahaha I loved them.

The cupcakes we had to take done to the class and I chose vanilla cupcakes and mixed pieces of strawberry into the batter. I could have filled more the paper liners, but I was afraid they would grow too much since it was my first time using this recipe. By the way, it's a Brazilian recipe:

This one I tried putting 1 whole strawberry in the middle, but it was weird after baked. It was like a tent for the strawberry, I mean, just a thin layer of dough around it:

Those ones were the last load, so I filled the paper liners a little more and used
strawberry preserves to try as a filling:

I decorated this one with royal icing and I liked it a lot 'cause it really sits well:

And here is what it looks like inside with the pieces of strawberry mixed:

Now at the classroom, practicing roses:

Practicing the clowns using the icing:

Here at home putting all them together because I didn't get to take
all the pictures during the class:

Star flowers:

Final rose with blue grass :P I hadn't taken green icing this time:

Swirl flower:

This was the worst one, but it was enough to learn how to make bears:

And I fell in love with the clowns. They are so easy to make and turn out so cute!
I crossed the legs of this one :P

I just need to practice the hands and shoes more, I was tired and wanted
to finish them quickly, then I just squeezed dots on.

Ooops...

2009-04-19T23:25:00.000+01:00

I just realized that I didn't take a picture of inside of the cake... Sorry, but actually it wasn't something wooooow... it was just a yellow cake with a red line of strawberry preserves...
I promise next things that will be filled I will take pictures of inside :P

My first decorated cake!!

2009-04-14T21:40:00.001+01:00

Finishing the Wilton Course 1 - Lesson 2... view from the top of the cake.
I finished it this morning.

And here with the sides and details.
It's an orange cake filled with strawberry preserves.
We will try it tonight, when my husband gets home :)

Easter treats for my husband's family!

2009-04-14T20:18:00.000+01:00

Sugar cookies decorated with royal icing.I still need to practice a lot the outlines.
But those ones were good, soft and tasty... way better than the first ones in the previous post.

Vanilla cupcakes with buttercream frosting

Fudge brownie covered with chocolate glaze and royal icing

All packed!

I have to find another way to display the cupcakes because
like that it's really unstable.

All together in the basket

The final Easter basket

A little present to another friends

And that's how it looks closed.

P.S.: I'm working on the pictures too. They are not very good, but when I took them, I wasn't thinking about displaying them in a website.

First shots..

2009-04-14T19:10:00.001+01:00

It's Spring time! My first decorated vanilla cupcakes. All of those candies, cookies and cupcakes were made in March 2009 before I took the classes.

My Easter Chocolate Bunny and eggs basket

Those look funny, but are delicious! I filled them with

"coconut macaroons" (beijinho)

First chocolate candies!

First sugar cookies test that I made with whole wheat flour which doesn't make them soft!

Just beginning...

2009-04-14T03:21:00.001+01:00

Hi, my name is Karen and my nickname has been Apple for years. I gave it to myself first in internet and my friends just got it and some only call me as Apple.

I've always liked cooking, specially sweets and finally decided to really do something with it. There's 2 stores which I love and where I have always bought my craft stuff: Michael's and AcMoore. I can spend hours there just having ideas for my crafts such as scrapbooking, collages, painting, cooking, etc. They have a lot of tools for cake, cookies, candies and brownies decorating and I finally started "playing" with them. I've learned some things by myself (they have books to teach you and I've read a lot in internet just googling), but nothing's like having a teacher to give you the right tips and correct you. The Wilton classes are really affordable and I'm in my second class. I'm going to put here the pictures of what I have done since the very beginning, what I've learned by myself and at the class.

I'll be showing American and Brazilian delights! And soon, some Polish too!
P.S.: I do have links for my other crafts, but I'm gonna write them here later.
Enjoy it!