Pumpkin Tart with a Chocolate Crust

When I bought some tart pans a few months ago, I searched Pinterest for a few good tart recipes. Sadly, most of the recipes I came across were "fall" recipes (pumpkin, maple, etc.) After several months of waiting, I'm finally able to make use of my tart pans. The first recipe I wanted to try was this pumpkin tart with a chocolate crust (from the Martha Stewart website.)

Sadly, I discovered that I had a lot to learn about tarts! First, I found this dough to be a bit troublesome; it seemed far too dry when I first mixes it (though once the butter "melted" it did form a nice dough.) However, that was not my biggest problem. When I baked the dough and removed it from the oven, I removed the hot pan holding the bottom piece of the tart pan. This caused the sides to slide away from the pan and land on my forearm. The hot pan burned my arm and caused me to drop the crust (which shattered into hundreds of pieces!

After making a second crust (and baking it with a cookie sheet underneath), I finally made the pumpkin filling and finished baking my tart. When it finished cooling, I added the decorative spider web. Although it was a bit of work (especially since I had to make two crust), I am quite happy with the final product - hopefully it will taste as good as it looks and smells!

---

Chocolate Tart Crust

1 c. all-purpose flour
¼ c. plus 1 T. sugar
¼ c. unsweetened cocoa powder
½ t. salt
½ t. cinnamon
½ c. (1 stick) cold butter
1 egg
4 oz. semisweet chocolate

Mix flour, sugar, cocoa powder, salt, and cinnamon. Divide butter into small pieces and cut into dry mixture until butter pieces are the size of peas. Add the egg and mix until it forms dough. Roll the dough to approximately 1/8 inch on a well-floured surface. Press the rolled dough into a 10-inch tart pan (with a removable bottom.) Use a fork to prick the crust bottom, and refrigerate for 30 minutes. Bake for 15 minutes at 350°F. Carefully remove from oven and add finely chopped chocolate over the warm crust. Spread with a spatula until completely melted and smooth.


Pumpkin Filling
1 can (15 oz) Pumpkin (not pie filling)
¾ c. light brown sugar
8 oz. sour cream
3 large eggs
1 t. cinnamon
1 t. ground ginger
¼ t. nutmeg
¼ t. salt
2 oz. semisweet chocolate (optional)

Combine all ingredients except for chocolate and stir until smooth. (Pass mixture through a sieve if large chunks remain.) Pour into chocolate crust and bake at 350°F for 40-50 minutes. Let cool on a rack for at least 30 minutes. Melt chocolate in a double boiler until the chocolate is smooth and creamy. Pour into a plastic bag with a small hole cut in a bottom corner. Pipe a spider web design on the top of the cooled pumpkin. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour (up to 1 day.)

Le Poisson D'avril

These fish cupcakes were featured in Cupcakes, Cookies & Pies, Oh, My! and I've been wanting to try them for some time. Since today is poisson d'avril - or April Fish (our April Fool's Day), I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to use my fish.

I used a simple Devil's Food box mix (with a few added ingredients to improve the taste. For the decorating, I used buttercream frosting tinted with either orange or green to make the fish. I had originally planned to make twelve fish, but I ate a few too many M&Ms the day before...so I only had enough for eight. Fortunately, the cupcakes didn't pose much of a challenge. I added the M&Ms to make the scales, and then flattened gumdrops for the fins. (I was rather surprised at how easy it was to flatten the gumdrops - though I did have to use toothpicks to support the rear fin.) Sadly, I felt my fish were a little lacking when compared to those in the book - though I'm assuming the authors are slightly more professional than me.)

Easter Chicks

With Easter just around the corner, I wanted to take a spring-themed treat for my co-workers. Although I was hoping to make these cute lamb cookies, I had to settle for these chick cupcakes since I could not find a lamb cookie cutter. (However, the chick cupcakes were something I'd seen on Pinterest long ago - so I had wanted to make them.

Fortunately, the original online posting actually gave very detailed directions on how to make these (even including the tip numbers used to make the feet, beaks, and wings.) I started with a simple layer of yellow buttercream frosting, which I then dipped in yellow sugar. After adding two chocolate chips for the eyes, I used tip #102 to make the wings. Sadly, the buttercream frosting didn't stick well to the sugar-coated topping. If I was making these cupcakes over again, I would definitely add the wings before coating the cupcake in sugar! After adding the wings, I made some orange frosting and added the beak and feet with tip #2 (though they too had trouble sticking to the sugar.)

