Rose Buttercream Cake Tutorial by Coco Cake Land

Guest post by Lyndsay Sung of Coco Cake Land

How lovely is a rosette buttercream covered cake? I've always loved the look of buttercream cakes - they have such a sweet and vintage feel about them. I wanted to try making a rosette covered cake, similar to the one I Am Baker helped catapult into cakey internet fame!

I've been really into mixing buttercream colours together lately and I thought a two-tone rosette would be a pretty twist on this cake. It's really quite easy to achieve the rosette once you get the hang of using the piping bag, and if you muck up, you can remove the rosette and smooth the area with your offset spatula and pipe right on top of it! No problemo!

Okay! Ready to make a beautiful swirly girly two tone rosette covered buttercream cake?

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Special Recipe | Nanaimo Bar Cupcake from Butter Baked Goods

Photo by Janis Nicolay

Today I'm excited to share a very special recipe that came about as Andrea Mazandi of west elm and I were corresponding and planning the upcoming Etsy Pop-Up Shop at west elm event this coming Saturday here in Vancouver.  Andrea having heard of our famous nanaimo bars here in Canada was keen on including something similar for the event and I being a fan of cupcakes joked "a nanaimo bar cupcake"!  Andrea contacted Butter Baked Goods and well, the rest is history! So today, Rosie of Butter Baked Goods was kind enough to share the recipe with us - which I can hardly wait to taste (they sound amazing)!   Fun fact: Butter Baked Goods, a very popular bakery here in Vancouver has a new cookbook coming out soon which should be not only super-delicious, but beautiful as well, as it's photographed by local interior and food photographer, Janis Nicolay (a contributor here at Poppytalk and one of our Etsy Pop-Up Shop vendors)!  So now to the recipe!

Nanaimo Bar Cupcakes

1 cup butter, room temperature
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup dark brown sugar
3 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 ½ cups whole milk
¾ cup sour cream
½ cup coffee, room temperature
2 ½ cups all purpose flour
1 ¼ cup dark cocoa
1 ½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
¾ cup unsweetened coconut
¾ cup walnuts, toasted and chopped

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Taking the Easy Way Out: Simple Crusty White Bread

By Jeannette Ordas of Everybody likes Sandwiches

Making bread shouldn't be as complicated as it seems. It should be something that anyone can make, regardless of baking skill. That's why I like this recipe from the New York Times from Jeff Zertzberg and Zoe Francois. 

Maybe you've already made the artisan loaf known famously as No-Knead Bread, but this one is different. It's less time consuming - in 3 hours, from mixing to baking, you can have freshly baked bread. There's no waiting overnight and luckily there's no kneading either. I should mention that I like the No-Knead bread better - it's got a more artisanal quality. The crumb and flavour is a bit more pronounced and the crust is really wonderful. But this bread is no slouch either. I mean, look at it!

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Beautiful Henny. How I adore you...

I made a trip to the Tractor supply for more feed. They had all their holiday gift items out for all to drool over. I received the flyer in the mail which included a sample of barnyard cookie cutters by Ann Clark Ltd.
They showed a rooster in the sample picture but my local TSC did not carry it. Instead they had one titled "The chicken". It is similar in shape to the "Henny" pictured above by Warren Kimble. I loved it and thought of how wonderful it would be to decorate our tree this year with barnyard cookie cutouts!

The children and I made a big batch this morning with our new cookie cutter and the recipe for butter cookies on the tag that comes along with the cutter. I added a bit of food dye to get a brown orange color similar to our old hen Fletcher. pictured above in the far left

I also added cinnamon and ginger to the batter. They came out beautiful! So perfect in fact I tried to get that darn@* camera to work but I do believe it has finally gave out. So most likely there will be no new pictures until after the holidays. We will purchase a new one as a family gift after the new year (hopefully).
My baby brother, "Army", will be sent a package of home baked goodies containing some of the Henny cookies with frosting, Some of the Apricot chocolate Rugelach, and a few others to soothe his sweet tooth from home. He has been ordered to take an officer training during the holiday time frame so will not be home to enjoy my cooking/baking. That's o.k though. He promised he would make a trip home after the new year towards Spring time.
So it seems we are to receive warmer weather and no more snow for a while. I am sure the girls will be happy since I have shut them into the goat cabin for majority of the day. I let them out for an hour or two after or before their feeding times since it has been less the 20 degrees F. Clyde & Mr. echo have been very diligent about keeping themselves as companions to the goat cabin too. They rarely associate with the chickens except at feed time. Otherwise they are hanging out with Chia & Cleo.
So I am now off to let the chickens roam the entire pen for the day. After all, Zoning is closed on the weekends...
Sunny dreams,
~Tammie

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