Baking Lately

I'll be honest.  I've had some fails since my last baking post.  But if you're not failing, you're not trying.  Is that how the saying goes?  I didn't even photograph all the things I baked.  But it felt good not to obsessively try to photograph my baking with my little iphone.  Baking is cathartic.  Baking is fun.  Baking is my favorite hobby.  Here are a few things I have photos to share. 

I used some Christmas money to buy myself a baking magazine called Bake From Scratch.  I received my first issue in January and quickly flagged multiple recipes.  This Orange Coffee Cake was the first thing I made.  It's baked in a cast iron skillet.  I love to use my mom's cast iron skillets!  

Not only was this delicious the day I baked it, it was delicious a month later.  I sliced up what we wouldn't/shouldn't eat and froze the slices.  I thawed a couple slices overnight in the refrigerator for Valentine's Day morning and it was delicious!  A keeper recipe for sure!

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These cookies were really fun to make.  I used a cream cheese sugar cookie dough that I colored pink and purple.  I did some cut out hearts, mixed colors, and cut out bigger hearts.  This recipe made a huge amount of dough so I started rolling the rest into balls and rolled in sugar or sprinkles.  At first, I found these to be really boring flavor wise.  I thought I made a mistake not frosting them.  But these got better in the coming days.  I sent most of them to our nephews and nieces for Valentine's Day.  

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I give up on this yellow cake recipe.  I want to love it.  It's too dense, too mushy.  Not light or fluffy.  It never turns out the way Sally says it should.  I like most of the recipes from this blogger but some of them just don't work.  

This was also my first attempt at Swiss meringue buttercream.  I like it!  It's less sweet but still tasty.  I need to work on the technique.  I prefer our good old American buttercream but I am also very familiar with it.  I can make it with no recipe.   But it can be a little too sweet for some cakes or cookies. 

   The cake is filled with lemon curd and I put some lemon curd in the buttercream I piped with.  That made it a little too soft for piping.  There's the one really good little poof.