cupcakecampcolumbus

A few weeks ago, right before Easter, the Short North in Columbus hosted an “Easter Begg Hunt” for dogs. People could sign their dogs up and collect Easter eggs from participating shops in the neighborhoods. The eggs contained tiny dog cookies, and some contained key fobs for Three Dog Bakery, which would then be redeemed for prizes for humans.

Scout got quite a nice haul of cookies and one key fob. When I turned it in, I was rewarded with this:

Four little doggie cookie cutters and a recipe for dog biscuits from the Cookware Sorcerer!

Sunday was Scout’s sixth birthday, so I decided it was high time that I make her some homemade dog biscuits. These biscuits were not cheap, as the recipe required a couple of things I didn’t already have: Whole Wheat Flour, Powdered Skim Milk and garlic powder. The powdered milk alone set me back $9:

The recipe was fairly straightforward. Once I had a dough together, I rolled it out and started cutting cookies:

I ended up with about 115 cookies from the dog. I started using larger cookie cutters towards the end of the dough just to use it up, because I had already filled two cookie sheets and was close to filling a third:

The recipe called for the cookies to be baked for 50 minutes. Big mistake:

Burnt black!!! These ones got thrown out. The next round was bunch better:

I made Scout a little birthday cake by cramming six dog biscuit “candles” into a Frosty Paws Peanut Butter Ice Cream cup:

She seemed to enjoy her cake very much! The other cookies I took in for my co-workers’ pets, who reported that their dogs loved them.

This past Tuesday, I was on TV! Carmen Owens and I appeared on “Good Day Columbus” to promote CupcakeCampColumbus, which is this Saturday! In preparation of the event, Carmen and I were asked to bake as many cupcakes as we could to fill up the island in the kitchen set for the show. Carmen baked a ton and I baked three different flavors. I repeated the Mint Julep Cupcake again because Rob loved it so much. I also baked Lemon Meringue Pie Cupcakes and Tarte Tatin Cupcakes with Carmelized Apples and Caramel Glaze. Both recipes came from “Cupcakes Galore!” by Gail Wagman.

I started with the Lemon Meringue, which began with making lemon curd. This stuff was awesome. I wanted to eat it directly out of the bowl:

I then mixed up the ingredients for the cupcakes and baked them according to the directions. When the timer went off, I got this:

WHAT HAPPENED???? I’ve never seen this before in my life. It was kind of amazing. But they were definitely not going to work. I trolled the Internet for a suitable recipe and baked up Round Two:

This time around was much better. As the cupcakes cooled, I whipped up the meringue topping. I cut small cones out of the cupcakes and filled them with the lemon curd. I topped each cupcake with the meringue and put them back in the oven for a couple of minutes to brown up:

Beautiful. These are one of the most fantastic things I’ve ever made. I’m planning to bake them again tomorrow night to take to my mom for Mother’s Day. Yummmm.

The Tarte Tatin Cupcakes began with a pretty simple cupcake base. Apples were cut into thin slices and then fried in butter. I arranged three apple slices on the tops of each cupcake and then mixed up a caramel glaze. These were really good and pretty fancy too!

And, for your viewing pleasure, I present our two and a half minute segment on “Good Day Columbus!”

Tomorrow I’m baking for CupcakeCampColumbus! I’ll be making mini Chocolate Covered Hi Hats and my secretive O-H! Cupcakes! I’ll be making the Lemon Meringue Pie Cupcakes again for my mom, but those won’t make the trip to CupcakeCamp!