Pumpkin Maple Cake

After not having any kind of blog post for almost all of July, I found the Pumpkin Bundt Cake with Rum and Maple from cupcakeproject.com.

I'm not a person that likes to make long blog posts, unless it's a recipe my parents and I came up with. But the first time I made this cake, without even tasting it, I decided "Never again." Not because it was a bad cake, but because it was too much stress for me to deal with.

First of all, it started with adding the oil before I was supposed to. Then I forgot the rum, so it became the Pumpkin Bundt Cake with Maple. Then the mixer attacked me with dry ingredients, and was so full it refused to mix, so I had to use my whisk instead. I think I missed some parts of it.

Then the cake actually baked. That went without a problem. But I forgot to make the glaze, so we ate it without.

It's a very heavy cake, and I could only get a good picture here. The taste was fine, but it was still a terror to actually bake.

If you have the rum, the energy, and the patience, I say you should do it. The cake was good even without the glaze, and my mom said it was perfect with coffee. I still don't think I'd make it again, but I'm blogging it with the link, so it's there if I change my mind.

Tequila Sunrise Cupcakes

Now that my sister is home from college, I've been looking at recipes for more baking with alcohol. I still prefer the "sweet, girly stuff," as she put it the one time we went to a bar. While searching Pinterest, I decided that the Tequila Sunrise Cupcakes from thecakeblog looked sweet and girly enough for me.

When actually making them, I learned two things. First, I love the smell of grenadine. Second, that the first three times I made frosting didn't lie, I really am terrible at it. It tasted really good, but it only reached a halfway-solid consistency after I got my dad to help me.

The good news about this - there's leftover tequila-spiked frosting, and we always have cake mix in the cupboard. I'm going to see what other cakes like this frosting.

The cake itself was a little too tough, but I might have baked the cupcakes for too long. They tasted fine, but the frosting was what got the recipe a spot in my personal cookbook.

Teriyaki Salmon

As a cook with a sweet tooth, I'm always looking for recipes for actual meals. As usual, the meals I find that I want to try involve rice and soy sauce. This time, it's not chicken, it's the Teriyaki Salmon recipe from wholeandheavenlyoven.

This is amazing. I didn't have much of it when I tried it the first time, but I put it in the book that night anyway, and had a much bigger piece when I made it again for my mom's birthday dinner.

I didn't make the gingered rice that the blog suggests, but it doesn't matter. I love this meal anyway, and I'll keep the recipe forever.

Banana Cream Cookies

I know it's only been a few days since my last Pinterest update, but I got bored. Boredom leads to baking, and baking leads to blogging, so here's another internet recipe with short commentary.

We always have bananas in the house. Sometimes the bananas are better for baking than eating, but there are so many banana bread recipes that I couldn't decide which one to try.

Then I found these cookies from butterwithasideofbread. They were something that wasn't banana bread, so I decided to try them out instead.

They turned out good, according to my mom. Not something that I would put in my personal cookbook, but if you like banana bread, they're good cookies. I do not like banana bread, but I still suggest that those who do try the cookies.

Irish Cream Brownies

The original blogger of the Irish Cream Brownies from wonkywonderful.com posted them for St. Patrick's Day. I decided to leave my own comments for that same day.

My family has four people over 21, meaning there's a lot of alcoholic drinks. None of us drink much, but we like to have our options for when we do. This means that halfway through March, we still had most of the Irish cream my dad got for Christmas. With my sister having a birthday right before St. Patrick's Day and coming home for spring break at the same time, I decided to give them a try.

I made them a little bit too thin, but my family still liked them, so I call it a success.

I don't like Irish cream myself. I like the sweet girly stuff. But I just thought I'd post this here for St. Patrick's Day, in case anyone decides to read this.

Honey Glazed Chicken

I try to find non-dessert recipes despite my sweet tooth. Every so often, I do find something, and yet, most of the ones that get my attention involve rice and soy sauce. I knew it was my favorite kind of food, but how often this happened surprised me.

This recipe is a Honey Glazed Chicken from allrecipes.com. I knew going in that I wasn't a big fan of honey, but I love chicken and soy sauce, so I decided to give it a try.

I didn't have the red pepper flakes, and I thought it would be too spicy for me anyway, so we left it out. It might have made the recipe better, but it was good anyway.

The result was positive reviews, but not five stars. I said it was "edible" but it wasn't going in my personal cookbook. My brother said it was good, but he liked my personal recipe better. My parents liked it, though, so it wasn't a failure.

Chocolate Chip Pudding Cookies

It's the middle of January, we're probably snowed in, and I haven't left the house for anything but the most important reasons for over two weeks now. I have complained about this, but without a car, I can't even go to the library to check out old issues of Taste of Home. I was starting to get just a little bit "twitchy" from desperation.

So I went through Pinterest to find recipes that I could make with what we already had in the house. I found these - the Chocolate Chip Pudding Cookies from isavea2z.com. This was the first of many things I made, because I'm bored and and using up all our ingredients over one weekend sounds like a fun challenge.

I used chocolate pudding instead of vanilla, and it turned out really good. This recipe is now in my personal cookbook, so I don't have to look through my Pinterest board or my blog to find it again.

Apple Cider Donut Cake

For some reason, probably related to my sister being home for a while, we had apple cider in the house. My brother and I do not like apple cider, and my sister is back at school, so it was up to my parents to drink it before it went bad. When my dad complained, I decided to help him.

