Ice Cream Cone Ruffle Tree Cake

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend! I definitely enjoyed a weekend full of holiday baking (finally!!) so get ready for a week packed full of amazing sweets and treats with quick and easy ideas for all your holiday baking needs. First up is this winter wonderland cake I have been imagining for quite some time now. I am thrilled to share with you how simple and festive this cake is that you will be able to throw together in no time.

Recently I had the privilege of receiving some cake mixes to try from The Cake Mix Doctor. I'm sure you all have seen these cookbooks before am I right? Well Anne Byrn, the mastermind behind these books has recently launched a new line of cake mixes and I was lucky enough to get to sample some! Three boxes of cake mix (yellow & chocolate), recipe cards and a book full of frosting recipes showed up at my door...it was a GREAT day! Anne's dream was to create a line of cake mix that tasted like it was made from scratch, tender and moist and didn't have any artificial colorings or trans-fat. Well she has done just that and I must say her cakes are truly delicious!

So just in time for Christmas, the season of baking, cake making, recipe sharing and gift giving I'm here to share with you a winter wonderland cake that features Anne's Old Fashioned-Yellow Cake Mix. My vision was to create a white cake that looked like it was covered in snow and topped with some super simple ruffle Christmas trees. I iced the cake using one of Anne's signature recipes, Fluffy Marshmallow Frosting (recipe below) and covered the entire cake in shredded coconut. Yellow Cake + Marshmallow + Coconut = 1 amazing cake

Both the cake and frosting can be made in a matter of minutes! This is a huge time saver when we are all pressed for time during the holidays! So keeping with the them of quick and simple, the cake topper trees can be made in a matter of minutes as well. I always freeze any left over icing I have from previous projects, so I happened to have some buttercream icing on hand to use for the trees.

Here are the supplies you will need to create the trees:

Ice Cream Cone Ruffle Trees
-Sugar cones
-buttercream frosting (tinted desired colors)
-Wilton tip #103
-piping bags

1. Holding the base of the ice cream cone grab your piping bag fitted with tip 103. With the thin part of the tip toward you start piping in a slight up and down motion going around the cone to create a ruffle effect.
2. Continue with this same technique, layer by layer until the entire cone is covered in frosting.
3. Place a wooden skewer into the cone and stick finished cone into a styrofoam block until you are ready to place on top of the cake.

See below for pictures.

I am absolutely in love with how these ruffled trees turned out and they came together in a matter of minutes! If you so desire, feel free to add some sprinkles to the trees for a pop of color to look like they are covered in lights!

Living in Mobile, AL it sure hasn't felt the least bit like winter so far this year. The temps have still been getting into the 70s during the day! But just looking at this coconut covered cake makes me think of winter, cold air and snow that we will hopefully see when we travel to KY this week to spend Christmas with my family!

As promised above here is the recipe for the frosting!

Fluffy Marshmallow Frosting (The Cake Mix Doctor's Icing on the Cake)

1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 tablespoons water
3 large egg whites
1 jar (13 oz) marshmallow creme
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1. Place the sugar, water, and egg whites in a heavy medium-size saucepan over low heat. Cook, beating continuously with an electric hand mixer on high speed, until soft peaks form, 2 to 3 minutes.
2. Remove the pan from the heat. Add the marshmallow creme and the vanilla and beat the mixture with the mixer on high speed until stiff peaks form, 2 minutes. Use the frosting at once.

So if you are looking for the perfect gift to give all the bakers in your life, why not give them the gift of cake! Check out The Cake Mix Doctor website and order some mixes online. Or check out the list of stores that currently sell the mixes. You could even put together an entire gift basket with all the supplies needed to make this Ice Cream Cone Ruffle Tree Cake. Fill the basket with cake pans, piping tips, coconut, sugar cones and of course the cake mix and you have got one perfect gift for the cake lover!

I hope you will give this cake a try!

Tropical Pineapple Cupcakes

Before we officially say goodbye to summer, and head into the fall baking season I wanted to share with you one more tropical recipe that you can enjoy as we savor these last few weeks of beach weather! I had intended to post this sooner so you may have already seen the recipe over on Half Baked. We were out of town over Labor Day weekend visiting family, came home to our air conditioner not working and then little Sam got sick, so it's been a rocky start these first few days of September! So anyways, here are my Pineapple & Coconut cupcakes with cream cheese frosting and dried pineapple flowers on top! Enjoy these last few days of summer!

