Carlo's Bake Shop

Carlo's Bake Shop

3325 S. Las Vegas Blvd

Las Vegas, NV, 89109

(702) 607-2356

You know I don't go anywhere without at least visiting some bakeries! Since we never make the trek over to Hoboken to visit the original shop during our New York City trips, we decided to visit their newly opened Vegas location.

Not surprising, there was a lineup. But there's a viewing gallery into the bakery's workspace to help you pass the time.

Beach cakes being decorated . . .

Fresh pastries from the oven . . .

Vegas themed cake being worked on . . .

Once you reach the front of the line, someone at the counter waves you over to enter the bakery.

Once there, you can stare at all the different dessert choices available.

And there's a lot of choices.

I didn't even know what to order as I was racking my brain to remember what they're best known for.

Was it their cookies?

The cupcakes?

Once Howard and I were ready, we placed our order with someone behind the counter. They write everything down and then you proceed to the waiting area as they pack everything up.

I went with one of the cupcakes!

When your order is ready, you get called over to the cashier to pay. I have to say, they have their crowd control figured out.

The box was tied up so nicely that we opened it back in our hotel room. We got two giant cookies, two small butter cookies, my cupcake, and a Danish for breakfast the next day. I wasn't a fan of the butter cookies, but I enjoyed my giant M&M cookie. The peanut butter cookie was good too. The cupcake was okay, probably because I was expecting spectacular from all the press and fame from this empire. Let's just say, I'm glad we don't make the extra trip to Hoboken when we're in New York.

Julia, Child

Two years ago, there were some changes at work. Among those changes came a manuscript titled Julia, Child. After reading it, I knew that we would be crazy if our company didn't publish it. The text was filled with whimsy and the story was clever, funny, flavourful, and left a marvelous aftertaste.

Well, our company did publish this manuscript and I had the joy of assisting our editorial director, Kyo Maclear, and Julie Morstad on this book. Julie was the perfect illustrator for this book, just look at the endpapers above and the spreads below!

This beautiful book is a tale of friendship, the joy of eating, the importance of never completely growing up, and mastering the art of having a good time - something we can all get behind!

Don't forget the cupcakes! Have you spotted the cupcakes with chocolate frosting and purple flowers? And the cake stands? (Yes, I need a pink cake stand to match the illustrations!)

Chocolate Cupcakes
(Makes about 18 cupcakes)

1 cup of all-purpose flour
1 1/4 cups of granulated sugar
3/8 cup of cocoa powder
1 teaspoon of baking soda
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1/2 cup of canola oil
1/2 cup of vanilla yogurt
1 1/4 cups of water
1 tablespoon of white vinegar
1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract
1 egg

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C (or 350°F). Place cupcake liners in your tray.
2. Whisk the flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda, and soda until uniform. Add in the oil, yogurt, water, vinegar, vanilla, and egg. Whisk until combined and smooth.
3. Evenly distribute the batter and fill the cupcake liners 3/4 of the way. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until cake tester comes out clean. Cool before frosting.

Chocolate Ganache Buttercream
Recipe can be found here.

Roll out some purple fondant and cut out little flowers to decorate! Remember, Julia Child once said that "a party without cake is just a meeting.” So true.

Oh, and if you're looking to win a copy of the book (plus others), click here!

Butter Baked Goods

Today is Chocolate Cupcake Day. Yes, it's a thing. Chocolate cupcakes are our favourite, they're easy to make, stay moist, and you can pair it with almost any flavours and it still tastes great. Or, you can add a hint of salt with it if you want to cut the sweetness. Basically, we find that chocolate is versatile (we're sure others agree)! To help us celebrate this national holiday, we enlisted the help of Butter Baked Goods.

Butter Baked Goods
Nostalgic Recipes From a Little Neighborhood Bakery
Written by Rosie Daykin
Photographs by Janis Nicolay
ISBN 13: 9780449015834
ISBN 10: 0449015831
Publisher: Appetite by Random House
Hardcover: 272 pages

Butter is a bakery in Vancouver, opened by Rosie Daykin (an interior designer), in 2007. Her vision was to restore the nostalgia of homemade baked goods. We think she succeeded from viewing photos of the bakery online and flipping through her cookbook. Pastel pinks, greens, and blues, Butter Baked Goods is like a chic grandmother. The cover alone gives me cake stand envy. That rose wallpaper you see in the background? Endpapers. And there's a soft green ribbon that serves as a bookmark, which I know that they use to tie up their treats with.

There's nine chapters of treats: muffins, scones, cinny buns and loaves; drop and sandwich cookies; rolled and cut cookies; bars and slices; butter creams and frostings; cakes; cupcakes and whoopie pies; pastry, pies and tarts; and confections. The recipes go by measuring cups and spoons, so the only thing I would wish for would be the weight measurements beside the ingredient list.

