HCB: Apple Caramel Charlotte

September 20, 2010 by Monica in Baking, Baking Club, Cake, Cookbooks, Desserts, Fruit, HCB, Sweets

Disclaimer: this post is long and there is a bit of a rant. Just as long as making this cake was and reading about it.

A few months ago, I was emailing with Jenn from Knitty Baker and we were discussing those cakes that were still left to do in our HCB list and this one in particular came about in conversation. We both were totally dreading it.

With 7 pages of instructions and 7 different steps, we knew it was going to take A LOT of resilience and baking savvy to do this one. Jenn was hoping that Marie would give us this one on a long weekend so we would have more time to plan for it. I was hoping that Marie would have a total Opps-y moment and would forget about this one.

We totally jinx ourselves. Because not even a week after this whole discussion took place - there is was in the baking list, and NOT on a long weekend.

This cake, even from the start was a total Prima Donna, and not in a good way. Did you know that the word “diva” means evil in some parts of the world?

TWD: Peanut Butter Crisscrosses

September 09, 2010 by Monica in Baking, Baking Club, Cookbooks, Cookies, Sweets, TWD

After all the cakes in the past week, this weeks Tuesdays with Dorie choice, which was made by Jasmine of Jasmine Cuisine, was a welcome change around these parts.

No cake, no buckle, no upside down fruit tart. Just a simple, straight forward cookie recipe.

Cookies!

My cookie jar has been empty for a while now. So when I started to make these Tom and the little man were ecstatic to say the least. Asking if they were ready about a trillion times during the 20 minutes it took me to put them together.

And in times like this you realized that you really never fully know your other half. Because after two years together, it was news to me that peanut butter cookies is Tom’s Holy Grail. His words, not mine folks. He has some serious Peanut Butter cookie love going there.

But, back to the cookies.

ABC: All American Chocolate Cake with Divinity Frosting and Milk Chocolate Paint

September 07, 2010 by Monica in ABC, Baking, Baking Club, Cake, Cookbooks, Desserts, Sweets

After having crashed and burned on the last chocolate offering on my other baking clubs, this recipe, from the ABC choice of the month had a very high expectations even before I read the whole recipe.

My reasoning behind it was that after having baked four recipes from Flo Braker book none have disappointed me. So we were 4 for 4. Can we make five?

My first tip to you is this. Bake the cake a day ahead, while is NOT a complicated cake to make, and nowhere in the instructions does it tell you to do this, I’m going to highly recommend you do. The high crumb level on this cake will make frosting a bit of a mess. So I opted to make the cake a day ahead and place in the refrigerator to chill. When frosting time came, it was smooth sailing all the way.