Strawberries and Bubbles

The beginning of this year was very hard for me because I was trying to get out of a bad domestic violence marriage that was getting worse by the day. The one thing that brought me a lot of comfort was baking and cake decorating. My favorite thing to do was to have a night out on the town with my favorite fabulous divas.

To start the night off, we would meet up at somebodies house to start the festivities. One would turn the music up, the other would bring the alcohol, and I would provide the chocolate covered strawberry's. We would have some laughs, eat some delicious juicy chocolate strawberry's with a glass of wine or campaign and all while walking around the house half-naked trying to get dressed! These are the times I will cherish always. When I didn't have enough strength to leave, they provided me an outlet to help me to just get through to the next day.

This recipe for simple dipping dark chocolate and white chocolate is my favorite. First you will need to start of by picking out some very good size strawberries. I love going to my local Farmer's Market for the best strawberry's. If strawberry's are out of season, then the local grocery store should have a good selection. Make sure that they are of good size and none of them have any mold or soft spots. You will need to wash them in cold water and lay them out on a paper towel to dry. Enjoy.

Dark Chocolate Dipping Sauce

1/2 cup Water

1/4 cup Granulated Sugar

2-3 Tbsp Hershey's Baking Cocoa

1 candy bar Hershey's Chocolate

First break up the Hershey's candy bar into small to medium size pieces. Next bring the water to a boil and add the sugar, while stirring constantly. Take pot off of heat and add in cocoa,then stir in candy bar a little bit at a time. While hot put mixture in a glass or stainless steel bowl and dip strawberries immediately and lay covered strawberry's out on wax or parchment paper and refrigerate.

*To make white chocolate dipping sauce follow same recipe as above, but use a white chocolate candy bar and omit the cocoa.

To create the swirls, put some left over sauce in a squeeze bottle or dip a toothpick in the sauce and drizzle or strawberry.

Men Like Cakes Too

Now that Valentine's day is over ladies, I believe that it is time to show your significant just how much you appreciate him and yes ladies men like cakes too. I know that this might be a tricky thing to decide on, because you do not want to give your man a cake with flower decorations on it and even hearts or I Love You wrote on the cake might be to feminine.

Men love chocolate just as much as women do, so why wouldn't you bake him him a cake with chocolate icing? This will also serve as a plus for you because chocolate icing is dark,this will allow for any mistakes you might make in the decorative design. I am all for making things simpler and because the design might take some time, it might be a good idea to use a box cake mix. In my cake decorating class we used cake box mixes and my favorite was Betty Crocker. The trick to making it come out tasting like semi-homemade is adding a 1/4 cup of sour cream to the mix and 1 tablespoon of vanilla extract.

The first picture that I have posted is the basket weaving decoration. This type of decoration might be best done if you are already familiar with it or have been cake decorating for a while. The second picture is a more simpler design called the rope design. The rope design is just overlapping 'S'. You want to make sure that the edges of the cake are nicely iced. This can be done with a straight edge spatula. To add extra spice to the cake you could add cut up fresh fruit in the middle layer of the cake with an extra layer of chocolate icing. When your man cuts into his beautifully decorated cake, he will get an extra surprise of delicious fruit. Enjoy.

Simple Chocolate Icing recipe:

2 pounds of Confectioners Sugar (usually two 1 pound bags)

1 stick of butter

1 Tbsp of Pure Vanilla Extract

1/2 cup of Semi Sweet Hershey's baking Cocoa

5-6 Tbsp of Milk

Cream butter, 1/4 cup of cocoa and pure vanilla extract together. Once mixture has creamed fully and is a nice dark chocolate color turn speed on mixture down to low or mix. Incorporate confectioners sugar,milk,and remaining cocoa. Alternate by adding confectioners sugar one cup at a time,then cocoa spoonful at a time,then 1 Tbsp of milk at a time until all ingredients are added. Scrape sides of bowl frequently.

How to Make a 5 Braid Bread

The very first day in my Intro to Baking-Breads class we had to make a 2,3,4 and 5 braid with bread dough. I got everything down pat but the 4 and 5 braid. After a while of messing up I had to ball the dough back up and re roll it. As you can imagine the chef was not happy with this. We are not allowed to record video in the class room, so I can not show you the technique that the chef showed us, but I did find a fabolous video on youtube.The video is short and straight to the point. Hope you enjoy. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlhTICwoRjo

Baking Introduction

My name is Sharnika and I love to bake. I am a co-owner of cake business named Cake Dreams. We specialize in all kinds of desserts and pastries. Recently I relocated in order to go to culinary school. I felt as if to make my business grow I needed to continue my education. So, I am currently enrolled at the Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale with a major in Culinary Arts and Management and a minor in Pastry. My goal is to receive my degree, do an internship over seas and then come back and reestablish my cake business with the great experiences from my schooling and internship.

Now that introductions are finished I would to explain the purpose of this blog. Since I can not bake everyday I'm going through baking withdrawal!!! the only way I can deal with this is by talking about baking. I will be posting my favorite recipes, new baking techniques that I have learned in class, giving baking tips and all sorts of other awesome baking things. Please fell free to leave comments and suggestions on baking topics. Enjoy.