HCB: Chocolate Bull's Eye Cake

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This is one of those recipes that just throw you.  First, it’s in the “baby cake” section of the book, so you think – oh, easy.  Then you start to read it and realized that with 4 pages of instructions and 5 different components there was no way this could fall under the easy category.

So, I put it off.

And off… I was busy: watching TV, lounging, reading, playing with presents, reading tons of blogs, getting over a MAJOR New Year’s hangover (hello 2011!), as you can see – doing anything BUT these easy cakes.

Until…yesterday.

I just could not bring myself to miss another cake, I have been so lazy lately with the HCB commitments, I’m afraid that Marie is ready to send me a stern email, telling me to get off my lazy butt, get it together and get in the kitchen and bake!

So, I put all of my ingredients out the night before, to get them to room temperature, and decided, first thing in the morning I was going to tackle this and get it over with.

I woke up to a raining day.

Which meant one thing: “STAY IN BED! STAY IN BED!”

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HCB: Chocolate Streusel Coffee Cake (Free Choice)

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I think this is the first cake that I make using my “Free Choice” pass with the Heavenly Cake baker group.  

While most of my fellow bakers are at the 70+ cake mark, I believe, I have only done about thirty-seven of them (hard to keep track), so as you can see I need to SERIOUSLY play catch up.

And our organizer, Marie has giving us a free choice each month to do just that.  While some of my fellow bakers have taking this and baked not, one, but two cakes during their free choice, I have totally and completely taken the high road to slothfulness and even sat there to deliberate which cake to do, and eventually gave up on myself and just not do a thing. *hanging head in shame*.

But this weekend, I was NOT GOING TO let my LAZY side win.  I was going to do a cake, come hell or high water.

I just needed to choose an easy one.

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The battle of the pastry bag - somewhat conquered

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So, you all know how I and the pastry bag in my kitchen are at a standoff. 

I hate the pastry bag, along with her tiny piping tip friends, it sits there and throws kisses my way, just to keep me in a state of panic every time I have to actually use it.

That is why I keep it hidden in the darkest corner of my kitchen drawer – you know, eh, too like keep it from misbehaving.

But, as I grow more and more into my baking repertoire, simple decorating is not going to cut it anymore, I need to really stretch my decorating skills and the only way to do this was to come clean with myself and realized that the pastry bag and I needed to make nice

It was time to conquer the pastry bag.

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