Midnight Bakery

A gallery of pastry sculptures.

[midnightbakery]

Key lime macarons with lime curd filling, December 2018

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Christmas cookies!

December 2017

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Go Gators! My grandma got me cookie molds for my birthday, and this is my first project with them! I think Wilton envisioned Christmas cookies, but this is my take on it. I used the Betty Crocker buttery spritz cookie recipe so they would hold their shape. October 2015.

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Chocolate macarons with Grand Marnier orange peel buttercream filling. May 2015.

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August 2014

Cherry-peach oatmeal cobbler. I think the recipe is originally from a Quaker Oats container.

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Christmas cookies I just whipped up in like 30 min.

December 2011

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Three Thanksgiving pies. Er, 2 pies & half of third because that was our appetizer/lunch. Foreground left: pumpkin pie. Made with almond milk, fresh grated ginger. Sure, the pumpkin was canned, but we used pure pumpkin, not "pie filling." Butter crust with sugar, brushed with sugar-egg mixture. Foreground right: ginger peach & tart cherry oatmeal tart. Made with fresh grated ginger, canned peaches & canned tart cherries --- but used peaches in juice, not syrup, and tart cherries in water, not corn-syrup-and-red-dye pie filling. Crust is oatmeal-flour-butter-sugar. Baked in springform pan, hence shape. Background half-pie: apple turnover / freeform tart. Organic apples, fresh ground nutmeg. Same butter crust as pumpkin pie; brushed generously with sugar-egg, walnuts in center drizzled with sugar-egg, so it's crunchy. My mom & I also made curry pumpkin soup, sausage stuffing, cranberry-orange relish, mixed greens & spinach salad w/ homemade vinaigrette dressing, and baked yams. :) And... a cooked rotisserie chicken from Costco. Priorities.

[qcqc]

[midnightbakery]

September 2011.

Good news: the cake is **not** a lie! Bad news: …your friend is made of cake.

The process of making Portal Companion Cube cupcakes.

Only the white details are fondant - and that is marshmallow fondant at that (marshmallows, butter, cornstarch/p-sugar, almond extract). The gray main part is buttercream, which I got to a smooth consistency by a variety of application methods, all of which involved using the microwave. And the red hearts are strawberry Fruit Roll-Up.

And yes, they were delicious!

(From my main account.)

[midnightbakery]

September 2011.

Cupcakewiches! Had leftover batter and glue-buttercream from another project.

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August 2011.

Quatrefoil cupcakes!

My first attempt at Italian meringue buttercream. A little flat.

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May 2011.

Cupcakes made for my friend's brother's birthday. How old was he turning? 27.

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February 2011.

Fruit sugar cookies, in blueberry (purple), peach (peach), and raspberry (alizarin). I modified my favorite soft cookie recipe to replace the egg and oil with pureed fruit. I realized about a day later that I had accidentally just made vegan cookies! If only I had whole wheat flour then, I could have made them even *healthier*!

Recipe: Drop Sugar Cookies (from Taste of Home "Cookies" cookbook)

Ingredients: 

1-1/3 c pureed fruit (original recipe: 2 eggs + 2/3 c vegetable oil)

3/4 c sugar

2 tsp vanilla extract

2 c flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

Total pureed fruit volume will be 1-1/3 c, which is a 1:1 ratio of liquid for fruit. Extensive Internets research* confirmed the same 1/4 to 1/3 volume for a "large"-size egg. I used to buy liquid egg for ease of breakfast-making, and the package said to use 1/3 liquid egg for baking, so I applied that here. They turned out great.

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350F.

Beat fruit puree, sugar, and vanilla until blended;

Combine flour, baking powder, salt in separate bowl;

Gradually beat flour mixture into liquid ingredients;

Drop rounded teaspoons / roll onto greased baking sheets, flatten;

Bake 7-10 minutes or until edges are lightly browned; let cool 1-2 minutes before removing to wire racks.

* Extensive research, here, means about 10 minutes of scrolling through the first 20 pages of Google search results that all said the same thing.

[midnightbakery]

September 2010.

Fondant, tiered mini-cakes for my friend's birthday! Colors via Wilton gel colors. The cake part was actually gluten-free Betty Crocker chocolate cake, with extra cocoa.

This was my first fondant work! ...It is a lot easier to work with than red clay; fondant is substantially more resilient.

[midnightbakery]

September 2010.

"Radioactive" cupcakes for my brother's birthday. Idea gained from the following exchange:

Brother: "HEY [BFF]! WHAT HAPPENED TO THE NUCLEAR WARHEAD?" BFF: "I THINK IT'S UPSTAIRS!"

At this point, Brother runs upstairs from basement; he & BFF run back downstairs with a neon yellow Nerf rocket with a radiation symbol drawn on it in black sharpie... with a little x-mas sized light inside, which made the radiation symbol glow. In the dark. It was pretty much awesome.

Anyway, it's white cake, buttercream, and a lot of gel food coloring. Symbols made from white chocolate with food color, via a combination of a Photoshop, parchment paper, an icing tip, and the freezer.

Fun facts: parchment paper, obviously by its nature, does not easily tape down to anything.

[midnightbakery]

June 2010.

Tetris caramels. Coated in powdered sugar for ease of eating.

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June 2010.

Tres leches cake. Second picture is to show how soaked the cake part was.

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June 2010.

Les macarons citron & chocolat! That's right - ONE "O"!

Lemon: Filled with homemade lemon curd, courtesy of my co-chef Melanie. I do not recall which recipe we used, but translated from French, it called for "one robot with knife" (food processor).

Chocolate: Filled with chocolate ganache. It is much easier than lemon curd. Used David Lebovitz recipe.