Weekend In Review - Indiana Pumpkin Patch

Ian and I visited the County Line Orchard in Hobart, Indiana this weekend. We had a great time as always! There was a corn maze, pumpkin patch, apple orchard and plenty of donuts and cider. Until next year!

Whoopie{!} Pies

As of late, Whoopie Pies have become all the rage. I may even be so bold as to say they are replacing the cupcake altogether. After being signed up to make dessert (thanks Diane) for a Saturday night dinner, it was time to try my hand at this dessert. Diane and I had a great time making them and the result was far better than either of us expected.

The cake batter was delicious and rich and they baked exactly how they were supposed to. Thanks in part to Diane's timer skills and our new oven, which is much better than our old one.

The recipe came from Rose's Heavenly Cakes, but originally came from the pastry chef at Two Fat Cats Bakery in Portland, Maine. I am dying to go to this place. As I am not sure the legality of posting original recipes online, I will just give you a general overview. The recipe for the cake is fairly simple, you just blend together eggs, sugar, butter dutch processed cocoa powder chocolate and flour +/- a few other ingredients.

The "Marshmallow Cream" was a bit more complicated. You are basically making candy by melting down corn syrup and sugar in a saucepan and then mixing it in with egg whites. Finally you mix that in with whipped butter and powdered sugar. The result was the silky, glossy buttercream you find in your local bakery. It was so good, I couldn't believe we made it. I mean, it didn't turn out exactly the way she explained it, but it was store-quality buttercream.

You just scoop a dollop of the marshmallow cream into the pies and press together. These pies went fast at the dinner; always a good sign.

Obligatory Whoopie Pie bite shot. I didn't get any shots of the final product because we were too busy eating the extra pie leftovers. So, so good.

Baby

My coworker is expecting -now past due-and I was asked to help decorate (see above - the extent of my artistic prowess) and bake cupcakes for her shower. I gladly accepted and used the opportunity as an excuse to buy myself a cupcake caddy. I may never use it again, but for the purpose of bringing 24 cupcakes to work, this thing is amazing.

 

 

As far as the cupcakes go, they were as expected. This was my work baking debut, so I was already nervous, but they came out alright. Just alright. The frosting hardened, and as with most baked goods they are best fresh, so they were a bit dry. All in all they worked out, but next time I would use a different buttercream recipe and bake them the morning of instead of the night before. 

For these cupcakes, I used the yellow butter cake recipe out of Rose's Heavenly Cakes. For the buttercream I followed a recipe from Smitten Kitchen. The recipe consisted of whipping butter for a few minutes and then adding four cups of powdered sugar in slowly. The result was overly sweet and heavy. I was looking for the light, whipped, glossy buttercream you get in stores. I am working on it.