Check back soon for some fun cookie posts up next!

Italian Cream "Snowball" Cupcakes

Happy New Year! WOW it has been a LONG time since I have posted, and I am so sorry! Things were a little hectic with the holidays, work, traveling and family during the month of December so my baking adventures were very sparse...unlike past years! I am happy to finally be back on the blog today to share with you a new cupcake recipe for Italian Cream "Snowball" cupcakes!

I did get to experience one crazy snow day while visiting my family in KY a few weeks ago...lets just say the roads were covered in ice and I got stuck on a hill and couldn't get up it for about 30 minutes. I do not miss the the snowy cold weather at all...boy am I glad to be back in Mobile where the temps are in the mid 60-70s during the winter!

I had a great time making these cupcakes in KY with family a few times over the holidays. Head on over to Half Baked for the recipe. You have gotta try these fluffy little cakes packed full of coconut and walnuts and topped with cream cheese frosting! It's a family recipe and one that we absolutely love!

Wishing you all a wonderful 2012!

Snowball Cake

Hello CIS readers! I am so sorry I have been away for over a week now! That is totally not like me at all, but I have had a few more important things than baking going on with my family so my sugar cravings have taken a back seat lately. Lucky for you I had made this Snowball cake a few weeks ago for my friend Renie's birthday, but hadn't posted it yet. I am back home in KY right now and there were a few snow flurries on Tuesday so I figured there was still time to post a cake related to snow before Spring arrives!

I decided to make 2 sizes of the snowball cake from the same recipe. One small. One large.

Afterall, I needed to have one cake to cut into for photo purposes right? Or was it taste testing?

And the large cake was taken to my friend Renie's birthday party!

I got the inspiration for this cake from the Kraft Food & Family Magazine Snowball Cake. Although their chocolate cake & creamy filling looked delicious, I decided instead that my family's Italian Cream Cake recipe would be absolutely perfect since it contained coconut inside the cake and would pair nicely with a coconut garnish on the outside of the cake.

The end result was a moist and light cake with a fluffy coconut topping that definitely reminded me of a big pile of snow. Typically when I make this cake I garnish the top with walnuts, but I must admit I loved the extra coconut on the outside this time around! You have gotta try this recipe!

Snowball Cake (Italian Cream Cake with Cream Cheese Icing)

For the Cake

Ingredients:
-1 stick butter, softened
-2 cups sugar
-2 cups all-purpose flour
-1 cup buttermilk
-1 bag (14 oz) flaked coconut (use 1/2 cup for cake, remaining for garnish)
-5 egg whites, stiffly beaten
-1/2 cup vegetable shortening
-5 egg yolks
-1 teaspoon baking soda
-1 teaspoon vanilla
-1/2 cup chopped walnuts

• In large bowl, cream butter and shortening with electric mixer.
• Add sugar and continue beating until mixture is smooth.
• Add egg yolks and beat well.
• Combine flour and baking soda. Add alternately with buttermilk and scrape down sides of bowl as necessary.
• Stir in vanilla, 1/2 cup coconut and walnuts.
• Fold in beaten egg whites.
• Pour batter into greased large Pyrex glass bowl.
• Bake at 350 degrees for 55-60 minutes or until cake tests done. (This cake can also be baked in three 8-inch round cake pans for 25 minutes)
• Allow cake to cool in bowl for about 20 minutes, then flip out onto cake plate to continue cooling.

For the Icing

Ingredients:
-1 stick butter, softened
-1 8 oz block Cream Cheese, softened
-5 cups confectioners' sugar
-1 tsp vanilla

• In bowl, mix butter and cream cheese with electric mixture until creamy.
• Gradually add in confectioners' sugar beating well after each addition.
• Mix in vanilla.
• Frost cake with icing and garnish with remaining coconut flakes to create "Snowball" look.
• Add a decorative flag on top labeled as "Snowball Cake" to finish off the cake.

Have you ever baked a cake in a bowl? If so what recipe did you use?

