Paris Cupcakes

The heat wave has finally passed and it is now acceptable to cook in my kitchen again! If you follow along The Boss’s “Paris Blog”, you will see here (the Notre Dame house) that the kitchen is about the size of my pinky finger. Without A/C in this joint and the temps hanging out around 98 degrees last week, I had been banned from turning on anything that could possibly create more heat in our house.

But alas, I give you, Paris Cupcakes! The toppers are hand piped using royal icing. What do you think?

I can’t tell you how popular cute little dogs are here in Paris! They are so well behaved too. In fact we have noticed that restaurants are a lot more welcoming to customers with little doggies than they are small children!

Sadly, I have not seen a pink French Poodle in person yet… only in sugar!

I especially love having the little Eiffel Towers in the background of these pictures. It’s fitting because I feel like where ever I am in the city, the tower is lurking somewhere behind!

Some of you have emailed and asked how the transition is going. I can tell you that we are in love with it over here, and hopefully you can see that in my cupcakes!

And lastly, I leave you with my Instagram photo of all of the poodles! Are you on Instagram? follow me for sneak peeks of what’s happening in real time in my little kitchen!

So far I have covered the French Poodle and Nutella! Are there any other iconic Paris symbols or flavors you want to see me tackle?

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Nutella Banana Cupcakes

You have read correctly! I have been in Paris for a mere month and I have already been absorbed by one of their most used and abused ingredients! Nutella. If you have ever walked past a crepe shop then you must have seen the number of combinations these guys can pair with this chocolately hazelnut treat.

For anyone who is not completely up to speed on what a crepe is, I’ll give you a little crash course. Basically on every street in Paris you can find signs like this:

Crepes come in both forms of “Sucrees” and “Savory”, otherwise known as dessert or dinner crepes. They are basically very thin, large pancakes that they make right in front of you. Once both sides have hit the heat, they spread the ingredients of choice on top and then fold it together into a triangle shape for easy eating while on the go.

So far my obsession has fallen squarely on the Nutella Banana option, and I don’t see that changing any time soon! But I had to ask myself, if I am going to make a go of it with a cupcake shop here in Paris, could I do justice to converting a Parisian staple into an American cupcake? I think so!

It began in the way that all of my new recipes do. With pencil and paper.

I broke out all of the main characters, and then made adjustments as I went along.

I will note that it is a significantly different experience baking in my new “galley style” kitchen than it was when I could bask in the open space of the kitchen back back in Virginia. Though it’s not a bad thing working in this kitchen, as it forces me to be a lot more organized going in to it and makes me clean up as I go!

After a short bit of time finding all the right tools scattered about our kitchen, the first batch of cupcakes for Bertie’s Bakery in Paris were ready to take the oven!

You will noticed that I ultimately decided against using the Nutella in the cupcake batter itself since I think it would have made the cake quite thick. This is not to say in the future, I would not go for a thicker, solo themed Nutella cupcake, but for now I wanted a lighter cake. So for this reason, I went with a banana cake and focused the Nutella aspect on the buttercream.

This was a good idea!

Believe me, the Nutella supply in Paris might just be in danger of a shortage. This might just be the best buttercream produced in  my kitchen! I might have to have a show down between my Mexican Chocolate buttercream and this new Nutella buttercream!

Thanks for everyone’s patience while I have settled in over the summer. It has been a crazy schedule to say the least, but I am finally feeling like I have found my place in my new home. There is soon to be a stream of baked goods back on the Bertie’s Bakery horizon!

And as an FYI to any Paris locals, I am looking for taste testers so if your interested let me know!

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Airplane Birthday Cake!

Wow, what a weekend I had! The weekend was actually so busy that by the time I sat down on Sunday night to write my post, I fell asleep on my computer before any of the pictures had a chance to download! So I apologize for the delay, I hope you’ll think it was worth the wait!

The creative inspiration for the cake came solely from the invitation that was sent to the guest. I really wanted the topper on this cake to be the stand out! Here’s what the invitation looked like so you can compare!

This cake was a three tiered vanilla cake with chocolate butter cream. The tier sizes were 6”, 8”, and 10” and should serve just over 50 people!  As well the airplane and pilot were totally edible. The Pilot was modeling chocolate while the airplane was Rice Krispy treats coated in modeling chocolate and then covered with fondant.

Definitely one of my favorite cakes to date!

Sorry about the delay on posts recently. I’m baking so much I can’t write! But don’t worry I have a batch of GREAT triathlon cookies coming up next. Stay tuned for their debut!

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“A Day of Modeling Chocolate”

Last week amongst all of the excitement of the cake competition at the National Capital Area Cake Show, I was also taking several classes for “cake education”. One of the classes that I took was called “A Day of Modeling Chocolate”, taught by Lauren Kitchens and Mike McCary. Both of these cake designers I have followed for quite some time and I am always baffled by the creations that they design. Fortunately for me, I was able to take an all day class co-taught by the both of them and attempt to absorb everything that they had to offer!

The start of the morning began with Mike giving us a sort of modeling chocolate 101. We did everything from learning to make and temper our own modeling chocolate, to finishing a cake with it and air brushing it! There was a lot of demoing on the versatility of what you can do with this type of chocolate! This guy was a piece of work! So knowledgeable and talented, yet his personality was perfect for a chocolate instructor; there was no ego there, just a urgency to make us love the craft as much as he does!

