Baking A Sweet Life

Because I live for key lime pie, I had marked this recipe when I first bought this book. I was *so* glad that it had finally come up in the rotation! Dianne of Diannes Dishes chose our recipe and I had plans to starting baking as soon as I saw it posted. Of course the weekend came (and went) and that’s why I’m a total slacker posting it now, almost midnight on the day of submission!! Not to mention that I cheated some - I bought a pre-made crust. Go on, send me the mean remarks - I can take it. Its the first time I’ve done that in about 6 years. I have a good excuse! I’m taking a cake-decorating class, and I’m not getting home until almost 10:30pm…
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Its Tuesday, and that means that the TWD’ers are back at it again. This time it was carrot cake! I’ve been wanting to make carrot cake for a while, but I’ve got so much going on it the kitchen, it had just taken a number and was waiting at the back of the line. So, luckily for it, its number was called this week, and I got to play around with one of the tastiest recipes I’ve made in a while.
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Okay, so not really, but it was fun to make these little bites of chocolatey goodness. Dorie’s recipe for Gooey Chocolate Cakes were what was on this weeks TWD agenda. I had opted to make miniature versions, simply because I wanted to bring all of the left overs to work (especially since hubbs is out of town) and I thought that it would be nice to have more to share - 15 in fact. Dorie says that you definitely need to serve this with something - its too rich to stand on its own, and I’d have to agree. I plated it with some fresh cut strawberries and some seedless raspberry preserves (that I used yesterday in Dorie’s Perfect Party Cake, no less!) and those flavors balanced the richness nicely. I just wish I had thought ahead enough to pour a glass of milk, but I was too focused on eating chocolate.
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I’m back, TWD‘er’s, I’m back! The kitchen remodel took two weeks more than I thought it would, and now the kitchen is finally done (and clean!). I made this flan on Tuesday, but didn’t realize that it not only had to cool to room temp AND chill in the fridge for at least 4 hours. That was going to be around 11pm, and I had to get to bed.

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The Tuesday that would’ve been… I had been planning on making this - I mean, it’s only my second week with the Dorie crew. BUT… My kitchen remodel started yesterday AND I came down with an awful cold. Right now my kitchen is covered in white dust over a 1/4″ thick because we had our ceilings smoothed out. Will be totally worth it when its all done - but not the best cooking environment, nor are my flu-like fingers.

I won’t be baking next week either (about 90% sure) because I’ll be in San Francisco (!!!!!) for a 5-day bread making class!!!!! I’m so excited - it was an awesome birthday present from my hubby. I’ll be staying in a hotel and won’t have any great cooking stuff with me - I will definitely be back “on” for the March 11th challenge!

So Please, TWD crew, don’t think I’ve forgotten you - or left the group - I can’t wait to start looking at all the pics of the wonderful biscuits you’ve created! (me and my kleenex box…)

I’ll post pics of all the yummy bread that I make!

You wouldn’t think that it would take 15 eggs, and 27 ounces of bittersweet chocolate to create this beauty. But yours truly isn’t like everyone else. You see, it took me THREE attempts at this cake. But I learned quite a bit. I learned that the whipped egg whites will be clumpy when added to this, and they need to be mixed in well (not just “folded”), else the final product will be quite bumpy. I learned that if the oven gets too hot, the top (crust) of the cake (which ends up as the bottom) will rise above the cake innerds, and when the cake settles as it comes out of the oven, you’ll get a crackly, crumbly mess to contend with. No fun. The third attempt still had a bit of a crackly crust, but I dealt with it, and allowed it to cool to room temp while upside-down.

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