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Kara's Couture Cakes

Learn with me on my sweet sugar and cake adventures!

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Summer Fruit Galettes (or “crostadas”…)

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Like seriously we argue over this. Galette! NO! Crostada! NOPE - GALETTE! Say it with me: cro-STAH-dah. Free form pie?     Let's just call the whole thing Yummy Summer Fruit (or veggie, really) Goodness! I mean it's such a simple thing. A great EASY way to celebrate the bounty of the spring and summer and fall harvests. Who doesn't love baked fruit, concentrated in amazing flavor and sweetness wrapped in a thin, crumbly, sugar crusted pie dough? And if you're not the type to like rolling out a dough to the perfect circle to cover every perfect inch of a pie plate, View Post

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Peach Melba Cake - Summer Sweet Raspberries and Peaches Galore!

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I think I've always been in love. I'm that type that falls and falls hard and falls instantly. So much so that I can tend to forget any and all others exist. And while the seasons may change, trends may sway, and others delight my tongue, Peach Melba, that classic peach and raspberry marriage, remains a love of mine.     Without fail, every time stone fruits come into season and raspberries are found in bounty I'm daydreaming of new ways to bring the two together. Of course, the winter months don't deter me as I have zero issues with frozen fruits. Did you know they are View Post

REAL Raspberry Swiss Meringue Buttercream

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I'm proud of that word "real". I greatly dislike and disapprove of fake flavors and low-quality extracts. There are great products available that you can use to get natural, REAL flavors in all of your baked goods and there's just no excuse to settle for the red and white labeled bottles at the grocery store. Of course, my first go-to is always Amoretti. Between the Artisan Natural Flavors, extracts, and their flavor compound line, there's nothing you can't do with their REAL flavors. But you might not be able to get them in time if you fail to order ahead (ahem... cough cough... like I View Post

Put a Lime in Your Coconut Cake

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The 30 Day Baking Challenge I set myself to continues, and while everything I bake won't make it's way to the blog ('cause I'm not that kind of blogger... you only get the good stuff ;) ) I do still have my hands on ingredients and I'm in the kitchen daily. And MAN has it felt good to get back in here! This is where I love to be, and creating new things gets easier and easier the more I play. And this cake is no exception. It caused a curiosity and a need to experiment with what seems like a small part of the whole thing: the curd. I can't help but focus on the curd first because it View Post

Gourmet Blueberry Almond Fondant

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I'm easily distracted. If I see geese on the side of the road while driving, heaven help me... A cat? The world could just melt away. My kid throwing some irresistibly cute face at me when I'm supposed to be lecturing about not smearing peanut butter in the heater vents? Forgotten. And that explains why so little has been accomplished as of late since I've started playing with gourmet fondant recipes. It's not easy for me to refocus once I get my mind around experimenting and pushing the limits with a recipe or technique. But that has lead to some pretty awesome View Post

Soft, Chewy Lemon Raspberry Cookies (and Ice Cream Sandwiches!)

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Ever have that feeling like, "Yeah! I have a great idea and it will be AWESOME when I do it!" And then you get up to do it and your body and brain are like, "Maybe we'll do it later. Yep. Later is a better idea and here are 18,746 reasons why later is better." And then later comes and there is a legitimate excuse as to why you can't just tackle this idea? Chances are you do. And that was all me. About everything baking. For the last month. Granted, I did make that awesome Pink Champagne cake not too long ago and that was a bucket list recipe for me. And it was View Post

Pink Champagne Cake with Strawberry Buttercream

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Oh, she's gone and done it. She being me of course. I just had to play around in the kitchen again and I had lots of grand ideas, but through my survey of my newsletter subscribers I learned that you wanted two flavor profiles that I haven't yet given you: lavender and champagne! Not together. Ew. But that was kinda news to me. You also asked for cookies. Over and over again I saw cookies, so you'll be getting bunches of those coming up :) Ask and you shall receive! Ideas abound with champagne cake and I had never made one before so I figured I'd grab one of my favorite flavor lines to View Post

Lemon All The Things! Cake, Buttercream, and Curd.

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It’s snowing. Again. In March. We had a brown-ish Christmas here in Buffalo, and now a white March. So as I sit here wanting to whine about my NEED to plant things, start wearing sandals (yes, March/April is that time here…) and the desperate want to feel in season with bright, flavors and… sigh. So I made lemon cake. And got carried away so I also made lemon buttercream. And lemon curd. LEMON ALL THE THINGS!!! Sorry for yelling. And I guess I don’t really need to advocate for the rest of the baking world to lemon things when I clearly went overboard. :) But it made the snow seem so View Post

Breakfast Maple, Candied Bacon, and Waffle Cupcakes

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It was 4 years ago and good friend of mine (like from second grade kind of friend) invite me and the fam over for the Superbowl. Only I'm not a football fan. I get it, I understand it all (dated the captain of the Varsity football team all through high school, so I kinda had to learn it) and I can follow it. Simply put, I don't like it. But one does not turn down an invite to hang out with close friends over a fun event and good food. And I do dig the commercials. And of course being the baking gal I am I was asked to bring something sweet and yummy. I obliged, naturally.   I View Post

Kara’s Perfect Red Velvet Cake

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Once upon a time, I made a crazy, crazy good Red Velvet cake. It was totally unintentional. I was actually writing my column, The Cakeologist, for American Cake Decorating Magazine and had tasked myself with a project that I was kinda dreading. Not that the topic wasn't something I wanted to write about, because it was. It was what I had planned to illustrate the topic. Lots. Of. Cake. I had to bake at least 4 with frosting/filling/buttercream/fondant. I don't do production style caking anymore and there's a very good reason. And truth be told, I've become lazy about making cakes (see my View Post