Our Las Vegas Adventures

Welcome to the first post of our Las Vegas adventures!

Why Las Vegas some of you may wonder? While it's true that Howard and I aren't gamblers, drinkers, or clubbers, it was the end of the year and I wanted to go somewhere, anywhere. So I traded in all my left over vacation days for the second last week of December and asked Howard to look up travel rates. The best deal we found was for Las Vegas, NV. Howard had never been and I was interested in what the city could offer food wise, and as it turns out, quite a lot!

Plus, where else could we see replicas of:

The Statue of David?

The Eiffel Tower in fog? (Yes, we heard from locals that it only rains about 5% in a year. We got that 5% + fog when we went. Booyeah!)

The Venetian canals?

Medieval castles beside the Statue of Liberty?

Or the ROM's Crystal?

Curvy escalators? Okay, these aren't world wonders, but look, they curve! We don't have those here. Fancy, fancy!

I already had a list of places to see as recommended by Suresh Doss (thank you) to visit, but stumbling upon a place I wasn't expecting is always a great treat.

At first, I didn't even see the restaurant because of this distraction:

They have chocolate and red velvet cupcakes!

Max Brenner is located in the Forums Shop by Caesars Palace and has a little gift shop attached to the restaurant. The place is decked out in chocolate decor (what did you expect from "chocolate by the bald man?"). If you take a look at their menu, they serve chocolate pizza slices, chocolate syringes, hot chocolate, chocolate crepes, chocolate chip cookies, chocolate sundae, chocolate fondue, and many more. They go all out for dessert (click here to have a look at their menus). Right? I not exaggerating here!

It is sort of like if Willy Wonka opened a restaurant. I mean, I wish there was a way to capture aroma with photos, the place smelled wonderful!

My first cupcake! So here, here to a very good start in Las Vegas!

Black Sheep Birthday Cupcakes

Michelle came up with a fun birthday idea - sheep! Why? Well, because Brenda is the founder of Black Sheep Farm! So let's make a cute little sheep pen on the birthday cupcake!

Vanilla buttercream with red velvet cupcakes. I know, traditionally red velvet goes with cream cheese frosting, but it has been so hot here, I was afraid it wouldn't keep. Plus, vanilla buttercream is just as yummy!

Red Velvet Cupcakes
Recipe adapted from the Whimsical Bakehouse
(Makes about 28 cupcakes)

2 sticks of unsalted butter
1 1/2 cups of sugar
2 large eggs
3 tablespoons of red food colouring
2 1/2 cups of cake flour
2 tablespoons of cocoa powder
1 teaspoon of baking soda
1 cup of buttermilk
1 teaspoon of vanilla
1 teaspoon of vinegar

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F) and have all ingredients at room temperature. Also have your cupcake liners and pans ready.
2. Using your stand mixer, beat the butter and sugar together until combined.
3. Add the 2 eggs and mix. Add in the red food coloring and mix well.
4. In a separate bowl, sift the cake flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt together.
5. In your measuring cup, pour in the buttermilk, vanilla, and vinegar.
6. Alternatively pour the cake flour mixture and buttermilk mixture into the butter mixture.
7. Using your handy ice-cream scoop, evenly divide the batter into your cupcake liners.
8. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until your cake tester comes out clean. Let the cupcakes cool before mixing.
   

Carefully measure out your dry ingredients and sift!

Use a handy-dandy ice cream scoop to evenly divide your batter!

Quite pretty in pink, but don't worry!

The cupcakes will turn out red!

Pipe your favourite frosting on the cupcake!

A sheep pen for Brenda! Happy... baahhday! (Sorry, I couldn't resist!)

Baaahh baaahh black sheep! Howard thinks my sheep look like blackberries. I guess that makes me the farmer of blackberry sheeps. =)

Sugar Tiers

I recently saw an interview on Duh-Licious about a new bakery, supply shop, and classroom - all three in one! My aunt had also seen it, been to it, and told me about it. So that's two nudges! How could I not go and check it out? I know that I've been trying a lot more cupcakes these months (good-bye waistline), but like Rosalind says in the interview with Madalina, when you're actually baking and decorating, you don't indulge as much. How true!

