apple nut muffin cake

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

Basic Biscuits

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

Hello? Is there anybody in there?

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