HCB: Chocolate Butter Cupcakes

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Last weekend I tried to get away from the kitchen.  This weekend it was the total opposite, I cooked (and baked) up a storm (recipes coming!).

Unlike my savory dishes where it’s all about improvising and changing it up. Baking for me is about following directions.  I’m not very courageous when it comes to baking.  I  ALWAYS stick to the recipe religiously – if the recipe tells me to bake it in a 9 inch pan, I bake it in a 9 inch pan.  If it’s for a cake, then I bake a cake. If its for a tart, I bake a tart, or a pie or well, you get the picture.  I never deviate from the instructions. That is why, I’m one of those un-daring bakers that DO NOT convert a cake into cupcakes, or halves the recipe, or god forbid MULTIPLIES the recipe – Because: A) It means I have to do division and multiplication and anything that has to do with math!  (Which gets me in trouble – ALL THE TIME!) and B) I find a strange comfort in following the step by step and ending with the intended results - 99.9% of the time.

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HCB: Baby Lemon Cheesecake

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Once in a while we get a free choice during our bake-along with the Heavenly Cake Bakers.  This is an opportunity to catch up or make something that has already been made before because you either a) pass it by b) you were to scare of it to begin with to make it.

This past weekend, I had 4 GLORIOUS days off.  And my agenda looked something like this by the end of thursday night:

Wake up late
Stay in my PJ’s – ALL DAY LONG
Watch TV – lots of TV
Watch movies
Read – Lots of reading!
Lay out in the sun (weather permitting)
Cook pick up phone order something to be delivered
Go to sleep and “repeat” for the next 3 days.

Ahhh – Heaven!

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HCB: Bernachon Palets D’Or Gateau

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I feel whole.

Why? Well, because after 2 weekends of skipping my baking routine (not by choice) I was LOST (no pun intended – but, did anyone see the final? – Dude was that awesome or what?) and now I’m totally “aligned” with the internal baker universe once more.

Anyway, back to the topic at hand.

This week’s choice with the Heavenly Bakers was the Bernachon Palets D’Or Gateau. (Boy was that a handful to say and to write, even without the accents).  Not only its one of the most impressive cakes in the book, it’s also the one used for the cover of Rose’s Heavenly Cake book.

I was looking forward to this cake.  One because it had that awesome piano lacquer glaze technique that I love and that I had already tried (and fell in love with) when we baked the Chocolate Apricot Roll and two, it’s a chocolate lover's dream – A chocolate cake, with chocolate ganache and covered in the shiny lacquer glaze made of chocolate.

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