cake

Vanilla and Chocolate Marbled Bundt Cake

Flipping through the glossy pages of Irvin Lin’s baking book, Marbled, Swirled, and Layered: 150 Recipes and Variations for Artful Bars, Cookies, Pies, Cakes, and More, puts those famous images of Wonka’s spectacular chocolate factory to shame. And as the creator of the blog Eat the Love, Irvin has many reasons to be chuffed at the success of his baking book, including the fact The New York Times recently included it on their list of the Year’s Best Baking Cookbooks — excellent work, Irvin.

From whimsically imaginative treats like hazelnut cocoa linzer cookies with blackberry-mint jam, to vanilla and peach-bourbon ice cream pie with honey-cornflake crust, each page is a dessert lover’s delight.

Just make sure you’re armed with a sleeve of cookies or something when you settle down with a copy, because it’ll definitely cue the sugar cravings.

With my birthday coming up next week, I knew a cake should be in the making and this Classic Vanilla and Chocolate Marbled Bundt Cake immediately spoke to me. And there’s no reason to wait for someone else to bake one for me when I have a book like Irvin’s to guide me along the cake-baking way. continue to the recipe… about Vanilla and Chocolate Marbled Bundt Cake

Blueberry Buckle Recipe With Lemon Glaze

This award-winning coffee cake recipe is studded with sweet, juicy blueberries and topped with a crumbly streusel and lemon glaze for a sweet breakfast or dessert.

You could say I never got my thrill on blueberry hill. Unless it was baked in a decadent blueberry muffin or my favorite blueberry quick bread.

I’m okay with admitting that fresh blueberries have never been a favorite of mine. They were always the loose marbles of the fruit salad that I would pick around in favor of fresh strawberries, chunks of cantaloupe and definitely give me all of the pineapple.

Times have changed.

The nutritional values that blueberries possess were drilled into my head back when my job was designing health food magazines. Every issue had an article or blurb about their merits as a driving force in lowering blood cancer, fighting off the elements due to their antioxidant powers and strengthening bones to keep osteoporosis at bay.

Now, I can call myself a lover of the fresh, sweet, juicy blueberry. But I’ll forever be a fan of a good dessert (or breakfast?) treat with blueberries baked right in.

continue to the recipe… about Blueberry Buckle Recipe With Lemon Glaze

Friday Faves and 5 Decadent Cake Recipes

Here we are, the last day of January. Are you still resolving, er, goal-setting? Or have you settled into your old routine and can’t wait for February to hit with it’s white sales, bikini displays at the mall and Superbowl feasts or Valentine’s Day treats?

I’m still on the bandwagon, trying to not to stray from the straight and narrow by bingeing in the deep end.

I subscribe to this newsletter and this week she shared a nugget that nailed me to a T.

“There’s a lot of talk about what we need to do to make our changes stick…So often, we get caught up in what the 10th step is going to be. We freak out about how we’re going to handle a lapse in commitment two months down the line when our shiny new change isn’t quite so shiny and new anymore.”

Yep, that’s me. But hopefully not for much longer.

continue to the recipe… about Friday Faves and 5 Decadent Cake Recipes

German Chocolate Cake

Homemade German Chocolate Cake and it’s easy sweet and gooey coconut and pecan frosting is my birthday cake favorite that’s an easy recipe to make from scratch.

There’s nothing more traditional in my long-legged life than the cake I have every year for my birthday.

It may be made by someone who loves me, or purchased from a bakery to add to the celebration.

And because I love it so much, I am totally a-okay if I make this coconuty, nutty, frosted cake myself because this cake is one amazing cake. Just like me :)

January is birthday month for me. Time to take a look, evaluate and see who and what I am and what challenge I see in my future. Sometimes I love what I see, sometimes, not so much.

But if I don’t take a look at myself, and cross check my perception versus reality, then where is the next challenge to conquer, the next mountain to climb? Or even a reason to get out of bed?

continue to the recipe… about German Chocolate Cake

Pumpkin Tiramisu

Who doesn’t love pie? I mean, Thanksgiving is right around the proverbial corner and that sends nearly every pie lover on earth into pie fantasy orbit complete with little pilgrim space helmets. But Pumpkin Tiramisu? In the shape of a pie? We’re talking Mayflower to Mars.

While I’m a fan of pies, particularly pumpkin pie which has ALWAYS been my favorite, sometimes I go stark raving off the typical Turkey-day-desires charts and crave something more. Well, maybe not more, just different. Like a pumpkin tiramisu shaped like a pie.

When the husband and I were carousing Costco in Las Vegas, doing a little boozey-perusing (Utah’s liquor laws don’t allow hard alcohol or wine to be sold in grocery stores—I know, don’t get me started), my little eye spied a pumpkin liqueur.

It looked creamy, it looked dreamy and I immediately knew I had to cook with it. Funny that I didn’t even think about drinking it. But now I have, and trust me, it’s good for that too.

continue to the recipe… about Pumpkin Tiramisu

Lemon and Cherry Mini Bundt Cakes

My fetish with lemons has yet to recede or fade to the background. But it is sadly digressing fast. And I’m blaming my supplier. My supplier who has created a habit that will be hard to break, and who is breaking it for me, against my will.

Think of me as the Lindsay Lohan of the lemon world. Rehab, here I come.

I’m so sad to see my Meyer lemon train making it’s final stop at my beloved Costco. Costco has been the key ingredient in keeping my overwhelming love and sense of tartness in the front seat of my recipe list that has included both savory —Meyer Lemon Fettuccine—and sweet—Meyer Lemon Tart.

Lemons are making way for sweet strawberries and skinny asparagus, which will soon enough pass the favorite ingredient hat to home-grown tomatoes, jalapeños and the plethora of zucchini.continue to the recipe… about Lemon and Cherry Mini Bundt Cakes

Devil’s Food Bundt Cake with Chocolate Espresso Ganache

We all know January is a month of renewal. But in my world it’s also a month of birthdays. Including my own.

One of my treasured birthday traditions comes from my sweet friend Laura, who for every birthday would give me a card with my “If you were born on this day…” horoscope cut out from the newspaper or printed out from online. I’ve never been an avid follower of horoscopes, life signs and the like, but I do get a kick of foretelling what might be in my future for the coming year. As the years have progressed, I’ve actually discovered some real similarities in my astrological sign, my life and personality. It’s somewhat thrilling and eerie at the same time.

Oddly enough, four friends who are some of my closest comrades at this time of my life—Kim, Susie, Sherrie and Angie—are also January babies, each of them sharing a birthday within one week of mine. Somehow our Capricorn earth sign/Aquarius air sign are oddly compatible. I read it is a union of opposites, resulting in prolific relationships. Well, that part must be true, because I sure do like these ladies…
continue to the recipe… about Devil’s Food Bundt Cake with Chocolate Espresso Ganache