I had made a few smaller treats here and there over the weeks of quarantine, but when a friend’s birthday was coming up, I knew I wanted to go big with a new cake recipe. My mom (the OG cake extraordinaire) had made this for us a few years ago, so I already knew it would be delicious, but I haven’t ever had the opportunity to try it on my own.

I followed the recipe over at Sugar and Sparrow to a “t” and am happy to report it turned out perfectly! She mentions this in the recipe, but I highly, highly recommend making your own chocolate chip cookies! I know you won’t think it’ll be worth the effort, but I promise you, it just takes this cake to another level. And do yourself and favor by underbaking them, the way cookies should be! ;) The only other thing I would recommend is to take those freshly made cookies and break them up into smaller pieces, then crumble them on top of the icing before starting the next layer…. because whoever said extra cookies were a bad thing!?

Okay, now take a look at these pictures… the sugar rush will begin in 3…2…1…

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RED VELVET MILKBAR CAKE
By: Milkbar (cake is a variation of this recipe I created and assembly instructions can be found here as well!)

RED VELVET CAKE
½ stick butter, at room temperature
1/3 cup vegetable shortening
1 ¼ C granulated sugar
3 Tbsp light brown sugar
3 eggs
½ C buttermilk
2 tsp white vinegar
1/3 C grapeseed oil
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 ¾ C cake flour
¼ C cocoa Powder
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
¾ tsp kosher salt
1 tsp red food coloring

1. heat the oven to 350°f.
2. combine the butter, shortening, and sugars in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and cream together on medium-high for 2 to 3 minutes. scrape down the sides of the bowl, add the eggs, and mix on medium-high for 2 to 3 minutes. scrape down the sides of the bowl once more.
3. on low speed, stream in the buttermilk, vinegar, oil, and vanilla. increase the mixer speed to medium-high and paddle for 4 to 6 minutes, until the mixture is practically white, twice the size of your original fluffy butter-and-sugar mixture, and completely homogenous. don’t rush the process. you’re basically forcing too much liquid into an already fatty mixture that doesn’t want to make room for that liquid. there should be no streaks of fat or liquid. stop the mixer and scrape down the sides of the bowl.
4. on very low speed, add the cake flour, cocoa power, baking powder, and salt. mix for 45 to 60 seconds, just until your batter comes together. scrape down the sides of the bowl. 5. pam-spray a quarter sheet pan and line it with parchment. using a spatula, spread the cake batter in an even layer in the pan.
6. bake the cake for 30 to 35 minutes. the cake will rise and puff, doubling in size, but will remain slightly buttery and dense. at 30 minutes, gently poke the edge of the cake with your finger: the cake should bounce back slightly and the center should no longer be jiggly. leave the cake in the oven for an extra 3 to 5 minutes if it doesn’t pass these tests.
7. take the cake out of the oven and cool on wire rack

HOT COCOA MILK SOAK
½ C Milk
1 Tbsp Cocoa Powder
1 Tbsp Powdered Sugar

1. whisk together the milk, cocoa, and sugar in a small bowl.

CREAM CHEESE FROSTING
4 tablespoons butter, at room temperature
¼ C vegetable shortening 4 oz cream cheese
1 TBSP glucose
1 TBSP corn syrup
1 TBSP vanilla extract
1 ¼ C confectioners’ sugar
½ tsp kosher salt baking powder (pinch)

1. combine the butter, shortening, and cream cheese in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and cream together on medium-high for 2 to 3 minutes, until the mixture is smooth and fluffy. scrape down the sides of the bowl.
2. with the mixer on its lowest speed, stream in the glucose, corn syrup, and vanilla. crank the mixer up to medium-high and beat for 2 to 3 minutes, until the mixture is silky smooth and a glossy white. scrape down the sides of the bowl.
3. add the confectioners’ sugar, baking powder, and salt, and mix on low speed just to incorporate them into the batter. crank the speed back up to medium-high and beat for 2 to 3 minutes. i tinted 1/4 of mine green for an extra layer of color, but this step isn’t required!

