I thought this cake sounded good but was hesitating to make it.  I knew I wouldn’t be making it for Thanksgiving.  Thus far, the munchkins have requested brownies and monster chocolate chip cookies.  I probably won’t be making those either but you can see where this cake doesn’t exactly follow that trend.  The thought of an entire bundt cake tempting me the week before Thanksgiving was giving me pause.  I briefly considered decreasing the recipe but, after turning the last bundt cake into muffins, I was itching to make a fully beautiful bundt.

Ok.  so the “beautiful” part didn’t quite work out…

Then I had an epiphany.  A teeny tiny little voice inside my head said, “ya know, Kel, just because something is sitting on your counter does not mean you have to eat it all, or most of it, or, really, any of it” (I stopped it right there before crazy talk of substituting prune puree for butter ensued).  With untested resolve I moved forward with the cake.  I figured the co-workers were always an option if home consumption petered out.

HA!  This cake lasted about 2.6 seconds in the house.  Not only did the co-workers not even have a sniff of the cake, I didn’t have to worry about making more than one trip to the well (or cake plate).  Even though a small hunk went straight from pan to floor, the consumption was quick and painless.

Maybe because this reminded me of pumpkin bread and I think of pumpkin bread as breakfast and not dessert, I probably wouldn’t serve this at Thanksgiving dinner.  BUT it would be perfect breakfast for those pesky out-of-town relatives.  For the full recipe, visit Britin at the Nitty Britty.

Next week: Rosy Poached Pear and Pistachio Tart.  Who wants to be we won’t be having pistachios?

Thank god for Cub Scouts.

What does this have to do with Sugar-Topped Molasses Cookies?  The Cub Scouts – specifically the Pinewood Derby participants and attendees – saved me from eating 28 sugar-topped molasses cookies.  You see, I signed up to bring 2 dozen baked goods to the Pinewood Derby.  What?  Spicy Molasses cookies aren’t the first thing to spring to your mind when I mention an evening with 50+ scouts and siblings?  Well, you obviously didn’t have 24 taste-of-fall-little-gems staring at you.  You see – when you bring baked goods to the Pinewood Derby, they are for sale.  For me to eat the 10 that sounded good, I would have had to pony up $5.  It was the scouts or my thighs and I chose scouts.

I am happy to report that several were actually purchased, including a few by my spouse and son.  After trying one of the chocolate brownies, Will informed me that person wasn’t a “very good cooker” and went off to get a molasses cookie.  At least one scout knows where the good stuff is.

In true scouting news, my son did not win a trophy but he did win a few races (miles ahead of where he was last year).  There is nothing – NOTHING – more satisfying than seeing your children genuinely excited by their accomplishments.  It made sitting through the 37 hours of races worth it.  And, yes, it was his accomplishment.  He did the bulk of the work himself.  One kid actually blurted into the microphone that his dad did all the work.  Trust me, he was either the only one who said it out loud or we have a REMARKABLE group of young boys.

Next week:  who knows?   It’s a free for all at TWD this month.  All in one holiday cake probably.  For this recipe visit Pamela of Cookies with Boys.  Those boys are too cute to miss!

I COMPLETELY missed last week – no recipe, no comments, no browsing, no nothing.  Just one of those weeks.  I still hope to get to the Chestnut Cake…but I didn’t even get this one done until Monday night (aaahhh…night photography…jealous?).

I subbed in a little almond for the coconut and cut down on the sugar in the filling.  Truthfully, as I was making this, one thought kept occurring to me.  What can you really say about a crisp?  Not much new, I think.  So, I will just say that this was supremely satisfying and leave it at that.

Next week:  Sugar-Topped Molasses Spice Cookies.  I am looking forward to these.  The recipe for this week is at The Repressed Pastry Chef  by Em.

I am trying to get this one posted before it really gets cold.  I don’t know about you, but we had the coolest summer in a long time.  If the trend holds, winter could be brutal.  I, of course, am happy to eat ice cream any time of year but I realize that not everyone likes a big cold double dip in January.

This is a great ice cream that requires no custard.  I love custard based ice creams but, frankly, the ice cream hits your mouth a little quicker  if you don’t have to mess with that step.  This is sweet and tangy and wonderful.

Chocolate Chip Cheesecake Ice Cream

Ingredients

• 8 oz. cream cheese, softened
• 1 c. sugar
• 1 c. milk
• 2 c. heavy cream
• 2 tsp. vanilla
• 1 c. or more chocolate chips or chunks, if using store bought I like to chop them a little more. Regular chips suddenly seem huge in a spoonful of ice cream.

Put the cream cheese, sugar and milk in a blender.  Blend until smooth.  Slowly add the cream and vanilla.  Pour the mixture into your ice cream maker.  When it is close to finished add the chocolate chips.

