dear cooks,

Mom/daughter baking duo Kaye and Liv Hansen believe that cakes should taste as good as they look—and since the ones they bake are arguably the most visually charming you'll ever encounter, you can be sure they're delicious too. Whether they're making a Jackson Pollock-inspired cheesecake spattered with chocolate, caramel, and peanut butter or a swarm of sugary plump bees perched atop a rainbow of candy-colored cupcakes, they skip esoteric, inedible decorations in favor of simple butter-cream, whipped cream, and tinted candymaker's chocolate. In The Whimsical Bakehouse, you'll find templates for their delightful designs and enticing taste combinations, like Banana or Spice Cake filled with French Custard and Chocolate Mousse. And, of course, there's plenty of time-tested tips and information on everything from mixing colors to adjusting pan sizes so you can create utterly original, showstopping confections that taste yummy too.

Featured Titles:

Eat Well, Feel Well

about the book

In Eat Well, Feel Well, Kendall Conrad shares more than 150 recipes for quick and easy dishes for casual meals and elegant dinner parties alike. The appetizers and starters range from updated classics like Curried Deviled Eggs with Mango-Currant Chutney to such enticing, exotic fare as Thai Beef Salad with Papaya and Toasted Coconut and Egyptian Red Lentil Soup. Main course ideas include everything from Whole Roasted Red Snapper Stuffed with Fennel and Citrus and Ground Beef Chili with Navy Beans to kid-pleasers such as a simple Cheese Soufflé and Honey-Garlic Chicken Drummettes. Dozens of recipes for snacks, desserts, breakfast dishes, and beverages will help you integrate the Specific Carbohydrate Diet way of eating into your family's lifestyle with ease, grace, and creativity.

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Bobby Flay's Burgers, Fries, & Shakes

Make This a Super Bowl They'll Never Forget!

After a long day spent in one of his restaurants or taping a television show, what Bobby Flay craves more than anything else is...a crusty-on-the-outside, juicy-on-the-inside burger; a fistful of golden, crisp, salty fries; and a thick, icy milkshake. Given the grilling guru's affinity for bold flavors and signature twists on American favorites, it's no surprise that he has crafted the tastiest recipes ever for this ultimate food trio.

Though he doesn't believe in messing with delicious certified Angus chuck (just salt and pepper on the patty—no "meatloaf" burgers here), Bobby loves adding flavorful relishes and condiments to elevate the classic burger. Once you've learned what goes into making that burger (from how to shape it so it cooks up perfectly to melting the cheese just so), go to town with Bobby's favorite combinations of additions. Try the Cheyenne Burger, which gets slathered with homemade barbecue sauce and then piled high with bacon and shoestring onion rings, or the Santa Fe Burger, topped with a blistered poblano, queso sauce, and crumbled blue corn tortilla chips.

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Mini Birthday Cake
From The Whimsical Bakehouse

If the Cat in the Hat were a baker, this is what his specialty might look like. It is probably our most popular cake—we make more than 100 a week in two different sizes—and it has become our signature design. If you prefer not to work with as many colors as we show here, try some of these alternatives: a glazed background, tone on tone (such as light pink to dark pink), or all white.

What You Will Need:

• Cake: one 10-inch round cake of your choice (we recommend Chocolate Butter Cake, see below)
• Filling: 6 cups of whipped cream (we usually mix in 20 crushed chocolate sandwich cookies such as Oreos)
• Icing: Buttercream frosting of your choice
• Decoration: 1 to 2 cups white wafer chocolate to make assorted chocolate candles
• Colors: Teal, green, yellow, blue, violet, neon pink, and orange liquid gel colors and neon bright pink, green, blue, or violet candy colors (plus yellow)
• Tips: #102 and #104 petal tip, #18 and #199 star tip, and #4 round tip

How to:

1. Bake the cake and let it cool completely. Prepare the filling and icing. Fill and crumb coat the cake. Chill the filled cake.

2. Melt 1 to 2 cups of white wafer chocolate. Set aside 1/4 cup of melted chocolate. Tint the chocolate with your choice of candy color. Pour the chocolate into a pastry cone and cut a medium-size hole. On a sheet pan lined with parchment paper pipe out as many 5-inch candles as you will need. They should be at least 1/4 inch wide and 1/8 inch thick. Set aside to harden.

3. Tint the reserved chocolate yellow. Pour the chocolate into a pastry cone and cut a medium-size hole. When the candles are hard, flip them over and pipe yellow chocolate flames on their tips.

4. Prepare the colored buttercream of your choice; we used 2 1/4 cups purple, 3/4 cup orange, 3/4 cup lime green, 1/4 cup teal, 1/4 cup neon pink, 1/4 cup blue, and 1/4 cup yellow.

5. Ice the cake with purple buttercream or the base color of your choice. Adhere the cardboard round supporting the cake to your base.

6. Place the orange buttercream in a pastry bag with a coupler, and with a petal tip pipe a Ruffled Ribbon Border around the bottom edge.

7. Place the yellow or blue buttercream in a pastry bag with a coupler. Pipe a Bead Border above the Ruffled Ribbon Border: With the same tip, pipe yellow linear swags. Place the lime-green buttercream in a pastry bag with a coupler; and with a star tip pipe lime-green Spiral Swags using the swag lines as a guide. With the same tip, pipe an evenly spaced ring of rosettes around the outer edge of the cake top. There should be the same number of rosettes as there are candles.

8. Place the teal buttercream in a pastry bag with a coupler, and with a star tip pipe a shell border around the top edge.

9. Stick the chocolate candles into the rosettes so the flat sides face the front, pressing them halfway into the cake.

10. Place the neon pink in a pastry bag with a coupler, and with a petal tip pipe bows where the swags meet.

CHOCOLATE BUTTER CAKE

Classic, moist, and delicious, this versatile cake is sure to please any die-hard chocoholic or party of screaming kids. It is the most popular cake at the Bakehouse.

Grease and flour two 10x3-inch round pans. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

In a bowl, combine and whisk until there are no lumps:

• 1 cup hot coffee
• 1 cup cocoa powder

Add and whisk until smooth:

• 1 cup cold water

On a piece of wax paper, sift together:

• 3 cups cake flour
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 3/4 teaspoon salt

In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat at high speed until light and fluffy:

• 8 ounces (2 sticks) unsalted butter
• 2 1/2 cups sugar

On medium speed, add slowly and cream well:

• 4 large eggs
• 1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

Add the dry ingredients alternately to the butter and egg mixture with the cocoa, mixing until smooth.

Pour 3 cups of the batter into one 10-inch pan and the remaining batter into the other 10-inch pan. Bake the less full pan for 20 to 35 minutes and the fuller pan for 30 to 35 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Cool the cakes on a wire rack for 15 to 20 minutes before turning them out of their pans.

Yield: 9 cups of batter