Recipes I'll want to try: Pineapple Coconut Scones; Apple Bacon Cheddar Scones; Banana Chocolate Loaf; The Gingerstamp; Smartie Pants Bar; The Campfire Bar (makes me want to go out and purchase a better kitchen blowtorch); Butterscotch Crispy Bar; Triple Lemon Layer Cake; The Quintessential Butter Tart; and Butter's Famous Marshmallows.

I also want to give a nod to Janis Nicolay and Kelly Hill. The photographs are lovely, delicious looking and the layout and design is beautiful and thoughtful. There's a photo for every recipe and even some for process and procedures. Overall, this would be a great gift for those starting out in the baking world.

So I made some chocolate and peanut butter cupcakes, only making slight changes here and there to make due with what I had in the kitchen. They might look different from the version in the cookbook, but we can attest to how yummy the cupcake itself is!

Chocolate Peanut Butter Crunch Cupcakes
Recipe adapted from Butter Baked Goods
(Makes about 28-30 cupcakes)

2 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour
1 1/4 cup of cocoa powder
1 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1/2 cup of smooth peanut butter (plus 1/2 cup more if you include the optional step)
1/2 cup of unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup of granulated sugar
1 cup of dark brown sugar
3 large eggs
1 1/2 cup of whole milk
1 cup of sour cream
2 teaspoons of vanilla extract

1. Preheat your oven to 175°C (350°F) and prepare your cupcake pans by placing the cupcake liners in.
2. Sift the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt into a large bowl (preferably one with a spout).
3. Using a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, cream the peanut butter, unsalted butter, granulated sugar, and brown sugar on medium to high speed until light and fluffy.
4. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each one. Scrape the sides of the bowls as needed.
5. In a measuring cup, whisk the milk, sour cream, and vanilla extract together.
6. Turn the mixer to low and alternate adding the dry ingredients and the liquid ingredients. Begin and end with the dry ingredients in three parts, the liquid ingredients in two parts.
7. Using an ice cream scoop, fill each cupcake liner about three-quarters full. This part is optional (I skipped it), use a small teaspoon to push in 1 teaspoon of peanut butter into the center of the batter. Make sure it is fully covered by the cupcake batter.
8. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until a cake tester inserted, comes out clean. If you included the optional step, don't insert your tester into the middle, do it on the side. Otherwise, you'll just hit warm, gooey peanut butter.
9. Remove the cupcakes from the oven and allow it to cool in the pan for 10 minutes before transferring them to a wire rack.

The following recipes are not in Butter Baked Goods, but an improvised version since the original called for a peanut butter butter cream and a deep dark chocolate butter cream. I didn't feel like doing a double stacked swirl of frosting on the cupcakes.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Frosting
(Makes enough to frost 18-20 cupcakes)

1 stick of unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 cups of icing sugar
1/4 cup of smooth peanut butter
5 (approximately 1/4 cup) Lindor Peanut Butter Milk Chocolate Truffles, melted
1 1/2 tablespoons of whole milk

1. Using a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, cream the butter, icing sugar, and peanut butter together.
2. Melt the chocolate and peanut butter truffles over a double boiler or in the microwave at 10-15 second intervals. Pour into frosting and mix.
3. Add in the milk for a smoother consistency.

Chocolate Ganache
1/4 cup of semi-sweet chocolate
1 tablespoon of whole milk

1. Melt the chocolate over a double boiler or in the microwave at 10-15 second intervals. Stir until smooth.
2. Add in the milk and mix until incorporated.

Crunch
1/2 cup of Rice Krispies

Final steps to assemble the cupcakes. Pipe the chocolate peanut butter frosting onto the cupcake, swirls look best! Then, create the chocolate ganache as you want to work quickly with it so that it doesn't cool and harden. Pipe zig-zags of chocolate ganache over the chocolate peanut butter frosting. Sprinkle Rice Krispies liberally over the frosting.

Eat! Howard's colleagues had the joy of eating some of our Chocolate Cupcake Day treats. I heard everyone from his department ate two and left only 10 for lucky passersby.

5 Years

It has been five great years of baking, eating, and blogging! We want to thank each and every one of you for visiting our blog. We hope you're enjoying our culinary journey and we love hearing from you!

We celebrated in a bake-ly manner. The kitchen was a busy, crowded space this weekend. We tried new recipes for this blogiversary and made almond cupcakes with green tea frosting. Then, because there was so much frosting leftover, we also made macarons to use up the rest.

The almond cupcakes and the green tea frosting didn't turn out as beautiful as it did in our minds. It just shows you, even when you're celebrating, you win some and you lose some!

