Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Halloween Pumpkins!

Fall is so great and Halloween is my favorite holiday, so needless to say...I take my pumpkin decorating very seriously! This year, I let my boyfriend in on the fun. Here are our creations...

Getting ready to carve!
Minion and Storm Trooper.
Fall family + pumpkin owl. 





Fall Fashion.

Is it too late to share my fall fashion favorites for 2013? I don't think so! Personally, I think fall is the BEST season for fashion and I would continue wearing some of these pieces throughout the winter as well. So here it is...my picks for the most fashion forward colors, trends, and must haves for the fall season 2013!



From left to right:

1. Hoop Earrings- H&M

2. Trenchcoat- H&M

3. CO Curved Hem Skirt- Cotton On

4. Honk if You Love OPI nailpolish

5. Floral Stone Cascade Necklace- BCBG 

Cakemix.

So it was my best friend, Natalie's, birthday this month and when thinking of where to take her out, I thought, yeah we could go to a nice dinner and be ordinary OR we could do something that is fun that we both love. Now, Natalie and I love to bake and decorate and we often share recipes with each other, so I found this place, Duff's Cakemix in West Hollywood that let's people use their creativity and love of baking to decorate their own cakes!

Chef Duff is from the TV show Ace of Cakes and he is the owner of this cake making studio, so you know there were tons of cool and professional tools to use to decorate the cakes. He often tapes his show in the studio, in fact we missed him and tapings by one hour! You start with a pre-made cake...we chose their flavor of the month, pumpkin chocolate chip! Then we chose fondant as the topping in our favorite colors and used dye to make additional colors of fondant. Lastly, we added some toppings like edible glitter and candies. These are the cake and designs we created...a very happy birthday to Natalie! :)
Our starting cake.

Some designs we created.
Our final product!
Happy Birthday Natalie!



Wednesday, October 2, 2013

Breakfast in a Cup.

The other day, I was feeling inspired by some Pinterest pictures of breakfast foods and I came across an egg cup picture I thought was so adorable so I decided to attempt making it. What's better than bacon and eggs for breakfast all rolled into a cup sized treat? They turned out very good...both for the tastebuds and the eyes!


Ingredients:
  • Unsalted butter
  • Eggs
  • Bacon
  • White or wheat toast
  • Salt and Pepper to taste
  • Cupcake or muffin tin
What to do:
  1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
  2. Melt the butter on low heat and lightly butter a cupcake or muffin tin.
  3. With your hands or a rolling pin, flatten the toast.
  4. With a large cup or cookie cutter, cut out circles from the toast (about 4 inches in diameter).
  5. Then cut the circles in half and press the halves into each cupcake pan overlapping slightly (1 circle per well). Fill any holes with leftover pieces of bread.
  6. Brush bread with remaining melted butter.
  7. In a large skillet, cook the bacon until almost crisp. 
  8. Lay 1 bacon slice into each bread cup and crack an egg over each.
  9. Season with salt and pepper.
  10. Bake until egg whites are just set 15-20 minutes. 

Donut Friend.

Donuts are one of America's classic desserts. It's not only police officers who love them. But donuts have kind of been put on the back burner in lieu of more popularized cupcakes and macarons. I mean let's face it, donuts haven't really made a comeback since Krispy Kreme came around and introduced a whole new level of decadence to the glazed donut. Anyway, since I love donuts, I've been on a search for some good donut shops. A lot of the places I've tried going to, however, have had long lines, ran out of their products, or just send their products to other bakeries. That's pretty snobby if you ask me...in fact, one of those places was named "Donut Snob".

Last week, however, I found out about Donut Friend...a quaint, new donut shop in Highland Park with some pretty amazing combinations of ingredients in their donuts and even a build your own option! The donuts were to die for and what I love about this place is that its not....well, snobby. They don't pride themselves on selling out of their products and they want to serve everyone who enters the store.

My friend opted for the build you own option, which was great. I indulged in Nutellavision and Walnut Voodoo. Both were amazing and I will definitely be back there again!
Nutellavision: Nutella and a dash of olive oil inside a traditional donut, topped with a sugar glaze.

Walnut Voodoo: a traditional donut stuffed with cream cheese, toasted walnuts, and a drizzle of maple syrup.