Lemon Chiffon Cake

Although I have ventured away from cakes (in favor of cookies and bars), I had to try this recipe when I was flipping through one of my old Betty Crocker cookbooks. Although I have never made a chiffon (or angel food) cake from scratch, it seemed to be a relatively easy process. The only challenging thing was zesting the lemons (since I don't have a zester - and the online recommendation of using a potato peeler didn't work that well.) I look forward to cutting into my cake tomorrow to see if it tastes as good as it looks!

---

Lemon Chiffon Cake

2 c. all-purpose flour or 2¼ c. cake flour

1½ c. sugar

3 t. baking powder

1 t. salt

¾ c. cold water

½ c. vegetable oil

2 t. vanilla

1 T. grated lemon peel

7 large egg yolks (with all-purpose flour) or 5 large egg yolks (with cake flour)

1 c. large egg whites(about 8)

½ t. cream of tartar

Preheat oven to 325°. Mix flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl. Beat in water, oil, vanilla, lemon peel, and egg yolk on low speed until smooth. With clean beaters, beat egg whites and cream of tartar in a large bowl on high speed until stiff peaks form. Gradually mix egg yolk mixture over beaten eggs, folding into the egg whites. Bake in an ungreased 10 in. tube pan for 1 hour and 15 minutes or until top springs back when touched lightly. Let hang upside down for about 2 hours (or until completely cooled.)

Vanilla Glaze

1/3 c. butter

2 c. powdered sugar

1½ t. vanilla

2 to 4 T. hot water

Melt butter. Remove from heat and mix in sugar and vanilla. Add hot water one tablespoon at a time until smooth and consistency of thick syrup. Spoon onto the top of cake, allowing glaze to drip down cake's sides.

Cake #32: Italian Cream Cake

Although not the prettiest cake in town, this Italian Cream Cake is one of the best-tasting cakes one could ever imagine! The recipe creates a 3-layer cake that is stuffed with pecans and coconut and then covered in an ultra-sweet cream cheese icing. This cake is bound to be well-liked; however, I will warn that the extreme richness will allow few to finish their slice!

---

Italian Cream Cake

1 cup Buttermilk

1 tsp. baking soda

5 eggs, separated

2 cups sugar

1 stick butter

½ cup shortening

2 cups flour, sifted

1 tsp. vanilla

1 cup chopped pecans

1 small can coconut

Combine soda and buttermilk and let stand. Before mixing cake, beat separated egg whites until stiff. Set aside. Cream sugar, butter, and shortening. Add egg yolks, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add buttermilk alternately with flour to creamed mixture. Stir in vanilla. Fold in egg whites. Gently stir in pecans and coconut. Back in 3 9-inch greased, floured layer pans at 325 for 25-35 minutes. Frost cake with Cream Cheese Icing when cool.

---

Cream Cheese Icing

8 oz. cream cheese, softened

½ stick butter

1 box powdered sugar

1 tsp. vanilla

1 cup chopped pecans

Beat cheese and margarine until smooth. Add sugar and beat well. Add vanilla and pecans stir well. Frost cake between layers; on top, and on the sides.

Cake #31: Flower Patch Surprise

Last week, my boss celebrated her birthday; unfortunately, with so many coworkers in-and-out of the office, we didn't get a chance to celebrate until today. For some odd reason, we decided that the theme of her party should be opossums (it was based on a joke shared at our last staff meeting.) My coworkers had hoped that I would make a "opossum" cake - but I was unsure how exactly one goes about making a "opossum" cake.

My original plan was to create a garden of cupcakes, and then add a small fondant opossum to one of the cupcakes. After working hours to create the flowers, I didn't really feel that I had time to experiment with fondant modeling; therefore, I scraped the opossum idea and decided to merely make a hilly, flowered meadow.

Cake #30: A Howling Good Cupcake

Although I'm leaving for vacation in a couple days, I still somehow got roped into baking the birthday cake for one of my co-workers. Since I was a little pressed for time, I decided to bake cupcakes so that the bake time would be reduced. Fortunately, the co-worker celebrating her birthday is a big supporter of wolves (she and her husband apparently do a lot of volunteer work trying to preserve the wolf's habitat.)

