Rainbow Cakes II

Here's another funny story. See? Full of them.

A couple of weeks ago I started a new job. I was in a rotation program at work, and "graduated" a little early into my permanent job. That makes three jobs in one calendar year. Whew. There are a lot of pros and cons to a rotation program, but mostly I'd liken it to being on Quantum Leap. You go somewhere, do good, and go. Well, hopefully. I like to think I did good.

This permanent job was a long time coming, because I'm finally at a site close to home. I don't have to get on the highway to go to work. And I can carpool. But I was still kind of sad, because all of my really cool friends are now 25 miles away.

For my last day at the site, I thought I'd make a cake. The rainbow cupcakes came out so well, and I had everything out, I thought I'd try a cake out. But not just a plain, round or rectangular and boring cake. Can you tell I love my fluted pan?

Here's the funny part. I got everything all set, put the pan in the oven, set the timer for an hour, and watched the Biggest Loser. Spent the hour alternating between horrified and teary. Anyway, the timer goes off, I open the oven and ... it was liquidy. See, once you set the oven, you're supposed to press start. Oy.



It didn't rise. At all. But oddly enough, the layers formed arches! Like a rainbow! Completely unintentional and I will bet I can't recreate it. But I'll probably try (and turn the oven on this time).

Anniversary Cake

Seven months ago, I got married. It was truly and honestly the happiest day. I don't even have words for the kind of happy it was.

For our six month anniversary, I wanted to do something special. Now, the top tier of our wedding cake is still foil-plastic-foil-plastic-foil-plastic-foil wrapped in our freezer. It even took a secret trip to the freezer at work so it would survive the move. Yes, I'm aware most bakeries will give you an anniversary cake to spare you freezer burned cake, but ours doesn't. Oh well. I'd still order a cake from there.

We had a rather simple wedding cake. And I can make cakes too, you know.

In searching for canned pumpkin, I noticed that you can buy canned dulce de leche. Dulce de leche is simply condensed milk that's been cooked on the stove for a while, but who really has time for that? A can is much easier. Thus, the idea was born to recreate our wedding cake.

When we went to the tasting, the bakery asked if I wanted a white or chocolate cake. Apparently "Yes!" is a completely appropriate answer to this question, because each layer was half white and half chocolate. The awesomeness of this bakery knows no bounds, my friends.

I used my from-scratch recipe, which didn't fail me for the almond cupcakes, but sure did for this cake. Apparently you can't just dump some cocoa powder in and call it chocolate cake. Actually, the cake came out more dense and dry, like bread. Sad. But, a big thick layer of dulce de leche and some frosting sure does help.


So, the cake wasn't great, and it ended up I was still with the flu, but at least we had a good dinner!

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Brides take note: while every detail of your wedding is of the utmost, critical importance before the event, it simply will not matter later. I know I left off the ribbon, although I probably had some around. And cleaning out the cake topper was a pain in the butt after the wedding, so I wasn't about to go searching through boxes to get it. But, here's a picture of our wedding cake:


So, despite not losing those extra pounds, or forgetting the rings, or a hangover, (all things that did not go wrong at my wedding, but you know) you're still married.

Rainbow Cakes

Here's a funny story. I'm full of them lately. Funny how most things I make are the collision of two wholly unrelated events that one day, due to stars and planets unexpectedly aligning, suddenly make perfect sense together.

Event #1: Months ago, the internet collectively gasped upon seeing this beautiful rainbow cake. Well, the part of the internet I read, anyway. We oohed. We ahhed. I promptly did not think about it until almost a year later, because apparently that's how long it takes me to process things.

Event #2: Funny thing. Just before my friend's birthday, for which I had made our special pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, I got sick. I've been living pretty high-throttle lately, so it's not that surprising. Anyway, I had the box sitting on my desk at work but was not there to deliver it, and by the time I did get back they just weren't fresh. Also some of the oil had leeched out into the paper box, causing my coworkers some concern. Anyway.

I used my from-scratch cake recipe, that so far has only failed me when I tried to deviate from it. This time I didn't, but the butter wasn't soft enough. Not really a big deal, but it made the batter kind of lumpy. But, it was important to under-mix it, since there would be significant mixing later.

I have exactly six of these pretty amber ramekins. There are six colors in the traditional rainbow. Coincidence?

The most daunting part of this cake is evenly distributing the batter not once, but twice. It came out to be about two generous soup spoons plus a little extra. If you're looking for an exact recipe ... you have come to the wrong place. Ultimately you end up with this:


Kind of reminds me of those watercolor paint kits from grade school.

Dropping the batter into 12 muffin cups was, by far, the hardest step. Although I wouldn't say it was particularly hard. By the time I got to yellow I was doing pretty well - it took about a regular table spoon's worth of batter to make it through (and the last one I used a spatula to scrape the ramekin, so I think I measured pretty well). I even rotated which muffin cup I started with. I am not obsessive at all.

