Last Week in the Kitchen

It was a big week in my kitchen full of new recipes and lots of sweets for parties. This is the chocolate mint cake I made for the ward party. We start with mint buttercream nestled in between 4 moist layers of chocolate fudge cake....

Add some homemade ganache (sorry for the out of focus)....

A bag of these bad boys...

And presto! Chocolate mint cake. It went like hotcakes off the buffet table. I love the finished look of the ganache glaze. So professional.

Doesn't this look amazingly tasty? These pics really don't do it justice. I was thrilled how it turned out and had many compliments as well as purchasing questions.

Chicken florentine. Our new favorite. So rich and creamy and easy to make. I might do a tutorial on this one later. But isn't it pretty too?

And this is the chocolate raspberry trifle I whipped up for our girls night out christmas party. Another crowd pleaser. The layers consist of (from the bottom up): dark chocolate cake, ganache, fresh raspberries and strawberries, whipped cream, skor bits, cake, ganache, whipped cream, raspberries and ganache to top it off with a bit of flair. Yup, we'll be making this again too.

And lastly, I started the week off by making 2 batches of caramel apple sticky buns. The second batch on Monday I added some pecans which made them even better. They come out of the oven looking like this.....

Then you flip them over onto your platter et voila!

This week- candy making.