The cake I made my Boyfriend for this birthday last year

I made this cake back in November. Carrot cake is his favorite, plus I like pipping carrots!

My frosting started to fall off. Not sure if it was because the room temperature was hot or I just started off with weak frosting. Although, I was discouraged the cake still tasted great.

All lite up!

After he blew out the candles.

The inside of the cake...

I had such fun decorating this cake! I need to master my frosting because every time my frosting droops and ruins the entire cake. This is twice now this has happened. I don't know what I am doing wrong. Over all the cake was a success. He really loved it!

Martha Stewart's Peanutbutter Cupcakes

Since I am a HUGE fan of peanut butter and also a huge fan of cupcakes, I thought, why not give these a try! Plus Martha's recipes are always delicious and easy to follow.

Here is the recipe link in case you'd like to try it at home...

http://www.marthastewart.com/recipe/peanut-butter-cupcakes-with-peanut-butter-frosting-and-jelly

I loved frosting them!! That was my favorite part! I used less jelly because I wanted to focus on the peanut butter!

S'more cookies please!

In honor of my boyfriend getting a job finally I decided to make him these cookies since I knew he wanted them. He found the recipe on Reddit posted by another baking blogger.

Here is the recipe....

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1 cup graham cracker crumbs

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1 dash of cinnamon

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened

3/4 cup sugar

3/4 cup brown sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 eggs

2 cups miniature chocolate chips
1 1/2 cups mini marshmallows

2 Hershey bars, chopped

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

In a medium bowl combine the flour, graham cracker crumbs, baking soda, salt, and dash of cinnamon. In a second larger bowl beat together the butter, sugar, brown sugar and

vanilla extract until creamy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Slowly beat in the flour mixture until smooth. Stir in the chocolate chips. Dro

p by rounded tablespoon onto ungreased cookie sheet.

Bake for 8 minutes, and remove from the oven. Push 3 to 4 marshmallows and a fe

w pieces of hershey bar into each cookies. Return to the oven and bake an additional 3-4 minutes until fully cooked. Cool cookies on a wire rack.

Makes approximately 4 dozen cookies

I thought the recipe had too much butter. The cookies came out really flat and you could definitely taste the butter!

Here is what the cookie(s) looked liked.

I added more graham cracker crumbs and made the cookies smaller. I think it turned our way better!

I used the bigger Hersey bar and I think next time I'll use the normal size so I can have more chocolate on the cookies.

I met my boyfriend for lunch at work and he loved them!!

Tea Ring Goof= PIZZA!

So with the sticky "almond tea ring" goof, I thought hmm, I'll make pizza!

I added more flour and some Italian seasoning to the dough.

After forming the dough in the dish, I sprinkled some minced garlic on top. Yum!

I used normal spaghetti sauce and hoped that the Italian seasoning and garlic would add flavor.

Mozzarella and sharp cheddar cheese for part of the topping

I added half pepperoni for my meat loving family.

Ta-dah! Hot from the oven. I really wanted a piece but if I waited any longer I would have been late for work. It must have been really good because when I got home that night, it was gone!

My family said it turned out good. So yay! I made my own pizza dough! I'm definitely going to and duplicate this recipe again.

My Grandmother's Almound Tea Ring

My oldest brother has been asking me to make my Grandmas's famous almond tea ring. So he quickly got the recipe from my dad, who was conveniently at church when I decided to make it.

I know it can't be seen but it was difficult to read.

So I made a goof while making it! I added 1 cup of milk instead of a 1 tbsp, so it winded up being really runny. I set it aside and remade a new batch making sure that I followed the recipe carefully. I did make some use of that sticky dough though... that's to follow.

The second time around it turned out great! I rolled it out and put the almond paste in the middle. Afterwards, I realized I needed to fold the dough again after buttering it, but it was too late. This would have made the final product more flaky. oops!

The formed almond tea ring ready for the hot oven!

Hot out of the oven. While it was cooling I made the glaze that goes on top.

I let it cool for about 5-10 mins before I glazed it. Now I just needed the final approval....

...AND it's a thumb up!! Yay!

I do think it turned out differently then it normal does. I would have liked to make it the first time with my Dad, but there is always next time. It still tasted great and it was a neat to make something my brother and I grew up on. Thank you Grandma!

Pizza!

This week I really wanted to make homemade pizza with Mike. His sister, Stephanie, made it possible with their new awesome Cuisinart food processor their Mom got for Christmas. When I arrived at there house Stephanie was already making the dough. We had some issues with the food processor kneading the dough and winded up doing it by hand, but it turned out fine.

Resting Pizza Dough

Our Toppings. Spicy Chicken Sausage and Green Bell Peppers

Forming the Pizza Dough

Spreading the homemade sauce on

Fresh Mozzarella Cheese!

Ready for the Oven

Proud Pizza Makers

Finished Product!

Thanks Stephanie and Cuisinart for making this all possible! Our Pizza was the bomb!