A cake? A muffin? A muffin with a cake-like existential crisis? Or is it the other way around? Maybe it should seek therapy.

In my quest to bake through Baking…From My Home to Yours, long-after the rest of the Tuesdays with Dorie (TWD) group finished, I can check another recipe off my list. Dorie Greenspan created the Apple Nut Muffin Cake when one day she was making muffins and decided dump the batter in a cake pan and call it a day. I briefly toyed with the idea of making muffins instead of the cake as some sort of poetic finish to the whole thing. After I finished musing, I baked the cake subbing whole-wheat pastry flour for the all-purpose and  dried cranberries for the raisins (Paul doesn’t like raisins!).

The flavor of the cake reminded me of apple-cinnamon oatmeal and therefore I believe a healthy way to have cake for breakfast. The recipe was hosted by Katrina of Baking and Boys last October. You can find the recipe HERE.

photo by paulrus

One of the reasons I enjoy belonging to baking groups is that the decision of what to bake is made for me. I like baking things on my own, of course, but there are just too many recipes I want to try. It gets a bit overwhelming.

For the most part joining baking groups worked for me. That is, until I joined too many {TWD, Sweet Melissa Sundays,Bread Baker’s Apprentice Challenge, Daring Bakers} life got hectic, I needed sleep, etc. Now that I’m back to blogging, I’m limiting myself to one (1!) baking group: Tuesdays with Dorie (TWD v2.0).  Even though I’m officially joining only one (1!) baking group, I still want to finish all the original TWD recipes (after today I have 62 left!) and that’s the basis of today’s recipe.

The TWD Bakers baked Basic Biscuits in October 2011. There’s nothing basic about the taste and yummy-factor. They rose and were flaky. The recipe was hosted by Jennifer of Cooking for Comfort. You can find the recipe HERE or in Dorie Greenspan’s Baking…From My Home to Yours.

photo by paulrus

Where have I been? Since you’ve seen me last I’ve done a lot of running, some baking, and a little bit of travel. Last April 1st, like an anti-April Fool’s joke, the man of my dreams walked (or, actually,  it was more of a saunter) into my life. We sat around talking a bit and then he had to leave to go back to work. I asked my friend (his sister-in-law)  if he is single and she literally jumped up and down in excitement. In trying to sell him to me she mentioned, “You like to bake and he likes to eat baked goods!!” True. And that was that.  Long story short, Paul and I are now proud parents of Nani #17, a puppy we adopted from a labrador rescue, and we’re planning a casual backyard wedding in May.

I’ve missed blogging and I’ve missed being part of the baking community. I saw the celebrations when the awesome and dedicated Tuesdays with Dorie bakers posted the final recipe from Dorie Greenspan’s Baking…from My Home to Yours. I felt a twinge of sadness over dropping out of the challenge to bake every recipe in the book.

I will complete the challenge of using every recipe from the book. For my first recipe back to blogging, I chose Blueberry Brown Sugar Plain Cake. I had all the ingredients on hand. It’s a fairly simple recipe with an extra step of whipping egg whites and then folding them into the batter.

Cindy of Everyday Insanity hosted the recipe the week it debuted (June 7, 2011). You can find the recipe on her blog here: Blueberry Brown Sugar Plain Cake

Make it yourself. It’s super easy and quick. The combination of the brown sugar, blueberries, and the tiny bit of cinnamon indicates there’s nothing plain tasting about this cake.

photo by paulrus

*sigh* I thought it would be easier to get back into the swing of things. It’s definitely not easy, maybe it’s a bit hard. I have a lot going on. Work has become incredibly busy. Taking care of the house, training for a marathon, and life in general is a bit chaotic.

Cookies always help. Especially cookies still warm from the oven. Chocolate Oatmeal Drops was this week’s Tuesdays with Dorie recipe. A double chocolate cookie with oatmeal (hey! They’re healthy) that takes away worries. Just what the doctor ordered.

Thanks to Caroline and Claire of Bake With Us for hosting this week. For the recipe visit their blog or buy the book.

Until next time…

Yes. There isn’t a swirl cake I can’t make ugly. Not on purpose. It just happens. I can make gorgeous croissants. I have no problem baking rolls that look like, well, rolls. I can’t make pretty swirls. I admit defeat.

Paula agrees.

Even though my Nutty Chocolatey Swirly Sour Cream Bundt Cake won’t win beauty contests, it was still mighty tasty. Those scraps did not go to waste.

Thanks to Jennifer of Cooking for Comfort for hosting this week’s Tuesdays with Dorie. For the recipe, visit her blog.

