My Latest Pursuits in Baking

I've been keeping busy with baking projects lately.  Ben's birthday was on May 12.  He's a fan of Elmo and of chocolate (especially M&Ms), so I made this for him:

Triple chocolate cake with homemade chocolate fudgy frosting and M&M trim.  He liked the look of it and the M&Ms, but he's just not a cake eater (yet).  I think he knew it was just for him and enjoyed that, though.

Next up was a school carnival at Rachel's elementary school on June 3.  They were having a cake walk, so I made this for my contribution:

This was the same recipe for Triple Chocolate Cake and the fudgy frosting, but with Oreos for garnish.  I think this would be great with a filling of an Oreo-cream-like nature.  Either way, it was one of the earlier items picked up from the cake walk table - we arrived at the carnival about 25 minutes after it started and saw someone walking around with it, so that made me happy.

Rachel's birthday was on June 12, and we did a movie theme for the party.  She wanted these cupcakes for dessert:

She requested vanilla cupcakes and vanilla frosting, and that's what she got.

My friend Angie's baby shower was on June 14, and I baked some carrot cake cupcakes with homemade cream cheese frosting.  These didn't photograph as pink as they were in reality:

I'd like to find a way for my carrot cake to rise just a bit more during the baking process.  This is a dense recipe and tends to bake fairly flat, which works great for cake layers or a sheet cake, but it's nice to have a bit of a dome on cupcakes, I think.  The taste is really good, though, so I'm reluctant to mess with it.

These cupcakes did not all turn out the same size.  I used 2 different pans and noticed that my results with one were much more uneven than with the other.  I'm thinking I need to get some good muffin pans so that I can be more assured of consistent results with cupcakes in the future.  I haven't noticed as much of a disparity with other cupcake recipes, but I definitely noticed it with the carrot cake.

And finally, I baked up some goodies for the kids' teachers and for the school office at Rachel's school.  This is banana bread, chocolate chip cookies, butterscotch blondies and gooey butter cookies:

I had a really good time baking up the things for the goodie tray.  I discovered that I put pressure on myself when I'm making a cake or cupcakes, but cookies and bread are easier because they're a little more foolproof, I think, as long as you don't overbake them.  I'd like to take the fun I had in making the goodie trays and learn how to be more that way when I'm making cakes and cupcakes.  Perhaps that just means I need to make those more often so I get over being stressed about them turning out well!