This does not mean I have not been baking - ooooh no no no - I actually have a backlog of baking experiments to share! So here I am and enough babbling and excuses lets get to the goodies!
Over Labor Day weekend I was able to head up to Michigan and spend some time at an absolutely beautiful lakehouse with the bf and his family. In my mind that means lots of people to share experimental treats with. I whipped up Shameless Chocolate Gobs, adapted from the new best of Better Baking.com by Marcy Goldman, for the kids (and the bf as well as myself) and for the adults (I barely qualify here too! Oh so does the bf!) I made an orange bundt cake with poppy seeds. This recipe I knicked from a blogging crush of mine Joy the Baker - she's super cool and I don't care if you tell her I think so!
So the cookies...
That my friends is 24oz of chocolatey goodness - 12oz melted and 12 left as chunks!
These beauties were a cinch to make
Just a little melted chocolate, dry ingredients, mix it all up and toss it in the oven... then DING
Bolstered by this success, I dove right into my second treat - this will be easy too, right?
This is an entire orange - rind and all - pureed. I do not have a food processor - and my blender isn't all that great - sometimes it struggles with beans...this was a tall order. After a lot of poking (poking, stabbing - same general motion) with a butter knife and some carefully chosen words of...encouragement CLEARLY the orange lost this battle.
So this delightfully fragrant sludge was added in as well as more poppy seeds than any one cake should have
Personally this is one of my favorite pictures- it not only captures a completely by chance swirl, which makes me love baking, but it also captures all the mess that surrounds my experiments, which sometimes gives me pause about baking. Either way - this picture made me feel like I might belong in the kitchen - Big Smiles
So the bundt goes into the over in a spanking new pan...
And comes out looking and SMELLING gorgeous! Let me tell you the smell of this baby alone is enough to give me the courage to puree another orange
I am proud to say that after about 30min of cooling the bundt slipped right out of its pan without any kind of fight - it must know who is the boss around this kitchen!
To top it I mixed up a glaze with more citrus, since Lord knows a whole orange is not anywhere near enough, including zest and poured it generously over the top!
This cake is super moist, almost wet, and the poppy seeds give it a nice crunch which is a great texture contrast.
There were no cookies and very little cake left so I think both of these experiments were a success (perhaps the Nobel isn't so far off after all?).
Now try and keep up as I work to get this blog up to date!
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