So we're very sorry that we can't share the recipes, the cupcakes turned out dry and the frosting was much too soft (even after multiple chilling attempts). But at least we can secretly enjoy them because they're celebratory treats.

Until next time, we hope you eat cake for breakfast, too!

One Million

Hello friends! Something special happened this weekend . . . our all time history count tells us that we've reached over one million views! It's a little unbelievable, but hopefully the stat isn't tricking us, because we we want to thank you.

Thank you for visiting our blog. Thank you for commenting on our posts. Thank you for following us on facebook, twitter, instagram, pinterest, and all of the other neat platforms. Thanks for sticking around and reading about our food adventures and kitchen stories. We wish we could give each and every one of you a bouquet of cupcakes. Since no one has invented a cupcake-teleportation device, we hope that you'll accept this for now:

One-Bowl Chocolate Cupcakes
Adapted from Martha Stewart Cupcakes
(Makes about 22 cupcakes)

2 large eggs
3/4 cup of milk
1 teaspoon of pure vanilla extract
3/4 cup of warm water
3 tablespoons of vegetable oil
3/4 cup of cocoa powder
1 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups of sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons of baking soda
3/4 teaspoon of baking powder
3/4 teaspoon of salt

1. Preheat the oven to 175°C (350°F) and line your tray with cupcake liners.
2. In your bowl, mix the eggs, milk, vanilla extract, warm water, and vegetable oil together.
3. Sift in the cocoa powder, all-purpose flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, and salt into the mixture. Mix until incorporated (don't over mix).
4. Using an ice cream scoop, evenly distribute the batter into the cupcake liners.
5. Bake for about 20-22 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean. Let the cupcakes cook before frosting.

You can use your favourite buttercream or frosting recipe. Make sure the consistency is firm enough to hold the shape of the flowers.

Vanilla Buttercream

1 stick of unsalted butter, room temperature
3 cups of icing sugar
1/4 cup of milk
2 teaspoons of pure vanilla extract
Gel colour dyes

1. Using a stand mixer, put the butter into the bowl and cream until smooth. Add in the icing sugar in three batches. Slowly start the mixer as you don't want the icing sugar to fly out! When it is all incorporated, add the vanilla extract.
2. You will need to use your own judgement here, add the milk a tablespoon at a time and check the consistency of the buttercream. It should not be so stiff that your spatula can stand upright if you stuck it in the middle of the ball of buttercream. It shouldn't be so soft that it won't hold it's shape after piping.
3. Add the gel colour you prefer and scoop the buttercream into your piping bag. Fit it with a large petal decorating tip (we used Wilton 127).

Holding both the cupcake and your piping bag, with the wider end of the tip on the bottom, rotate the cupcake as you pipe a small volcano. There should be a small opening on the top and a wide base at the bottom.

Then, pipe three petals around the middle, notice that these are not full petals. They don't go all the way around. Try surrounding the middle tip in three overlapping parts.

Continue and slightly angle your piping tip so that the petals eventually lay flat on the edge of the cupcake.

Even if the buttercream ruffles, tips over, or doesn't fold exactly where you want it to, it'll still look beautiful!

Try a different colour! It is almost spring!

We can't say it enough. Thank you!

Now let's eat cake!

Fondant Dinosaur Tutorial

Hello friends!

I wanted to share this little thing I did over the holidays. It's nothing much, but I really enjoyed working on it. I wrote a more elaborate and detailed tutorial - complete with photos - on how to make fondant Stegosauruses for cupcakes and cakes. It's posted on SheKnows.com, a site that curates many lifestyle articles.

Please take time to check it out and I would love your feedback, either here or on the tutorial. I would love to work on more tutorials with the SheKnows team again, so if you enjoyed it or found it useful, please give it the old "like" and share it with your friends and family. I would greatly appreciate it. Thank you! That's all for now!

Sincerely,
Sylvia

PS: I have a byline and a bio and everything!

Gingerbread Cupcake Kit

A friend of ours gave us this Gingerbread Cupcake Kit for the holidays. I thought it would be fun to take it out for a quick treat today.

The kit included gingerbread cake mix, cinnamon frosting mix, sprinkles, and 8 gingerbread people picks. I had to bring the cupcake liners, vegetable oil, egg, water, unsalted butter, milk, and icing sugar to the table.

The cupcakes were easy to make, but I ended up with enough batter for 7 cupcakes instead of the promised 8! I also found it hilarious that the image on the kit shows white-coloured frosting for the cinnamon frosting! Regardless, the gingerbread decorations are really cute.

Look at Ms. Bow here.

This one's my favourite. Earmuffs and a scarf!

Cute little hat for the mister here.

And the lucky guy above is the only one with shoes/socks! Keep those toes toasty!

Happy holidays everyone! If you're looking for cupcake kits, you can probably find them in grocery and department stores during this time of year!