RED VELVET CAKE CRUMB
½ C granulated sugar
1 ½ tbsp light brown sugar
¾ C cake flour minus 1 Tbsp
1 tbsp cocoa powder
½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp kosher salt
¼ C grapeseed oil
 ½ tsp white vinegar
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 TBSP sprinkles
red food coloring

1. heat the oven to 300°f.
2. combine the sugars, flour, baking powder, salt, and cocoa powder in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and mix on low speed until well combined.
3. add the oil, vinegar, vanilla, sprinkles, and food coloring and paddle again to distribute. the wet ingredients will act as glue to help the dry ingredients form small clusters; continue paddling until that happens.
4. bake for 15 minutes at 300°f; cool completely when done. don’t overbake as these will harden a bit as they cool!

Full assembly instructions can be found here — enjoy!

A Red Velvet Milkbar Cake Recipe

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Here on the left we have a massive cake overflow. I must have made this cake 20+ times and never had this happen before!! That spilled batter took weeks to burn off. And on the left Just a prime example of how terrible I am at melting chocolate — I swear, it’s my achilles! I can’t even get it right in a fondue pot that’s made for melting chocolate!

And again, chocolate. I can’t even melt it, let alone try to cover desserts with it!

If you’ve never been one to throw caution to the wind and set your milk on the edge of your trunk, I’m here to tell you — don’t! Luckily this happened in summer, because I was able to just use the garden hose to spray down the garage and push the milk out into the street. What a mess!

I certainly can’t leave out the great kitchen fire of Easter 2015. I was using a rimless baking sheet to cook biscuits that needed to be brushed in butter. Well, that butter overfloweth and caused a fire! Between 9 adults, none of us could remember the best way to put it out and in the heat of the moment (pun intended), used flour — warning: flour is not the right choice. After a minute we grabbed baking soda and got that under control. Our house smelled for weeks!

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Anywho, I was digging back through the archives of some of my adventures and found these images from a cake I made about two years ago and knew I had to share it!! I have always wanted to visit Milk Bar in NYC, but knew even if I got there, there would be no need for a giant cake! I found a recipe for this cake on, where else, Pinterest and knew I had to give it a try. The results are below and yes, it tastes as good as it looks! Plus it’s so pretty!

Momofuku Milk Bar Birthday Cake
Recipe: Sheri Silver
Notes: This is definitely a super intimidating recipe when you first open the website simply due to length. I promise, it’s not as daunting as it seems! Most of them are very simple, you just need to prepare the time it takes to work through each one without rushing! I made this cake in a few hours one Friday when I was off work. The author also mentions that you can break up the recipe in a few different steps if you prefer to split it up. When making this cake, I followed the recipe to a “t”. The only thing I would change next time around is the level of salt — I thought overall, it was just too much and would prefer to lower it a bit. Otherwise, it’s a perfect recipe!

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As Easter is ever changing, this year it ended up being the week after my mom’s birthday!! We don’t always get to see them around that time, so knowing they would be visiting made me excited to surprise her with a cake! I knew I wanted to find a fun spring design, but I also wanted it to be a special flavor that I knew she would love. After a little searching, I landed on an almond flavor cake! No actual nuts were in the cake, so it was basically a white cake that was flavored almond instead of vanilla and oh my gosh… was it good! This is probably the most decadent cake I have ever made; I can totally say that without even feeling like I’m patting myself on the back too since it’s not my recipe :) :) I simply combined the perfect white almond cake with an almond buttercream for one amazing recipe. The adorable bird’s nest that donned the top was so much easier than it looks and was easy to remove when we were ready to eat! 

Below is a list of the recipes I combined to create this delicious spring cake — hope you enjoy!
Almond White Cake
Almond Buttercream
Bird’s Nest

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Baked Donuts
First, I used baked donuts instead of fried because I knew it would lighten the cake up a bit so it wouldn’t be as dense and heavy when eating. Plus, I absolutely hate deep frying almost anything in our house because of the odor it produces! I just left the sprinkles out of the recipe above and then did not ice them after they baked. I only have one donut pan that makes 12 at a time, so this was definitely a labor of time! I made these a few days in advance and then froze them until I was ready to use them in the recipe.
 
Whipped Cream Cheese Frosting
Again, since this is such a large cake (I mean, 4 layers is just crazy!), I knew whipped icing would be a little easier to handle than traditional icing. It has spread much nicer and filled in the holes inside each donut. I would recommend making this about one day before you plan to serve the cake and prepare it up to this point — place the iced cake back in your fridge so it can really soak into the donuts, making them even more moist! 

