A Baking Revelation

We've got a bug going around here and instead of all the girls getting it at one time, they've decided to pass it around and be sick individually. FUN! Thus my lack of recent posts. Fortunately, I haven't gotten sick. Praise God!

I love baking! But what I don't love about baking is having a lot of sweets in the house. Last year, my resolution was to bake a pie a month but I didn't want to be responsible for the consuming of said pies. So every month I made them and gave them to a friend of mine who was eager to help me out. The holidays always awaken my baking bug. I could literally bake something every day (thank you Pinterest)! 

The other day I had some bananas go brown, which I totally take as an excuse to bake. Can't waste them! So I found a recipe for banana bars. For those of you who want to try, I used brown sugar instead of white in the bar recipe and used egg nog instead of milk in the icing. I ended up with a huge pan of them, a mom who is on a juice fast, a dad who "doesn't do banana bread", a toddler who doesn't do cake and me who is trying to not gain 400 pounds this holiday season. So I sent them to work with the hubbers. This completely inspired me to start baking and sending the results with Justin. That way he'll be the popular guy on campus and I'll get to bake! Here are some other recipes I've recently tried and had success with. Enjoy!



Made this cake for Thanksgiving because my sister's new boyfriend doesn't do pie. lol SO glad I did! I quickly dubbed it Chocolate Beer Cake and I think me and Sean ate the whole thing ourselves! I didn't use the icing in this recipe. I used this white chocolate icing instead. 


Lasagna! My husband said this made him like lasagna ... VICTORY! I believe I made this exactly as the recipe says but instead of using the homemade sauce I used a jar of vodka sauce from the store and a little bit of cream. 

Fudgetastic!

Yesterday and today, I had a fudge adventure! Every Christmas, as our gift to Justin's side of the family, I bake. I decided this year that I wanted to bake something that would be special to Christmas and I'd only make it at Christmastime. 

After a HUGE fail at pumpkin spice cake balls, I decided fudge was the way to go. I've been making fudge with my mom since I was a little girl so I figured I could turn out some decent gift fudge. Since I view recipes as mere suggestions, I wanted to do a trial run so I decided to make a few batches for a ladies' retreat I'm going on this weekend. 

My flavors, you ask! Eggnog, peppermint mocha and chocolate peanut butter. 

I found this recipe when I Googled "Eggnog fudge recipes" and it worked great!! The eggnog fudge is amazing! 

I decided that since it turned out so good, I would just substitute some of the ingredients to make my other 2 flavors. For the peppermint mocha, I used 3/4 c peppermint mocha coffee creamer instead of the eggnog and a bag of milk chocolate chocolate chips instead of the white chocolate. It turned out yummy! The only thing I might do different next time is add some peppermint extract.

Our friend Becky makes the best peanut butter fudge on the planet! I make alot of things that Justin labels "The Best Ever!" but nothing has beaten Becky's peanut butter fudge. I was trying to come close but dang WalMart screwed me up!! All they had was a peanut butter/chocolate chip mix. So I got that and used it instead of the white chocolate in the recipe and instead of the 1/2c butter I used 1/2c peanut butter. It turned out really good, but it's definitely a chocolate/peanut butter fudge. I'm going to have to try again for the straight peanut butter version.

Now for the big people food ...

Hello, I'm Abby & I'm addicted to the Food Network. It's true. I love it, love it! I even have the Food Network Wii game, Chop or be Chopped. I love cooking/baking & the Food Network completely inspires me (to either cook or eat). My friend Sarah shares my sentiments ... sorta. It's safe to say she's not as crazy as I am. But because Justin refuses to watch cooking shows with me, Sarah is my foodie buddie. I ask her on a regular basis to tell me why we're not trying to get on the show, 24 Hour Restaurant. She very calmly brings me back to reality. Okay, so a restaurant may not be in my future, but that won't stop me from expiramenting & creating in my own kitchen.

The other night, mashed potatoes were on my menu. My muy carniverous husband pretty much insists on eating bacon on or in everything. He's very easy to please! I'm going back to my vegetarian diet so I made His & Hers potatoes. Justin's ended up with bacon (of course!), cheddar cheese, butter & Cacique Crema Mexicana. Yummmmm! I went Greek with mine ~ basically because it's what I had in the fridge. So mine consisted of tzatziki (a Greek yogurt dip), herbed feta & garlic infused olive oil (something I learned how to do from watching the Food Network). Mmmmmm! To go along with my taters, I decided to try a Greek salmon flatbread sandwich. Thank God for CostCo! They have these amazing salmon patties that are to die for! I threw one in the oven then put it on flatbread with tzatziki, kalamata olives & herbed feta. It was all so easy & so delicious!


So I try my hardest not to jump on band wagons ... of any kind! However, I've taken a huge leap onto the cupcake wagon! I love em! I watch shows about them. I drive a 1/2 hour away to buy them. They're just so adorable & creamy & eccentric! So I've decided I'm going to make cupcakes for Eve's 1st birthday (yes, she's only 5 months old & I'm already thinking about it). I've decided to play with different recipes between now & then. I want to make them flavorful but healthy. So I found this recipe for agave nectar cupcakes. SCORE! They turned out soooooo delicious! It was a generic vanilla flavor but I'm going to expirament with a different flavor and also with wheat flour. I ran across an agave nectar frosting recipe as well. It tasted a little bit like what you'd think bad morning breath tastes like. So my search continues ...


Here's the link to the recipes I used. This chick agrees that the frosting recipe is bad, so attempt at your own risk! My Achy Bakey Heart