Let's Go Nuts for Doughnuts! - October '10 Daring Bakers

Talk about photo-finish. I've been busy trying to get ready for a vacation and then going on vacation that it took me til deadline to actually make the challenge this month.

The October 2010 Daring Bakers challenge was hosted by Lori of Butter Me Up. Lori chose to challenge DBers to make doughnuts. She used several sources for her recipes including Alton Brown, Nancy Silverton, Kate Neumann and Epicurious.

We were also given a choice to make cake doughnuts or yeast doughnuts. I decided to go with Alton Brown's yeast doughnut - one which my son is more familiar with. He would be the one consuming the sinful goodies.

White Bread

We always have bread and usually buy the double loaf sold at Costco. But we ran out and we didn't want to buy another pair of loaves because we are going on vacation real soon. Anyway, I decided it's time I try to bake a loaf of bread.

I found a great recipe from Allrecipes.com with almost 2,000 5-star reviews - can't go wrong with that, right? I started at around 8:30pm, it was ready by 11pm. And yes, my son smelled the freshly baked bread and wanted to eat that late. I, of course, restrained myself.

Flower Pot Cake

Here's a really nice cake for Mother's Day or for a garden-theme party or for whatever occasion a flower pot cake would be a perfect fit. You can change the kind of fondant flowers you can put on the flower pot depending on the flower cutters you have or if you can pipe your flowers directly on the cake, even better. But since I've confessed that I'm not really good with piping anything, I'd stick with fondant flowers. In this case, daisies. I just made a few flowers in advance. I think about 12 or 15. Then on the day of serving the cake, I just placed them on top of the cake.

I made this cake for my mother-in-law's birthday. To create the pot shape,  I just baked my cake on a Pyrex 2-Cup measuring cup. I didn't think I'd be writing a blog when I made my first cakes. I wish I  took step-by-step photos. But I'll try to be descriptive as possible.

Here's how I did it.

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.