Baking with Sugar Lab at Home

One of the perks of working at Sugar Lab is being able to take home beautiful 3D prints and try our hands at some experimental baking to share with our families and friends. After the weekend, our Slack is flooded with at-home platings of pretty modest recipes that look like they were imagined by one of the country's most stylish patisseries due to the bold colors and crisp precision of the 3D printer. 

This month our MVP of at-home baking wasn’t a designer or chef--the honor went to Sugar Lab co-founder, (and resident basketball star) Meagan Bozeman. Meagan used Chef Melissa’s blog about baking pumpkin cake as her jumping off point and whipped up some amazing concepts back-to-back-to-back, even with her, um, novice culinary skills (her words, not mine!). Check out her plated desserts.

First, Thanksgiving: “After following Chef Melissa’s blog about baking pumpkin cake in the pumpkin spice dessert shells I went a step further and served it on top of salted caramel ice cream. The textures and flavors were amazing together!” -- Meagan

Next up, Christmas: “I simply mixed up a box of brownies and piped the batter into the peppermint dessert shells, about 2/3 to 3/4 full. I baked them at 325° (convection) for 20-22 minutes (until a toothpick came out clean) and served them on top of vanilla ice cream, finished with whipped cream. This is now officially my fav way to enjoy brownies!” -- Meagan

Some at-home baking tips from Meagan:

• If you’re like me and don’t own a piping bag, no worries! Simply fill a plastic baggie with batter, cut one of the bottom corners, and voila…You have a piping bag. 
• I filled my shells about 3/4 full because I like the brownies to overflow. More brownie, the better!
• Also, you can totally put these dessert shells in the freezer. But, avoid the refrigerator! The moisture in the fridge will make the shells soggy, even though the freezer is fine (why, science?!?).
• Lastly, Chef Melissa discovered that baking on a cooling rack avoided sugar crystallization (melting) on the bottom of the shell. We definitely recommend avoiding traditional cookie sheets and cupcake pans! In addition, baking with convection is another good precaution to avoid crystallization.