Happy Birthday Papa!

On their wedding day, my dad asked my mom for only one thing. My dad told my mom that he had had a cake on all of his birthdays, and would like a cake on all of his birthdays to come. This year as a gift, I wanted to bake him his very own cake. 

This recipe is very similar to my Chocolate Salted Caramel Cupcakes, but instead its in cake form. When assembling the cake, you are supposed to slice the layers so that you end up with four layers, but I was running out of time so I skipped this step. If I hadn't, the cake would have been better since the caramel would have soaked into the cake.

I finished the cake of with a dark chocolate caramel ganache, which was extremely rich. I prefer this recipe in cupcake form, but I want to try this again with more time. 

I used this recipe.

Peach Crumble Bars

It has taken me a long time to get this up here, but here they are, finally. 

The other week for Cooking Club, the theme was fruit. I had a few frozen bags of peaches hiding in the back of my freezer just waiting to be used, so I found a recipe for Peach Crumble Bars. 

The recipe starts with the crumble, which has a satisfying buttery flavor. Once you grease your pan, you have to press about half of the dough into the bottom to create a flat base layer. 

I used frozen peaches, which worked just fine, though the recipe calls for fresh cut peaches. I love the combination of nutmeg with peaches in this recipe. The peaches go on top of the base. 

Crumble the remaining half of the dough on top of the peaches.

                       

I was expecting chunks of peaches in the final product, but during the baking process, they lost their shape and became softer. It wasn't bad, but I wish they had the texture of the peaches. 

The original recipe uses a 9x13 inch pan, but I only had an 8x8.  To accommodate the size difference, I cut the recipe in half, which worked out perfectly. While this was  not my favorite outcome, I want to play with different fruits in the future and see if I can perfect the recipe. 

Eggs in a Basket

I'm usually not a huge breakfast fan, but who doesn't love lazily waking up on a Sunday morning and beginning the day with a delicious brunch? For my Sunday Brunch I decided to cook Eggs in a Basket (also known as bird's nest, eggs in a hole etc.) This is a recipe I had always heard about but never imagined attempting. That was until one of my friends told me just how delicious it was and how easy to make. It was so easy, she said, that she often made this for herself for breakfast during her busy morning schedule! 

First you start by cutting the hole out of the bread. You can basically use any kind of bread, but I opted for peasant bread because I love the texture. Remember to save the piece you cut out! It turns into one of the most heavenly things I've ever tasted.



Then you melt butter in your pan and fry the piece of bread and the hole for about a minute before adding the egg, along with a little salt and pepper. You will eventually flip the entire piece of toast with the egg once it is mostly set.

Rosemary made it taste even better!

I like my eggs runny, so I let it cook on the other side for a only little longer before sliding it on to the plate. The hole, which you fry along with the toast, ends up being perfectly toasted and extremely buttery, an excellent accent with a sprig of grapes. Overall, a delicious brunch! 

For this easy recipe, just follow the link here.

Apple Cider Doughnuts

It's finally autumn! While I'm sad to be leaving behind those hazy summer days, there's something about autumn weather that makes me think of apples, warm colors and new beginnings. What celebrates that more than apple cider doughnuts?

The doughnuts before they were fried. 

Making the actual dough was seriously simple. It was the repetitive rolling and chilling and cutting that took so long. I bought a circular cookie cutter instead of a doughnut cutter and cut the holes out by hand.  

The doughnuts after they were fried. They rose a lot while they cooked.

I'm usually terrified of frying foods, but this was surprisingly easy. Once the oil or shortening is heated up, everything cooks relatively quickly. In fact I burned a few because I didn't turn them in time.

The delicious glaze!

The recipe gives you two options for topping; an apple cider glaze and cinnamon sugar. I opted to try both. I've never tried a glaze for this kind of doughnut, but I prefered it. I usually have them with the cinnamon sugar.

Cinnamon sugar--the usual. 

All in all, the doughnuts didn't turn out quite as light and fluffy as I expected, but I still had a lot of fun trying! Thanks again to smitten kitchen for the recipe.

I'm Back!

I know I've been missing for the summer months, but now that it's fall and I'm finally back home, I'm getting back into the kitchen! I was at my camp this past summer, working as a Counselors Aide to kids, sleeping in platform tents in the woods. While I had the best summer of my life, I did miss the opportunity to work in my kitchen. 

From Savy Cafe 

Keep an eye out for updates! 

Happy Birthday Mama!

For my Mom's birthday, I wanted to bake her a special cake, one I had never made before. So I searched and searched every website I could think of until I ran across smitten kitchen's recipe for the best birthday cake.

The recipe called for a classic yellow cake (and I must add this yellow cake recipe has become a new staple in my kitchen) with a chocolate frosting that was made with sour cream, instead of butter.

It wasn't typical of chocolate frosting that I have made before. The chocolate taste was mild, and it had a slightly sour aftertaste (from the sour cream, I think). It wasn't what I expected, but was still pretty good, especially the day after. I would opt for a different frosting next time, but I'm glad I tried this one.

Happy First Birthday!

I didn't update on the actual day, but Easter was officially my first year anniversary of this blog! Hard to believe it's been an entire year since my first blog post, but I'm still definitely looking forward to improving my skills even further.

Instead of doing an Easter themed post (I was rather busy on the actual day this year), I decided to celebrate spatula's birthday with simple, fun cupcakes. I usually prefer the classic vanilla cupcake with vanilla buttercream frosting, which is why I chose to make these.

The colorful sprinkles against the white frosting are gorgeous, and add a festive touch to the cupcake.