Sunday, April 8, 2007

My Easter Cakes

For Easter I made two cakes. The cross cake is a carrot cake from the Cake Mix Doctor with cream cheese frosting. I make the Royal Frosting flowers a few weeks ago and let them dry. The only problem I encountered was that way the cake baked in the wilton cross pan, the edges browned and the very center of the cross didn't bake completely, just a tiny bit. Otherwise the cake turned out well.

Cross Carrot Cake:



















The other cake I made was the Old Fashioned Chocolate Cake from the Chocolate Cake Mix Doctor with chocolate frosting. Although the cake batter was very thick when I mixed it, I was surprised that it wasn't heavy, but moist and well textured when I torted it. The basketweave seemed to take forever, so I think I will get a wider basketweave tip for the future. All the flowers, except the big bluebell, I made at the same time as the others. The bluebell from was from my Wilton class. I liked the way it turned out and so did everyone at out Easter Lunch today!

Easter Basket Cake:



















A few weeks ago I made cookies for our annual women's retreat, they turned out great! I used the Pampered Chef Recipe for Classic Spritz Cookies. I colored the dough by adding the color to the butter mixture and before adding the flour, then after I added the flour, adjusted the color. I baked the cookie at 350 degrees, not at the degrees suggested. Same amount of baking time, and the cookies were perfect, kept their color and didn't brown on the edges. You have to remove them about two minutes after you take them out of the oven or they will stick and break if you wait too long.

I made the same recipe and made cookies for Easter. I colored the dough pink and purple and made more flowers and butterflies. I adjusted the color of the purple by making it darker with a bit more red and blue to the purple base color and they kept their color much better than they did when I made them back in February. I am pretty sure adjusting the temperature has helped keep the color and keep them from over cooking.

This is a picture of the cookies on the dessert plates:

1 comment:

Marcia said...

the cakes are very nice! I am supposed to make either a cross cake or cupcakes with crosses on them for the cubbie snack this week (I'm sure my little cubbie will be beyond thrilled that we're bringing the treats!).

Those cookies ... Oh my. Cookies are such a huge weakness for me!