Category Archives: Reindeer Games

It’s Cake Week!  And if you too, have been compelled to Bake A Cake, PLEASE link up!

Like pie from-scratch, cake from-scratch is something I’ve never attempted on my own before.  So I give thanks that Kirsten, Allison, Jeanne, Megan and Madelyn are so very supportive of me as I walk boldly (and somewhat blindly) into the world of baking.

When we were discussing Who Should Bake What, the idea of actioning bundt cakes was tossed around.  I may not seem like the kind of person that owns a large quantity of these pans, so let me surprise you by saying that I do.  Because in my possession I have a regular-sized pan, 8 mini-pans, one cupcake-style pan, and one cupcake-style pan with a holiday theme.

Midwest represent.

I get exhausted just listing them off.

But I think it’s obvious to all of us that The Universe is directing me to bundt.  In a lifetime commitment-sort of way.

The Universe was also directing me to action a from-scratch Funfetti Cake with Vanilla Glaze.  Because I had a Valentine’s Day-themed ladies’ night to attend and it’s a known fact that the hostess loves Funfetti 11/10.  That I love sprinkles nearly as much as life itself had nothing to do with the situation.

Note: I baked all cakes at 350 degrees.  The big cake stayed in the oven for 50 minutes, the smaller cakes stayed in for 30 minutes.

I did not use cake flour, because I don’t own it.  I know it’s not a terribly expensive ingredient, but since I don’t make cakes ever (really…this was my first from-scratch), it seemed silly to buy a bag that would occupy valuable pantry space.  To that end (I realize this may be heretical), the cake did come out moist, fluffy and with an appropriate crumb.  So if you too are one of the uninitiated, it’s safe to take a pass.

If you’re like me and you don’t necessarily have the time to mix up an entire cake the day-of (sometime we have Plans), you can toss the dry ingredients together in a bag ahead of time.

Even though I made this cake on Saturday, I definitely mixed up the dry mix on Thursday.

Once you add the dry and the wet together, you’re on your way!  Or so I thought.  Until I came to terms with the following:

• Filling a regular-sized bundt pan without getting batter everywhere is…taxing.
• Filling mini-bundt pans without getting batter everywhere is unrealistic and impossible.

But with hands and countertop covered in batter, I forged on.

To be richly rewarded.

When they come out of the oven, they will look like so.

This is also when you’ll realize that the only downside to buying rainbow sprinkles is that some of the sprinkles are…brown.  But baked-in, they didn’t come off as being especially muddy compared to the other colors.  So there’s that.

You will then begin contemplating the inevitable question of, How Am I Going To Get These Out Of Here?!

My mother-in-law is cursed as far as bundt cakes are concerned.  No matter what method she employs, she’s never able to coax them out of the pan once they’ve made it out of the oven.  So I was quite tickled to be able to send her a snap of this.

How glorious.  The tiny bundts are lighter because the metal grade/thickness of those pans was different.  So take heart, they’re still done.

Since they required a glaze, I admired them from afar while they cooled.  It was a pie-on-the-windowsill situation.

And then I got to work (literally) throwing sprinkles at my cakes, to great success.

This is a clear-cut case of More is More if I ever saw it.

And more importantly, the finished product.

Since I was going to eat more of the cake at the party, I aspirationally thought that maybe I would only eat half.  Until the sprinkles and the glaze took over and I devoured the whole thing.

Who said food photography and staging isn’t fun?

Cake Week continues, so check out our schedule of events!

Monday – Filled Cupcakes from Kirsten at Comfortably Domestic
Tuesday – Molten Lava Cake from Mads at La Petite Pancake
Wednesday – Ice Cream Cakelettes from Jeanne at Inside NanaBread’s Head
Thursday – Petite Bundt Cakes by Yours Truly
Friday – Pupcakes from Allison at Decadent Philistines Save the World
Saturday – Ombre Rose Cake from Megan at Wanna Be A Country Cleaver

Have you ever actioned a cake from-scratch?

What’s your go-to party dessert?

Good morning, kittens!  I know, so early.  But today’s post is my contribution to Be a Good Cookie Week.

Earlier this year, Kirsten shared with us that she lost her sister, Cheryl, to cancer at an early age.  As the fall progressed (and with the holidays right around the corner) she mentioned to Allison, Jeanne, Mads, Megan and I that she was thinking about doing a little something to raise awareness for children’s cancer through her blog.

She had only just pressed the send button when the rest of us piled on board.  Because friends do not let friends walk that path alone.  We are grandmothers, mothers, and someday-mothers.  Aunts, sisters, daughters and nieces.  Childhood cancers are not a one person battle.

The cause that is close to her heart is Cookies for Kids’ Cancer, founded by Gretchen Holt-Witt.  Gretchen is a mother who watched her son Liam battle a cancer of the nervous system.  Getting even with cancer instead of remaining powerless and angry, Gretchen organized a bake sale.  Over the course of three weeks, she and the individuals who volunteered to help her in this fight for funding of pediatric cancer therapy research moved 96,000 cookies for a total of $400,000.

A movement was born.

When I re-read the post that Kirsten wrote, introducing us to this cause, one number really hit home for me.

Her sister, Cheryl, would have been 24 years old this year.

I am 24 years old this year.

It is a fact that I am totally unable to make any sense of.

The writing is on the wall.

Any age is too soon, but we cannot continue to let cancer take the lives our young.

Before we get started, I wanted to make sure that we were all on the same page.

When I read about other bloggers in the kitchen, I have a very clear-cut vision of what it must look like.

Their hair is done, they’re wearing a camera-ready outfit.  They never get ingredients on their clothes.  Their kitchens are immaculate.

Just so we’re all on the same page, this is what I look like when I impulsively decide to begin my baking immediately after an early breakfast on a Sunday morning.

