52 weeks of baking: 17 - simple white cake

This week I thought I'd get back to basics and make a straight up white cake with white icing. Plain jane. I found this recipe from my girl Martha (we haven't teamed up in so long) and gave it a try. Success y'all, success.

Lets talk about this cake batter. Are you into eating your dough/batter/unbaked goodness? Are you totally not scared of raw eggs and love the perfect grittiness of creamed butter and sugar? Welcome to the club. This batter you guys. I basically had my whole face in the bowl. It was delicious. Worth baking the cake alone.

This cake is where it's at. It's pretty flawless, I wouldn't change a thing. It's really your basic white wedding cake. It actually tastes a lot like ours did (convenient, our anniversary is Tuesday). It is also probably a great starting point for more creative versions. I think it would be delicious with some pureed strawberries added into the icing. Or the cake batter for that matter. Oh, and can we talk about this icing? It's the perfect white icing. So fluffy and so delicious. It's officially my go-to for vanilla icing. And like I said, it could be easily altered. I'm really thinking of busting out a strawberry version of this baby soon.

Looking at these pictures makes me want to go cut another slice. Oh and hey, here's the rest of the baking year so far.

52 weeks of baking: 15 - chocolate zucchini cake

After last weeks minor fail, I decided to go with something I know I'm good at baking, cake. Chocolate zucchini cake specifically. This little book of old recipes my momma gave me is pretty legit. Nothing from here has turned out terrible, yet. And the recipes are SO SIMPLE. Thanks Women of the Farm Bureau from 1950-1980ish! I subbed regular butter for the margarine and used buttermilk for the sour milk. Because I googled sour milk and after seeing how to make it, I just couldn't do it. I can't watch milk sour in minutes and then use it. Just... no.

Please excuse the excessive amount of zucchini. It said two cups of diced zucchini and I was all like, hmmm... how many zucchini do I need for that? THREE! Nope. One and a half. We're having zucchini with dinner this week fosho.

Chocolate and veggies? Slightly unnerving. Sure didn't snack on this batter.

The recipe called for 1/4 cup of chocolate chips sprinkled on top and I was like, B please, you best up that to at least 1/2 cup. And I should have done more. There are never enough chocolate chips ever. But that being said, the cake still came out pretty dang good. It kind of tastes like a fluffy brownie. And I think it would be phenomenal with whipped cream. I might will whip some up for my next piece.

Also, when I cook, I try to use every measuring cup available. Because I looooove doing dishes.

In nonbaking television news, we finished the third season of Glee. We're waiting to watch the fourth when it comes out (IT BETTER BE SOON) because we are not trying to pay any moola to watch it now. Also, my boy Cory is in rehab and wont be in the last few episodes of the current season and that makes me unreasonably sad. You got this Cory. Also, the end of the third season? ALL MY TEARS. I got WAY too into that damn show. I blame it on the fact that Finn looks like Brendon and we were high school sweethearts, blah blah blah emotional girlyness.

We are now watching Pushing Daisies which is extra silly but also extra cute. And Lee Pace? You can smile that crooked smile at me all day. Plus all those dresses? Get in my closet. There's only two seasons and I heard it ends a little oddly, but I'm hoping I'm not adversely affected by it like I was with Glee. Seriously, I was in a funk for like three+ days because of that last episode. DAMN YOU GLEE. Making me feel things.

52 weeks of baking: 9 - pumpkin cupcakes

One of Brendon's favorite things to eat is pumpkin anything. Last year for his birthday I tried to make a pumpkin pie (following the recipe on the back of the can of pumpkin? first mistake) and it was terrible. He lied and ate it and said it was good but I knew the truth. So this year, I made pumpkin cupcakes for his birthday and this week's baked goodie. I was a little late, but I seriously did not have time this week until this weekend to make anything in the kitchen that didn't just involve the microwave. Thankfully I had Saturday off to spend some quality time with my oven.

I knew I wanted to make a cake of some sort so I consulted my girl Deb, and found this recipe for pumpkin cupcakes with a maple cream cheese icing. Bonus. A little similar to our cake last week, spicy with cream cheese, but whatevs.