Brandy. The one type of alcohol I do not have in my pantry and the type needed for this week’s Sweet Melissa Sundays recipe: Speakeasy, aka a boozy cake with chocolate. I have scotch, armagnac, cognac, rum (3 types), tequila, vodka (um, 8 types), Bailys, Kahlua, Frangelico, Applejack, Amaretto, triple sec, midori, gin, Calvados, Kirsch, Grand Marnier, and bourbon (2 types).

Without a pressing need to another bottle of liquor to my collection, I subbed in bourbon. The cake batter was easy to throw together especially with Diego assisting. Instead of making a full recipe, I halved it and baked two mini cakes.

Thanks to Jeannette of The Whimsical Cupcake for hosting this week. For the recipe, visit her blog or buy the book.

I have an awesome neighbor. Okay, sometimes he says things like “I don’t know how you make it sometimes, Wendy”. Gee, thanks.  Other than that he is a pretty cool guy. I think he sees me as the daughter he never had. When I had trouble edging my lawn, he said he would do it. Week after week, I would mow my lawn and he would edge it.  In November, I went on vacation for 3 weeks. He said he would mow my lawn while I was gone. I returned home to a beautiful manicured lawn.

As thanks I decided to bake him and his family a basket of mini-muffins. For some reason, I decided to bake all the muffins I had not yet baked out of Dorie Greenspan’s Baking…From My Home to Yours. I took a basket to work and I walked a basket across the street to my neighbor. I also froze some of each. These, my friends, are the ones I took out of my freezer when I discovered this week’s Tuesdays with Dorie selection was the very popular (with neighbors and co-workers) Lemon Poppyseed Muffins.

Thanks to Betsy of A Cup of Sweetness for hosting this week. For the recipe, visit her BLOG or buy the BOOK.

(By the way, I have not mowed my lawn since late October. Love my neighbor.)

Okay.  My Mother is retired and in her spare time she volunteers for the Assistance League and runs their thrift store. Anytime something baking related comes into the store she calls me asking if I need this or that pan. I’m happy that she thinks of me and my baking needs. However, there are only so many tart pans or mini-pie tins I can use. One week she bought me an angel-food cake pan. Awesome. I didn’t have one. Later that week she called saying another angel-food cake pan arrived and did I want it. “Why the heck would I ever need TWO angel-food cake pans??” “You’ve got a point there.” Especially true because I’ve never made an angel-food cake and I’m really not a fan of it. O:)

And this is why I have multiple madeleine pans. And why I’ve made madeleines multiple times. They’re mighty tasty. I’m a fan. This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie, Fluff-Filled Chocolate Madeleines, are a chocolate version of the yummy French cookie. Stuffed with marshmallow fluff and dipped in chocolate ganache. If that doesn’t spell delicious, I don’t know what does.

Thanks to Margot of Effort to Deliciousness for hosting this week. For the recipe visit her blog or buy the book.

(Still using my iPhone to take pics.)

And not a Hazelnut Raspberry Layer
Cake. Yep, I took the easy route and made cupcakes.
In the spirit of laziness, I didn’t make the {pink!} buttercream
frosting. Instead I used Nutella. To complete the theme, I’m
ending the post here. Thanks to Candy
for hosting this week. For the recipe, visit her BLOG or
buy the BOOK.

I think. I don’t know. 2010 was an, um, educational
year for me. I’m still learning. I still have a lot to learn. I’m
better than I was a year ago. I have a ways to go. All I know is
that 2011 is going to be better, blah, blah, blah, and all
those platitudes and other things I say to myself don’t
really mean anything unless I get up and do something about it.

I decided to jump back into the blogging world with
Midnight Crackles, the first Tuesdays
with Dorie recipe for 2011. It marks the
3rd anniversary of the baking group which influenced me to start
blogging. The Midnight part of the name
refers not only to the dark color, but also the time when you are
tempted to sneak down to the kitchen and eat more (so says
Dorie Greenspan). For me it also
refers to the time I baked them. I woke up at 2 am one night
because I couldn’t sleep and decided to bake them (the dough was
already chilling) to bring them into work {much} later that
morning. Yay, insomnia! Anyway, people liked them.

Thanks to Laurie of Slush
and Jules of Someone’s In the Kitchen for co-hosting this week. For the
recipe, visit here or buy the book.

(IPhone picture because I broke my camera when I fell during a hike on Rarotonga in the Cook Islands. Yeah, I shouldn’t complain.)