Raspberry Brownie Bites

Let's dress up a classic dessert - brownies - and get them all ready to go to a party, shall we?

 

I baked my favorite brownie recipe, by Smitten Kitchen, of course, into this awesome brownie bite pan.  It's basically a mini cupcake pan, but with squares. It's pretty shallow, which makes for perfect, bite-sized desserts.

After baking, I melted some dark chocolate and thinned it a bit with vegetable oil so it's be nice and runny. I dunked some of the squares into the chocolate, lets the extra drip, and let them set on a piece of wax paper.  Not only does the chocolate coating taste great, but it also helps to seal in the freshness and moisture. You can see the chocolate covered ones below; they look like petit fours.

Some got chocolate ganache heaped on top of the brownie bites instead of a complete coating. 

And the white cloud of deliciousness you see is marshmallow fluff.  I was in a hurry so I didn't have time to make frosting, plus the brownies were being served at a dairy-free event and I didn't want to mess with margarine frosting, but I'm really happy with how the fluff looked and tasted.

They were topped off with fresh raspberries. 

The little squares looked like perfectly delicious gems. Next time, I think I'll try a light glaze on top of the berries to make them really shine. Chocolatey, fruity, sweet and chewy.

And they're so small that you can try one or two [every time you walk by the fridge].

Bond. James Bond. The making and demise of a glorious Aston Martin DB5 cake.

We had a James Bond party. Movie marathon, themed arts and crafts, guests in cocktail attire, spooky villain's lair decorations, the whole thing. Of course, I made cake. And chocolate tuxedo strawberries. Also some cake pops and chocolate gems. But let's start with the cake, shall we?

(Photo by Duncan Ballentine)

I studied so many pictures of car to make sure this was absolutely perfect. This was also my first carved cake - very exciting.

The insides are chocolate/strawberry marble with swiss meringue buttercream inside. I baked two 9x13 and one 9x9 cake, then plopped them on top of each other. 

I attacked it (carefully) with a big serrated knife. I spent a couple hours staring at the form and tweaking it. At this point, I was jumping up and down because I couldn't believe it actually looked like a car.

I called a few of my friends to explain:
"I'm making a car cake and it's really hard and guess what it looks like? ... It looks like a CAR!"

Then it was time to cover it in buttercream. I made sure to use the frosting to help emphasize my carving and build up on areas where I was a bit overzealous with the knife. Yes, big mess. What else is new?

I then covered it in one huge piece fondant and started pressing in details with the back of a paintbrush. I didn't have any idea what I was doing because I don't ever work with fondant, but it seemed like a good idea, so that's what I did.

It was spray painted with edible silver paint (gorgeous stuff), I added details, and it magically became a car.

JB007. Get it?

I painted the windows on with a paintbrush and a bottle of black food coloring. 

Even the little mirrors are in the right place and the trimmings were painted silver with a little vodka  and silver luster dust mixture.

I tried to add in tons of details and make it as lifelike as possible. This cake took me 3 days, I fell in love with it, and you know what?

They made me cut it!

 (photo by Duncan Ballentine)

 It took about 10 minutes to bring myself to slice it and I'm still crying on the inside about my poor dead car. 

This is me killing my cake. But it really was delicious.

Now, what to do with all the scraps leftover from carving?

Cake pops! These are bowler hats. I was very sick of cake by the time I made these, but they were still fun and they came out alright.

And here are some white chocolate gems because a James Bond party requires treasure and jewels. They're shiny.

Since we asked the guests to dress up in the spirit of the event, I thought it would be appropriate to make sure the strawberries were similarly attired.

These aren't nearly as hard as they look and there's a great guide here.

I'm so happy with how everything came out, but you won't see me working with fondant anytime soon. I've never had so much trouble destroying a cake and cutting this one just made me feel too destructive. Maybe it gets easier, but I'll take my difficulty slicing it as a sign that it's my best cake so far. And I'm definitely okay with that.