Caramel Glaze Sauce
And finally, the caramel sauce! This added a little bit more flavor to the cake and, of course, made it look pretty! I waited until it cooled considerably so as not to melt the whipped icing below — make sure it’s still pourable, but not hot off the stove either. Top it with a few leftover donuts and sprinkles for a beautiful finish!  

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When we headed to Austin for Rob’s birthday last month, I had coordinated with his mom to watch Granger while we were out of town; since he didn’t even know about the trip until a week before we left, everything had to be on the sly! Not even really thinking about the dates until it got closer, I realized she would be at my their house during her birthday! We are always so, so appreciative of the help we’re given caring for our fur baby, but we wanted to make sure Tori, my MIL, didn’t go un-celebrated either! So on the night we dropped the pup off, we surprised her with this little number. Rob’s favorite candy are peanut butter cups; assuming it ran in the family, I thought this would be a hit! I used my Hershey’s chocolate cake recipe and then followed the link below for the icing and decorating tips. I love the way it turned out!! I didn’t get to taste any since we jetted off after making it, but I hope it was delicious. Thank you to BOTH of our amazing parents for being so supportive and helpful with Granger, we love knowing she is in good hands! 

Reese’s PB Cup Cake | Brown Eyed Baker

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It’s hard making desserts or meals that you don’t personally like; I actually don’t eat key lime pie, cheesecake or apple pie (hey, I’m more of a chocolate lover myself, what can I say!?) — so the past few years I’ve just been relying on Rob’s review! He said it was fantastic and ate over half of this monstrosity, so I’m inclined to believe him :) Don’t let the length of this recipe scare you out of making it; the whole process was fairly easy and not even super time consuming! My only recommendation that varies from the author’s notes would be a check the top of your pie much earlier. Mine was getting dark after only 30 minutes and I covered it right away — you can tell the sides are little darker than I’d like, so I’m glad I caught it when I did! There was SO much pie dough though that you could eat from the middle out and not even hit it! Definitely serve this pie warm with some vanilla ice cream (or so I’m told, I just ate the ice cream!). 

Recipe | Dutch Deep Dish Apple Pie

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Red Velvet Crinkle Cookies | These are always my most popular cookies of the season which is funny because they are also the easiest… they are made with CAKE MIX!!!!
Levain Bakery Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies | If you’ve ever been to this New York bakery, you know they make some of the best cookies on the east coast — now you can make them at home! They are like small cakes! 
Peanut Butter Cup Blossoms | The only way to make the original version better of these was to add more peanut butter and Reese’s cups did just! 
Holiday White Trash Mix | You can literally make this recipe in minutes! It looks adorable packaged up in mason jars with a cute ribbon for easy gifts! 
M&M Kiss Pretzels | You can make these with Hugs, Kisses, or even Rolos! The kisses won’t look ready but I promise they are — if you over bake, they get crumbly! 
Chocolate Chip Cookie | My secret is to use the holiday chocolate chips to make them more festive! And be sure to follow the refrigeration times, that’s what makes these so special! 
Cinnamon Chip Crescents | The perfect breakfast during the holidays! Make sure you heat these up before eating! 

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A few weeks ago, my very dear friend turned 30! To celebrate, we gathered a bunch of friends and headed out to Barrel Oak Winery in Delaplane, VA. After finding out only weeks before that she was pregnant (with twins!), I offered to help by bringing the birthday cake. I called a bunch of local places and unfortunately on short notice, no one was able to fulfill our order. In a near panic, Rob stroked my ego and assured me I could handle it (after all, I’m the daughter of an unprofessional cake making genius, so surely it would be hereditary, right!?)… and so, off we went to Michaels! I’ve made tons of cakes in the past, but normally just for small gatherings. I picked up 12″ cake pan that was supposed to be enough to feed 30 people (side note: it could’ve fed like 50!), fondant making supplies, and icing dye. 

The great part about cakes is, you can make them in phases. I made the cake portion about a week before the party and froze it, which I do for every cake I make! I do this for two reasons: first, it’s much easier to ice when it’s frozen. And second, it makes the cake SO much more moist (ew, sorry friends). But it’s true! It holds in the moisture and when it thaws, it’s somehow even better than when it first came out of the oven. 