Saturday – 8:00am:  I had to go two (2!) grocery stores to find cottage cheese.  I can unequivocally state that I have never purchased it before so had never noticed that there wasn’t any at my regular store.  I briefly considered using ricotta as sub but the recipe is called Cotttage Cheese Pufflets, not Ricotta Pufflets.  I persevered.  Fortunately, I was going to the second store anyway.

I thought about making the dough that morning but we were hustling to get to the pumpkin patch, so I bought the cottage cheese and forgot about it.  I realize it is a little early for the pumpkin patch but our cable company was having a customer appreciation day for FREE.  Free trumps early.  If you are thinking that all your cable company does for you is jack up the rates when they add stupid new channels, you need to get a second cable company in your area.  Sometimes a little competition is a good thing.

Saturday – 1:00pm:  Home from the pumpkin patch, I put the butter out to soften.  Then I decided to take the boys to the neighborhood fall festival so Jamie could watch the Husker game in peace.  We arrived home in time for the last few minutes of the game.  The less said about that the better, but I got distracted enough that I forgot about my butter.

Saturday – 7:00pm: The butter was so soft, I had to chill it up a little and then finally got to work on the dough.  Honestly, who eats cottage cheese?  I don’t think I have ever seen anyone under 70 eat it.  It is seriously unappetizing.  I guess I should consider it a blessing that I didn’t care for the dough.  At all.

Sunday morning: dusting (yippee!); yardwork (hooray!); laundry (are we having fun yet?).  No time for pufflets.

Sunday afternoon: Much to my younger son’s dismay, the hapless Chiefs lost AT HOME to the equally hapless Raiders.  We went to the park with the kids, with a sidetrip to TCBY.  Dough still in fridge.

Sunday – 5:00pm:  I will try to sum up the tedium of the next two hours lest you decide to spork your eye after the full description.  A lot of chilling, rolling, chilling, cutting, chilling, cursing, forming, cursing, filling, chilling, sighing, etc.

Sunday – 7:00pm: Pufflets in the oven.  I am not confident.  I am thinking maybe I should have had some frozen yogurt when I had the chance.

Would this inspire confidence in you?

Sunday – 7:15pm:  First batch out and my fears have been confirmed.  The blackberry jam was clearly a mistake.  I am at once grateful for silicone mats.

Sunday – 7:30pm:  Taste testing.  Jamie, lifelong Cowboys fan, eats a few while watching the Cowboys game.  Showing the good sense he was born with, he gives up on the Pufflets and the Cowboys and calls it night.  They taste better than they look, admittedly a very low bar to cross.  They do not, however, taste good enough to justify the 5:00 – 7:00pm effort.  I am sorry to say I will be crossing this one off the list.  The baker and the football teams should have quit while we were ahead.

Am starting to see why no photos in the book…

Next week:  We travel to Lincoln for the Huskers’ 300^th consecutive sell-out (that number is correct – my parents were in high school last time there were empty seats) and I tackle the chocolate crackle tart.  Let’s hope both fare better next weekend.  Thanks to Jacque of Daisy Lane Cakes (TWD) for picking something that had piqued my curiosity from the beginning.  The recipe is on her site.  I have some cottage cheese you can have.

I have been making a variation of these muffins for years and years but, up until now, they have never been chocolatized.  That changed last weekend when I had some berries about to take a turn for the worse and a craving for something chocolate but not super decadent.  Without further ado, I introduce you to Chocolate Berry Bites.  We all know muffins are usually just dessert masquerading as breakfast food but a mini-muffin?  Not quite so guilt inducing, right?

These are adapted from Martha Stewart’s Fresh Berry Muffins.  The recipe is pretty old (1995??).  I admit I only did a very quick search but I didn’t see the exact recipe on her website.  My variation is below.  I made both blueberry and cherry and preferred the cherry.  I usually use a combination of blueberries and raspberries when I make the full size and I think raspberries would work equally well in these.  If you despise filling mini-muffin cups as much as I do just remind yourself that it is easier than working off the calories of a full muffin.  Enjoy!

Chocolate Berry Bites

Adapted from Martha Stewart’s Fresh Berry Muffins

1. 1^2/3 c. AP flour
2. 1/3 c. cocoa powder
3. 2 tsp. baking powder
4. 1/4 tsp. salt
5. 1 stick of butter
6. 2 eggs
7. 1 tsp. vanilla extract
8. ½ c. milk
9. 24 pitted cherries or 2 c. fresh berries

Preheat oven to 350.  Grease mini muffin tin or line with paper liners.  Sift dry ingredients into medium bowl.  In a large bowl, beat the sugar and butter until light and fluffy.  Add the eggs and vanilla but don’t overmix.  Add the flour and milk alternately, starting with 1/3 of the flour, then ½ the milk, ending with the flour.  For berries, fold them into the batter.  If using cherries, fill the muffin cups 2/3 to ¾ full and add one cherry to each cup.  Starting checking for doneness around 12 minutes.  Enjoy!

This is my baby (he was a peanut for Halloween):

This is that baby turning FIVE!

