Wordless Wednesday - Festive sprinkles!

(birthday cake for someone at work--doubled recipe for this cake)

I like small bundts

I actually managed to plan ahead for something!  Today is National Bundt Day, and I actually baked my cake three days early.  If I'd really had my act together, I would have written the post early, too, instead of sitting here trying to finish it when I'm tired and cranky.  Luckily I still have a piece of cake left, so my day will end on a good note, as long as I get to it before my husband does. =)

I first became aware of National Bundt Day thanks to my blogging friend Mary, the Food Librarian.  For the past several years, she baked 30 bundts in the 30 days leading up to National Bundt Day.  You can read all about it here.  She didn't have time to do it this year, but she did bake a bundt for today.  In fact, I was quite amused to discover that she made the same cake that I did, the Vanilla Bean Malt Cake from Baked Elements.  

The recipe makes a small bundt cake, baked in a 6-cup pan.  I haven't used my small pan very much since I got it a few months ago, so I was happy to get it off the shelf.  Besides the vanilla bean and malted milk powder alluded to in the recipe title, dark brown sugar and buttermilk contribute to the flavor of the cake.  The cake batter is pretty easy to mix up; it uses the creaming method.   I deviated from the recipe just a little--in the technique, not the ingredients.  The recipe says to scrape the vanilla seeds out of the pod and mix them with a bit of bourbon.  Instead, I rubbed the vanilla seeds into the sugars before creaming the butter with them.  I added the bourbon before mixing in the eggs.  Other than that, I followed the directions, and my cake took 40 minutes to bake.  Once the cake was cool, it got topped with a simple glaze made from powdered sugar, vanilla and a bit of milk.  

The verdict?  Wow.  This cake is really good.  Like many cakes of this sort, it improves with age.  It's probably good that it's a small cake, because I would have eaten way too much of it if it had been bigger.  As the recipe notes indicate, you don't really taste the malt in it, but it gives the cake a bit of "something" that makes it really appealing.  I will definitely be making this one again.  

If you'd like to try the cake for yourself, I encourage you to get your hands on a copy of Baked Elements.  Don't forget to check your library if you want to preview it before deciding whether to buy it. =)

Hey, Mikey!

Yesterday, our loan officer bought lunch for the branch, which was really nice of her.  It was pizza, which always goes over well.  The only problem for me was that every single pizza had stuff on it.  Stuff like pepperoni, or sausage, or bell peppers.  I'm that crazy person that likes plain cheese pizza.  (I'll also eat it with just mushrooms.)  But there wasn't any plain cheese.  The closest was a pizza with fresh tomatoes on top.  One of the bankers asked me, "Can't you just pick them off?"  Of course I can.  I just don't want to.  So I ended up leaving the branch in search of something to eat for lunch.  (I usually bring my lunch, but didn't yesterday because I knew in advance about the pizza plan.)  Fortunately, I figured out before I actually ordered any food that I didn't take my wallet with me.  *sigh*

I've always been picky, mostly about textures.  I do try new things, because I do find new things that I enjoy, but more often I stay with what I know I like.  If I'm going to spend money (or ingredients) on something, I want to know that there's a pretty good chance that I'm going to enjoy it.  Most of the time I'm a pretty good judge of what I'll like.  But I probably shouldn't try out new recipes when I'm already in a crabby mood, because I don't listen to that inner voice that warns me when a recipe probably isn't the one for me.  Because in the end, I'll just be that much crabbier when it doesn't work out.  Case in point, the Cream Cheese Chocolate Snacking Cookies from Baked Elements.

There were several clues in the recipe that I should have paid attention to.  There's liquid, in the form of cream.  Liquid usually means cakey texture.  The Baked authors also call for Dutch-processed cocoa in their recipes, and I'm not really a fan, even of the good stuff (Valrhona).  The leavening was a whole bunch of baking soda, which made things even more alkaline.  The end result?  Cake-like cookies that spread like crazy and had a flavor that I didn't care for.  I do like the idea of using cream cheese in the dough, but if I make these again, I'll definitely tinker with the recipe.  The good news is that there are lots of other recipes in the book that sound good, so hopefully the next one will turn out better for me.