Then I started on the fondant as I wanted to top the cake with a large, gold bow. Michaels was good to me and I bought it pre-made! I simply had to roll it out, cut out my shapes, and form them together. Pinterest was a huge help with this part, of course :) They dried over the next few days until I was able to paint them with fondant dust so it was a rich, shimmery gold. 

And then finally, the good part, the icing! I whipped up several batches of my mom’s recipe and did a quick dirty ice around the cake to ensure the rosettes would hold. I split it up into three bowls and added a bit more color to bowl two and even more to bowl three to create an ombre effect. Using my star tip, I started at the bottom of the cake with the darkest icing and just went for it! In hindsight, I probably should have done a few practice swirls, but you only live once I guess! 

It turned out even better than I could’ve imagined once it was all put together! The birthday girl was overjoyed (and so was the staff at the Barrel Oak who got all the leftovers!)! It was definitely an undertaking, but I hope to try another design soon! 

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I kinda hate making food that I don’t like. That sounds really selfish, but I don’t mean it that way! I just mean that it’s harder for me to make things I don’t eat because then I can’t judge how they taste! I’m my own worst critic when it comes to cooking/baking, so I like to test the fruits of my labor; when it’s something I already don’t like, like cheesecake or pretty much any vegetable, I have to rely solely on my taste testers. And I mean, if you just made someone a treat, chances are they aren’t going to be like, “well, this sucks,” even if it does. So anyway, I’m rambling (as usual), but you can see the dilemma! According to Rob, this recipe is delicious — we’ll have to take his word for it :)

Chocolate Chip Cheesecake
Recipe by: Food for a Hungry Soul

Ingredients:
Crust
2 cups Oreo cookies with cream center removed, finely ground (2 sleeves)
1/4 cup butter, melted
2 tablespoons sugar

Cheesecake
5 large eggs, room temperature
2 cups (one pint) sour cream, room temperature
4 8-ounce packages cream cheese, room temperature
8 tablespoons (one stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon grated lemon zest
1 cup mini semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 teaspoon all-purpose flour

Instructions:
Generously butter the inside of a 10-inch springform pan. Wrap a double layer of heavy-duty aluminum foil tightly around the outside bottom and sides, crimping and pleating the foil to make it conform to the pan. This will help to prevent water seeping into the pan when you put it into the bain-marie. Position the baking rack in the center of the oven; preheat the oven to 300* Fahrenheit.
Mix together the crust ingredients and press pan.
In a large mixing bowl, using an electric mixer, beat the eggs with the sour cream until well blended.
In a medium-sized bowl, beat the cream cheese with the butter until smooth and creamy. Add this to the egg-sour cream mixture and beat until smooth.
Add the sugar, cornstarch, vanilla, lemon juice and lemon zest and beat thoroughly, about 2 minutes.
Toss 1/3 of the miniature chocolate chips with the 1 teaspoon flour to coat (this keeps them from sinking to the bottom of the cake). Mix into cheese mixture. Pour into prepared crust in springform pan and place in a roasting pan (or other pan) large enough to prevent the sides from touching. Sprinkle top with remaining chocolate chips. Place in the oven and carefully pour in enough very hot tap water to reach halfway up the sides of the springform pan.
Bake for 2 hours and 15 minutes, or until the cake is very lightly colored and a knife inserted in the center emerges clean. Remove from the water bath and carefully peel the aluminum foil from around the pan. Let stand at room temperature until completely cool, about 4 hours. Refrigerate, covered, until well chilled. For best flavor and texture, this cheesecake is best chilled overnight.

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Every year for Thanksgiving with the Lacey’s, I like to test out a new twist on an old favorite. This year I made pumpkin pie my victim. I made a traditional pumpkin pie with flaky crust, but it was topped with a pecan praline topping, reminiscent of the delicious sweets from New Orleans. It was, in a word, perfection. Have you ever had sweet potato casserole that is topped with a ton of brown sugar It’s basically that, in pie form. Did you mind just explode Wait until you see pictures…

Pumpkin Pie with Pecan Praline Topping

Recipe By: Joy the Baker

 Granger is obsessed with licking the beaters — her eyes say it all… Our traditional “post-Thanksgiving” leftover sandwich, complete with moist maker. A wicked game of Jenga at my house and a little family photo at the Lacey’s.

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