Page 136: Red Velvet Crumb Base and Page 74: Volcanoes

I had an ulterior motive for making the BabyCakes Red Velvet Cupcakes.  Turns out this other recipe, the Volcanoes, is one of those "make three things before you get here" recipes and I knew that by knocking out the cupcakes I'd have the starter (i.e. cupcake crumbs), to make two more recipes, the Red Velvet Crumb Base and the Volcanoes.

How do you make Volcanoes? Step one, make Red Velvet Cupcakes. Step two, crumble cupcakes and add oil and agave to make the Red Red Velvet Crumb Base.  Step three, shape crumb base into balls, create an indentation for frosting, and bake. Step four, fill with frosting.

Mind you that the cupcakes have already been baked, and I think I've made it clear they were rather dry. So imagine how much they were improved by being baked again. 

That's right - they weren't.

They had a certain burned quality to them, even though I took them out of the oven early. They were hard and not really tasty at all... even after piling as much frosting as possible on top.

Oh well - I am now TWO recipes closer to the end of the book!

Page 97: Red Velvet Cupcakes

Velvet? Not exactly.

As expected, these cupcakes turned out dry and dense and were only marginally improved by the addition of BabyCakes vanilla frosting.  

They weren't "ick! spit it out!" bad, but they were so dry they just crumbled when you tried to take a bite. I found that eating the top half only made the frosting ratio higher, and therefore made them slightly more enjoyable.

The good new? THAT WAS MY LAST CUPCAKE RECIPE! Hooray! I have to admit I'm rather sad that in the entire book there was only one cupcake that I would even consider making again (see Meyer Lemon and Bing Cherry Cupcakes), but I totally blame the gluten free flours and not the absence of eggs, milk, or butter.  

Another silver lining to the story? I took leftover cupcakes and finally had the chance to try out these cake balls I hear so much about (I'm looking at you, Angie and Amy). I crumbled the red velvet cupcakes, added a generous amount of BabyCakes vanilla frosting, and rolled them into balls before dipping them in melted chocolate chips.

Now these... they were downright good. Definitely the best use of a BabyCakes cupcake so far!

Page 125: Ice Cream Pie

I hosted another dinner party recently (okay, it was two months ago - I'm a bad blogger, I know).  As per usual, I used the gathering as an excuse to make another tasty BabyCakes recipe. I like to make the pies and cakes when I know we will have a larger group to help consume them, lest I have leftovers still tempting me when I arrive home from work after a particularly stressful Tuesday.

This ice cream pie starts with a crust made of BabyCakes double chocolate chip cookies.  Then you layer on two pints of vegan ice cream (I used the delicious Island Vanilla flavor of Luna & Larry's coconut milk ice cream), chocolate sauce, and more crumbled cookies.  If you look closely you'll also notice I took the creative liberty of adding a layer of crumbled cookies in between the pints of ice cream.

As you can see, we were all far too distracted with eating the pie to bother with taking pictures.  

This pie was good and relatively simple. You could go all out with different flavors of ice cream, too. I think a version featuring peanut butter would be genius.

So far, so good on the pies and cakes! Unfortunately, a cupcake recipe still remains on my "to bake" list so I fear failure looms in the near future. Stay tuned.

Page 136: Arnold Palmer

As it turns out, I did manage to acquire some tea and knock out the Arnold Palmer Recipe with the same batch of lemonade. I'm just posting it two months after the fact. Yes, I am that bad at blogging. Oh well.

But anyway... back to the point. Agave Lemonade + Yerba Mate Tea = The BabyCakes NYC Arnold Palmer.

It was pretty yummy. I mean we started with that yummy lemonade and added the unique flavor of yerba mate - so I can't say I'm surprised. I would definitely make this again. Well, that is if I ever have a dozen extra lemons sitting around my house that I need to use. Hey... it could happen.

