boston cream pie!

I read several baking blogs and one, Cupcake Takes the Cake, mentioned some Boston Cream Pie cupcakes the other day and reading about them made me decide that I NEEDED to make some that are gluten free! I've always loved boston cream pie and it's been years since I've had a slice.

Obviously going gluten free has made eating baked goods from restaurants or bakeries practically impossible since there aren't any dedicated gluten free ones around me...There used to be one in my neighborhood, but it closed down a couple weeks ago.

I've always assumed it was really hard to make so it just stayed in the very back of my mind laying dormant until the time came that I was prepared to tackle such a "complicated" desert.



I used the quotes around the word complicated because this is one of the easiest desert that I could make. It's not hard at all! Who knew?!?!

I used the new Betty Crocker GF Yellow Cake mix for my cupcakes and some bavarian cream filling that I bought from my local cake decorating shop. I piped it right in thru the top of the cupcakes and then covered with a delicious chocolate ganache topping made from 1 cup semi-sweet mini chocolate chips and 1/2 cup heavy whipping cream heated to melting and whisked until thick and completely mixed.

MMM!

gluten free wedding cake!!

It was good. Really good. People knew it was gluten free because they watched me make it, but they thought it tasted "normal". Decorating it was a lot easier than I thought it would be, and I've learned to do that stringy scalloping thing pretty well now. It tasted amazing and was light, fluffy and moist.



Cake mix by Kinnikinnick, whom I cannot say enough about. I love them. EVERYTHING they make is amazing. honest.

Everything else was made from scratch and all decorating was done by me.

FTW

I cannot say it enough: Kinnikinnick is AWESOME.

I've bought a ton of their mixes online and even shipping from canada is totally reasonable and prompt. Their mixes are THE best gluten free mixes ever made. I completely state that as an indisputable fact...regardless that it's actually my opinion....it's a fact now.

Love them. seriously.

So I'm doing my sis's wedding cake and I've been somewhat unsatisfied with the cake mixes and cake recipe's I've found online and at my specialty GF stores and aisles. Kinnikinnick's cake mix wins. I baked the chocolate cake the other day and send some home with May (my friend) to eat and share with her boyfriend. He tasted it and thought it was regular cake...couldn't tell it was gluten free! to me that says WIN all over it. It was deliciously moist and has such a great flavor and texture.

I am totally excited about making this cake for my sister. She's going to love it.

cupcake preview

my sister's upcoming wedding and testing out ideas

I'm making the wedding cake for my sister's wedding in June. We've chosen a 5" cake for her and Patrick and individual wedding cakes for the attendees. My sister has left almost everything up to my judgement as far as the cakes go. My first thought was to do basic cupcakes but I wanted something more substantial. My second thought was to use my new popover pan and end up with larger cupcakes that could be filled and decorated like a regular cake, but popovers are kind of conical shaped and that might look strange. My third thought was to use soup cans. I know it sounds bizarre but it works really great and keeps me from having to buy several 3" cake pans and cooking all day to get the number of cakes I need.

cupcake, popover, can-cake


My friends are so sweet to let me test cake recipes and decoration ideas on them. My friend Kim just had a birthday on Sunday so a few of the girls are coming over tonight and we are having a little party for her and an excuse to get the girls together and hang out. I'm using all the opportunities I have to make cakes and practice my decorating skills.

I'll update with a picture of the cupcakes as soon as I get a good picture of them with the Royal Icing flowers placed on top. Rumors tell me that Royal Icing breaks down on buttercream so I don't want them sitting there too long before the party...just in case. (Photo at very top) Here's a photo of them pre-flower.



ok, so I tossed out the popover idea because of how awesome the can-cake turned out and because the popover sides were so angled. Using the can-cake, I divided it in half and put a layer of buttercream frosting and then did the basic white frosting base...to be decorated from there.


This isn't the exact way I want to decorate my sister's guest cakes, but it's cute and it worked for this one and matches the cupcakes.


I like how this angle looks, just wish I hadn't created so many angles on the round cake sides. :) I'm being perfectionistic again.


and here's another angle of the can-cake on top of the cupcake stand with the cupcakes

60 cupcakes!

Cupcakes!!!

Who doesn't love cupcakes? Little cup sized cakes. So cute! Isn't everything that comes in a miniature cuter than it's larger counterpart?

Anyway, today's post is NOT gluten free, but these adorable cupcakes aren't for me. I accepted a gig baking and decorating cupcakes for someone's 30th birthday party. Which meant I needed to make a bunch of cupcakes and decorate them. 60 cupcakes to be exact.

12 Vegan cupcakes
24 chocolate cupcakes
24 vanilla cupcakes

The birthday girl told me she wanted them frosted with pink frosting and that she wanted to be able to tell the Vegan ones apart from the regular easily. And she said she wanted purple involved in the decorations. Other than that, she didn't care how I decorated them. The vegan ones have those adorable little white flowers on top and the rest have cute little purple flowers on top.

I'm excited to have a decorating gig already. Shh, don't tell her she is my first.

My gluten free scratch cake was featured in an article about gluten free eating, Celiacs and Autism! A link to the article. The cake recipe isn't the same one I used, but the photo's are mine. :) cool!

I went to my cake decorating class on Saturday in preparation for Tracy's wedding (June) and realized that I am capable of making awesome decorations. I really had a great time, got lots of practice and learned so much!

This is a 10 inch double layer cake. I used 2 Pamela's Classic Vanilla Cake mixes (one for each layer) and made my own frosting. This is an excellent cake mix and I highly recommend it.

gluten free and delicious!