Ruins Cake

We live in an area with lots of Indian Ruins. So, for my husband's birthday, I thought it would be fun to make a cake depicting such ruins. {I know he doesn't care much about a birthday cake, but it was just an excuse for me to try something out.} And it went pretty well. As far as the picture in my head and what I was able to actually make. It's not exactly what I had in my head, but I also don't have the equipment to air-brush the frosting....

I just used a basic 9 X13 cake for this.

I cut it length-wise not quite centered and even- probably a 5 inch piece and a 4 inch piece. Then I made some little hollows.Crumb layer with the ruin "walls".

Orange layer of frosting. My technique (which may be tweaked if I try this again) was to layer (like paint faux finishing-sort of) white, then orange, then brown. I think it worked pretty well, considering tinting frosting is where I always mess up.

Here's the final. With some sage brush/cacti added. It might could have used a little more of that, but I didn't want to overdo it. And we will add candles since it's for a birthday ;)

Donuts!

Do these look good?

The texture of this dough was absolutely beautiful!!

I have tried about four different recipes for homemade yeast donuts and hated every one of them. My sister emailed me this cookbook with famous recipes in it. I am anxious to try the candy bar ones, but I also figured I'd give this Krispy Kreme one a try.

The worst that could happen is yucky donuts; right?
I decided I would stick strictly to the recipe. Lately, I have problems doing that. And this is the first thing I've made without any wheat flour in it in about 10 months....man that dough looked WHITE!!
I made some that I filled with jelly. I haven't tasted any of the filled ones yet though. These are, by far, the best homemade donuts I've done.

Mardi Gras: Half Done

We had our own little "Mardi Gras" today. I know, it's a week early. But, I figured nobody around here would know-or care. And I really needed something fun to do in this never-ending winter season. Anyway, the top picture is of yam biscuits. I was quite pleased with these. The texture was fabulous...as far as biscuits are concerned.

Above you see my first "King Cake." I don't know how the taste compares to the traditional cakes. And I don't think it's baked in a bundt pan usually, but again; nobody around here could correct me. It was pretty fun. We've eaten some of it, but haven't found the "baby" yet. {And ours is really a princess from my daughter's mini-castle set}.

A couple of new things

I tried out using puff pastry. I have not used it for anything before. These are peanut butter cups and the kids love them! The marshmallows were a little brown for my tasting, but you know how kids are about black and burned marshmallows!! These weren't nearly that bad.

I also made bagels for the first time.

I was overly pleased because I have always been intimidated by them. I was too afraid to try them. But they turned out really yummy. It put cheese on half of them. I really liked that and so did one of my boys.

Love Muffins

These are what I'm calling Love Muffins.
It's a Banana/Chocolate Muffin of sorts, but I did make it up myself.
they taste rather yummy.

These are the free-hand hearts I made for the muffins. I don't have a heart mold, but I think these look okay. Not fabulous, but I only plan on sharing them with 1st graders. I know I could have stuck any old valentine candy on top, but I wanted to try this.This is what they look like.

Soft Gingersnaps

Is anyone else having trouble downloading my background? It won't pull up on my computer anymore. Just wondering.

The cookies are quite yummy!
I like Gingersnaps, but I don't like how hard they are. They have sort of a shell, firm on the outside and soft on the inside. I got the recipe from studio5.ksl.com. My daughter didn't like how the dough smelled, but they tasted fine to her. She's already had a number of them.

I love baking with bananas!

I need to work on my photo skills. I don't even know how to turn off my flash!
So, this is now my favorite cake. I made it last winter the first time. And just last week for a second time. It's a Kraft recipe called Banana Sour Cream Cake. I was a little wary of the sour cream/banana combo. But I love it. I got tons of compliments on it the first time I made it! It stays SO moist! The frosting on the recipe tasted fine, but I felt it was too thin. This one above, has store bought frosting. Because I was feeling a little lazy! I forgot to take a photo when I made it, and this is all that's left.

Breakfast Cookies

These are breakfast cookies. They have crushed bran flakes in them (a lot) and cottage cheese (or ricotta) and raisins. A little bit of flour and brown sugar. They are a very sturdy cookie that goes wonderfully with milk. Only one of my kids didn't like them. They are not "sweet" like regular cookies. They probably have less sugar in them than most cereals though. Maybe, I don't really know. I, personally, liked the dough more than the baked cookie.

Peaches!!

I recently came in to a lot of peaches. People around-where I'm living- would have been excited for a day of bottling these peaches. However, I am not a bottler/canner....I am a baker!!
Above is the peach cobbler I made.

I am very excited about eating this crisp!! I prefer it over cobbler most days.

This one is out of order, but is the filling for the cobbler. Do all recipes have you cook it like this then bake it?

I made two of these. The one I sampled is yummy. I guess it's almost the same as a pie, but not quite.

