Burnt Sugar Cake

Trying to get a more golden tan in the sun!

I baked this cake early in the morning but didn’t have a chance to frost it until the afternoon. I only have a little over a week left until I go back to work and the Beau has been making the most of the free time left with me. After I baked the cake, he made breakfast and then we went out to the movies and lunch.

This was the first time I made a syrup, and a burnt sugar one at that! It ended up looking like an amber colored corn syrup. The batter was a little thick and instead of pouring in 1/2 of the burnt sugar syrup, I poured in 1/4 of the burnt sugar. Oops. I didn’t think the frosting was going to come together when I mixed the ingredients together prior to adding the milk. It looked a bit crumbly but the milk took care of that. The frosting was sweet but not overly, I cut down on the powdered sugar. It was a really nice cake and I enjoyed trying something new like the burnt sugar.

Check out the other cakes baked by the Cake Slice Bakers here. You can get the recipe from the Southern Cakes book by Nancie McDermott which is the book the Cake Slice Bakers are currently using to bake scrumptious cakes!

When I finished frosting it, I went in the backyard to get a picture of it in sunlight. It was a really nice day today. The puppy was with me and I tried to get a picture of him with the cake but he’s a bit camera shy. Here’s the best picture I took of him today:

 

Wait, was that a lizard I heard in the bushes?

If you have some free time, go see The Blind Side. BEST MOVIE EVER! I LOVED this movie and even more so because it’s based upon true events. Go see it! I totally wanted to tell everyone waiting in line to see the new vampire movie that they were going to the wrong movie!

Sugar-Topped Molasses Spice Cookies

I’m in a rush because in a little while, the Beau is coming home and taking me to the Happiest Place on Earth! I landed a job peeps! Part of the celebration and of making the most of my last free days left before I start work on Nov 30! YAY! (Actually I wanted to take the rest of the year off, but this opportunity came up and I had to take it!) So no intro shot or setup shot of these super aromatic spice cookies unfortunately. But I do have a pretty picture of the bird we ate last night:

This one looks better than the last one!

Pam of Cookies with Boys selected this week’s TWD treat, Sugar-Topped Molasses Spice Cookies. Take a moment to visit her blog and see how perfectly round and scrumptious her cookies turned out! And lucky for you, you can also get the recipe there too! I like to visit Pam’s blog because she always has something yummy to look at,
These were difficult for me to form into balls. Actually that part wasn’t difficult, it was the smashing down with a glass cup part that was. I’d smash it down and the cookie dough would stick to the glass cup. I don’t know how the TWD Bakers did this, but mine ended up looking a bit deformed prior to baking:

Kinda deformed, but do you see the smiley face one? =)

I’m only baking one batch, the rest will have to wait until later. Here they are sunning in the backyard:

Nothing like a little brown on brown on green action!

Last Week: Cran-Apple Crisps
Next Week: Chocolate Caramel Chestnut Cake (maybe, if I can find any chestnuts and spread!)

Turkey Meatloaf with Roasted Vegetables

That's spinach you see in the meatloaf... kinda skimpy on the asparagus!

I found this recipe on Kim’s blog, Stirring the Pot. She’s posting some of her meals made from the book Cook Yourself Thin. Sounds like a good deal to me. When I saw her turkey meatloaf post, I had to try it because I love meatloaf but I don’t eat beef.

This was super easy to make and turned out really tasty! The spinach really does make the meatloaf moist and I can’t rave enough about the roasted vegetables! I love vegetables and these were Great! Next time I’ll add more asparagus though.

You can get the recipe here and also check out the other recipes Kim has cooked up. She’s currently cooking through Tyler Florence’s Stirring the Pot cookbook. I’m sure you’ll find something from her blog to try out at home yourself! I’m planning on going back to tryout other Cook Yourself Thin recipes and see if it works out for me! =)

Cran-Apple Crisps

OISHI!

Straight out of the oven, smell-o-vision would be perfect right about now!

Em of The Repressed Pastry Chef selected this week’s TWD treat, Cran-Apple Crisps. If you haven’t visited Em’s blog, go now. She has a beautiful blog filled with mouth watering goodies – honestly the photos are so fantastic, I feel like I can reach out and take a bite. Fortunately I can’t otherwise her blog would not be as pretty…

This was a super easy recipe to put together and I’m looking forward to baking it again not only for the ease, but definitely for the aroma that fills the house! Be sure to browse the other TWD Bakers to see what they baked up this week – it could be the All-In-One Holiday Bundt Cake I baked last week or Cran-Apple Crisps or Sugar-Topped Molasses Spice Cookies or Chocolate Caramel Chestnut Cake!

Baked until golden on top with the juices bubbling over!

As an aside, totally not food-related, if you haven’t already seen it, go see This Is It! I’ve seen it twice already and I cannot express how much this movie affected me. The world has truly lost an amazing and unique individual.

Last Week: All-In-One Holiday Bundt Cake
Next Week: I’m not sure!

