So each year for our holiday party, I like to find as many delicious recipes for mini food and mini desserts as possible. Last year’s mini eggnog cheesecakes were a big hit, so I thought I would do another mini cheesecake. I settled on this mini Oreo cheesecake recipe because they looked so cute with the small Oreo on top. Warning: As I mentioned last year, mini cheesecakes are not exactly an easy dessert to make. The recipe isn’t too complicated, but they’re time consuming. But trust me, these taste delicious so they’re probably worth the extra effort!
Category Archives: Cake
Apple Skillet Cake
I’ve been suffering from a bit of an apple obsession lately. We did our annual trip to the farm and picked 23 pounds of apples. And you can’t just eat 23 pounds of apples alone, so I’ve been doing a lot of apple oriented baking. My most recent find has been this apple skillet cake.
Apple Crumble Cake
So normally I am a huge proponent of the crumble because it’s a relatively healthy dessert when made in a certain way (see my previous post). This crumble cake is absolutely in a different category. You can not tell yourself this is healthy when you are eating it. That said, THIS IS AMAZING. It is so fantastic. It basically tastes like apple pie with a scoop of ice cream on top, but all in a piece of cake. So if you’re feeling a bit decadent, make this for your next BBQ or outdoor party!
Lemon Rosemary Buttermilk Cake with Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting
I love lemon. I also love rosemary. So when I was picking what dessert to make for Valentine’s Day, this cake was a no brainer. I know some people are averse to cake because it’s too dense, or too dry. But this cake has buttermilk and whipped egg whites mixed in, so it is so light and fluffy. It’s also a very universal cake. You could do it for birthdays, holidays, whatever.
Also here is a peek at what I did for Valentine’s Day for my friends this year. I made 5 different kinds of cookies and bagged them into festive bags I found at Target. We ended up having a snow day on Valentine’s Day, so I had to drive around delivering cookies since I wasn’t able to give them away at school and I didn’t want to eat them all myself!!
Angel Food Cake (GF and Regular)
I have very fond memories of angel food cake from my childhood. This cake is so light and fluffy, and goes so well with so many toppings, which is probably why we ate it at lots of family birthday celebrations. So in honor of my birthday tomorrow, my grandmother’s birthday on Wednesday, and my mom’s birthday next Sunday (yes Septembers were really crazy in our house), I wanted to share these recipes with you all.
While I was home in California this summer, I decided to do a taste test and bake a regular angel food cake, and a gluten free version (my mom has celiac disease). My awesome friend Jenny (who also has a birthday this coming week) helped, and I have to say they were both equally delicious. So if you’re entertaining anyone in the near future who has celiacs, I definitely recommend this cake. And if not, well go ahead and make it for yourself. Just be prepared to go through a carton of egg whites!
Roasted Balsamic Strawberry Buttermilk Cake
Once strawberries are in season, I usually buy several containers every week. I just can’t get enough. I saw this recipe and knew I had to partake. Buttermilk always does something so amazing to dough, it’s so light and airy. And the strawberries just make it even better. I’m dairy free so I didn’t serve it with anything else, but this would have been amazing with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream!
Peach Cake with Peach Cream Cheese Frosting and Burnt Sugar Shards
As you know by now, I recently threw a birthday party and went slightly overboard with dessert (think two cakes as well as cupcakes). This was one of the cakes that I made – and if I say so myself, by far the best one. Sometimes fruit cakes tend to lose the flavor of the fruit they’re supposed to embody, but this one absolutely does not. You can taste the peach in both the cake and the frosting, and the cake is even topped with a few peaches that you cook down. I highly recommend this cake for a summer birthday or party.
Cake Decorating 101
There’s just something so fun about decorating a cake. Perhaps it’s because it really just feels like a middle school art class. But here’s the thing, people don’t actually love cake as much as they do other desserts. So I now try to hold off on making them unless it’s for a special occasion. But that doesn’t mean that I can’t go over the top with decorations every chance I get. There’s really no rules to cake decorating besides having fun with it. Simple is great, and so is over the top. So below I’ve put together a list of some of my favorite techniques I’ve done. Note: for the pictures of my creations, a lot of them are from my pre-blog days, so I apologize for the quality of the photos!
1. Straws – I got this idea originally from Pinterest and I’ve done it in two different ways in the last year. For the first, I used two straws to create a mini bunting strand that said happy birthday. Very easy, but very effective. For the frosting itself, I just did a messy layer. To get this messy layer, use a knife with a rounded edge and sort of move it in swooping motions. The less perfect, the better.
The Most Patriotic Cake Ever – An American Flag
So if you’re hosting a little Fourth of July get together, or are in charge of bringing dessert to the BBQ you are attending, then pay attention. This cake is what you should bring. And the best part is that it’s really versatile. Even if you don’t get a chance to make it this week for the Fourth, you can make it another time! I’ve done it as two round cake layers for birthdays, and as a large rectangle that I decorated as a flag for the Fourth last year. I even just did it yesterday for the joint birthday party I threw (more pictures to come)!
Apple Cake with Caramel Frosting
Most of the time, I pick cakes based on the aesthetics. It’s one of the reasons I love cakes. You can make them so beautiful, and they make such a great statement when presented at a dinner party. I recently tried this one out and I loved how the flavors of caramel and apple complemented each other perfectly! This is definitely not a fast dessert to make, but if you’re in the mood for cake, I highly recommend it.
the petite croissant 