You're the Apple of my Eye Puff Pastry~

Bringing you today a scrumptious and decadent dessert for you that is perfect for Valentines Day.  Who doesn’t love puff pastry, this light and flaky buttery treat dates back to 1694 by a French pastry cooks apprentice named Claudius Gele.  How I read the story is that he was making bread for his father who was sick and added so much butter to the dough ending with the result of the puff pastry.  He went on to be a top pastry cook and very well known for his pastry treat in Paris and Florence.  Why I don’t make my own puff pastry I do take full advantage of having it in my grocer’s freezer to buy which allows me more time to be very creative with it when I am entertaining.  This tasty creation you should love especially if you like when warm apples and ice cream are brought together. 

What you need~

Heart or any cookie cutter shape
Puff pastry found in your stores freezer section~ (I use Pepperidge Farms brand)

1 Egg for eggwash

2 Apples – try a Pink Lady & Granny Smith

½ cup of chopped pecans

1 tsp granulated sugar

1 TBSP Light Brown Sugar

½ teaspoon of Cinnamon

1 TBSP Butter

Chocolate to Melt

Vanilla Ice cream

Thaw your pastry sheets according to the package, when thawed cut out the shapes you wish.  Line them onto the baking sheet lined with parchment paper and brush them with you egg wash.  Bake at 400 for 15 minutes.   

Cut up your apples and coat with the granulated sugar and set aside.  Melt butter in a pan add the apples, brown sugar, pecans and cinnamon.  Sautee the mixture for 5 to 7 minutes. 

When the pastries are done baking let cool for a few minutes and carefully separate the top and the bottom.  Set out the dishes you will serve them on to set up the dessert.  Take your apple mixture from the pan and spoon onto the bottom layer of the pastry, next a scoop of vanilla ice cream.  Drizzle melted chocolate on top of the ice cream and place the other half of the pastry on top and garnish with apple mixture and the more chocolate.  

There you have it a scrumptious dessert that is so easy to prepare and tastes amazing, I promise!   

Stacy ~ Scrumptious Swirls Blog

Two weeks~ Blessed & Grateful

Last year I had hosted my first Thanksgiving Dinner at our home. 

 We enjoyed it very much & I wanted to share with you the simple yet elegant(if I don't say) table setting and other decor...........

I chose to make a simple banner with the words 

"Blessed & Grateful" because that is what I truly am! 

Seasonal Decor

Large hurricane filled with nuts and pine cones, 

inside a smaller glass container to hold the sticks

Place setting with our menu and a pear 

My favorite part was the cornucopia filled with fresh greens, apples and orange roses

Greens aren't just for Christmas Season, 

add fall colors for a perfect Thanksgiving arrangement

Very simple "kids" table~ printed off some coloring pages as an activity while we ate (can you see they got to the table before I took the photo ;))

Our First Turkey!  With lots of help from my Mom! 

Desserts~ Apple & Pumpkin Pies & Chocolate Covered  Oreo's

How about you?  Do you host or travel to your family for Thanksgiving?  What is you favorite part about Thanksgiving?  

Peace, Love & Gratitude,

Stacy

Reality TV Star Interview & Fantastic Giveaway!

Reality TV Star Interview ~ 

Corina Elgart from TLC Next Great Baker

Fantastic Giveaway ~ The Twinery

I am so excited to share this post with you today!  Being this blog mostly about scrumptious baking, I think it is very appropriate to bring you my first one-on-one interview with Reality TV Star & Baker/Pastry Chef Corina Elgart owner of Cakes by Taste  from the TLC show Next Great Baker with the one and only Buddy Valestro The Cake Boss ! Along with a very gracious giveaway from The Twinery!

 The Twine Lover's Pack

The bakers twine from The Twinery is so fun & & colorful and can be used in so many ways, maybe you will win & you can use it to share what you bake with the scrumptious recipe that Corina shares with us here today!  This giveaway is for Twiner’s Love Pack!  You will receive 8 full spools in 8 different fun and bright colors worth $98 (more details at the end of the post)

image courtesy of The Purple Pug

If you have been watching the The Next Great Baker you know that Corina isn’t shy & is very passionate!  I have my favorites of the show one being Corina, I give her all the credit in the world for following a dream by doing this show and having the strength to leave her family to do what a girl needs to do……Bake with the boss the Cake Boss!

Let read what she has to say….

Filming has been over for some time what has been your main focus in the last few months?