Page 133: Agave Lemonade

I love lemonade!  Especially when it's more tart than sweet, and this agave-sweetened lemonade recipe is my idea of perfect beverage! Some might find it a bit sour, but you could always add more agave.  I thought it was delicious and so refreshing on this warm and sunny July afternoon!

You start with lots of lemons!

Squeeze them...

Add water and agave...

And enjoy over ice!

I'm sipping on it as I write and it's so lovely.  There's also a BabyCakes Arnold Palmer recipe I could so easily knock out right now, if only I had not just run out of yerba mate tea.  Hopefully I can squirrel some lemonade away until tomorrow so I can pick up some tea and check off yet another BabyCakes recipe.  I'll keep you posted!

Page 73: Sugarplum Cookies

I'm on a roll... back already with a new BabyCakes recipe!  Actually two, but I'll get to that later.

These Sugarplum Cookies (apparently also known as Mexican Wedding Cookies) were my last cookie recipe in the book and I've been putting them off for a long time because, quite frankly, they just didn't inspire me.  I've never had sugarplum cookies before and have to admit this is a recipe that I never would have made if I hadn't committed to working my way through the whole book (I mean, there are donuts waiting in book two, friends - DONUTS).  But... since I have committed... here they are.

The underlying cookie is a pretty simple but pretty sweet spice cookie with cinnamon and a hint of nutmeg.  After baking, they're coated in powdered sugar and filled with plum jam.

I was pleasantly surprised by these cookies.  First by the dough, which I ate plenty of in the baking process. Then by the finished product, because the plum jam is subtle and goes oh so well with the spice of the cookie and the super sweet powdered sugar coating.

Not sure these will make it on the staples list at my house but they were a nice treat.  And they are so cute!  Tasty AND cute.  What more could a girl ask for?

While I was in the kitchen I decided to knock out a BabyCakes drink recipe.  My post on BabyCakes Agave Lemonade coming soon!

Page 100: Meyer Lemon and Bing Cherry Cupcakes

It's cherry season!

I always know this because Whole Foods has their annual one-day cherry sale.  I now consider this day one of my favorite holidays of the year.  Last year I purchased five pounds and tried the BabyCakes cherry cobbler.  This year, I own a dehydrator... so I bought ten pounds!

How did I use ten pounds of cherries you may ask?  Well first, after I pulled out a bowl for us to munch on over the weekend, I spent the better part of Friday night standing over my sink pitting the remaining cherries.  And despite the purchase of a cherry pitter since last year's sale, my fingers remain slightly stained. 

First off, I removed 24 cherries to make the much anticipated BabyCakes Meyer Lemon and Bing Cherry cupcakes.  That didn't make much of a dent.  Next, I loaded my dehydrator - all five trays - with halved cherries and set it to dry.  We're set on dried cherries for awhile!

But I still had a couple pounds of pitted cherries looking for a delicious home.  So I began googling... and ended up making my first ever batch of jam.  Cherry jam!  Using this easy-peasy recipe.

It's so yummy ... and I love having jam in my fridge that I made myself.

But back to the highlight: the cupcakes.  I've been wanting to make these for quite awhile and finally got to check them off my list.

The cupcakes are lemon - made with both lemon extract and lemon infused agave nectar.  They are supposed to be Meyer Lemons but I couldn't find them on the island, so I just used regular lemons.

You add a cherry filling by inserting a layer of chopped cherries (bathed in the infused agave), between scoops of cupcake batter.

The frosting was the traditional BabyCakes vanilla frosting with some of the chopped cherry mixture folded into the frosting. Thanks to Jen, who recently left me a comment about the frosting - I used less milk this time which definitely seemed to help. I was short on coconut oil though so I need to give it another try and see if it sets up better with half the milk.

These were really good - definitely my favorite BabyCakes cupcake recipe so far - and likely the only one I would make again. They were still dense - but unlike other BabyCakes cupcakes they stayed really moist and were very tasty!  They also got rave reviews from the office-mates.  Hooray for a BabyCakes success story!