Going once, going twice, SOLD!

My company raised funds to donate for the American Heart Association Heart Walk and for the cause I donated two 6 inch cakes to our silent auction. The grand coconut cake sold for $20 and was devoured by my friend and her mother that are both controlled by two things in this word, coconut and their wild sweet tooth's. The dark chocolate raspberry cake sold for $25 and gobbled up by our lucky CEO.

I love baking for a cause and hope I have the option to do more of it in the future.

Dark Chocolate Raspberry Cake

Grand Coconut Cake

Crazy About Coconut

Happy New Year bakers! 

I like to celebrate the new year with coconut confections. I absolutely love coconut and these are my three favorite coconut recipes.

The Red Velvet Cake I made last holiday looks like a snow scape making it a perfect cake for a holiday dessert, new years party or winter gathering. Check out the recipe here. I keep three cake pans around the house to make towering cake such as this one. The cake doesn't rise much but after baking will be cut in half horizontally to make the layers. You can decorate the cake with coconut or pecans.

The Coconut Macaroon is my specialty. The original recipe I used to make it stems from Martha Stewart's recipe. I make several different variations; lime and coconut; cinnamon sugar, honey, and vanilla with chocolate drizzle. The are so soft in the middle with a caramelized sugar flavor and texture.

Coconut cupcakes...what more can I say. Doesn't the word cupcake alone make you smile? What makes this recipe so special is that the coconut flavor comes from gobs and gobs of cream of coconut. So rich and gooey you will need a big glass of milk. Here I had slightly died the coconut with food coloring for a party theme.

Mini's

Coconut Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting

Christmastime is here again!

Every year I plan to make a lot of my holiday gifts from scratch or by hand. Gifts tend to be more from the heart and sentimental when you make them yourself. This year I planned and actually accomplished making cookie boxes for close friends and family and small truffle boxes filled with goodies as stocking stuffers.

The cookie boxes included recipes from my favorite chefs. Chewy Ginger Cookies, Grandma Doyle's Sugar Cookies, my favorite Coconut Macaroons, Chocolate Holiday Cookies and Chocolate Caramels. My favorite part of all this is the presentation, assembling the boxes, wrapping the caramels in festive wrappers and putting the cookies in cupcake liners. It really ties a cookie box together.

Carmels and Macaroon Truffle Boxes

I know at times it may seem overwhelming, trust me, at one point I couldn't stop working. I had glitter all over the floor, double stick tape stick to me while pulling cookie batch after cookie batch out of the oven. My suggestion to you in times when it just doesn't seem possible to make a lovely gift when its a whole lot easier to go buy something...assembly line baby! Making something is way better for your soul, your receivers heart, and all around better for mother nature. Here's how:

1. Choose a box that fits well with what you want to put in it and how you want to ship/give it.
2. Pick out festive papers and stickers for labels with a special touch
3. Embossing makes your crafts pop of the paper. You can find the powder and heat gun at your local craft shop
4. Pick a paper to line the inside of the box. This can be a tissue paper or parchment. I use wax paper because my Grandma wrapped everything in wax paper
5. Organize an afternoon of baking. I split the days in half, make all of the dough on day one and bake all the cookies on day two.
6. Assembly line! Build all your boxes, make and apply your labels, line all your boxes and fill them up.

Here are some photos of what I did this Christmas.

Layer 1

Layer 2

Layer 3

Final Cookie Box

I hope your holidays are full of warm cookies, sweet cakes and family and friends. Happy Holidays from the Mixing Bowl!