Right?  Right.

For my batch of heaven, I decided to go with the Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies from the CFKC Best Bake Sale Cookbook.

Making these was the perfect choice, because it’s something that’s on my 25 by 25 list and the first recipe I tried was…unimpressive.

This definitely righted that wrong.

The recipe asked me to grind the oats in my food processor.  Since I only made a half-batch, that seemed really excessive.  So I turned to my immersion blender instead.  God I love that thing.  You hook it up, do what you need to do and at the end, you only have a blender and a cup to clean.  It is so beyond easy.

I had already started mixing and dumping things by the time I realized I needed to start thinking like a food blogger and get snapping.  So here’s my effort.

In case you actually wanted to know what’s hiding in that green bowl, it was sugar.  Brown and white.

Amen.

I think I was supposed to use 1.5 cups of chocolate chips, but this ended up being more like…2.  How did this happen?  It’s very simple, really.  I had two open bags of chocolate chips floating around in my pantry and I wanted nothing more than to be rid of them both.  The ratio of chips to actual dough may or may not have been 1:1.

And it was good.

After wrasslin’ with parchment paper for the better part of 10 minutes, only to realize that it’s only necessary if you want to keep your baking sheets looking nice, I ditched the stuff and got my cookies in the oven.

Amen.

The finished product.  Behold.

Truthfully, I didn’t know that cookies like this could come out of my kitchen.

Once I’m done surviving the nine dozen cookies I need to action for a work cookie exchange next week, I’ll be pulling this recipe out again.

Only next time?  I’ll be making the full-batch instead of the half.

And don’t forget, the reindeer games are not over yet!

Monday – Kirsten from Comfortably Domestic
Tuesday – Jeanne from Inside NanaBread’s Head
Wednesday – Megan from Wanna Be A Country Clever
Thursday – Kat from Tenaciously Yours,
Friday – Mads from La Petite Pancake
Saturday – Allison from Decadent Philistines Save the World

Also, make sure to check out Kirsten and Jeanne’s giveaways!

What do you look like when you’re in the middle of some serious baking?

What is your go-to recipe for perfect cookies?

Once upon a time (way back in the middle of the summer), six bloggers put their heads together and decided that something needed to be done about the fact that they couldn’t actually spend time in the kitchen together.

So they put on their aprons and decided to bake together anyway.

And the idea for Pie Week was born.

Y’all know from the 25 by 25 that #6 Learn how to bake a pie crust from scratch, is something I’ve wanted to needed to tackle.  So the moment that we agreed on Pie as The Theme, I did a little happy dance.

The only requirement for our week of festive Reindeer Games?  We all had to use Kirsten’s No Excuses Pie Crust.

Kirsten Believes In Butter and I Do Too so her crust as Our Standard was a perfect starting point.

Plus, with a name like “No Excuses” instead of Martha Stewart’s more intimidatingly named Pate Brisee, I was sold on the fact that I might actually be able to…make it.

After reviewing the recipe more than a handful of times (it was probably more like 20), I set the scene.  I froze my butter, iced my water down and pulled out the dough blade for my food processor.

The first rule of boldly going into the unknown: Be Prepared.

And as a reward for my efforts, I was greeted with this lovely sight…

Not one crust, but two crusts!

By the way, did you know how insane it is to try to photograph your food while you’re making it?  I found myself completely and utterly unprepared and at a loss.

As it turns out, those cooking bloggers are NOT playing around.

For the filling, I used the recipe from the back of the store brand pumpkin puree can.  There was no recipe development or “tweaking.”  I played it safe and trusted The Man.

Andy Warhol, beware.

Did you know that Pumpkin Pie is a custard pie?

Me neither.

Until I cracked the eggs in, gave the mixture a whirl with my hand mixture and proceeded to be astonished by the vast quantity of filling I had managed to produce in such a short span of time.

Originally I was planning on making mini-pies in a muffin tin.  So cute, right?  But once I got a good look at my pie filling and my crust, one regular-sized pie seemed like the appropriate choice.

So I pulled out Marcus’ Baube’s pie plate (which I had given absolutely no thought to until that very moment in time), pressed the crust into it and got baking.

The spicy-sweet scent that permeated the house was unbelievable.  Even Marcus: Dessert Hater remarked on how wonderful it was.

And after an hour, the finished product.

Obviously I spent a lot of time trying to beautify the edges of the crust.

When it came time to devour it, I brought it over to my parents’ house as an offering to accompany the beer tasting we did on Sunday evening.  Mom offered to action a batch of homemade whipped cream to go with it, but we all agreed that there’s a certain je ne sais quoi to the canned stuff.

Perhaps the best discovery to come from all of this is the fact that in our house it can now be Thanksgiving all year long.

You may now refer to me as Kat: Pie Baking Survivor.

Amen.

And because the buck does not stop here, you absolutely have to get to know my fellow partners in crime!

Last but not least, our progress thus far…

Pie Week, Day 1 – click here to see Kirsten’s Monday entry – Apple Tart with a Cheddar Streusel Topping.  Marcus loves apples and Marcus loves cheese so this is definitely one I’ll be springing on him.

Pie Week, Day 2 – click here to see Jeanne’s Tuesday extravaganza – Bananas Foster Fried Pies.  I SLAY MYSELF.

Up Next: Mads from La Petite Pancake tackles a fruity, multi-berry confection.  Will I wish I were right there with her in her California kitchen?  Yes.

What is your favorite kind of pie?

p.s. Edited to add, I’m taking part in the Loving the Pie party!

Want to know more?  Come join Love the Pie with TidyMom  sponsored by Cherokee USA, Le Creuset, Wilton, Bags by Bloom and  Harvard Common Press.