All-in-One Holiday Bundt Cake

I’m out of order this month, so this week we have the All-in-One Holiday Bundt Cake selected by Britin of The Nitty Britty. If you don’t have the book yet (BUY it already will ya?), you can find the recipe on Britin’s blog here. While you’re there, check out her other posts and read about the world according to Britin! It’s a really heartfelt world.

While you’re cruising, checkout the other TWD Bakers to see what they baked up this week! It’s a free-for-all this month so you never know who baked what any given week this month!

I’m a day late because I baked this yesterday and let the cake sit overnight so the flavors could meld together as suggested by Dorie. I LOVE this cake and plan to bake it for Thanksgiving! Here’s a pictorial of my baking adventure:

Totally buttered bundt pan...

A liitle lop-sided, but a beautiful batter!

Cooling its heels on the rack for 10 minutes before releasing...

Cooling to room temperature after the release...

Glazed all over!

Still looks 'fudge-y' in the middle, but tastes terrific!

Sigh...

Last Week: Snickers-Fudge Brownie Torte
Next Week: I haven’t decided yet!

Snickers-Fudge Brownie Torte

Hmm, someone is in DIRE need of piping lessons!

April of Short + Rose picked this week’s TWD sweet, Cherry-Fudge Brownie Torte. Please visit April’s blog to see her creations. You can also get to know her a little here. I like to knit too so it would be nice if I lived a little bit closer so I can join her knitting group! Sounds like a great group and so fun!

I didn’t want to use tart cherries in this dessert because I was making it for my niece’s birthday which is today – HAPPY BIRTHDAY BAYLEY! She’s 12 now. And I’ve never lit liquor on fire and I didn’t want to start here when I was baking at my home alone… So I asked Katrina of Baking and Boys for some ideas, because if you haven’t visited her blog, you’re really missing out on some really fun and fantastic sweets! Her boys are really lucky! Anyways, she gave me a sneak peek of her brownie torte and I loved the addition of caramel and the topping of pecans. I decided to be a copy-cat, but not in an obvious way. I used chopped up Snickers bars (the snack size – since you know, 1 1/4 bars = 100 calories) instead so I wouldn’t have to make any caramel and try to swirl it into the brownie batter and it had peanuts in them! Yay! And THANKS Katrina!

Can you see the Snickers?

I made the mousse and decided to color it orange to go with the Halloween theme. What ever happened to those little plastic bottles of color that came 4 to a pack with the cone caps? I never see those and miss them because I had yellow and red bottles with no cone cap and no way to use drops of color. So I kind of jiggered some in and hoped for the best. I wanted a more dark orange but o, well.

Red and yellow make orange!

In going along with the Halloween them, I wanted to pipe a spider web on top which I was able to do. It’s a little uneven but I figure that’s okay since it’s a spider web after all. I used raspberry jam to pipe the lettering and was going for the blood dripping look and ended up with the blood clot look instead. Yipes. Good thing Bayley’s turning 12 and not 4… I have no idea how this tastes since we’ll be eating it for dessert after dinner tonight. Hopefully I’ll get better pictures too…

Be sure to visit the other TWD Bakers to see how their brownie tortes came out! And don’t forget to buy Dorie’s book if you haven’t already – it’s a treasure chest of desserts I tell you!

Last Week: Sweet Potato Biscuits
Next Week: Chocolate Caramel Chestnut Cake

Cinnamon Pecan Coffee Cake

Ready to be sacrificed to the Surf Zombie... can you see my hand underneath?

This is my first post with The Cake Slice. I’ve admired this group for a while when they were baking those Sky High cakes and finally took the plunge and joined them! We are currently baking from the book Southern Cakes by Nancie McDermott. Sorry for the bad lighting in the photo above but the Surf Zombie prefers the dark vs the light.

This was an interesting coffee cake to bake. The first time I used melted butter as part of the streusel, usually it’s cold butter cut into the sugar mixture. Not that I’m complaining – I love breakfast so coffee cakes are perfect for me, especially if it involves cinnamon. I’m a no-raisin type so I subbed mini-chocolate chips with this. I would have LOVED to sub with cinnamon chips but to date have not been able to find any cinnamon chips anywhere, it’s soo aggravating!! It was also really difficult to spread the batter because it was so thick but I was able to manage it. More batter ended up on top…

Ready to be eaten!

I messed up with the baking time. I set the time to 45 minutes on the Beau’s kitchen stove timer but forget to press the button again to start it. I was almost done with the dishes when I noticed that it was still waiting for me to press start. Yipes. I guesstimated that I spent about 10 minutes with the dishes and started the timer for 35 minutes. It smelled really, really, really delicious while it was baking so I was a little impatient for those 35 minutes. But finally it was done!

Ready for its close up Mr. De Mille!

I let it cool for a few minutes as noted in the recipe and then sliced into it. It was a little difficult to cut and lift out pieces since it was still warm, but we didn’t care and ate 2 pieces. SOOO SOOO good! Thank goodness we practice Dorie’s philosophy of baking – Bake and Release or else I’m sure I would have eaten all of it all by myself and that’s not a good practice. The Beau took the majority of it to work and I took the rest to my mom’s house.

Ready for the first bite, right out of the oven!

