I did a lot of baking for Thanksgiving this year. My celebrated twice, one day with one side of the family, another day with the other side of the family. I decided to make two different cakes, one for each day. Both are out of the Magnolia Bakery Cookbook. This post is about the cake I made for Thanksgiving proper. The cake I made for Thanksgiving Round 2 will come out later in the week.
Continue reading “Magnolia Bakery 16: The Thanksgiving Cake”
Sometimes you’re just in the mood to bake a cake.
That was me one day last week. I had been feeling a little out of sorts and figured baking a yummy treat would help cheer me up. I also wanted to bake something other than cookies. Eventually, I settled on yet another recipe out of the Magnolia Bakery Cookbook and I wasn’t disappointed.
Continue reading “Magnolia Bakery 15 – Lemon Vanilla Bundt Cake”
After suffering a baking dry spell for more than two weeks, I finally had the opportunity (and the desire) the bake once again. I can’t really explain why I wasn’t in the mood to bake over the last couple of weeks. Perhaps it was just a lack of free time issue, or maybe it was the increase in the cost of ingredients was starting to make an impact on my wallet. Whatever the issue was, it seems to have fluttered away.
Continue reading “Magnolia Bakery 14 Brown Butter Chocolate Chunk Blondies”
Over the weekend, I made a carrot cake for my friend’s birthday. Since the celebration was small, he didn’t want a large cake. So I had the perfect idea: a 6-inch cake!
I’ve always wanted to make a small cake, so this was the perfect opportunity.
The recipe came from Sally’s Baking Addiction. She has many 6-inch cake recipes on her website and has found that even most cupcake recipes that make between 12-15 cupcakes are the perfect amount of batter for a 6-inch cake.
Here is the end result:
Though the cake didn’t turn out exactly as I would have liked — it become lopsided and the cream cheese frosting was challenging to work with — the cake itself was very tasty and I do recommend trying this recipe for yourself. If you’re interested in using this recipe the next time you have a Carrot Cake Emergency, it can be found on Sally’s website here.
Long time readers of this blog will know that I am lucky enough to have off on Fridays. While this is great for practical reasons like doctor’s appointments and getting my car’s oil changed, it also allows me enough time to actually do something I enjoy: bake. This past Friday, I was still riding the apple wave that started the weekend before when I went apple picking with some friends.
I knew I wanted to work with apples this week, but I also wanted to make something different. I was tired of just making cookies or brownies. It seems that I had been making a lot of those lately. Then I remembered that there was a “harvest-themed” recipe in the Magnolia Bakery cookbook. After looking it up, I knew that this was the recipe I had to make this week.
There were a few reasons why this recipe spoke to me this week.
Continue reading “Magnolia Bakery 12 – Harvest Apple Cupcakes with Caramel Meringue Buttercream”
Friday was the first day of October, and to be honest, I couldn’t have asked for a better Fall day! The sun was out, but it was a cooler day, and the air was nice and crisp. After taking my usual morning walk, I had the urge to make yummy Fall treats. I was craving the scent of pumpkin spice, warm baked goods, and maybe even chocolate!
Over the Labor Day holiday, we had some people over the house. It was mainly just family, but, as you could have guessed, I had to make the dessert. I was really in the mood for banana pudding but I also wanted to make something beyond the traditional vanilla –especially since most of the people who came to the little get-together are chocolate-lovers.
It took me almost no time at all to realize that the Magnolia Bakery Handbook had a recipe for chocolate banana pudding and I was sold! Simple and delicious, but also something a little different than the regular banana pudding.
In the recipe, it asks you to use the chocolate Nilla wafers, but I wasn’t able to find them, so I used the regular vanilla and it worked just fine. Plus I find that store-bought, chocolate cookies are not really chocolate-tasting. So, for me, personally, the vanilla Nilla wafers probably were for the best. Since the chocolate Nilla wafers would have added a bit more chocolate flavor, I did use extra mini chocolate chips.
Also to bring out the flavor of the chocolate, I took a page out of Ina Garten’s cookbook and added about a half teaspoon of espresso powder to the whipped cream. This provided a subtle hint of coffee-flavor, but not too much to overwhelm the flavor of the chocolate. And better still, the caffeine didn’t keep anyone awake past their bedtime!
Since I’ve made banana puddings a couple of times before, Ina’s recipe and one from the Magnolia Bakery Handbook, I didn’t take too many pictures. But, I do highly recommend this dessert. It’s the perfect twist on the classic, but without changing too much or making you go crazy. As usual though, banana pudding won’t keep in the fridge for more than 2 days. After that the wafer cookies become too soggy — but, to be honest, I’ve never had my puddings last longer than a day after being served!
My family has decided to take a little trip out of town. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to join them, due to work commitments. But, while I won’t be able to get away, I will be able to cook a lot while I’m home by myself.
Now that I’ll be responsible for my own meals over the next seven days or so, I am going to use my day off today to figure out what types of meals I wish to make. Of course, I will need to include some baking in there, too! In fact, I have been recipe testing a chocolate chip cookie recipe and I’m getting closer to the finished product! Hopefully by the end of the month if will be up on the blog.
It’s been a minute since I baked something out of the Magnolia Bakery Handbook, no?
The last recipe I made was the fabulous Blueberry Jamboree which I still have dreams about!
This time, I was in the mood for brownies but I wanted something a little bit fancier than your usual brownies. So, I decided to make the brownies fit for the rich: Billionaire Brownies. A shortbread crust drizzled with some caramel then topped with a lush fudge brownie sounds like heaven, right?
Well, it didn’t turn out exactly the way I thought it would. Here’s what happened.
Continue reading “Magnolia Bakery #9 – Billionaire Brownies”
I had a few days off from work this week. I didn’t go anywhere, I was able to take some time for myself. While I didn’t get everything done that I wanted (mainly due to my own laziness and poor planning skills…and the fact that I took a nap one afternoon), I did spend the majority of Tuesday in the kitchen making something tasty.
I also took the time to try and take some halfway decent photos of what I made, which you can see in this post! I am really working on upping my photography game.
So what did I make?
It appears that I am on a Magnolia Bakery kick lately. I’m not sure if it’s because of an article about their vanilla cupcakes is making the rounds online or I’m still just infatuated by the cookbook itself. Whatever the reason, I decided to tackle a recipe from the Icebox Desserts chapter this week.
Continue reading “Magnolia Bakery #8 – Blueberry Jamboree”
Ryan's Kitchen Journal 