Espresso Cheesecake Brownies

Our good friends Mark and Mary just got puppy #5... a little pitbull named Ruby and we couldn't wait to meet her.  They invited us over for a yummy Italian dinner and asked us to bring wine and dessert. I haven't mastered (or tried for that matter) the art of wine making but dessert I can handle.
I chose these brownies because they seemed fairly easy but I thought they'd present nice. I was right.
Everyone commented on the shiny frosting and the espresso taste came through really nice on the cheesecake layer. I thought the brownie was a bit disappointing even though I used good chocolate. Overall a nice dessert for a dinner party.

Milk Chocolate Mini (and yet not mini) Bundt Cake

I am bundt cake obsessed. I want to do nothing but bake bundt cakes all day. I love chocolate but didn't want to waste money on a mini bundt cake pan so I doubled the recipe and made a big one. Dorie's recipe calls for walnuts in the swirl but I used semisweet chocolate. I used a bit too much corn syrup when making the glaze so it was tough to spread.

Mobile App?

I added the Blogger app to my phone. Wonder if this means I'll post the day I bake...

Classic Banana Bundt Cake

Last Sunday I was at the store and decided to buy bananas to make something later in the week. These freaking bananas took until Friday to be ripe enough to use. Halfway through the week Jeremy told me to put them in a paper bag to speed up the ripening process. I'm not sure if that is even a correct tip but I used it and they ripened in two days. So the point goes to Jeremy whether it should or not.

I decided on Thursday that I was still bundt obsessed so I bought the ingredients to make this cake. I read on one of the Tuesdays with Dorie site that Dorie recreated this cake as muffins a few years later and added in milk chocolate so I did the same. 

It smelled amazing when it came out of the oven. I am back to being more strict about what I eat so I knew I had to get this thing out of the house. Saturday morning I dropped off half with our friend Joe. We continued on with our weekend plans and I was able to drop off another hunk with Lisa. I was planning on providing the last bit to our friends on Sunday but plans fell through. I immediately ate a piece... I'm not proud but it was so good. A baker has to try their offerings, don't they? Well this baker sure does. 

Good For Almost Everything Pie Dough and Double-Crusted Blackberry Pie

My wonderful boyfriend knew he was going to have a rough day and asked that when the roughness was over there be a blackberry pie waiting for him at home. I was excited about making dough again. I learned a good lesson with this dough. Dorie made a point to say you should go more for a wet dough than a dry but I forgot and did not add enough water. I won't make that mistake again.

I could have rolled out the bottom dough a bit more but other than that Jeremy seemed very happy. Happy enough to eat it all... but not in one day.

Nutty, Chocolatey, Swirly Sour Cream Bundt Cake

I was super excited to have finally purchased my bundt cake pan. I had been staring at the bundt cake recipe section for what seemed like forever waiting for the day when I'd finally be able to make one. This recipe calls for walnuts and raisins in the swirl... I skipped those and went right for a few kinds of chopped chocolate.
The outcome was pleasant... you zest one orange and mix the zest with the sugar. This cake reminded me of my grandfather's Passover sponge cake. So much that I was supposed to bring it into work but I "forgot" and ate it all myself throughout the week. Though I do not think of him all day every day my grandfather pops into my head often and always with a good memory. I was Papa's girl... this cake makes me happy. I'll make it when I'm sad and he'll cheer me right up!

Coconut Butter Thins

These are not going to get very much attention from me. They were eh... not bad, not good. Another recipe down.

Tribute to Katherine Hepburn Brownies

These are amazing... amazing... no really they are ridiculous.

They pour into the pan as a very shallow batter. You bake them for just a half hour and they come out still a bit wet on top. But they are so good. Gooey, chocolatey... not for those who enjoy the cake like brownies. These are fudgy yumminess.

Cornmeal and Fruit Loaf

I had been looking for a recipe using dried fruit to see what that was like. This seemed as good as any... it came out really nice. I would say the dried fruit didn't make much of a difference. 

This bread was great pan toasted in butter and spread with jam.

Chocolate-Chocolate Cupcakes

I had been wanting to make these for a while so I figured what better day than February 6th. (Actually I have no idea why I chose that day but I'm writing this 5 weeks later so indulge me while I try to make this interesting.)

I decided to fill them with marshmallow fluff as Dorie suggests in her Playing Around section for this recipe. Unfortunately what I found is that it is very hard to fill with fluff. Each cupcake had one tiny line of fluff in them while I was concerned I had overfilled them. The glaze was great though and the cupcake nice and moist.

Thumbprints For Us Big Guys

Eh... nothing special here. These are not really my kind of cookie though. I believe my work people liked them. I used raspberry jam and they reminded me of jelly rings... without the chocolate so nothing like them at all.

French Chocolate Brownies

I am really bad at blogging. I'm on point taking the pictures but I get super behind on posting about my adventures. We only have one laptop and because I have both the Kindle Fire and my awesome Samsung Galaxy Nexus Jeremy mainly uses the computer. I have to make myself do better at this.

Here we go... I baked these brownies on February 3rd.

As I recall they didn't stand out as anything amazing.