Anyway, I had been wanting to make these "wolf" cupcakes from Hello, Cupcake for awhile, so I thought this would be the perfect occasion. To make the wolf, I cut a large marshmallow to make the snout and ears. Then, I covered the entire cupcake in chocolate frosting using the leave tip. For a finishing touch, I adding a few M&Ms for the nose and eyes.

Cake #29: "Hot Chocolate" Cake

A couple months ago, a former colleague emailed me a recipe for a cake-in-a-mug, which gave me the idea for these delightful holiday gifts for my current co-workers. The original recipe created an individual serving that could be baked in the microwave. Unfortunately, the resulting cake was far from desirable; the microwaved-cake was extremely dense and ill tasting...in fact, it reminded me of the cake/brownie commonly found in frozen TV dinners.

However, since I liked the mug-cake idea so much, I decided to use the idea - only instead of baking the cake directly in the mugs, I used a traditional cake mix in Wilton's extra-large cupcakes. I, then, merely topped the cupcakes with a generous amount of buttercream; finally, I added a peppermint stick for decoration (I had originally planned to also top these with chocolate sprinkles, but I accidentally forget to add them before I had the mugs wrapped...)

Cake #28: Happy Birthday, Lynne

Since I was somewhat pressed for time this week, I chose this relatively simple design to celebrate a co-workers birthday. The cake was merely frosted in a basic white-buttercream; then, I added various strips of colored-fondant to create the exterior border.

After completing the fondant strips, I completed the look by adding purple-buttercream dots around the top and bottom of the stripes. Finally, I pulled out my best penmanship to add her name as the final touch.

Cake #27: The Great Pumpkin Patch

Since there are a couple Halloween cakes I plan on trying this year, I thought I'd get an early start by making these simple pumpkin cupcakes (from Hello, Cupcake.) These easy cupcakes were made by mounding a large lump of buttercream frosting atop a French Vanilla cupcake. After smoothing the icing, I merely dipped them in orange sugar crystals.

To finish the cupcakes, I added a short section of watermelon twizzler (from a Rainbow favored pack) for the stem. Finally, I used a slightly darker orange to create the line segments in the pumpkins flesh; I used a tip 3 to complete these lines, but I really wish I'd have used a larger tip.

Cake #26: Give a Hoot

This past weekend, one of my co-workers celebrated her birthday, so I decided to make some Owl cupcakes, from Hello, Cupcake, in her honor. Later this month when I have my "Kids in the Kitchen" program, I plan on having the children make these owl cupcakes. Since I was unsure of exactly how these would turn-out, I decided to kill two birds with one stone by using my practice cupcakes for her birthday celebration.

To make these cupcakes, I began by coating each cupcake with a base-layer of store-bought chocolate frosting. I then added two frosted-halves of Oreo cookies with a small Junior mint for the pupil. For the beak, I simply used a yellow M&M (the book called for a banana Runt, but for some reason I couldn't locate any Runts at my local stores!) Finally, I finished the face by adding some chocolate-frosting "feathers" with my leaf-tip #352.

Cake #25: Jon's Birthday

Today is Jon's 26^th birthday, so I had to bake him a cake (especially since he was so sweet and bought me a wonderful little cake back in January for my birthday!) Since he normally complains that my cakes are too feminine, I knew I'd have to make something especially manly for him.

I wasn't really sure what to bake for him... At first, I considered making him a faux pecan pie cake - a thin layer of tan-colored fondant lining a pie plate with a single-layer cake inside. (Jon happens to hate pecan pie (which I love!) Anyway, when I mentioned this idea, he didn't seem at all impressed by my idea; in fact, I believe he openly refused to eat such a cake! So, I had to come up with something else.

Jon also has a complete weakness for Hershey "Cookies 'n Cream" bars. So, I decided to simply make him a cake completely covered with candy-pieces. I stenciled his name in Oreo crumbs and then added small chucks of chocolate to cover the cake. To finish the look, I added more cookie crumbs along the bottom to form a simple border.

I hope he likes it!

Cake #24: Dirt Cake for Kids

This afternoon, I had my first "Kids in the Kitchen" for the children at my library. I had the children make very basic dirt cakes with fun gummi worms. Each child was given a cupcake (which I had baked the night before) and they began by frosting them with store-bought chocolate frosting. Then, I gave each child a plastic bag with 2 Oreo cookies; by squeezing and pounding the bags, the children made their dark soil. (The kids really enjoyed getting to smash the crap out of some Oreos!)