I know it's been a while since my last post. I have still been baking, but do you want pictures of every whim I get? I should have taken pictures of my last potato rolls. Oh well. Last week, I also did oatmeal-raisin-apricot cookies, a different chocolate chip recipe, and experimented with egg bread. Maybe I will take more photos??

Cinnamon/Blueberry Rolls

More cinnamon rolls.  They are SO good!  This is the first batch using my new mixer.  I think it is wonderful!

This pan is full of Blueberry-Cream Cheese rolls.  I just sort of made my own.  I'm sure other people have made similar things.  My husband really liked these...he beat me to eating some before I got the picture.

Caramel Cake

I've been reading a book that takes place in the South. And it has made me long for a Caramel Cake. I love caramel. Although, I have never made it myself; I've often thought that I should try it out sometime. Almost what I did today, but not quite. I went for the cake.



Okay, so I tried some new things out. It was a new recipe for me (since I've never made this kind of cake or frosting before). I tried baking the layers with wax paper in the pans. This worked great for sticking. I thought it would give it a nice, wavy sort of look around the edges if I left some excess that came up the sides. This affect only sort of turned out.
The batter was beautiful. However, even though I added some extra flour (due to the altitude here) I think I should have added a little more. This cake sort of sank some as it cooled.

It tastes really good. Even if it's not quite the prettiest thing you've set your eyes on.

Papa's Birthday

For Papa's birthday we had a chocolate cake with three kinds of chocolate chips and chocolate frosting.  Papa loves chocolate.  This isn't the kind of traditional birthday cake he gets from Gramma, but oh well.  We are 2,000 miles away.  So, we are celebrating separately.  But Papa is a celebrity in this house.  So, it's like a national holiday.  The cake is yummy!  Even though I forgot to loosen it before flipping it over and it didn't come out clean.  Nobody cared!

Catchin' Up

There's not a whole lot to catch up on. Since I've scaled back on baking because we just can't eat everything I want to make.  Here is a birthday cake I made and some "fancy" cupcakes I did.

More Holiday Yummies

Since I didn't make gingerbread cookies, I decided to just make straight gingerbread. I don't think I have ever had that. I baked it in my bundt pan and then put some cream cheese frosting on it. I thought it was quite yummy. And easier than cut-out cookies for sure!!



So, gingerbread cookies are not the biggest hit at my house. I went out on a limb and tried to make my very own cookie recipe. It had a background of pumpkin in it. To give it some holiday flavor and color. I think they turned out okay. They just needed a little more pumpkin and cinnamon- I think. Sorry, if you were the family I tested these out on. I didn't hear anything back, so maybe they hated them. Anyway, it was fun to try and do something of my very own.

Holiday Yummies!

I haven't done these in years. but they are one of my favorite things that I remember from being young. I know we didn't do them every year, but I love them.

Chocolate-covered Mini-Candy-canes!!


I also did some pretzels while I had the covering stuff out. Quite yummy too. I'm sad to say, they are almost gone.


Darn it! I forgot to take any pictures of fudge. I made my first batch and I'm sure I'll make at least one more batch before Christmas. Maybe I'll add one later.

Peanut Butter Surprise

Have you seen those M&M's out right now that are strawberry peanut butter? They were my inspiration for these cookies. I thought they would be kind of gross, but they aren't. They are different though.



It's a basic peanut butter cookie, baked in mini-muffin pan, with an m&m baked into the center. I think they turned out pretty good. You're eating your cookie and you get this hint of chocolate and strawberry. My kids love them.

For this pan, I put the candy in for only the last two minutes of baking, the cookies are better when you put the candy in for the whole baking time.

Cinnamon Rolls

Thanks you to Sis. Fischer for this recipe. I have never attempted these before. (Unless I got them out of a can.) I think they look pretty. Will tasted one and said it was good. I'm waiting until after dinner for them though. And I'm making the kids wait too!! We will see if they steal any of them.

Root Beer Float Cake

I've had this recipe sitting around for a month or two. Just waiting. I have had too much other stuff to eat and I was clearing some of that out. Anyway, I haven't tasted this yet, but it looks and smells pretty yummy. The batter was good.

I'm sure it would make fabulous cupcakes. That's almost what I made this time. Maybe next time.

Seven Layer Magic Bars

My sister told me about some yummy bar/cookies about a month ago. I finally got around to making them. They are cooling now, so I haven't tasted them yet.

I substituted marshmellows on half of them. My kids are not fans of coconut. I don't blame them. So, only half is by the recipe.

Potato Rolls

Here are my potato rolls. Mom always makes these for Thanksgiving, although, she makes them in pretty shapes. I just did quick shapes because I really didn't think they were going to turn out. They were fine though. I guess I made them too big because I only got half of what the recipe was supposed to make.