TWD: Lots-of-Ways Banana Cake

July 20, 2010 by Monica in Baking, Baking Club, Cake, Cookbooks, Desserts, Fruit, Sweets, TWD

It’s funny how sometimes both of my baking groups (Heavenly Cake Bakers and Tuesday with Dorie) are in synch and totally random pick a recipe that shares a common ingredient. Sometimes the recipes are so close that I have to make an executive decision and choose which one I want to bake more. No sense in having 2 cakes in the house, especially when I try to get rid of it as fast as I can in the first place – no temptation in sight!

This past weekend Tuesday with Dorie choice won. Thank you to Kimberly from Only Creative Opportunities who made the choice.

And what a choice it was.

This cake was very simple to make (the best kind) and as Dorie explains very flexible. Since you pretty much can replace any of the ingredients with what you have at hand – which in my mind means one thing:

No trip to the supermarket to find an ingredient that I ran out and forgot to put on my shopping list.

Have I mentioned how I hate to go to the supermarket?

No? Well now you know – your welcome.

HCB: Mini Vanilla Pound Cake

July 13, 2010 by Monica in Baking, Baking Club, Cake, Cookbooks, Desserts, Family Cookbook, HCB

This past weekend was insane around our house, last week I was away in Orlando for work-related training, so upon arriving on Friday the amount of stuff that accumulated in the To Do list was ridiculous – laundry, cleaning, folding, dishes and on and on. I mean, Tom does his share around here, but I guess what they say it true – when the cat is away…. Apparently everything goes to the dogs! So I was very happy about this week's HCB choice, since I knew it was going to be a snap to prepare, bake and have ready for those hungry boys I live with.

This is straight easy pound cake recipe, with three perfect twist: One, they are mini cake (can you say perfect give-aways? yes you can!). Two, they are made with vanilla bean and three, soaked in a cognac base syrup. (On a side note, I'm on to Rose and her boozy syrups because in my world I trust anything that is made with liquor - it makes everything better - trust).

How can you go wrong?

You can’t.

HCB: Ice Cream Cake

July 05, 2010 by Monica in Baking, Baking Club, Cake, Desserts, HCB, Ice Cream, Sweets

I’m seriously spoiling Tom. The last three weeks he has, thru my baking two of his 3 favorite sweets covered. Cheesecake - DONE! Ice Cream - DONE! Pie - still very scared of that one, but I’m sure I will cover it - eventually.

This weekend the Heavenly Cake Baker choice was the Ice Cream Cake, and I think like most of my baker group, we were all looking forward to it. It was perfect for the 4th of July and it would have worked great into a BBQ event. For us it was going to work great on a long weekend were we did not have any plans except stay at home (for me) and watch a lot of TV. It also did not help that it has not stopped raining here in Florida since last Thursday.