Look at all this business that went into these cupcakes. Phew! Not hard to make but there are a lot of ingredients! And obviously, HEB is my go-to for groceries. The recipe called for all kinds of spices, including ground black pepper! In something sweet! Awesome. You wild Deb. Wild.

Brendon loved them and even though I'm not a huge fan of pumpkin, I think they're pretty dang good. That icing is badass. Maple cream cheese? Genius. I haven't made cupcakes in years, I actually prefer a regular old cake, but these were fun to make! Icing them was easier than I thought and they're cute! Although that recipe was originally designed (and written it seems) to make a two layer cake, if you wanted to go that route. Cupcakes are just so hard to eat. I always end up eating them with a fork to avoid an icing face.

These last two recipes have been a little more fallish than springish, what is a good spring time recipe? Suggestions, suggestions, suggestions! I know I'm going to run out of ideas eventually. I have a request for next week, but I've still got 42 weeks to go! Bring on your ideas, y'all!

52 weeks of baking: 8 - zucchini carrot cake

Have you ever had carrot cake? Who hasn't really? Aside from myself. I'm not sure if I have ever tried it. I think I've stayed away because I used to despise carrots and I'm still not a huge fan of them unless they're cooked to the point where they don't taste like carrots anymore. Soft and smooshy please! But the idea of carrot cake is interesting and appealing to me these days. A dessert with veggies in it? Two birds with one stone, y'all.

This is, as the title gives away, a zucchini and carrot cake. Double the veggies! I found the recipe in a cookbook my momma gave me a few years back, a 25 year collection of recipes from "Women of the Farm Bureau". It was first printed in 1981. Sooo, recipes from the 50's to the 80's? Cool! There are a gazillion recipes in there, most of them winners I'm sure.

The recipes are so simple, nothing fluffy or fancy. Just what you need. Kind of a breath of fresh air since my usual recipes are chock-full of side comments, pictures, and general fluff. Not that I mind, but it was just nice to get back to basics.

Definitely not the most appealing cake batter I've ever made. For once in my baking life I did not try (or pig out on) the batter. Raw carrots, bleh.

It came out pretty dang good! Didn't taste like carrots at all, phew! It's a little like banana bread, I blame that on the cinnamon and probably, the produce. The texture is great, it's nice and moist and still pretty fluffy. And it was a breeze to throw together. Basically a one bowl wonder. Oh and the cream cheese icing? It's awesome. I used butter instead of the margarine in the icing because, well, I don't cook with margarine. But it's good, y'all. I'm bookmarking that puppy.

The strangest thing about this recipe was the actual size of the cake. It called for a 9 inch square pan, something I did not have in my growing bake ware collection. But, after I quick search, I now do. I think this cake would probably be better in a 8 inch square. Or doubled into two 9 inch cakes and stacked. It's pretty thin, which is interesting and doesn't take away from the taste at all, but a little strange visually. Also, how do you store an 9 inch square cake? It was too big to fit in my cake domes, and I refuse to keep cakes in their pans and not ice the sides (that's basically baking blasphemy), so it is living on a cutting board covered with lots of extra glamorous foil. Cute. It's what's inside that counts, right?

52 weeks of baking: 1, 2, and 3

A few of the blogs I follow are doing a treat or a cake a week, for the entirety of 2013. I started doing this as well on accident (I like dessert okay?), but I really like the idea so I'm continuing with it. Not necessarily always "baked" items, there are some yummy no bake pies and cookies out there, but just yummy things in general. Baking just tends to be my bread and butter. Pun slightly intended.

