Fruit Tart

My dear blog followers~ I'm sticking to my resolution of updating more often. :P This week, I went to Williams-Sonoma (aka "my favorite store") and bought some tart pans. I got a 10" round one and a 14" x 4" rectangular one. I know, I know... did I really need to buy 2 tart pans? If you know me, then the answer is "you can never have too many baking pans". I actually had picked up 3 tart pans but put the mini individual sized pans down! (T.T) <-- that's a crying face, btw... I'm going to go back for them as soon as I have some money saved up.

So I decided to make a rectangular fruit tart...
I got the recipe out of Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook! Lovely Song took the beautiful pictures!

- berry fruit tart w/ vanilla pastry cream & lemon thyme glaze

I'll be back next week!

Birthday Bash

One of my 2nd grade students had a birthday today. Her mom and dad spent all night making these adorable personalized cupcakes and awesome balloon thingies (which is used like paddle ball)! yeah, they MADE them! Thought I would share the cool goodies I got at school today. The other kids were sooooooo jealous.... :)

New Resolution

Alrighty, so I have been a total slacker and haven't posted nearly as much as I should. For that, I apologize. I have decided to make it up to all of you by making the resolution of posting at least once a week! It's going to be challenging for me, but I hope you all keep me accountable!

I made cupcakes! I think these are slowly rising to be my favorite... I've made them before for a friend's birthday, but I had all the ingredients so I decided to make these again. These are moist, have great flavor, and the walnuts give a nice crunch. Not to mention the cream cheese frosting is deliciously sweet and cheesy at the same time! (pictures pretty-fied with Instagram)

pretty in pink

- Mama and Baby carrot cupcakes with cream cheese frosting -

I made another batch! I was looking through my Martha cupcake book and came across a vegan chocolate cupcake recipe. I am the type of person who likes my treats with all 100% of the naughty parts (sugar, butter, etc), so I was a bit skeptical about trying it. However, I wanted my vegetarian guest to be able to enjoy dessert! They baked perfect and had a great chocolate-y flavor (considering it had just a bit of cocoa powder), but I wasn't a big fan... I like my chocolate cake rich and moist (aka "fatty") ;)

- vegan chocolate cupcakes with sugar dust -

I'll try not to let you guys down!!! All....2 of you! haha!

I'm reading:

I know I haven't updated in...forever! I've been looking through my many baking books for inspiration. Time to bake!