Decorated Sugar Cookies - September 2010 Daring Bakers Challenge

It's that time of the month again. Not THAT time of the month. The Daring Bakers Challenge time of the month.

The September 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Mandy of “What the Fruitcake?!” Mandy challenged everyone to make Decorated Sugar Cookies based on recipes from Peggy Porschen and The Joy of Baking.

Disney Fairies Cake

My god-daughter was turning 3 years old. She has been one of the few people who taste-tested my first fondant cake and she loved it. So, for her birthday party, I made this birthday cake for her. I had a month to prepare and plan for it. Her parents (my friends) were very supportive and really believed in me that I was both excited and anxious about it. They give me this Disney Fairies figurine set to put on the cake.

Baked Alaska and Petit Fours - August 2010 Daring Bakers Challenge

August was my first month as a Daring Baker. The Daring Kitchen is the home of The Daring Bakers and The Daring Cooks. The premise of both groups is to create one recipe each month, given to us by a monthly host. We all create the same exact recipe and then post about it on our personal blogs on a designated date. And so here I am on my first challenge and already a week late


The August 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Elissa of 17 and Baking. For the first time, The Daring Bakers partnered with Sugar High Fridays for a co-event and Elissa was the gracious hostess of both. Using the theme of beurre noisette, or browned butter, Elissa chose to challenge Daring Bakers to make a pound cake to be used in either a Baked Alaska or in Ice Cream Petit Fours. The sources for Elissa’s challenge were Gourmet magazine and David Lebovitz’s “The Perfect Scoop”.

I have to admit that I was nervous about this first challenge. Ice cream from scratch? Torch? Meringue? Petit Fours? Brown Butter? What??!? I got so close to foregoing the whole thing but then the weather got so hot that I decided...hmmm...maybe I can try making Ice Cream.

Fondant Baby Converse Shoes

This is my finale cake for my Wilton Class. I made Fondant Baby Converse shoes as a topper and gave this cake to my husband's coworker for her son's baptism.

My first encounter with a fondant cake was in a baby shower where the mother-to-be brought this beautiful cake with Pink Converse Shoes as topper. I've been thinking about it ever since and hoped to make something like it someday.

Here's the fruit of my research. I found the template from cakecentral. Thanks to stellarchild for sharing this.

Chocolate Banana Bread Pudding

After coming home from a quick weekend getaway, I realize that we have almost a full bag of buttermilk bread about to go stale. I wanted to avoid the inevitable waste, so I figured that I should whip up something to make it useful.

I found this recipe for pudding that had good reviews online and just tweaked it up a little bit to make it not too sweet. This is so yummy! My husband and son inhaled it. It's really good for using up old bread and over ripe bananas which is always the case in our house.

Cream Cheese Spirals

I wanted to try baking something different but had no idea what to do. So, I grabbed this Baking book I picked up from Barnes & Noble for $5 and looked for something that's simple and easy to do.

I picked Cream Cheese Spirals. I had all the ingredients and it will allow me to learn something new. It looked like it would be good with coffee for breakfast or dessert.

Decorating Basics: Wilton Method Course

I did a couple of cakes before I finally enrolled myself in a cake decorating class. Last April, I took Wilton Course 1: Discover Cake Decorating at our local Michael's store. The class cost $45 but they had a  50% off promo so I ended up just paying $22.50. We met once a week for 4 weeks.

I know Wilton recently revised the courses effective June 2010. They've removed the course numbering system that confused people into thinking they have to take the courses in sequence. And also removed duplicate topics between courses. But looking at the curriculum they posted online, it looks like the old Course 1 is so much like the new Decorating Basics class.

Here's what you should expect for the new class - DECORATING BASICS and links to the Wilton website of the How-tos.