Cake, cake, cake, cake

By the time you read this I will be hanging out with my bestie Alexis who is flying into spend Thanksgiving with us. The girls are super excited but not nearly as excited as I am. And seeing as how I will be spending all my time over the holidays enjoying her company and stuffing my face I thought I'd schedule a post for you.

I just finished reading Beautiful Redemption. It is always bitter sweet to end a series. Especially a series as amazing as this one. Check out my review on goodreads here. This completion brings me back on track with my Reading Goal for 2012:

After my burn out last year in October I decided to not push my luck and just got with an easy one book a week. I'm right on track. How are you all doing? Any favorites that I must read before the end of the year? These are the three books vying for my attention right now. I'm still unsure which one I will pick to read first.

And since it's almost thanksgiving and since that means pumpkin pie and since I despise pumpkin pie, I'm going to share with what I made for "pumpkin pie day" at work. Last year I made this delicious chocolate layered pumpkin torte:

That was fun, my first go around I forgot to add the flour. The year before that I made my absolute favorite go to when you want to impress people layered pumpkin cake. Sorry no picture but here's the link to the recipe. You use brown sugar to make the whipped cream frosting... Trust me it's amazing.

This year I wanted to be lazy and do something easy. And thanks to pinterest I had options. I saw a Better than Sex Pumpkin Cake pin floating around and was pretty set on trying that. Better than Sex Cake other wise known as Skor cake, is amazing. You use a whole can of sweetened condensed milk, how could it be anything but amazing? I started out with this recipe from Something Swanky. However as I assembled the cake I was immediately put off by the consistency of the batter. The pumpkin and the dry cake mix alone looked like some that would bake up to be dry and dense and completely unappealing. So I googled easy pumpkin cake and noted that several other recipes said to still use the eggs that the original boxed cake mixed called for. Then because I was feeling wild I threw in the spices that make up pumpkin pie spice. No measurements just shaking a little here and there. Like I said WILD.

The result was pretty darn good. For someone who doesn't like pumpkin this cake was great. It had a VERY light pumpkin flavor and despite the entire can of sweetened condensed milk and entire tub of cool whip it wasn't too sweet. 

Ingredients:

1 box yellow cake mix

1 small can pumpkin puree (14.5 oz)

3 eggs beaten

1/2 t pumpkin pie spice

1 - 14 oz. can sweetened condensed milk

1 - 8 oz. tub cool whip

1 -2 Heath bars crushed

Instructions:

Mix together the cake mix, the pumpkin puree, the eggs, and the spice.

Pour batter into a well greased 9x13 baking dish. Bake at 350º according to the directions for a 9x13 cake on the cake mix box.

Using a chopstick poke holes all over the top of the cake (The original recipe links to a post that has "great step by step photos for this part". Really? You're just stabbing the cake).

Pour the sweetened condensed milk over the cake, filling the holes. Refrigerate until ready to serve. It's best to let it sit over night to really soak up that sweetened condensed milk.

Before serving spread the cool whip over top of cake. Sprinkle on the heath bits. 

Enjoy and HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!

Boston Cream Cupcake = Heaven

Last week my co-worker, Amber, and I walked over to the cupcake truck. Yes the cupcake truck. The wonderful people over at So Cupcake (you might remember them from our annual birthday cupcake excursions) drive around town delivering and selling sugary goodness. Bless them. I had their Boston cream cupcake and I haven't been able to stop thinking about it since.

Fast forward to today.  A friend of mine pinned a Boston cream cupcake and I took that as a sign that I just had to make them. I decided to at least pretend that they were - maybe not healthy - but not as bad for you as they could be. I started with the Joy of Baking vanilla cupcake recipe. But made a few adjustments:

1/4 cup unsalted butter, room temperature

1/4 cup of apple sauce 

1/3 cup granulated white sugar, scant

1/3 cup Swerve

3 large eggs

1 teaspoon pure vanilla paste

1 cups all purpose flour

1/2 cup whole wheat flouer

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup milk

The apple sauce gives them a nice chewy texture and obviously cuts down on the fat. I won the Swerve from the amazing Darla over at Bakingdom.com and have used it a few times. So far we've only tried half and half and you can't taste the difference at all.

Cream the butter, apple sauce, sugar, Swerve. Add one egg at a time. Add vanilla paste. Sift dry ingredients. Add the dry ingredients and milk to the butter mixture, alternating (I had three little helpers for this! Baby L really seemed to enjoy baking with the girls). Bake for 20 minutes at 350 degrees. Let the cupcakes cool completely. Be sure to take them out of the cupcake pan. I've noticed when I use apple sauce and then leave them in the pan the cupcakes tend to get soggy.