Keeping my head above water, lol.  It’s been such a whirlwind.  As soon as I returned from filming I had cake orders to fill that were booked prior to me leaving…that was my priority, after all, I had just opened a month prior to filming.  I needed to focus on building my business.  Fortunately we were not able to speak to much about  the show when we returned so it made it easy for me to keep the priority on the business.

What was your biggest challenge personally in the weeks of taping? 

The biggest challenge was being away from my husband and children.   Keith (my husband) is such a support system and he’s an incredible sounding board.  I missed hearing his voice-he is usually the voice of reason for me.  My children are my little meatballs…I missed their voices and faces terribly.

What did you "take away" from the whole over-all experience of The Next Great Baker? 

What DIDN’T I take away from this….I wouldn’t even know where to begin.  I took away amazing friendships and colleagues; I took away priceless tricks of the trade, and most of all I took away the best experience I could have asked for.

Do you have any regrets from the show after watching it? 

It’s funny, initially I would say yes, my fight with joe, etc…but in reality, if I drive myself crazy with regret and shoulda-woulda-coulda’s I will lose sight of the experience I HAD.  I can’t change anything that happened, I cannot change the way the show was edited.  All I can do is move forward, continue to have people get to know me and what I do and enjoy my life and job.

How has Next Great Baker helped you personally or from a business standpoint? 

I helped me learn humility and acceptance.  After seeing what people say and post and seeing yourself on national television you need to pull back a little and take it all in, the good and the bad and just learn to accept it for what it is.  From a business standpoint I was able to use the platform to be featured in newspapers, Newsday, The New York Times (Sunday edition) and many local papers.  This was terrific because it brought attention to my shop.  Also, being on television I receive many calls for people who are booking cakes over the phone because of the show.  It’s truly been a blessing.

Would you do a reality TV show again? 

I’m sure I would!   However,  It would depend of course…would Joe be there?!   I’m KIDDING….had to throw that in there!

What is your favorite sweet that you create.....would you share the recipe with us? 

I have many favorites…it’s hard to choose….my pumpkin recipe is up there. If I could sell this all year round I would..it’s scrumptious and also makes great cupcakes with a cinnamon buttercream.

Corina's Pumpkin Cake Recipe

Preheat to 375

15 oz canned pure pumpkin

1C  oil

4 eggs

2t Baking soda

1 ½ salt

3 ½ c Flour

3c sugar

1t of allspice, cinnamon, nutmeg

½ t mace

2/3 cold water

Add ingredients to mixer in order…bake @ 375 for 35 minutes then lower temp to 350 for 15 additional minutes

I love a good pumpkin recipe for sure....it is one of my favorite things to bake in the fall especially to give as gifts to people!  Thank you so much Corina for sharing more about you and your recipe!!  We are all pulling for you, especially Nicole from The Twinery!  She was so excited when I asked her to be apart of this because Corina is her fav to win the show!  Would you like to win the giveaway?!

Here is what you need to do~

1) Like our fan pages on Facebook ! Leave a comment on each of  their pages that you are visiting from Scrumptious Swirls!  Leave a comment on my page that you visited and liked our pages!

Facebook ~ Corina Elgart Fan Page

Facebook~ Scrumptious Swirls

Facebook~ The Twinery

2) Stop by The Twinery blog, come back let us know here on this post how you will use all of your new twine! 

Winner will be chosen on Wednesday, January 19, 2011 at 9pm EST. Any entries received after this time will not be considered. Open to US residents only. Winner will be chosen using random.org.

Good luck!  Good luck Corina in the upcoming weeks of Next Great Baker!!  

{New Post} Apple Birthday Party

First I would like to start off by wishing my Emma Mae a Happy 3rd Birthday!  We celebrated her birthday with an apple theme.  Why apples do you ask? A few reasons....I love baking things with apples and with the Fall season beginning this week the apple season in the northeast east is in full swing!  So my choices were fresh and plentiful!  My Emma loves apples and she reminds me of an apple....she is sweet and is a very colorful child in so many ways.  Which you get with apples so many different variations of them and each one no matter what is so good!!

It was a wonderful little celebration and scrumptious to say the least!  I hope you find inspiration within this post for your child or upcoming party and perfect for any party you are hosting this Fall!

