Bake 2019 - September

My first bake of the month was Banana Walnut Bread.  I sliced and added some to my freezer stash for when Mom and Dad were in town.  This (and the blueberry muffin bread) thawed out well and both tasted great after having been frozen.  

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My next bake was the most fun!  On Labor Day I decided to make a cake with ALL the trends.  6 inch cakes, hidden design, colorful stripes, colorful drip, swirly ruffle and rosette, 3 layers.

Here are the stripes.  I went bright with the frosting!   It's a standard vanilla American buttercream.

Then I added the colorful drips.  I found some confetti white chocolate chips at Wal-Mart.  Drips are just a ganache, which is hot cream poured over chocolate.  Then you let it melt.  Keep the cake in the refrigerator so it's cold when the ganache has reached the consistency you want it.  That way when you spoon it around the sides it hits the cool cake to slow down and make the drips.

I took the leftover colors and layered them in a piping bag with a star tip.  Around the outside I did a ruffle and in the middle did a rosette in the middle.

Here's the inside!  The only thing wrong is not enough polka dots hidden inside.  The polka dots are cake balls I made from leftover cupcakes I made at the end of August.  I tinted them to match the frosting and put them in the freezer to firm up the buttercream.  The overall cake is one of Sally's cupcake recipes baked into 3 cake layers.  It was delicious!  I really didn't want to share it because it was so tasty I wanted to eat it all.  But I did take it to work where it got rave reviews.   It was also so much fun to make!

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Next up, not a bake but some homemade cinnamon caramel sauce.  Easy and delicious.  Really good on ice cream and fruit and in coffee.

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I made a really special cake on September 6.  Joey would have been 43 on that day so I made a cake that he loved.  Angel food cake with vanilla frosting.  I used a cake mix because I didn't want to separate all those eggs and didn't know if buying a carton of egg whites would work.  Probably would, but I wasn't about to risk it.   Besides, nothing wrong with a good old cake mix cake.  It tasted great!

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I tried a recipe I've been wanting to try for a while.  Sally's Cake Batter Chocolate Chip Cookies.   You put a little cake mix in with the flour to give the cookies a cake flavor.  I liked them.  I think that I don't like all butter cookies as much as I like a butter/shortening combo.  I want to try them again substituting some shortening for the butter. 

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I spent a rainy Saturday making pie crust.  I saved half for a future pie and used the other half to make a chicken pot pie for the freezer.  Except I used turkey, so it's a turkey pot pie.  :)

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The same day I made beer pretzels.  I was inspired by Half Baked Harvest but I used a recipe from a cookbook I have had forever.  Instead of water, you use beer.  Amazing!  Matt said he couldn't taste the beer, but I could.  It was subtle because I used a wheat bear instead of the recommended pumpkin beer.  I did make the cheese dip from the HBH recipe, with a substitution since I didn't actually have chipotle peppers I used dry spice.  It came out great and we are using the leftovers for nachos.

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Lastly, I made some beer bread again.  I just love this recipe and make it so much I can almost do it without the instructions.  Use good beer, it makes all the difference.