52 weeks of baking: 49 - spice cake

Oh my gosh can you believe it? Only three more weeks of baking and my year of baking will be DONE! As busy as I've been the past month or two, I can't say I'm not a little excited. When life is normal (what is normal and when was that?) it's easy to knock the baking out but dang, I've been so busy it's been hard to squeeze in time in the kitchen.

This week I made a spice cake! For my step mom's birthday last month my dad made a cake and as we were all oohing and aahing over it (I mean, my dad bakes once a year, it's a thing of wonder) and guessing what kind it was, my sister asked if it was a spice cake. It wasn't but that got me thinking about spice cakes. We had them all the time growing up apparently, but I couldn't for the life of me remember what they tasted like. So of course, I had to make one! I used this recipe and it is SO EASY; a one bowl wonder if you rinse it out and use the same bowl for the icing.

Someone LOVES cream cheese icing! I'm a batter fiend, but he's all about that icing.

This cake is very yummy. Spice cake is pretty similar to carrot cake in that it's full of mulling spices and topped with tons of cream cheese icing. The recipe is spot on, although it's a little dry. I may have over cooked it at tad, although I did bake mine in a metal pan versus the glass one the recipe showed. Noted for next time, I'll probably lower the temp a bit. But other than that it's great! I love that it's not a giant cake. It's a sweet little 8"x8" which is perfect for us to knock out in a week.

The final weeks of baking are approaching, and I feel I must be extra picky when choosing items to bake! There are just so many choices! You'd think after almost 52 weeks of baking I'd have run out of ideas, but NOPE! There's just so much yumminess out there.

Eight

Enjoy this picture (oh my god) of Brendon and I at our senior prom, in honor of eight years of love and fun. We've been partners in crime for EIGHT years, and every year has been better than the last. And I think it's safe to say that our fashion sense has improved slightly.

Thank you for being the best Brendon Hogan and for picking me. I sure do love you. Your fro too. Find us a prom that we can crash to celebrate, okay?

52 weeks of baking: 48 - black bottom oatmeal pie

Well, we're back to it. The only posts I seem to have time to do lately are my weekly baking. So here's a recap of Thanksgiving and the past week. It has been BUSY. Dear lord. I always work a lot, but this month man... I can't even tell you. I am exhausted and time is flying. How has Thanksgiving even come and gone? PHEW. It was a good day though. Brendon and I ran the 5 mile Turkey Trot here in Austin and I did soooo much better than I thought I would, seeing as how I hadn't run in over a month. And holy cow, I have never run a race with so many people. Usually a mile or so into a run people kind of stagger off so you aren't running in a crowd, shoulder to shoulder, but this race was a crowd all the way through. People all around you until the very end, and there was a mad traffic jam at the finish line. Like, seriously, a standstill. There were something like 25,000 people there. Craziness! But we had a lot of fun and it was definitely one of my favorite runs so far. Very positive and the view and weather were great.

After running our butts off we headed down to New Braunfels for two back to back Thanksgivings, one with my mom and one with my dad. Lots of good food (so full, STILL) and good company, but needless to say it was not the most relaxing day. Too much running around. A very good day though.

So of course, here I am, blogging my baking at the very last minute. I actually baked two pies this week, a pumpkin pie for my crew at work (undocumented because I was in a huge rush) and this black bottom oatmeal pie for us. This pie is very interesting. I've never really had anything like it. I guess the closest thing would be a pecan pie, but it's softer. Oh and there's chocolate.

Helloooo there tiny kitchen! How I dream of one day having counter space!

Why yes, there is a layer of chocolate ganache at the bottom of this pie. Hence, black bottom! Cute and clever!

It's real good with a hearty dollop (or two) of freshly whipped cream. Excuse my terrible pie crust. My crusts never look pretty, but boy do they taste good! This pie is a little like a mapley oatmeal chocolate chip cookie... but in a pie. It's very different and very good.

Can you believe it is December? Where did November go? WHERE DID THE YEAR GO? Although I am glad that time is going by so quickly (only 18 months until Brendon graduates!), I've been feeling a little left in the dust and frazzled. I need a break, but I don't see that happening anytime soon. Perhaps January will bring some calm into my life. Goodness knows I need it! Until then, bake on folks! Dessert makes everything better.

52 weeks of baking: 47 - cream cheese pound cake

YOU GUYS! My computer died! Blue screened all to hell. My computer was real old and funky, it was only a matter of time. BUT Brendon was trying real hard to make it run faster so the other day he backed up everything on an external hard drive, cleared everything off, and restored the factory settings. And then when it tried to do an automatic update restart, it just died. Not sure if it was the backing up that caused it (Brendon says no, I say YES), but it died. Luckily, we had just backed up everything so all my pictures are safe and sound saved onto our little hard drive, and LUCKILY Brendon has wonderful friends at pharmacy school. A sweetheart computer guru friend of his took my computer home, took it all to pieces, upgraded the RAM, put it back together, and brought it back to life! I'm even running Windows 7 now, y'all! No more Vista! It's like  a brand new computer! Like brand new as in it doesn't have any programs on it except Solitaire and Free Cell. I don't even have Word or Excel on here. And the photo editing capabilities are: MSPaint.

Soooo these photos aren't edited! You probably wont be able to tell a difference because the program I was using to edit photos was like "Microsoft Photo Editor" or something and incredibly lame and incredibly limited. I suck at computers, so whatev. 

ANYWAY, I made a pound cake. I have been thinking about making a pound cake all year and it just never happened, but my mom shared this recipe with me recently and it was so dang easy I just had to try it. It is a freaking winner you guys.

I think pound cakes are traditionally made with a pound of each butter, sugar, eggs, and flour, and this is pretty close, with welcomed addition of cream cheese. It makes SO MUCH BATTER! It is fluffy and heavenly and very tasty. There are six raw eggs in there, and I licked that batter off of the beaters without a second thought. Cake batter and cookie dough for life.

I made this baby in a bundt pan that my momma gave me instead of the suggested tube pan because I don't have a tube pan. Surprising, I know. It worked just fine.

This cake is soooooo good. The consistency is on point. It's thick and fluffy and rich and creamy and smooth and just really perfect. I did not glaze it (GASP) because of laziness. (Tiredness! My life right now you guys. You don't even know.) There is no recipe for a glaze in the recipe I used, but I think 1 cup of sugar and a couple tablespoons of milk would be perfect. This cake would be lovely with a glaze but it is delicious all on it's own.

This pound cake is pretty flawless and would be an excellent starting point for a flavored pound cake. Strawberry cream cheese pound cake? YUM. Get after it!

52 weeks of baking: 46 - snickerdoodle cookies

 
PHEW! Cutting it close this week, this post is going to be short and sweet. This week has been BUSY and I feel like I haven't had a second to breathe. But I did squeeze in some baking Friday! I wanted to make something that we could share with our friends, because I feel like we've been hogging (and eating!) all the baked goods lately. Cookies are the best for sharing! I used this recipe and they turned out nothing like the pictures and were not thick or soft, but whatever, they were good!

Snickerdoodles are always a good option. Sugar and cinnamon. You can't go wrong. BAKE ON FOLKS!