What a great start with The Cake Slice! Go ahead and browse the other Cake Slice bakers and see how their Cinnamon Pecan Coffee Cakes turned out!

Sweet Potato Biscuits

#$#%@#$#! I rotated this photo so it would display properly only it doesn't!!

Erin of Prudence Pennywise selected Sweet Potato Biscuits for the TWD Bakers this week. Please visit Erin’s alter-ego Prudy and see how her biscuits turned out and to get the recipe if you haven’t bought Dorie’s book yet (just buy it already!).

My first time baking biscuits and I wondered how I’d fare. The P&Qs mentioned the biscuits didn’t rise much, so I wanted to see if I could circumvent that from happening. Instead of rolling out the dough, which was super soft and a bit sticky for me, I just patted it out with my hands. Not sure if it was patted out to exactly 1/2″, but I didn’t really care – I kind of wanted it thick to help with the rise during the baking. It kind of worked too! This was the last batch which included the last scraps blobbed together to make the last 2 biscuits. And this recipe made 33 biscuits for me using a 2 1/8″ biscuit cutter.

The last batch in the oven with the blobish leftovers...

I ate my first one after the 15 minute cool down time since the P&Qs also mentioned they tasted better after being cooled a bit. I wasn’t sure about the texture of the biscuit, I baked them for about 14-15 minutes and it wasn’t very flaky when I ate it but I have to admit, I really liked the flavor of it. Not sure if I’d make it again because of the sticky dough factor, but I just might, I never know.

I’ve been having problems posting comments on other TWD blogs lately. Not sure what the problem is since it seems to happen on both my PC at home and the Beau’s Mac. I’ve tried posting comments on many blogs and it seems to disappear whenever I hit ‘Submit’. I’ll keep trying and hopefully the stars will align once again and my comments will get posted because they were some pretty stupendous comments, I tell you.

Last Week: Allspice Crumb Muffins
Next Week: Cherry-Fudge Brownie Torte

Allspice Crumb Muffins

Packed and ready to go to work!

Kayte at Grandma’s Kitchen Table selected this week’s TWD treat – Allspice Crumb Muffins. I really enjoy reading Kayte’s posts because she writes about her family and the events that occur in her life – it’s like she’s letting you become a part of her family. She also has the prettiest pictures of all her goodies! You should see her Allspice Crumb Muffin picture – it looks exactly like the book! How’d she do that? Muffin skills galore!

This was a fairly easy recipe to put together. The only ingredient I was missing was milk. And I thought for sure I’d have to make a special trip to the grocery store last night when I couldn’t find any brown sugar. Fortunately I was at the Beau’s house and he saved the night! He searched his pantry and found a new bag of brown sugar and he informed me that I could use a can of condensed milk in place of whole milk. Wow, who knew? I didn’t but was sure glad the Beau did.

The batter came out very doughy so I was a bit concerned. And there was A LOT of crumble to sprinkle onto 12 muffins. I smashed it all in and what you see at top is what came out. Not pretty to look at but really, really tasty! The Beau really liked it a lot and thought it was one of the better TWD treats I’ve made in a while. HAH – but what about the chocolate tart from last week? He thought it was good but too sweet (although he did eat his fair share of it…). I can’t complain, I loved this muffin! Using the allspice was a treat too since I rarely use much of it, maybe a pinch here or there when baking pumpkin pie.

Don’t forget to visit the TWD blog roll to see how the other bakers fared with their Allspice Crumb Muffins! And seriously, if you haven’t bought the book yet, BUY it now! With the holidays coming up, there are soo many delicious treats just waiting to be baked!

Last Week: Split Level Pudding
Next Week: Sweet Potato Biscuits

Split Level Pudding

Cinnamon Vanilla pudding...

Garrett of The Flavor of Vanilla chose this week’s TWD recipe – Split Level Pudding. Head over to his blog to check out how his selection turned out for him and you can also find the recipe there. You can also find out a little bit about him here, and see some of his TWD highlights in beautiful photos!

I love pudding but rarely eat it. It doesn’t feel right to buy those ready-to-eat Jello pudding cups from the supermarket (sorry Mr. Cosby). And it never occurred to me that I could actually make my own pudding at home. Good thing I joined TWD because for the first time on Sunday, I made home made pudding! And not just any pudding, it was Dorie’s Split Level Pudding. And not only that, I even played around a little and made Cinnamon Vanilla Split Level Pudding! And the pudding was just soo lovely to eat! The pudding contained a little surprise at the bottom, leftovers from last week’s Chocolate-Crunched Caramel Tart! Well, not the tart exactly, but the leftover chocolate ganache was hidden beneath the lovely cinnamon vanilla pudding! I made it earlier in the day and the ganache was quite hardened by the time dessert came around but it was still a delicious surprise with the pudding!

... with a chocolate ganache surprise!

Head over to the TWD Bakers list and check out the other TWD blogs to see all the variations done with this delicious pudding. And then head over to your local book store or your favorite online store and buy Dorie’s book so you too can join in on all the yummyness going on!

Last Week: Chocolate-Crunched Caramel Tart
Next Week: Allspice Crumb Muffins