De Baking Psychopath

I am not quite sure why I made these, other than that I hadn't made any sort of cookies for awhile, and I needed to get rid of old Rolos. That and these popped up on no less than 3 different blogs in quick succession after the original recipe was posted on Two Peas and their Pod. These were intense! I liked the edge pieces the best because the texture of the cookie portion resembled more of a normal cookie, while the middle portions were more akin to eating solidified chocolate chip cookie dough. I probably could have let it bake a little bit longer to get the middle to cook better. I liked using the Rolos for this rather than normal caramels because of the added chocolate component. The salt is very important to balance out all the sweet in this! You can find the recipe here ; the only changes I made were that I used 10 ounces of Rolos instead of caramel candies, and also I ended up using a 9x9 inch square baking pan lined with parchment.

This year for National Bundt Day and our department's yearly fall luncheon, I made the Double Apple Bundt Cake from Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From my home to yours . The double apple comes from shredded fresh apple and apple butter in the batter. Instead of raisins, I added 1 cup of frozen cranberries. And to frost it, I topped the cake with my favorite caramel frosting . In full disclosure, this bundt was a Frankenstein bundt! I unmolded the cake when the recipe said I could, but it was so steamy and delicate that I totally cracked it into several pieces trying to get it onto my cake carrier! Good thing the frosting covered up all the seams! Luckily no one really noticed or cared, but they did notice the taste. It was sooo good: moist, full of sweet apple and spice flavors, the tart cranberries were a great contrast, and the caramel frosting just reinforced the fall apple flavors. I got a lot of good feedback and requests for the recipe.  Happy Bundt Da...

This may be one of the ugliest Bundt cakes with icing I've seen or made, but at the same time, it is one of the tastiest-looking cakes I've seen as well. Cursed fast-drying icing!! *shakes fist at imaginary pot of icing* GRR!! You will not defeat me next time!! Happily, this cake will grace many more events in my lifetime because of how delicious it was, and so I will have more chances to make the appearance look presentable! Mid-November is a time for whiskey. Not because of some arcane cultural tradition, but because one of my classmates, who is particularly fond of the stuff, has his birthday in mid-November (celebrated belatedly in early December this year). For the last couple of years I have tried to find cake recipes in honor of the occasion, and this recipe outdid my offering for last year, I think. I started out with the Chocolate Whiskey Cake as found on My Baking Adventures and pretty much made the cake as according to the recipe verbatim. Half a cup of whisk...

I am elated to report that my first try has been a tasty success! I used this babka recipe and this caramel icing recipe . For the babka recipe, I used 2 cups bread flour, 3 cups all-purpose flour, and 1 cup cake flour. I think in the future I may replace one cup bread flour for an extra cup of cake flour to get a more fine crumb. I may also cut down the 2nd rising time so it doesn't poof as much and the bread may come out a bit more dense. Lastly, I will put the pecans on top rather than on the bottom of the pan. I think the icing was dead on as written. We'll have to dig up one of the originals and heat both old and new up to taste side by side and see what else we need to tweak. Stay tuned for the taste test! But in the meanwhile, I am pretty darn happy with the results. More so since this is my first cinnamon bun attempt and success! Figure 1. From last night--nicely kneaded and formed dough. I let it rise/rest overnight in the fridge after this step before continu...