We made two holes in the cupcake tops by inserting a straw and pulling it back out (the kids also enjoyed sucking the cake and frosting from inside the straw.) Finally, we added two gummi worms to the holes to finish off the garden look...though I'm not sure how many worms there are in the Arizona desert!

The kids greatly enjoyed making (and eating) their little dirt cupcakes. The only thing that I didn't like was the speed at which the kids worked. From start to finish, it only took about 15 minutes to complete their cupcakes. Guess they'll just have to make two cupcakes next month!

Cake #23: Goodbye, Dan and Jan

Two of my co-workers are being transferred to a different department this week, and I was somehow coerced into baking the cake. I must admit that I had a great deal of difficulty in selecting a design; apparently going away cakes aren't that popular.

My original plan was to frost my cake in this blue icing and then add several expressions of farewell (So long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, goodbye.) My plan was to write the words on wax paper and then freeze them so that they could easily be transferred to the top of my cake; sadly, the frozen buttercream transfer technique did not work with single letters/words - instead the icing merely stuck to the wax paper, refusing to "transfer".

This left me again having to resort to a "plan B" at the last minute. (I mean really, does it seem like I'm getting worse and worst with each cake I make!) My first though to salvage this cake was to merely write free-hand across the top of the cake; however, after make first letter, I quickly decided that wasn't an answer (and I now had a large "G" to cover!) So, I resorted to using the Wilton templates I purchased long ago.

While I did have much better luck with the stencils on this attempt, the letters were many times too small for the size cake I chose. If the letters had been 2-3 times bigger, this design might have worked. I will say that I love the gumpaste daisies; they look so nice and are amazing easy to make!

Cake #22: Starry Night

As I mentioned in my last post, I have been wanting to try my hand at a frozen buttercream transfer. After seeing Van Gogh's Starry Night on cupcakes in the book Hello, Cupcake, I thought it would make the perfect design for my first buttercream transfer.

After last week's failed attempt at baking a sheet cake, I decided I was going to break down and actually buy a Wilton cake pan designed specifically for sheet cakes. Since my cake last week had been so short, I decided I was going to compensate for this by using more mix. The directions on the cake pan called for approximately 7 cups of batter; I mixed two mixes (which should have yielded 9-12 cups.) My original plan was to use ¾ of the mixute in my sheet cake and then make an additional dozen cupcakes; however, when I started pouring the batter, the pan didn't look "full" until I had used all but the last cup...and what's the point of making just 3-4 cupcakes? So, I simply added the remaining cup in with the rest.

Well, 15 minutes into the baking process, I smell something burning; when I opened the oven, I discovered that the batter was erupting from the pan and coating the oven's bottom! Fortunately, I was able to add a cookie sheet beneath the cake to catch most of the spillage. Although a mess, I must say the end result was quite satisfactory; my cake was the prefect height and nearly flat.

To decorate this cake, I used a buttercream icing that was actually made with half shortening and half butter; this mixture was much more creamy than the all shortening mixture I usually use. It also taste much creamier - in fact, one friend compared it to the icing found in the middle of a twinkie. To make the buttercream transfer, I merely printed a color book outline of Van Gogh's painting, and started adding the color. I'm not entirely sure that Starry Night was the best topic for a buttercream transfer, but the idea of copying it free-hand just wasn't an option. The technique itself was fairly simply...although I would definitely using an easier picture next time. I will also warn that it is completely necessary to throughly tape the wax paper to the coloring sheet - I only used two small pieces of tape, which resulted in the paper warping (which led to unslightly line across my design.)

I finished the cake off with a quick shell border around the top and bottom, but the creaming icing and the warm weather didn't combine too well - resulting in the loss of several shells in the bottom left corner. Overall, I did enjoy experimenting with buttercream transfers and will definitely be trying this again in the future!

Cake #21: An Attempt at Elegance

When I first began baking this cake, I had hoped to try my hand at a frozen buttercream transfer; however, when I pulled my 9" x 13" cake from the over, I discovered that my simple layer cake was completely lop-sided! I don't know whether it was my pan or the oven rack, but one side of my cake was about 1½" while the other side was well over 2½".

