Kind of. The heat still feels like summer but the Halloween decorations and the leaves turning orange say otherwise. Either way, it's been a beautiful year down here in San Diego and that means, baking season! My lovely aunt and uncle are expecting their first child and I was privileged with the task of creating some desserts for the baby shower! The theme was a very rustic, autumn, Thanksgiving feel with pumpkins, leaves, branches, and all things orange, yellow, and brown. My job was to make two types of cake balls, sugar-free mini cupcakes, and pecan tarts. Here's a little peek!
These are the pumpkin cake balls. First time making pumpkin cake, and the first time making cake balls! These sweet treats are made with a pumpkin spice cake formed into little round balls and then coated with white candy melts and rolled in orange sugar sprinkles. "Why not just use orange candy melts?" you may ask. Well, I didn't think ahead and every store I went to had ran out of orange candy melts because it was in such high demand. After a few trial and errors (and I mean A LOT of errors), the results came out better each time. I finished them off with a little dab of cream cheese frosting for the stem and a green vine on a select few.
Second attempt at cake balls! These ones are created from chocolate cake and coated with milk chocolate which is then dipped in crush pecans to give it an acorn look. These were a bit difficult because it wasn't a normal ball shape. Instead, I had to make a point and round it off to resemble a sort of smooth cone. Coating them was not the hard part, but once the shell had set, I had to re-dip the larger end and immediately coat it in the crushed pecans. As I mentioned in the very beginning, the heat was ridiculous this season and my kitchen was only a little bit better. I had to work fast in this step or else the chocolate would melt in my fingers and I would leave little fingerprints on the acorns. Usually, I have the urge to start completely over when my baking or decorating or not perfect, but I still found these to be too adorable and part of the theme was "rustic" so I went with it.
Last but not least, these sugar-free carrot cupcakes. Yes. Sugar.FREE! Unfortunately, diabetes runs in my family and I had to make something for those who really need to watch their sugar levels. I have made a regular carrot cake numerous times but I felt like carrot cake is perfect for the fall season and that it went well with the theme. I looked up so many recipes with easy-to-get ingredients and I ended up finding a recipe for a honey-based carrot cake. Of course, not everything goes to plan, especially when I couldn't find a large bottle of honey. Instead, I went with agave nectar which I heard was a healthier version of sugar and honey. I was a bit nervous because since I was replacing all sugar with the agave, I was adding more liquid to the batter so I had to reduce the amount of other liquids. The result was a little more moist than originally planned but the taste was just as great. You could obviously taste the agave in there but it gave the cake some nuttiness.
Just look at how beautiful this display is! Along with everything I described earlier, there are pecan tarts on the second-highest tier and the owl sugar cookies that my little sister baked on the lowest tier. My favorite part of the display is the mini pumpkin patch right in the center. I got to say, this was a fun experience. Making almost 100 cake balls, three dozen mini cupcakes, and almost 4 dozen pecan tarts was a lot of work but the way they were put together on the day of the baby shower (and how quick they were devoured) I was really proud of the work I was able to complete.