Green Tea Cupcakes

I also made these cupcakes during my weekend. You're probably wondering, What? There's only one photograph?

Yes. I had just started to take the photos when my doorbell rang. One of my best friends was at my door, having just come back from an interview! So I put my camera down so we could catch up and eat cupcakes instead!

Green Tea Cupcakes
Recipe adapted from The Primrose Bakery Book
(Makes about 12 cupcakes)

150 millilitres of semi-skimmed milk
4 green tea teabags
2 1/2 teaspoon of matcha powder
1 stick of unsalted butter, room temperature
225 grams of granulated sugar
2 large eggs
255 grams of all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon of baking powder

1. Heat the milk in a saucepan over a medium heat until it starts to boil. Remove it from the heat and add in the green tea teabags. Cover and let the tea steep for at least 30 minutes or leave overnight in the refrigerator.
2. Preheat the oven to 180°C (355°F) and line your tray with cupcake liners.
3. Remove the teabags from the milk and squeeze out any excess milk. Add in the matcha powder and stir.
4. Using a mixer, cream the butter and sugar until smooth. 
5. Add in the eggs, one at a time.
6. The original recipe calls for self-raising flour, if you don't have it, add the baking powder to your all-purpose flour. Alternating between the flour and the milk, pour them into the butter and sugar mixture. 
7. Use an ice cream scoop to evenly distribute the batter into the cupcake liners. Fill the liners to about 2/3 full and bake for about 25 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean.

I did jot down some notes for this recipe though. Make sure you plan ahead and steep the milk beforehand. Also, having self-raising flour would be useful again! But, unlike the Maple and Pecan Cupcakes, these ones did rise to a good height. Yet, the cupcake could be a lot lighter, it was still too dense in my opinion.

Green Tea Buttercream Icing
(Makes enough to ice 12 cupcakes)

1 stick of unsalted butter, room temperature
2 cups of icing sugar
60 millilitres of semi-skimmed milk
1 teaspoon of matcha powder

1. Using a mixture, beat the butter and icing sugar until smooth. 
2. Add in the matcha powder and milk. Mix until smooth and creamy.

Maple and Pecan Cupcakes

Today, I had a very ambitious Monday afternoon. I made two batches of cupcakes and did a whole lot of washing. I have dry hands to prove it. But I think the results were worth it in the end. There is some tweaking  to do if I were to make them again, but right now, I'm happy that I can just sit back, listen to holiday music on the radio, and enjoy a cupcake.

Maple and Pecan Cupcakes
Recipe adapted from The Primrose Bakery Book
(Makes about 12 cupcakes)

60 grams of pecans, chopped
1 stick of unsalted butter, room temperature
50 grams of brown sugar
160 millilitres of pure maple syrup
2 large eggs
115 grams of all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon of baking powder

1. Measure out 60 grams of pecans and carefully chop them into pieces. The chopped pecans should be about 0.5 centimetres wide (see photo above).
2. Preheat your oven to 180°C (355°C) and line your tray with cupcake liners.
3. Using a mixer, cream the butter and brown sugar until smooth. 
4. Pour in the maple syrup and mix well.
5. Add in the eggs one at a time and mix until incorporated.
6. Gently fold in the flour and baking powder into the batter. The original recipe calls for self-raising flour and next time, I would stick to it and omit the baking powder. I didn't have self-raising flour and guessed at how much baking powder would be needed - I should have used more, the cupcakes did not rise very much.
7. Then, fold in the chopped pecans.
8. Use an ice cream scoop to evenly distribute your batter into the liners, filling them about 2/3 full.
9. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean.

Caramelized Pecans
60 grams of granulated sugar
12 pecans, halved

1. Heat the granulated sugar in a heavy-based saucepan until the sugar has melted and is a pale golden colour.
2. Spread out the pecans on a silicone baking mat, then pour the melted sugar over the nuts.
3. Leave to cool and harden. Once the caramel is ready, break into pieces.

You know what I learned? I am terrible at pouring hot sugar over pecans. Furthermore, I am terrible at breaking them into even shards.

Maple Syrup Buttercream Icing
(Makes enough to frost 12 cupcakes)

1 stick of unsalted butter, room temperature
2 cups of icing sugar
1/4 cup of pure maple syrup

1. Using an electric mixer, beat the butter and icing sugar until smooth. 
2. Gradually add in the maple syrup until creamy and smooth.

Like I said in my notes above, not having self-raising flour was my downfall! The cupcake turned out short and dense.

They're also very sweet, so I would omit some of the brown sugar and maple syrup in the future. I did enjoy the crunch of the pecans inside the cupcake though.

I also loved the caramelized pecan toppings. All those extra shards without a pecan made lovely snacks for me. Ha! I know, I shouldn't be eating so much sugar.