I checked them at the 30 minute mark, and they were still really bubbly, so I set them for another 15. Ten minutes would have been better (total cook time, according to my oven, 40 minutes). It took me a long time to distribute the batter, though, so I wasn't very confident that the colors hadn't bled together at the bottom.



Obviously everything came out just fine. They make a huge visual impact, which is really cool. Imagine bringing these to your kid's school bake sale. You'd be the coolest mom (or dad) ever.

Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins

Round #2 of my 29-ounce can of pumpkin!

As soon as it starts getting cooler, or the calendar turns October, I want pumpkin flavored everything. And it's especially chilly in our new neighborhood.

Pumpkin for breakfast? OK!

I used this recipe from Country Living. Between Lovestoeat and Country Living, this can't possibly be bad. The ingredient list seems pretty hefty though, doesn't it? I only had half the cream cheese needed, but it didn't seem to be an issue.



These were the best pumpkin muffins I have ever had. No kidding. Even my husband declared them cafe-worthy. Although, I couldn't tell you the last time I had a muffin at a cafe. Do you know how many calories are in those? And no, I don't want to know how many calories are in these.

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At this point, I've made both cookies and muffins from one can of pumpkin puree. And there is still some left over!

So I even made myself a pumpkin spice latte. Well, not really a latte, as I don't have an espresso machine. But the coffee seemed to work too. Who knew steaming milk on the stove was so easy?

And there is still some pumpkin left over...

Almond Cupcakes

In an effort to finally use up the last of my powdered almonds, I thought, why not cake? Those two bags lasted quite a long time. And to be truly honest, I have about a half a cup left. Arg.

Honestly, these came about because of a friend's birthday, and I do love a good birthday!

I also had a hefty amount of almond buttercream left over from making macaroons. Almonds are obviously growing on me.

It took me a while, but I dug up my cake-from-scratch recipe. Did you know that in my new kitchen, I have a whole drawer dedicated to cookbooks and miscellaneous internet recipes? It's like a magical drawer of ideas. Anyway, if cake mixes weren't so cheap and convenient, I'd always make cakes from scratch. I'd say it was easy, but look what happened when I declared macaroons easy to make.

Rather than two cups flour, I substituted one cup for the almonds. I was a little afraid the cake would be too dense and not rise. No worries, though. They came out the perfect combination of soft, fluffy, and moist, but not overly nutty tasting.

I busted out one of my mom's fancy decorating tips and beefed up the frosting I had (it was a little runny for my taste). No, I don't know why it's shiny in the picture.

Just for the record: did you know I don't use a digital SLR? I use my three or four year old Casio Exilim point & shoot. There's actually nothing very special about it. It's ooooold. But it still works like a dream. The fun added benefit of blogging means I get to practice taking pictures, too!

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

Did you know there is a shortage of canned pumpkin this year? It's true. You should start seeing it again in grocery stores this week, but for the month of September I was panicking that there would be no tasty pumpkin treats this year.

Especially because one of my very dear friend's birthday is in the month of October. And we tend to bond this time of year over pumpkin chocolate chip cookies/bread/muffins.

I ended up scoring two 29-ounce (!!) cans of pumpkin from a local Ralph's. Squee-ing the whole way, much to the chagrin of my dear husband. Who knows what he got in to when he married me.

If you look up a recipe for pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, you'll mostly get the same one over and over again. So I'll link you to this one, since I'm pretty sure it's the one I used. I didn't have any nuts.


What you see underneath them is parchment paper. I always thought that parchment paper wasn't anything special - just another roll to keep in the drawer. And I'd been getting by with wax paper or aluminum foil this whole time. But parchment paper is the way to go, my friends. No greasing, and the cookies slide off like little skiers. Magical.

Oh yes, and the cookies made a nice little birthday package. Happy birthday!

Chicken Pot Pie

Remember that chicken I put in the slow cooker? It wasn't a particularly large chicken, but between the three of us, we sure couldn't finish it. The Kitchn serendipitously featured an easy chicken pot pie around the same time, so the leftovers were destined for a pie in the weebl and bob sense.

I don't really have any interest in buying frozen puff pastry sheets. In fact, every time I see a croissant, I wish I knew how to make one from scratch. But at the moment, all I had was my trusty Betty Crocker for pie crust. You can get the idea here. A pie such as this requires something that can stand up to a heavy, wet filling without leaking. But this particular recipe was not meant to be rolled and laid on top. Oh well.

I mixed the chicken meat with defrosted vegetables and a can of cream of chicken soup. This ended up requiring more pastry to cover the sides and top. In to the oven it went, and out it came.

That's my sad attempt to plug up all of the holes in the top of the pastry.

It was a pretty deep pie, meaning cutting and serving it was rather unappetizing.

Even in all of that goo, the pastry part held up really well. It was a little like chicken & dumplings. Despite being fairly unappetizing-looking, it was very tasty and easy to make to get rid of leftover chicken!