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing

Make some chocolate ganache. I used the Joy of Baking recipe and it was the PERFECT consistency. I will never ever use another ganache recipe. I only made half and it was just the right amount for 12 cupcakes. 

Next (here's where I cheated) I mixed two packets for ready made snack pack vanilla pudding with equal amounts of cool whip. If I were really trying to impress you I would have made a vanilla custard with real whip cream but I was lazy. Be careful when you fold in the cool whip. Next cut out a hole in your cupcakes and fill them with the pudding mixture.

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing

Once your ganache has cooled to a spreadable consistency you can top the cupcakes. I cut the very top off of the center part of the cupcake and put it back over the filling. You don't have to do this. 

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing

All that's left is to try and eat just one. I really loved this because the cupcake was moist and not overly sweet. And the cool whip mixed into the pudding made it light and delicious. 

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing

Pi Day

Let your nerd flag fly high kids because today is Pi Day!! 

π (sometimes written pi) is a mathematical constant that is the ratio of any Euclidean^[1] circle's circumference to its diameter. π is approximately equal to 3.14. Many formulae in mathematics, science, and engineering involve π, which makes it one of the most important mathematical constants.^[2] For instance, the area of a circle is equal to π times the square of the radius of the circle. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pi)

And because we are proud nerds in this family March 14th, or 3/14, or 3.14 is the day we eat pie!

For our main course I busted out a Steak and Mushroom Guinness pie. this is also a nod to The Eagle and Child, where I had my first steak pie when I was at Oxford, and was also Tolkein and Lewis' old haunt. 





Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing

I got fancy and carved a π into the puff pastry. Unfortunately because of how soupy the filling was it didn't puff the way it was supposed to. No worries it still tasted amazing!

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing

And you can't celebrate properly with out desert so I made a delicious chocolate pie! I baked up a crust, made some delicious pudding and topped it with cool whip and chocolate shavings!!

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing

ETA (thanks Angi)

Lazy Sunday

We had a lazy Sunday... and a Sunday without TV. I think I'll make every Sunday TV free it was so nice.

I cooked:

Avocado, roasted tomato, hummus toast.

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing

Lazy Sunday sausage and potato roast.

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing

I sewed:

I tried to make a circle shirt, but I cut off too much from the bottom. I will be attempting a second one because it really could be cute!

I read:

Hatchet by Gary Paulsen - it's a Newbery winner and a book club book. I'm about half way through and I'm enjoying it but not as much as I've enjoyed every other Newbery I've read.

I just finished Clockwork Prince, book two in Cassandra Clare's Infernal Devices series. Checkout my review here.

What did you do today?

Bibbidi Bobbidi Bacon

"Bacon, the most beautiful thing on earth."

I just want to start by apologizing to my friends who are vegan or who keep kosher. This post is ALL bacon. But I promise if you come over I will feed you food you can eat... It just wont be as good because it will be baconless... But I digress.

I love bacon... and I'm vocal in my love for bacon. Nothing has made me happier than the surge of bacon infiltration in the foodie world. I've become the somewhat unofficial queen of all things bacon. I'd say at least 3-4 times a week I get a facebook post, pin, email or tweet about something bacon related. It's out of hand and it's wonderful.

Last night I had dinner with my bookclub girls and Liz made homemade ice cream. Not just any homemade ice cream but chocolate... caramel... marshmallow... and yes you guessed it BACON ice cream.



Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing

It was divine! Seriously one of the BEST ice creams I've ever had! So in honor of bacon ice cream I'm doing this all bacon everything blog post! I will refrain from the more, ummm, extreme items, but let's just say that NOTHING has been spared from bacon-ization.

Bacon foods:

For Christmas I made my co-workers bacon, marshmallow, caramel, whisky bark:





Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing

A few months ago I made maple bacon cinnamon rolls based off of the maple bacon cupcake I had at So Cupcakes.




Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing





Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing

Bacon donuts

Bacon pancakes/bacon cakes

Bacon bowl

Bacon jam (can't wait to make this!)

Bacon salt

Bacon hearts

I've heard Jack n the Box has a bacon milk shake... Someone needs to try it and report back!

Now on to the non-food bacon things:

Bacon scarf

Bacon band-aids

Bacon formula... If only I had known...

Bacon valentines day card

Bacon roses

Funny Bacon pictures:

Best tshirt ever! Two of my favorite things books (Game of Thrones) and bacon:

And then there's this! Another gem from my bookclub girls. This is the funniest bacon comedy act I've ever seen. HYSTERICAL! Please watch it! There's also a "study" on how bacon cures nose bleeds.

There's more... lots more... but now I'm going to make myself some bacon with a side of heart attack.

I bacon you!