I looked around to find some recipes that used apple cider, and decided to use the Apple Cider Donut Cake from marthastewart.com. I knew I wouldn't eat this cake myself, but my parents could take it to work and find people to help.

I replaced the whole wheat flour with another cup of all-purpose flour, and I forgot the cinnamon sugar step, but other than that, I followed the recipe. There's no need to post the same recipe in my style.

Despite my dislike of apple cider and applesauce, I took a bite of this cake. The apple was there while I was chewing, but it really hit me after I swallowed it. My mom said it's a good cake, but it would be better if we added maple and walnuts.

Blueberry Cream Cheese Pound Cake

It's been years since I did anything for this blog. I haven't stopped baking, I just switched to cookbooks instead of the internet. More importantly, I've been looking for jobs, and while I am still unemployed, I took a proofreading course on UniversalClass and am working for a certificate through ACES.

But, since no one wants to hear about proofreading on a baking blog, I'll just post the recipe now.

Blueberry Cream Cheese Pound Cake, from justataste.com

My mom says that this is the best cake I've ever made. I say that I'm glad the effort was worth it.

The cake took a lot of time to prepare, and it would have been easier if I had someone to help with the ingredients. It took about 2 hours to be done, and only 50 minutes was in the oven.

But the end result looked great, and it made my mom happy.



I would have liked this cake, but I'm not a fan of most things involving lemon juice. I had a few bites and then got a mouth full of lemon. I'll replace the lemon juice with water next time, and hope that the lemon peel will have enough lemon flavor that we can taste it without it being too lemony.

Strawberry Milkshake Cookies

After most of a month with no posting, the temperature has been going down enough to start baking. I haven't stopped baking completely since the last post, since I made two box cakes for my dad to take to church and he came back with a request from our priest to make him some lemon bars. Even before that, my sister went off to college out of town, so I made her some cookie sandwiches to take with her.

My next project was going to be a cookie cake for my brother's birthday, but he asked for brownies instead. So, I found these strawberry milkshake cookies on Pinterest and had to try them. I'm a little too into trying Pinterest recipes, to be honest.

This time, I double-checked that we had all the ingredients hours before I started, and triple-checked by taking this picture:

And after I took this picture, I turned the kitchen light on.

One thing I'd like to point out about this recipe is that the dough is sticky. Very, very sticky. I got some on my fingers and couldn't even rub it off without water, so my poor cookie scooper (which was already broken) got stuck again.

After that, I used spoons. Plural. I had to use one spoon to scrape the dough off of the other spoon and onto the baking sheet. But at least it made really big cookies.

My dad took some of these cookies to work, and one guy offered to buy a dozen. So, the final thought on this recipe is that it's a good one.

Cookie Dough Popsicles

"I wanted to make popsicles for the blog, but we're out of chocolate chips!"

Have you ever heard that one before? Neither had my dad, apparently.

It's been way too hot to bake here, so I spent the past several days looking up no-bake recipes to try out when I had the chance. As good as all the pies looked, I am a picky eater with a thing against most types of pie crusts, and I wanted to make something for me as well as the rest of the family. I'll post a few of those later. This recipe is for, as the post title suggests, the Invisible Cookie Dough Ice Pops from cutoutandkeep.

As we are writing fan fiction (we're about to start our fourth year of this in October) and dying of anticipation for the new Gravity Falls episode, my brother and I have been more or less locked in my nice, cool basement bedroom, not willing to move because we don't want to waste the air conditioning when we aren't up there. Popsicles would be perfect.

I forgot to take pictures of the making process, but it's just like making chocolate milk. Instead, I'll show you the "after" shots, complete with pictures of my mom's hands:

Of course, when she tried to taste one, the stick ended up coming out completely.

But we fixed it, and here's an even better picture of the finished product (with an appearance by the stupid cat that did not get stuck in the couch.)

As for my thoughts on the recipe: the writer wasn't lying. They actually do taste just like a frozen chocolate chip cookie. I used 1% milk where I should have used whole, but we don't have whole milk in the house. The result made the 'cookie dough' melt first and leave behind pure ice, but I will definitely make these again. Maybe at the end of summer...

Cookie Sandwiches

I was going to make brownies that day, from a mix in the closet full of mixes. It was only my sister's suggestion, and the realization that I didn't see brownie mix in the cake closet after all, only chocolate cake, that made me decide to make these.

It wasn't the first time I made these cookies, unlike the last two blog posts, and I kind of feel like I'm cheating. These cake mix cookie sandwiches are really good, and I made them on Monday. They were gone on Thursday.

What is for the first time is that I finally have a link: The Funfetti Cookie Sandwiches on Cutoutandkeep.

The original poster of this recipe says to use a cup of oil. Trust me, you do not want to do this. It makes the cookies too fragile to frost. Half of a cup is good enough.

(Yes, I am speaking from experience. They were still really good)

When it all got mixed together, I had to keep my brother from eating the 'dough.'  We needed five dozen cookies (slight exaggeration) and we couldn't risk losing one to hungry hands before they were complete.

Halfway through frosting them! One of the completed sandwiches had already been eaten by my brother, one by me, and I just handed another to my sister before taking this picture. These cookies weren't going to last long, but they were going to be good.

Not quite five dozen, as I said. They were all gone by the time I posted this.

This recipe is good. Not quite my favorite cookies, but they're close. I made a (mix) cake for the leftover frosting, just so we could have something baked to last the rest of the week.