I made the bunting on my computer and I made mini poms to hang in the tree with bakers twine.  Speaking of have you heard or know of The Twinery?  They offer so many great colors & it is perfect for crafting and hanging things like I did above!  I used it on my cake plate too~ see below

Cakes, Cupcakes & Apple Toffee Tarts~

Apple Caramel Buttercream Cupcakes!!! Come back Wednesday for the Recipe.  By far the best buttercream I have created thus far and my new favorite! 

Swiss Meringue Buttercream Ruffle Cake with what were to be tempered chocolate ruffles.

 I will not lie it did not work for me......honestly I think it was too humid in my kitchen the day I did it.  And at that points I could go and add more icing ruffles because because I would have to make new green and you will never get the same color with coloring buttercream.  So I just chopped it up more and layered it on top with some fondant apples.  And what happen to my pretty ruffles you might ask?  Well, lol with totally disregarding everything that I have read from Amy Atlas about buttercream and outdoor elements the sun was hitting it for about 10 mins and they started to fall!  Thank goodness it was my 3 years olds cake ;)....and I learned my lesson for sure ;)

White Cake with Apple Buttercream covered and decorated with Satin Ice Fondant.  

This cake is one of my favorites that I have made so far...so cute...so Emma!  Do you like the stand it is on?? I bought everything at Michaels then my 11 year old painted the letters and I glue her name and apples on it to create a personalized cake plate!

 

Apple Toffee Tartlettes recipe via Better Homes & Gardens.  So delicious, everyone should bake them!! 

More apple friendly snacks everyone enjoys!  Gingersnap cookies, pretzels & all natural apple juice!

And what are the super fun cones filled with caramel corn in the picture??  They are custom made Kandy Kones from the one and only SuperChick from Celebrate TODAY...the SuperChick Way!  Perfect for any party theme...click on the link above to check out her new etsy shop.

And the whole table put together~ 

The birthday girl & her table~ 

and her cake~ 

Did I ever mention how I adore the age Emma just turned?  Three & four are my favorite ages for me!  They are so exciting, they can communicate, they listen (well mine does) they understand their birthdays for sure!  How do I know that?  It was like Christmas morning for her yesterday she had us all up at 6:30 and she was looking for her cupcakes to eat right then and there because it was finally HER birthday!!  LOL...Cupcake Cheers to my little favorite 3 year old!  

Love, Peace & Apples,

Stacy

{Wave 2} 40th Birthday Celebrations~Fun details

I love making parties more personalized with photo's of the guest of honor. For this party to "Ride the Wave" and to reflect of the last 40 years I created 3 things....photo streamers, photo collages & photo banner.

Keepin it Real with photo collages & a guest book for to leave notes for the birthday boy

Photo banner of childhood photos

My favorite was the photo streamers I create on the computer and punch with my scallop 3" punch
that were hung all around room and behind the dessert table

silverware roll-ups that we tied with a party circle and bakers twine from
The Twinery

I also used my twine to tie around the fresh fudge I picked up that morning on the boardwalk with the circles

And speaking of the custom party circles & custom labels....a HUGE THANK YOU! To the bella and fabulous Kim from The TomKat Studio who truly was so genuine simply because she is who she is and went above and beyond what I expected.  Again, I had to get this ready in about 5 days because I had to bring everything with me on vacation when we packed.  I emailed her on monday with the request and they were in my inbox by Thursday!  I just LOVED everything about them and it added such great detail to the whole celebration!  Here are some photo's of the printables~  I even used them on the cake I loved them so much ;)

Custom Printables from The TomKat Studio

I found the beach buckets on the boardwalk earlier that week for under $5 which was great and had my 11 year old go up to the beach so I could fill them with sand to hold the signs that I attached to popsicle sticks!

So all in all, it was a wonderful time and a great theme to celebrate a person's last 40 years with many photo's and friends....we all now life is a huge wave we ride!  

My thoughts are whether young or old it is a great & easy theme to have fun with~ oh and my table runner....was one of my beach towels ;)  Need to keep it real and less to was more for me in the case to enjoy my vacation!!

I didn't think my Mom and I would get all 40 candles lit but we did :)

Peace, Love & I have 3 mores years until I celebrate my 10 year anni of my 30th ;),


Stacy

Part 2~ B2S desserts for Tweens

As I stated in my last post back to school time for me is bitter sweet simply because I love having my daughter home and doing what we want when we want on a daily basis but I also miss having something of a routine.  It dawned on my today that I need to get to the uniform store asap and get her what she needs.... ah little bit of BORING!