Sugar Tiers
735 Markland Street, Unit 4
Markham, ON L6C 0G6
(905) 888-9880

Going into Sugar Tiers was a warm treat and escape from the cold and windy day. Rosalind and Evalin were in the back working. They make their cakes and even hold lessons there. Evalin heard the door and came to greet us. I did what I always do, I look for the cupcakes! Spotted:

Display Case: Red Velvet Cupcakes, Strawberry Cupcakes, and Vanilla Cupcakes

Display Case: Vanilla Cupcakes, Carrot Cupcakes, Romance Chocolate Cupcakes, and Banana Rama Cupcakes

On the other side of their L-shaped counter were other sweet treats such as pastries, macaroons, tarts, and cakes. Focus Sylvia, focus! I'm here for the cupcakes! Here are the ones I got:

One strawberry cupcake! A sliver of strawberry on pink frosting with purple sprinkles on a vanilla cake with a strawberry embedded in it. The cake smelled very good, I enjoyed the texture, it had a good crumb. I think it worked well with the embedded strawberry, some cakes become too soft or too moist when you put fruit in it, but this was a great combination.

One red velvet cupcake! You can see the red colour peaking under the buttercream in the cupcake photo above. Also, an interesting pairing as you can see. Most bakeries put red velvet with cream cheese frosting, but here they did chocolate frosting. Lots of chocolate goodness too, the drizzle, shavings, and chips!

The Banana Rama cupcake, this one was recommended to us by Evalin. A slice of banana on buttercream sprinkled with shavings piped on top of banana cake! This cupcake was moist and something my parents enjoy making. So I saved half for my mom to try.

Like I mentioned above, Sugar Tiers is also a store. You can find fondant, cutters, colour paste, flavour extracts, mats, molds, cupcake stands, and other speciality items. Evalin told us that some of the tools are from the UK! If you're in the area, they also teach classes throughout the week. Three-in-one!

Thanks Evalin for letting me snap the photos. =)

Mini Celebrations

Look! I'm blogging more!

I will be back with something baked or something decorated, but in the mean time, here are some of the things I've been doing:

My friend and I went to The Chef's House for their Winterlicious lunch menu. I apologize for not taking pictures of the meal, but you know that I like featuring desserts!

I ordered the Sticky Toffee Pudding, Salted Caramel Sauce (above) and Laura had the Apple Frangipane Tart with Cheddar Cheese Ice Cream (below). It was delicious melt-in-your-mouth toffee pudding and that caramel sauce! Everything was made from scratch and I'm pretty sure I could use that caramel sauce on anything. So buttery, but so good!
I tried a bit of Laura's cheddar ice cream - a bit too odd for me, but she enjoyed it! We were very full from the lunch, yet we continued on to Starbucks, but not for coffee...
Yes, we picked up a pack of 4 cupcakes. Two chocolates and two red velvets. Laura took a red velvet for the road (she told me it was very rich) and I was left with the three!

I had the chocolate one and sadly, did not enjoy it. The chocolate cupcake had absorbed all the coffee flavours from the shop. So while it looked like chocolate, it had the smell of diluted coffee. Not that I don't like coffee-flavoured desserts, but it was an odd taste. I would recommend going earlier and getting the fresher cupcakes!

Oh wait, I didn't tell you about what we were celebrating. Well it was Groundhog Day, my one year mark at work, and Howard's birthday! No dessert photos from Howard's dinner - we had Japanese food!

Mix and Mingle with Cupcakes this Holiday!

The Holiday season begins!

Cupcakes Will Keep Us Together

Cupcakes, they will keep us together
Vanilla, chocolate, velvet that's redder
Some sweet talking girl comes along, icing those cakes
She says just try, they are not fakes
So eat (eat), 'cause they are just so fine
Eat (eat), I really do not mind
Look at these cakes and let them keep us together
mmmhmmm

Lyrics adapted and submitted by Julia. Thank you!
Based on the song, "Love Will Keep Us Together," written by Neil Sedaka and Howard Greenfield, made popular by Captain & Tennille.

Construction Birthday Cupcakes

Someone is having a birthday and he works in construction! So, for the birthday party, we were asked to make red velvet cupcakes with a construction theme! We hope you enjoyed the fondant toppers - we like to make everything edible! As always, there are more photos posted on our facebook page and flickr account!

1. Blue vanilla buttercream frosting on red velvet cupcake.

2. From head to toe: hard hat and steel toe boot for construction!

3. Need to have the blueprints for instructions.

4. Set up the construction zone with signs and pylons!

5. Have to have the wrench, screwdriver, hammer, saw, and drill handy!

6. Oh no! Spilled paint!

7. All set for delivery. Have a happy birthday Rowan!