Grace Cakes

eat cake give back

Cupcake Travels

May 23, 2017

Chicago Cupcake Tour Day 2

May 23, 2017

Chicago Cupcake Tour Day 1

May 23, 2017

Chicago Cupcake Tour Day 4

May 11, 2017May 23, 2017

Chicago Cupcakes Tour Day 3

Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can,
in all the places you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can. John Wesley

Copyright © 2017 © 2018 Grace Cakes LLC

Instagram

Quinceañera! They had the loveliest dessert bar in shades of white and pale pink. Classic buttercream will always be right up there with my favorites. . That’s definitely something I will miss with a focus on recipe creation and no custom orders, playing the teeniest part of life celebrations. ❤️ . But I have a feeling Plan B will not disappoint, and I have the patience to just put one foot in front of the other. . The secret to my classic buttercream is most definitely @nielsenmassey vanilla bean paste. . I have tried a wide variety of vanilla products, scraping pods, all that jazz, but I keep coming back to this company and this product for buttercreams. . Is it because I’ve been baking with it for 27 years and the familiarity of the flavor is like Grandma’s apple pie? It really does have that warmth and appeal nostalgic flavors can have. . The vanilla bean paste product is filled to the brim with vanilla beans. . Scraping pods is inconsistent because the pods aren’t perfectly uniform and scraping pods is subject to the human element. . I love precision and the ability to duplicate with exactness a combination I have worked so hard to create. . I’m happy to continue trying other products as I love the trial and error aspect of recipe creating. . But if I have to cut corners, vanilla can’t be one of them. . Be blessed! Michelle

In keeping with my philosophy that every single ingredient must pull weight, of all the cinnamons I have tried, and yes I have tried a ton, this is my favorite by far and away. . I purchase it at Costco, but it’s also available on Amazon that I just found. . There’s a depth of flavor I found lacking in most others I tried, however taste is subjective. My point isn’t for you to bake to my tastebuds. . It’s for you to consider every single ingredient that goes into your baked goods because flavor profile is a symphony, each player has a part to play and must contribute. . Be blessed! Michelle

I’m a buttercream girl. . Creating my favorite signature flavor for American buttercream took literally years. . I experimented with secret ingredients like sour cream, mascarpone cheese, small amounts of cream cheese, lemon juice, lemon extract, you name it, if it cut the sweet or contributed to the texture I was going for (creamy like ice cream) I tried it. . In the end my secret ingredients became butter and a slow churn mixing method to NOT incorporate so much air. . I am not attempting to get American buttercream to mimic the light silky texture of Swiss because Swiss exists, why choose when you can have both? . Plugra, which is made in America, has a creamy sweetness with the slightest hint of a mascarpone-like subtle tang. COMBINED with the decidedly rich and buttery Land O’Lakes salted??? THIS is my perfect buttercream combo. I sometimes use LO’L European style for the salted as well. . For kicks I tried super expensive imported butters but in the end did not prefer flavor texture or sometimes color. . Vegan butters were all a fail for my tastebuds as the oils they are made from break down easier unless you add a lot of powdered sugar and added cornstarch or other fillers to prevent sag or bleeding colors in the warm environment events parties can become with lots of bodies or summer heat. And I can taste the soy. Didn’t find a soyless product I liked the flavor of. . Each ingredient has to count. Bland butter takes away from the overall flavor profile. . Don’t try to mask cheap butters with more sugar or flavoring oils. . Open them up, line them on the counter on a warm day and watch as heat does it’s thing. Some of them literally become greasy! . So instead of a foundational ingredient working for you, you have to mask it and work with the sagging misshapen texture. . I literally ate tiny chunks of every butter I could get my hands on to find ones that contributed to the texture/flavor I was going for. . Eating buttercream formulations by the kilo was a dirty job but a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do. . Be blessed! Michelle

Baking has had to take a backseat to redesigning flowerbeds before summer heat sets in so here’re a few baking tips: . You can purchase precut parchment rounds on Amazon in large quantities for cheap for cake pans. . Olivenation.com has an amazing plethora of flavorings in large and small amounts in some delightfully unusual flavors, plus dried edible flowers! . Whirl cookies in a food processor for sand decor on cakes and skip the super gritty texture of various kinds of sugars. . Thank heavens for Facetime as my husband needed to steer me away from the power screwdriver and onto the power drill to drill holes in my new pot for drainage and to add concealed drip tubing for watering purposes, I RULE. . I’ll post some befores & afters in the garden when I’m finished, transformation is always inspiring! . Be blessed! Michelle

Well I wanted to see some Zoobabies for Mother’s Day, but we got rained out. Cincinnati Zoo has completely amazing botanical gardens. I need to come back myself so I can just snap photos and be inspired to my heart’s content. . Happy Mother’s Day!

Time to take a break from the flowerbeds and read The Meal That Heals, Receiving Your Healing Through Daily Communion by Perry Stone Jr. . He’s brilliant. Actually. . I was listening to him teach youth at a conference (via YouTube) and he told them he has a touch of Asperger’s, the kind that comes with an area of brilliance, and guess where his area is? . Bible study. . He can study 6-10 hours a day when he has the ability to be in his office, even skipping meals in his single mindedness. . He wasn’t bragging, I took that quote out of its context, merely expressing enthusiasm for why I know on page one I am excited to read this book. It’s going to be thorough and detailed yet accessible somehow. . His books are all that and a cherry pie. . He has a great personality as a preacher, highly, highly recommend his YouTube channel. . #timetoread