So what did we do???  We baked, torched some marshmallows, cut up strawberries, checked our eggs to be sure they were good for baking due to the recall and designed some cute printables!

Haley's 1st go at piping not so bad~

There is a really fabulous teacher & children back to school printables at The TomKat Studio (which I ordered this evening)  and I came across cute free download's for just children from a very fab bird of Bird Crafts,  a few other freebie's that A Few of My Favorite Things shared.  All darling and cute~

Unfortunately for me my 10 year old who will be 11 in September, didn't want to make it easy for me by loving one of these....so as we looked through the Justice catalog we received in the mail today we used it for inspiration and created these~
Back to School Circles for Tween's

All have meaning and what we want most especially for this fabulous resilient age group "Love, Hope & Peace" for all them in their everyday journey through school.  There is a reason they came up with the age group "Tweens" they are one of kind and need all those 3 words each and everyday!

Please click on any of the link for your free printable for your fun & fabulous tween!  Check my other post for my Smore pops & below find my quick how to make cupcakes with fresh strawberries and chocolate buttercream so you can adorn them with your fun cupcake toppers~

Ok, now onto the scrumptious part~

Chocolate Buttercream with fresh strawberry white cake cupcake

Nothing like fresh strawberries baked into a cupcake!! 

So I have been away the last few days and didn't have everything I needed to make my cupcake from scratch.  Like I said I wanted to give everyone a short cut on this one, I had a boxed white cake mix in my closet.  I prepared the cake mix as the directions asked and washed and cut up 12 small-medium sized strawberries and gently folded them in after I mixed the cake batter according to the directions(very important~ you do not want to over mix a cake batter ever!! So gently fold the berries in)

Off they went in the oven then I prepared my buttercream and I always have those ingredients in my house...oh how I love to make different buttercreams.  

Anyway, either buy your icing or make your favorite buttercream and as for the chocolate I added about 3 tablespoons ( I never really measure) of Hershey's cocoa powder to the creamed butter and mixed it very well before I added the confectioner's sugar.  

Put my circles on popsicle sticks and now we have a perfect evening of desserts to kick off getting ready for B2S 2010!

If you have any questions let me know...and I would love to know if you made any of these scrumptious desserts...please share just post a comment!!  

Peace, Love & B2S~

Stacy

A different kind of Ice Cream Sandwich

appy Monday!  So last week was my birthday, and here in the Philadelphia burbs it was so hot....on my actual birthday July 7th it reached 103 degrees!  There was no way anyone was turning on the oven in my house but we had to sing Happy Birthday to me but of course!!! 

So this is what we had~ Doughnut Ice Cream Sandwiches!  They are ridiculously so good, that I have to share with you because I want everyone to try.  It is just perfect and just in time with ice cream being the rage and thing to have this summer.

So hurry up and run out to your local doughnut shop and pick up plain cake doughnuts.   I got ours at the Dunkin Donuts~ they call them "Old Fashions".  Then pick up your favorite flavored ice cream; mine is cookies and cream put them together and enjoy!! 

If you try it please let me know what you think!  I thought it was so tasty, fun and easy!

Peace, Love & Doughnut Ice Cream Sandwiches~

Stacy

Happy Birthday America!!

My family & I celebrated and sang Happy Birthday to our country with a lunch today before we go to a BBQ at my Aunt's then off to fireworks tonight!  Wish I would have been able to post somethings soon but my computer had a bad bug get into it!  Better late then never........ Here we go!!

I picked up the fans to keep cool at Joanne's and the visors & foam stickers all at Micheal's, the girls really enjoyed putting them together.  Both certainly came in handy at lunch with the 95 degree heat, but we stayed in the shade and brought on the breezes with our patriotic fans!

Now onto our lunch!  We had hotdogs with caramelized onions, fries & watermelon that we scooped with an ice cream scooper, placed in a patriotic cupcake liner & put then in the freezer for a bit~ perfect to keep us cool! 
I had wrapped the utensils in red, white & blue napkins and tied them with cute cupcake & peace sign red, white & blue ribbons.  I also had some lolli pop sticks that I stuck a felt star on and added to the roll-up...the girls loved them!

I hung some red, white & blue stars from the umbrella with an Uncle Sam hat!

Most importantly of course DESSERT!  My scrumptious lemon drop cupcake with Jersey Fresh blueberry buttercream and a red white & blue fondant topper that I made! So Happy Birthday USA & I hope you all have a blessed and safe holiday with your family & friends!  Peace, Love & USA!