In what seemed like 30 minutes turned out to be 3 hours and it was time for lunch. Upon return Lauren had taken over and Mike became her sous chef- which meant it was sushi time!

As much as I would like to take you through the step by step of how we made these super cool bites of chocolate, I don’t think that that would be right…instead you’ll have to take her class! I highly recommend that you do!  In the meantime I will give you the up close of each piece of sushi!

Shrimp Sashimi

Sushi Omelet

Salmon Sashimi

California Roll

Salmon Sashimi

And sure enough, your wasabi and ginger!

This is Lauren. She demoed each piece and then sent us back to our seats to make our own! I loved it and was even happier with how her style of teaching set us up for success!

After we were done making the sushi I thought we were done for the day. I was wrong. After the sushi we created plates of the “Grand Slam Breakfasts” that you would often see at fine dining restaurants such as IHOP!

There your have it folks. Four of the absolute best things on earth! Bacon, eggs, French toast, and chocolate! That’s right, chocolate. Did you forget already that this was a chocolate class? Everything you’ve seen here so far has been made with chocolate! Which means, if you were to pick up that nice thick slice of French toast and bite into it, it would most certainly taste ten times better than fondant. Therefore, I’m fairly confident that from here on out most of my cake decoration details and sculpted objects are going to be modeling chocolate!

As for now, I’m now furiously saving money in an attempt to attend another class taught by these two! The one that I see on the schedule that interests me the most is “Muppetizing” with Lauren! Eeeeek I need to get moving!

What do you think? Did I have you fooled with the first photo? Do you know someone who LOVES sushi and would love to have a sushi cake or an occasion?

As always, thanks for reading!

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Mexican chocolate Buttercream

I have to start todays post with a big “Thank You”, that goes out to all of you, my readers! I cannot believe how positive all of your responses were towards my latest cupcake adventure. Creating a personal cupcake tasting to satisfy a proud icing fanatic was a lot of fun for me, and it was just as much fun reading all of my lovely comments! Woohoo!

So as my way of saying thanks, I’m going to give back and share with you one of my favorite recipes that came out of this weekend. Mexican Chocolate Buttercream Icing! This is best paired with a really dark and moist chocolate base. I say “base” because I can very easily see this icing used on cake, cupcakes, or even BROWNIES! Mmmm…

That’s all for today, but I suggest you come back on Friday! There will be a DIY and giveaway! Plus, then it’ll be the start of the weekend – and we can’t complain about that, can we?

Thanks for stopping by!

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A Cupcake Tasting

I was given a challenge!

A loyal reader of the blog wrote to me and explained that her soon to be “40-something year old friend” was guilty of decapitating every cupcake that she ever eats. In other words, (as my sister would describe) this Birthday girl has a cupcake eating condition whereby she prefers a higher icing to cupcake ratio.

This reader wanted to know if I could create a batch of cupcake tops (like muffin tops) with various icings piled on top for her friend as a birthday gift.

I accepted the challenge!

Since there were three ladies getting together for the reveal of cupcake icings, I decided to take it a step further! You know the other two ladies weren’t going to love sitting there watching their friend devour the icings and listen to her description of the various tastes and textures; nor were they going to ask the birthday girl to share her favorites either. So I went ahead and made a batch for each of the friends so they could all bite into the different flavors and combinations at the same time and do this “Mmmmmmmmmm”.

Surely, if you’ve done the math you’ll notice that there are sets of four on the table, and I’ve mentioned three ladies. That leaves one extra of each flavor combination. Well, The Boss was kind enough to be my “creative editor” for the day and photographed every single set of cupcakes for me. That saved me a LOT of time; I paid him in treats for his labor!

Here’s a closer look at the line up!

Mexican Chocolate- Spiced Chocolate Buttercream/ Chocolate Cake

Birthday Cake- Birthday Cake Icing / Funfetti Cake

Smores- Toasted Marshmallow & Ganache center / Graham Cake

Bertie’s Lemonade- Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting / Vanilla Cake

Cherry Blossom- Cherry Buttercream / Cherry Chip

Tiramisu- Espresso Cream Cheese Frosting / Vanilla Cake

Peppermint Patty- Peppermint Buttercream & Ganache / Chocolate Cake

The Classic- Chocolate Buttercream / Vanilla Cake

Boston Cream- Ganache with Cream Filling / Vanilla

Peanut Butter Nom- Peanut Buttercream & Ganache / Chocolate Cake

**MIA** The “Vanilla Dream” and “Salted Carmel” were the last icings made, and of course I was running a little tight on time and they unfortunately did not get individual “fashion shots”.

Then they were all packaged up including a tasting menu and a bow!

So what do you think, how did I do? Is this a box of treats up might like to receive for your birthday? More importantly I have to very important questions for you…

1) What would you be willing to pay for a dozen customized cupcakes (or just tops) with your choice of cake and icing combination?? Complete with a menu and bow!

2) Reflecting on the flavors I created for these ladies I think I did a good job varying the icing flavor profiles  and textures. What flavor would YOU have liked seen featured in a cupcake tasting?

That’s all for now folks, thanks for stopping by!

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