The first three things were baked on a whim before I decided to embark on this year of yummy-ness. First I made chocolate banana bread (because we had brown bananas hanging on our counter, this is the recipe I always use, I just add chocolate chips), then I made Betty Crocker Fudge Brownies (Ahem, it was a Christmas present. And before I got snotty and baked everything from scratch I swore by that little red box. Turns out my scratch brownies are better!), and this week (today) I made these Mini Morsel Shortbread Squares:

These things, y'all. SO easy. Like ridiculously easy. Just a few ingredients, one bowl, and one pan (and you don't even grease it). And they are GOOD. Eat them warm. And try to just eat one, betcha can't. I stumbled across the recipe on accident. I was planning on making chocolate chip cookies when I noticed I got mini-chocolate chips instead of regular, then I spied this recipe on the back of the bag-o-mini-chips and decided to try it. It was meant to be. Way to go Nestle, it's a winner.

I'm excited to keep up with this little weekly baking challenge. Documenting it all will be fun and now that I am aware of what I'm doing I can plan ahead and get creative! Usually when I bake something it's just thrown together out of whatever I have laying around because I'm craving dessert. This will obviously still make up the majority of the weeks, but I'll try to pull off some fancier things too. Honestly, it sounds pretty easy because well, I love to bake and eat yummy things do it a lot already. But 52 baked things is a lot. And I'm going to try not to do repeats. I welcome any recipes you recommend!

Wish me luck and happy baking! Hopefully I don't gain 200 pounds by the end of the year.

Apple pie

I've never made an apple pie before. I actually don't even like apple pie. But the Smitten Kitchen guru had a very promising pie crust recipe I wanted to try and I figured why not, I'll bust out an apple pie for the holidays.

I used this recipe for the filling and this recipe for the crust.

Like I said, I don't really like apple pie, I'm not a huge fan of cooked fruit, so I'm not sure if it was really good or not, but Smitten Kitchen is usually pretty infallible. I made it for our Christmas Eve dinner and my family said it was good, but they could have just said that because they're family. But that crust, y'all. Oh man, it was delicious. Seriously, the puffiest most perfect crust ever. And the hearts were a last minute addition, I thought they were cute!

Make some pies. Make use of this crust recipe!

Turkey Day recap

Brendon and I decided to try and "skip" Thanksgiving this year. Brendon was working and I was in serious need of quiet chillaxation. So we decided to just hole up in the apartment, relax, and put up Christmas decorations (my favorite part of Thanksgiving!). Of course, that didn't happen.

We had a mini Thanksgiving the night before at our place with Brendon's mom and little bro, and my mom, her friend Ray, and my sister came up for the day of. Lots of food, lots of dishes, and unfortunately, no relaxing. However it was really great to see family and totally worth it.

My mom brought up and made all the food so I didn't really have to cook any of the Thanksgiving dinner, but I was in charge of dessert because, duh. And I'll give you a hint, the recipes came from certain cookbook I've been fawning over for weeks. I MUST MAKE ALL THE RECIPES.

I made two desserts, one for chocolate lovers, a chocolate silk pie, and a more traditional Thanksgiving dessert, a pumpkin cheesecake.

And this is what happened to the latter:

It fell, no, tumbled, to it's demise. It was in the fridge cooling, perched on top of our water filter pitcher (Thanksgiving = ZERO fridge space), and in the midst of the craziness in our tiny kitchen it fell from it's perch, bouncing down all the shelves, landing in a pile on the floor. I had high hopes for this little guy. It took me forever to make, mostly because I had to crush 100 gingersnap cookies (slight exaggeration) by hand for the crust. And I don't even want to talk about how long it took us to find that size tart dish. So when it fell, I had a "moment" in the kitchen, and I cried.

Luckily, I had also made the best pie in the world, so it was okay.

 

This pie you guys. I am obsessed. One of my favorite foods in the world is chocolate mousse and this pie is basically a chocolate mousse pie, covered in freshly whipped cream and chocolate shavings. I mean, it's heavenly. I plan on skipping the crust and just making little bowls of this goodness next time. IT IS SO GOOD, Y'ALL. So good.

And here are the holiday mug group shots:

Sheesh, someones immature, who does bunny ears anymore?

It was a good Thanksgiving, full of family and good food. To wrap up the night Brendon and I put up some Christmas decorations and then curled up on the couch and watch Elf to ring in the Christmas season. It was a good day. And the leftovers are phenomenal.

And coming soon, our ridiculous Christmas tree!