crack is whack

Why: Darn you top chef just desserts! I've been bitten by the baking bug again and have been cranking out treats. For our recent vacation I brought pumpkin cinnamon rolls, chex mix, rice kripsy treats, magic layer bars, the previously mentioned pumpkin cake, sugar cookies and on top of all of that, I made this pie. Granted, I made this pie for my husband for his birthday but with all the leftovers I decided that I'd better drop it off at work instead of bring along yet another treat. I don't really recall exactly how I ended up at this recipe but with a name like crack pie and a description of caramel butterscotch goodness - I had to try it.

What: I guess crack just isn't my drug of choice because this pie just didn't really do it for me. Was it tasty? Yes. Did it change my life? Hardly. Is it worth the amount of time and butter? Highly debatable. It did work out that I have tons of egg whites when I want to make macaroons (to come)but really, 8 yolks is a lot. And I had to buy powdered milk just for this recipe. Making the crust, breaking it up and then mixing in butter and whatnot to make the actual crust was a little too labor intensive for me. At the end of the day it tasted like my butterscotch caramel bars but with a lot more time and money involved. And my bars don't require a fork. It's a good idea and concept but I'm going to save my veins (and arteries!) for something better.

Holy tastiness

Why: I buy all the baking magazines around the holiday and cut out recipes and slap them into a binder. I hadn't cracked open the binder in months so I thought it was time to give it a peek. It was between this recipe and a caramel pudding cake but since my husband always leans towards pumpkin, the pumpkin cake it was. I had high hopes but I wasn't expecting the most delicious thing I've baked in a long time.

What: Imagine a pumpkin cake with a caramelized pecan topping. Yeah, it's as good as it sounds. Add some vanilla ice cream and I have just made a new friend for life. I feared that my husband would eat it all so I took most of the cake into work and people officially lost their crap. One person told me that he "lost himself" in it and another gave some to their friend who then offered me a marriage proposal. The best reaction was a coworker who ate 2 slices before he left the office only to call me later in the afternoon and hide him 2 more slices. Now it haunts me, weeks later people still bring it up in regular conversation.

oldie - wedding shower cakes

Why: Word has spread about my tasty cakes and I was asked to make something for a bridal shower. The colors where black and white and they wanted buttercream. This was my first time working with black frosting and man, it was no fun. I learned that no matter how much black coloring I mixed into the frosting, the best I could get was a dark grey. I ended up having to run out and buy black frosting in a tube – for shame. I can’t imagine it was terribly attractive to eat this cake either as your gums/tounge would probably turn purple. Yikes.

What: The cakes were almond flavored cake with fudgy chocolate frosting between the layers. Because it had to black and white I did the outside in buttercream that had a slight almond flavoring to it. I had a grand vision of what I wanted to pipe on the cakes and it was a harsh reality when I first tried to pipe on the vertical sides. It’s all about pressure on the piping bag which was very hard to do because it was actually coming out of a plastic tube. Honestly, I kinda freaked out mid decoration but I think the result wasn't too horrible.

pumpkin cinnamon roll

Why: Again, the food part of apartment therapy was calling my name and I just had to make these.

What: Fall baking is sure to include pumpkin so that wasn't too exciting but pumpkin cinnamon rolls? Hell yeah! The dough was pretty sticky/difficult to work with but all in all it was a pretty simple recipe and the results are deeeelicious. I ended up baking off just 4 of the cinnamon rolls and freezing the rest. Now when we feel the need for a comforting treat we can defrost and bake some off. Even so, I know we'll burn through these and I'll have to make some more soon. And I am totally ok with that.

last minute wedding cake

Why: A coworker was getting married in a very casual setting and was having a potluck reception. I offered to bring treats and when she went down the list of what was already being made, I asked about the cake. She didn't have a wedding cake - at most she was thinking about going to a discount grocery store to get one. I wasn't about to let that happen so I offered to make a simple cake for her - with 6 days notice! Ah!

What: I asked my coworker what kind of cake she wanted and the only guidance I received was "chocolate". To keep things quick and easy I made a chocolate take for the top and bottom layer with chocolate mousse in the middle. Because the cake had to be white I frosted it with white buttercream and then covered it in white marshmallow fondant. Her wedding colors were fall centric so I made flowers out of the marshmallow fondant to put around the tiers. All in all, a major success. It wasn't perfect (I wish the bottom tier was 1" taller) but considering the short notice and lack of planning I couldn't be happier with how it turned out.

about to pop off

Why: While surfing the food portion of apartmenttheropy.com there was a post on popovers and they looked too tasty and seemed super easy.

What: Popovers with gruyere cheese. This was the first time I've ever had/bought gruyere cheese and man does it pack a punch. It's smoked so it almost smells like bacon. I got the cheese sliced at the deli counter (silly!) so I couldn't shred it like I wanted so I did itty bitty cubes. They looked perfect and we were super excited until I lifted the pan and they were bricks. Definitely not the light and fluffy popover I was expecting. I made the again a few days later and not only were they still flour-based bricks but they didn't rise! I'm not giving up but we've taken a break to give my ego a rest.

oh baby baby

Why: For my sisters baby showers I was on cupcake duty. There was the usual, lemon but we also mixed it up and did some chocolate.

What: Because I was so sick of doing the typical lemon cupcakes I decided to mix it up and put the lemon curd in the center of the cupcake. For the chocolate I chilled some ganache and put it in the center. I was pleased with the results but not sure if it's worth the extra effort of cutting out holes in each cupcake.

I had leftover chocolate cupcakes so I brought some into work. I didn't have enough ganache and frosting to do them exactly like the baby shower cupcakes so I just dipped the tops of the cupcakes in the ganache. Quick, pretty and oh so tasty.