Julia Child!

Saturday night... 8 pm.... bored out of my mind = cake baking.

 My new job at cakejournal is fantastic, and also inspiring me! I love that people I don't know - and don't even live in the United States! - are reading my posts and interested in my baking. So one of the readers suggested I make the cake I wrote about from the movie, Julie & Julia. So, I did.

I made the Chocolate and Almond cake -  Reine de Saba - In French, with the Chocolate Icing - Glacage au Chocolat - fantasitc icing, amazing, will make again!

I have to be honest, I was out of sugar and butter and so I had to use Splenda and Crisco, which probably led to my cake being less than perfect, but I saved the few tablespoons of butter for the frosting, which was completly worth it!

I also think I may have overbaked the cake a bit, which is strange considering I'm always pretty positive my oven undercooks things... hmm... always, the frosting made up for the a-bit-too-dry cake and my parents and I enjoyed it at 10:30pm later that night. It was a cute one, as you can see by the pictures. And if you want more info about the cake/recipe, check out cakejournal soon when my post will be up!

Mini Grad Hats!

I've been making graduation hats all summer for my own college graduation party as well as many of my cousins' parties. This time, per request of my Uncle Anthony, I switched up the design a bit and traded in the chocolate covered graham crackers for some ridiculously adorable mini Heath bars.
At first I wasn't sure the new candy toppers would look ok on the peanut butter cups, but I was wrong. The little tops made these treats super cute and almost bite-sized.
As always I glued the peanut butter cups and the candies together with chocolate frosting and added an m&m and a piece of licorice on top for the tassel. And, as always, they were devoured!

August Odds & Ends

I think I has a chocolate overload this month. I managed to mess around with multiple recipes and develop some delicious treats (and find myself hoping for sweatpants season).

Among the desserts I dabbled with were: frozen hot chocolate, heart shaped cakes for dad, a trio of dipping bowls with fruit & pretzels, caramel and rocky road ice cream cakes for camp (Marissa's last day), dirt cake for Michael, a mini yogurt snack for dad, rice krispie treats for the last day of camp, and I finished the month with some super-moist banana bread... whoa, I think that's everything!

Celebrating my Birthday at home (also on Easter)

Happy Birthday to me! We celebrated my 22nd birthday on Easter Sunday with a Michelle-sized cookie concoction. In spite of the fact that we'd just returned from an elaborate (but waffle-lacking...) Easter buffet... an hour or so later we were ready to stuff ourselves again.


Since I'd been chocolate free for the ENTIRE 47 days of Lent, chocolate was obviously going to play a staring role in my birthday dessert - which was my favorite Paula Deen chocolate chip cookie recipe (of course, changed up a little, Michelle-style) smashed into an 8 and a 6 inch cake pan, filled with Oreo pudding and Easter M&M's, and topped with more pudding and 4 perfectly spherical cookie dough ice cream scoops... the whole tower smothered in hot fudge sauce, and ignited with giant sparkling and sparkly candles.
You can't tell me your mouth isn't watering as you look at that inside picture!
(plus the natural lighting on these pictures is amazing!)

Yum, YuM, YUM!

Friday the 13th's Valentine's Strawberries

I finally made beautiful chocolate covered strawberries. I've made delicious ones before, but nothing ever came close to these. I took my time and did them the right way, layering three different flavors of melted chocolate (which was melted with shortening to create the shiny gloss and shell look) on the bright red berries. Kathy, Calla & I thoroughly enjoyed every single one. (sidenote: cost less then $5 and took less than an hour)