This is that baby celebrating his FIFTH birthday:

These are the cupcakes from his pool party.  When you are honest with yourself and know your decorating can’t possibly match what is in your head, you choose something like this.  Cute – no artistic skill required.  What more could you ask for?

These are both of my babies starting school.  Wasn’t I just burping them over my shoulder?  What happened to Elmo and Thomas the Train?  I feel like I will wake up tomorrow and one of them will be asking me for the car keys (the answer is no).

Still here.  Still baking.  Went on vacation.  I have made last week’s and this week’s.  I am hoping to get them posted sometime today (tomorrow at the latest…).  Hope everyone is having a great summer!

Why must the container for Quick Cooking oats look just like the one for Old Fashioned?  Can’t we get some kind of color coding?  When I am at the store I am either in a hurry because I have promised my family I am “only picking up a few things” or I have one or two young boys with me which is the very definition of distraction.  Trips to the grocery store sometimes cause me to regret that the older one now reads.  “Mom, this bowl-o-sugar cereal says it has vitamins.  Can we get it?  These fruit roll-ups are a foot long and it says they are made with fruit.  Can we get it?”  and on and on…

So, you can see why I might get discombobulated and grab the Quick Cooking oats.  And let’s face it, Oliver Twist would never have gotten thrown out of the workhouse if he had been served quick cooking oats.  No asking for seconds of those.   Fortunately, I have discovered that these do have other uses.  They are, apparently, well-suited for certain baked goods because of the amount of liquid they absorb.

I was watching America’s Test Kitchen recently and they made a very simple snack cake with, you guessed it, Quick Cooking Oats.  The recipe is from memory and is not entirely true to the original.  I decided to serve it for breakfast so I skipped the broiled coconut/walnut icing.  Didn’t sound good to us anyway.  It was very moist (a little fragile) and just right for breakfast.

Oatmeal Snack Cake

• 1 c. Quick cooking oats
• 3/4c. room temperature water
• ¾ c. whole wheat pastry flour
• ½ tsp. baking soda
• ½ tsp. baking powder
• ¼ tsp. salt
• ½ tsp. cinnamon
• 1/8 tsp. ground ginger
• ¼ tsp. ground nutmeg
• 4 oz. butter
• ½ c. sugar
• ½ c. brown sugar
• 1 egg

Preheat the oven to 350 and line an 8 inch square pan with foil.  Spray with cooking spray.   In a small bowl, mix the oatmeal and water together.  Set aside.  Whisk the dry ingredients together and set aside.  In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugars together until they look like wet sand.  Add the egg and mix to incorporate.  On low speed, add the dry ingredients in two batches.  Stir in the oats.  Pour into the prepared pan and bake for about 30 minutes.

I have been out of the city all day so I haven’t had a chance to see the tarts.  My guess is that they don’t look quite like this.  Why is my tart ten feet tall?  My mother is involved and we’ll get to the details in a minute.

I am not into New Age mysticism and you won’t see any crystals, horoscopes or the like around my house.  But I have come to believe in the Cake Dome Vortex.  Not familiar with it?  Surely, you have heard of the Bermuda Triangle.  The Cake Dome Vortex functions in much the same way, substituting innocent cake plates for planes.  It also happens to be located in my house.

Once upon a time, I had a lovely domed cake plate from Williams Sonoma.  I used it for seven lovely years without incident.  Then my younger son turned one and my older one decided he would “sample” the cake before it was served.  The plate and the dome both cracked and shattered.  (my father – ever the frugal one – asked if we could still serve it.  i told him that he might not mind glass shards in the icing but i was pretty sure my 3 yr old would never forgive me for shearing his intestines).

My birthday was two weeks later and my father showed up with a replacement domed cake plate.  It lasted four months before the three year old struck again.  This time he only managed to drop the dome.  I took a cake plate break for awhile and years later purchased a large plastic dome cover.  What could go wrong?

Several months into its tenure, my mother managed to simultaneously break off a kitchen cabinet door and shatter the dome.  two for one!  This time, I didn’t even bother to replace it.  A year later a lovely cake plate and dome showed up as an unexpected gift from a family friend.  This was two months ago.

I don’t even have to tell you where this is going.  If you are guessing that my mother broke this one, too, you are paying attention.  Last night.  Right after she remarked on how fragile it was.  Right before she left my tart out to rise to skyscraper like heights.

Sorry, it was laaaate by the time it came out of the oven.

She was watching Colin while I took Will to swim lessons.  Despite my better judgment, I asked her to help with tart.  It was on the last rise before being baked.  I set the timer and asked her to put it in the (already preheated) oven when it went off.  It should have been out of the oven by the time I got home.  It, of course, hadn’t even gone in.

She stopped cooking about the time I started high school and it is like she has never seen a kitchen before.  She did stay over to try the “tart” which we both agreed was a little too bready for us.  If it was supposed to be 837 inches high, than this is not my cup of tea.  oh well, at least it was only half a recipe.

To see of others fared well, check out TWD. The full recipe is on Chez Us by Denise.