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Baking #18: Happy Anniversary Cake SMASH

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He was excited to finally cake smash…

So, I wasn’t originally going to write about this as my baking project, but after how much fun we had, I thought I should share. With how busy we’ve become since having a baby, we were fiercely protective of celebrating our anniversary. We even turned down jobs to keep the day open so we could celebrate together. However, while May 12th is our anniversary and my poor husband has SO many celebrations he has to make happen in May between birthdays and mother’s day etc. that we decided to stay home and celebrate with a home cooked meal. He did dinner and I did dessert. At our wedding we had some AMAZING cupcakes made by a dear friend and some truffles which were perfect for our celebration. We didn’t have a traditional wedding cake, and we did not Continue reading →

Baking #11 Easy as Pie? That saying LIES. (42 Projects in 52 Weeks)

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OK, let me start by saying that this week I had my first epic fail. Failure on so many levels. And I’m not sure I learned enough to counterbalance the failures to make myself feel good about the project as a whole. Let me follow up by explaining my title- making a pie is a freaking difficult task! Continue reading →

Baking #8: King’s Cake Pancakes

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***Originally posted 2/17/15. Only one more repeat post after this one if you are signed up for updates and were signed up before as well, just bare with me for one last post after this 🙂 ***

HAPPY FAT TUESDAY!

You may or may not know that one of the items on my bucket list is to celebrate Mardis Gras in New Orleans. It’s funny because most events with crowds that big don’t appeal to me, but the music, the atmosphere, the colors, I think I would love it!

Although I also think the smells of gumbo and other spicy, delicious NOLA meals would make me wish I wasn’t pescetarian. However, one of the non-meat filled traditional meals would be a King Cake- which would be way too big for my family to try and eat on our own so I had to scale that idea down.

Luckily, I also grew up with the tradition of Shrove Tuesday- it’s basically another way to celebrate Fat Tuesday centering around pancakes. Pancakes are the perfect pre-lent meal because they are made with sugar, butter, syrup- all sorts of sweet and fattening things you are supposed to abstain from during Lent. Pancakes were a great way to get those ingredients out of the house to avoid temptation. Shrove Tuesday also holds a special place in my heart because as an early modern scholar I get extra joy out of ringing the pancake bell.

  

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Baking #4: 42 projects in 52 weeks- Hobbit Cake

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***Originally Published on 1/16/15***

I started today with a major case of the Mondays. Baby and I are both fighting off a cold so the weekend wasn’t much of a restful time and there just seems to be an extraordinarily overwhelming number of things  to do this week and to be honest, I was just in a bad mood from being sick.

Pretty much sums it up…

A shot of 1 of our 4 bookshelves. We love our nerdy book collection!

Then, I thought about my sweet husband who must be suffering an even worse case of the Mondays. Even though it’s a holiday, he volunteered to work because we have some big dental bills from this month, AND he woke up with the baby a few times last night to help me get some sleep since I’m sick AND I kept him up even more with tossing and turning and sniffling and blowing my nose at all hours because I’m sick. He is one of the hardest working, caring, thoughtful people I know. So today’s baking project is a recipe that I saw and immediately thought of him. The reason? A friend pinned it on pinterest and described it as “the sort of cake a hobbit would have at home for breakfast”  (in actuality, the cake is called Black Milk Tea and Honey cake and you can find the recipe over on this blog).

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