Since my dream of a perfect layer cake with beautiful buttercream transfer was out the window, I made an attempt at salvaging the cake by cutting it in two and creating a layer cake. While this seemed like a good solution, the two layers failed to align, thus creating large gaps that were extremely difficult to frost.

Fortunately, the formal, yet simple, design for the top, which came from the Wilton Course 1 book, proved itself a good mask for some of the problems. This first usage of my Wilton comb on the sides leaves a lot to be desired; I choose to believe that had the cake itself been better shaped, the comb's results would have been much more satisfactory.

Although this cake is far from my original vision, I am rather proud of my salvage job! I know it's not 100% perfect, but I am fairly happy with the end result.

Cake #20: Raspberry Disaster

With the extreme heat of the Arizona summer, it's hard to get inspired to bake; however, since it has been over a month since my last caking adventure, I decided to finally head back to the kitchen.

I had seen this cute raspberry cake in one of the Wilton instruction books and thought it would be a fun and easy cake to try...boy was I wrong!

My problems arose from the usage of a whipped cream icing. Although I had never worked with it, it seemed simple enough (after all the recipe was basically just heavy cream and a couple tablespoons of sugar.) Unfortunately, I believe the cream just couldn't stand up to the heat of the Sonoran Desert - literally! No matter how hard I whipped the cream or how long I left it in the fridge, it just wouldn't remain stiff. When I tried to frost the cake, the whipped cream just wouldn't spread... and that which did stick to the sides just sank to the cakeboard moments later. I repeatedly tried chilling the cake, but nothing seems to work.

Fortunately, the vines and leaves did distract from the general sloppiness of the base layer; however, by adding the red raspberries, I was quickly able to lower the cake back to its original horridness. The fresh raspberries were dipped in red sugar, which didn't stick to the raspberries at all! Sadly, I didn't learn this lesson until after I added the first couple raspberries and scattered red sugar crystals all over the top of my cake.

Finally, due to the weakness of the whipped cream, the raspberries on the sides are completely too heavy and keep falling off...why did I bake again??? Looks like I need to stick to buttercream!!!

Cake #19: Ducks in a Barrel

Although I first saw this cake used for a baby shower, I thought it was just too cute not to try myself! I simply had to start by frosting an 8" round cake in light blue buttercream. Then, I added 1.25" strips of brown fondant to the sides to create the barrel; if I were to recreate this cake, I would use much thinner strips to create the illusion of a taller barrel. To complete the cake, I merely added two rubber ducks (purchased at Walmart for 50¢) and small blue bubbles crafted from fondant.

This cake was extremely simple and quite the hit at work! Plus, the evenly-sized strips of brown fondant along the sides made cutting the cake a breeze!

Cake #18: Basket o' Berries

Since it's been so extremely brutal at work the past few weeks, I wanted to take a special summer pick-me-up cake for a little relief; with Independence Day this Friday, I also decided my cake need to have a patriotic feel.

I originally saw this cake on Cakecentral a few months ago and knew I had to try it. I baked two 8" white cakes to make a 4-layer cake with strawberry-favored buttercream. Since I've used the basket weave technique on several different cakes, I decided to spice it up ever so slightly by using a different tip, which gave me the smooth weave. Unfortunately, I failed to tint my base layer of buttercream so there are several places where the white buttercream underneath glares out!

After completing the weave, I simply added a shell border around the top and then some fresh summer berries. I had originally hoped to use the rope border around both the top and bottom, but the amount of buttercream required to cover this cake was amazing; after competing the basket weave, I barely had enough left for the shells around the top!

Cake #17: I Want Candy!

I was recently showing one of my co-workers some of my favorite cakes from Cakecentral, and she absolutely fell in love with this candy cake! Since she went so far as to actually purchase the kit-kats for the cake, I feel that the least I could do was actually bake the cake.

This is by far the easiest cake I've made in a long, long time. I merely had to ice the chocolate cake in chocolate buttercream and then add the candy. To make this cake on an 8 inch round cake, it takes about 8 1/2 - 9 regular sized kit-kat bars. (I only used 8 1/2, but after seeing how much space I'd left between the candies, I wish I'd have gone ahead and used the full 9. I'm hoping that the extra spacing will at least make the slicing a little easier...) Then, I simply added about 3/4 pound of plain M&Ms to the top of the cake. Simple, huh? I'm sure this cake will be death by chocolate...but what a good way to go!