Cupcake a Week: Samoa Minis

Well as most of you probably know, February is Girl Scout cookie month! I'm sure you've seen those cute little girls outside of the super markets this month selling these famous colorful boxes of cookies for their troops or have already bought one, two, three or more boxes from one of the girls in your neighborhood. I have been ordering girl scout cookies for as long as I can remember since my sister was involved in girl scouts as we were growing up. My favorites have always been the Red Box - Tagalongs (chocolate & peanut butter), the Green Box - Thin Mints and the Purple Box - Samoas (chocolate, coconut & caramel). So since we have already bought and eaten half way through several boxes of cookies this year, I thought it would be fun to try and recreate one of my favorite cookies as a cupcake!

So here goes my attempt at making a Samoa cupcake. The 3 most important ingredients: coconut, caramel and chocolate.

I had to steal this box away from my husband because he had already eaten 2 rows of the cookies in 2 days.

I love the 3 layers of oooey gooey goodness on this cookie. The caramel topped with the toasted coconut and then the drizzle of chocolate...these 3 flavors together are delicious! And when you bite into the cookie and the caramel stretches out into a thin string that hangs from your mouth, that makes your lips all sticky...you know what I'm talking about right...or I am just a slob when eating these cookies????

And the coating of chocolate on the bottom side of the cookie is a special treat too! I used to put these cookies on my finger as a kid and pretend that they were a ring...did anyone else do that too? So now that I've gushed about all the features that make me absolutely love this cookie, let's talk about how to turn the flavors found in this cookie into a cupcake!

I started going through all different types of cupcake recipes, looking for ones that had at least one of the key ingredients: coconut, caramel or chocolate in them. I decided I wanted to make pretty traditional flavored yellow cupcake but I substituted the granulated sugar with brown sugar to help bring out a caramel flavor in the cake. Once I had the base of the cupcake batter made I then melted some caramels and mixed in along with some coconut flakes to add some extra textures and layers of flavors in the cake.


While the cupcake were cooling, I toasted some more coconut in the oven that I used for a garnish on top.

I melted some more caramels and drizzled over the cupcakes.

Then sprinkled on the toasted coconut.

And we can't forget about the chocolate. Don't worry about making the garnishes look perfect like the cookie...I just wanted to drizzle them on quickly and roughly that way each cupcake is unique and some are more ooey gooey than others...those are the best!

So what do you think...have I made a pretty good Samoa cupcake cookie replica? Have I convinced you to go out and buy a box of these cookies or whip up a batch of these cupcakes! I promise you won't be disappointed with either one of them, they are both delish! These cupcakes baked up so fluffy and moist with little pockets of caramel tucked inside.

Samao Minis Cupcakes (makes 36 mini cupcakes)

Ingredients:
-1 1/2 sticks butter, softened
-1 1/4 cups light brown sugar
-3 eggs
-1 tsp vanilla extract
-2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
-2 tsp baking soda
-1/4 tsp baking powder
-1/2 tsp salt
-3/4 cup milk
-1/2 cup coconut flakes
-6 Kraft caramels, melted with a splash of water

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line mini cupcake tins with paper liners.
• Combine butter and brown sugar in bowl of electric mixer and cream together on medium speed.
• Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add vanilla and mix.
• Combine the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt in a bowl.
• Add the flour mixture and milk to the creamed butter and sugar alternating the dry and wet ingredients in 3 batches.
• Melt the caramels in the microwave in 30 second intervals, stirring in between until smooth. Pour melted caramel into the batter and stir.
• Add the coconut and stir.
• Divide batter evenly into prepared cupcake liners.
• Bake for 14-16 minutes. Let cool before adding toppings.
  

Toppings:
-8 Kraft caramels, melted with a splash of water
-1/2 cup coconut flakes, toasted
-1/2 cup semi sweet chocolate chips, melted

• Melt the caramels in the microwave in 30 second intervals, stirring in between until smooth. Drizzle melted caramel over the cupcakes.
• Sprinkle toasted coconut over caramel topped cupcakes.
• Melt the semi sweet chocolate chips in the microwave in 30 second intervals, stirring in between until smooth. Drizzle melted chocolate over the cupcakes.

If you have another Girl Scout cookie that is your favorite and you want me to recreate it as a cupcake leave me a comment and just maybe your cookie flavor will be featured as a cupcake in an upcoming post!

ENJOY!