Happy New Year!!!
I have a very important resolution this year. I'm talking very very important. More important than losing weight or saving money.

I am breaking up with American Buttercream.
No more! I'm finished! I want to explore the wide world of buttercreams! French, Italian, Swiss, I'm going to try them all and then I will see which is best. 

And I have help in my mission.
Look what Santa brought me...

Source

and....

With some pink horsepower and Julia I think I have all the tools I need to succeed.

I can't wait to kiss American Buttercream goodbye!


So what are your new years resolutions?

This is such a simple and delicious dessert!

Every Christmas the oven is entirely too busy baking our Christmas feast to be able to also accommodate any baked desserts (other than cookies of course!) so we usually have a wonderful vanilla ice cream scooped up with a melon baller and rolled in coconut to look like snowballs. We always serve these in martini glasses to make them feel extra special.

This year there is a limited edition peppermint bark ice cream flavor from Haagen-Dazs so of course we had to try it.  I also saw a fantastic recipie for butterscotch sauce over at Smitten Kitchen that I just had to try.  Sprinkle coconut around the edges and drizzle with the butterscotch and you have an easy dessert that is just fancy enough for Christmas.

Recipe after the break!

This little cake was a gift for some very special people who are in the midst of heavy home renovations.  So, to celebrate the completion of their extensive landscaping work, I brought this garden cake 500 miles from Los Angeles, California to Incline Village, Nevada. This wins the prize for the longest drive to deliver a cake, ever.

The fence was a bit worse for wear in the end, but overall this delivery was a success.
Let's have a closeup :)

All the little veggies and bunnies were hand sculpted from fondant and nestled in a cookie crumb garden.

So I was going to make a genoise this morning. I followed all the directions in my cool British cookbook but i ended up with these flat ugly discs, not a beautiful sponge cake. French cooking is really tricky...

So what do you do when your cake is flat as a biscuit?

Pour tons of whipped cream and fresh strawberries all over it, call it a shortcake and invite all your friends to come eat it!

All's well that ends well :)

YUM!

Chocolate stout cupcakes with vanilla buttercream icing and fondant Wall E and Eve.

Sorry for the low photo quality! My camera seems to be hiding at the moment.  Also, there's been some bad news in the family lately so you'll have to excuse my brevity.

More birthdays are coming up this week so stay tuned for more birthday cakes!

Next stop on The Great LA Cupcake Map was Jamaica’s Cakes, also on Pico Blvd.

Erika, the salesperson, was also very friendly and knowledgeable and told me a lot about their company. Jamaica Crist opened the bakery 4 years ago in December.  Their main business comes from custom orders but they also operate a full store front with a beautiful display case of fresh pastries. Something that makes them unique from their competition is that all of their cakes are fresh and never frozen, and also they have a wide range of delicious vegan products in addition to non vegan fare. In my experience, most bakeries are either exclusively vegan, offer no vegan products, or offer a small range of vegan products that are not as delicious as their standard offerings. Jamaica’s Cakes is an exception.

Here is a picture of the vegan red velvet cupcake I had. 

It was fantastic. The cake was fresh and moist and not overly saturated with red food coloring. The frosting was rich and smooth and did not overpower the flavor of the cake. If I didn’t know it was vegan I would have never guessed. It was rich, moist, delicious, and had no strange taste or aftertaste.  As a former vegan, I know how difficult vegan baking can be, and this was fantastic by anyone’s standards. I would love to sample more from both their vegan and non-vegan menus another day. Jamaica’s Cakes specializes in custom and wedding cakes that can be made vegan upon request.  The sample cakes that adorned the store were beautiful and showed off the craftsmanship of the decorators. 

 

Jamaica herself was not in when I visited but I would love to meet with her and talk about how she started this amazing bakery.  She did an excellent job training her staff because Erika was able to give me a lot of good information about their business.

 

Check out Jamaica’s Cakes! I highly recommend them!

 

Jamaica’s Cakes

11511 W. Pico Blvd.

Los Angeles CA 90064

www.Jamaicascakes.com

[email protected]

I’m on a mission. To visit every bakery on The Great LA Cupcake Map.
Today I started my journey by stopping by Buttercake Bakery on Pico Blvd.

Source
Elmer, who was working at the sales counter, helped me out when I came in.  He told me that the storefront on Pico Blvd was their first location when they opened 6 years ago.  They have recently expanded their business and opened a second location in West Hollywood only a few months ago. 
The shop included an open kitchen where you can watch the cakes, cupcakes, and other pastries being prepared right in front of you.  The kitchen was bustling with activity so I’m assuming that business was good. Elmer also told me that Buttercake Bakery won the “Best Birthday Cake in Los Angeles” Award by Nickelodeon and a CitySearch Bakery award in 2006-2007. 

I chose a selection of their mini cupcakes to taste test.

Left to right. Top row: buttercake with chocolate buttercream, chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream.
Bottom row: red velvet with cream cheese icing, buttercake with pink vanilla buttercream chocolate cake with cookies and cream frosting.

All of these were delicious.  The chocolate frosting was especially good and it was obvious that it was made with good quality cocoa powder.  The cake was also good although you could tell that some of them had been sitting out for longer and had started to get dry.  The fresh ones were very moist.  I loved the cookies and cream frosting on a chocolate cake. It was like a super Oreo cookie!

Overall, Buttercake Bakery is adorable, has good products and a very friendly and knowledgeable staff.  They have an extensive menu with many options other than cupcakes. They also offer fruit tarts, layer cakes, Bundt cakes, bars, cookies, and gift towers.  Their products are free of additives and preservatives.  The shop is small but there is seating to eat your treats and a cute selection of cute cupcake accessories like polka dot cupcake papers.

 

Buttercake Bakery
10595 W. Pico Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90064
www.buttercakebakery.com

I have been moving apartments a lot lately and the wonderful boys at Sigma Alpha Mu helped me out by letting me store all my boxes in their house for a week (and carrying a few of those boxes themselves!). So to say thank you, I made them some devils food cupcakes with vanilla buttercream and their greek letters in their house color. 
I'm so glad the mister is living with such a great group of guys. I'm sure that having a house full of hungry boys right next door will encourage me to bake more and try new recipies. It's hard to bake things when you know you and your roomates can't possibly eat it all.  I'm sure they wont mind testing my experiments :)
Thank you Sima Alpha Mu! See you next week! (after moratorium and a girl is allowed back in the house)