A Cake Off you say? Don’t mind if I do.

When it comes to Team Cake vs Team Pie, I am Team Why Can’t I Have Both? There’s no such thing as too much dessert. When I was looking for inspiration for a cake to submit for this contest, I searched Pinterest for cake and might have ended up eating half a box of cookies because it made me so hungry. This is why I am not a food blogger.

Half way through mixing the batter I realized I needed 3 9-inch cake pans but all I had in my cabinet was 1 9-inch cake pan and 2 8-inch cake pans. I thought really hard about how to make that work before giving up and sending my husband to the store to get the right pans. Be smarter than me and make sure you have the cake pans you need BEFORE you’ve already separated all the eggs and have the mixer going. This recipe has kind of a lot of steps, but I promise it’s worth it for the results: moist but light cake with an amazing flavor and super light frosting with exactly the right amount of sweet.

Mixed Berry Cake With Lemon Whipped Cream Icing
Adapted from A Latte Food

• 4 eggs, separated
• 3/4 cup butter, softened
• 2 Tbsp vegetable oil
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 2 1/2 cups flour all purpose flour
• 2 Tbsp cornstarch
• 1 Tbsp baking powder
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 1 cup milk
• 1/3 cup greek yogurt
• 1 Tbsp lemon juice, fresh
• 2 tsp vanilla extract

• 2 cups mixed berries (I used raspberries, blackberries, strawberries and blueberries)
• 3/4 cup sugar

• 1 pint heavy whipping cream
• 1 8 oz cream cheese
• 2 Tbsp lemon zest (about the zest of 2 large lemons)
• 1/2 cup powdered sugar
• 1 tsp lemon juice

 

Thanks to Duncan Hines for sponsoring my writing. There’s no limit to the baking possibilities, so grab your favorite Duncan Hines mix and Comstock or Wilderness fruit fillings and Bake On! www.duncanhines.com.

Oh hi, who wants to talk about dessert? Or drinks? Or maybe holiday parties? How about a fancy sparkly dessert themed holiday party I’m throwing for my baby girl when she turns one this month? I’ve got myself on a pretty strict baking schedule to get as much as possible done in advance, so my house is FULL of sweets right now. After the cake near-disaster at Evan’s 2nd birthday, I decided maybe fancy frosting is little outside my skill set, in the same way running a marathon is outside my skill set. You think, come on, it’s just running. Anyone can run. Here, let me just run right into the kitchen and make a cake worthy of its own TLC special. (more…)

I was GOING to write a post about how potty training is going, but the Rule of the Internet* bit me in the ass BEFORE I EVEN WROTE IT so my update is this: GAH.

Wednesdays are my day off from Stroller Strides, but my day on for ALL THE OTHER THINGS. I clean and do laundry and meal plan and grocery shop and go to BJ’s for toothpaste because somehow we each have five unopened deodorants but zero tubes of toothpaste left. To round out my homemaker-y day I usually bake something. Baking (and cooking) is my love language, and even though no one in my family knows what that means they certainly appreciate pie.

But this week I made cupcakes.

Pumpkin cupcakes (based on a recipe I’ve seen on Pinterest and on Nicci’s blog this week and on the Weight Watchers message boards). Pumpkin cupcakes with mini-candy bars in the middle (an idea I will FULLY ADMIT I got from a rerun of 30 Rock last night – Liz makes them for the crew when she’s trying to be a Cool Boss and I jumped up off the couch and shouted “OH MY GOD WHY DIDN’T I KNOW THAT WAS A THING???”)

These might be the easiest cupcakes you ever eat way way too many of.

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Pumpkin Chocolate Caramel Cupcakes

1 box yellow cake mix
1 15 oz can pumpkin (NOT pumpkin pie filling)
1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
12 mini candy bars (I used Milky Ways and Snickers)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix first three ingredients in a bowl. Line a muffin tin with cupcake papers (or just spray the cups well with non-stick cooking spray). Use a measuring cup to fill each liner half way with the batter. Set a mini candy bar on top of batter, fill the cup the rest of the way. Bake for 23-27 minutes, until the tips of the top start to brown. Let them cool a little before you eat them, so you don’t burn your mouth on the melted caramel inside.

I made exactly 12 cupcakes and they puffed up pretty large. You could probably make 18 by filling each cup a little less, but I worked out the Weight Watchers points for 12 and each cupcake ends up being 7 points. Not too bad!

Review from my husband: Oh. These are interesting.

Review from the ladies at my knitting group: OMG THESE ARE THE BEST THING I’VE EATEN IN MONTHS I NEED TO MAKE SOME RIGHT NOW GET IN MY FACE.

Then I made mini pumpkin pies. Because, why the hell not? (Plus I had half a can of pumpkin left because I bought the big kind.)

p.s. Food photography is NOT my forte. I took approximately 500 shots to get these 5 pictures and they are STILL terrible. I need a class or a workshop or someone to just come do it for me so I can spend my time baking more things while they artfully scatter pumpkin seeds and half-folded napkins around a pure white plate.

*The Rule of the Internet: As soon as you write about how your baby sleeps through the night/eats tons of vegetables/never cries on your blog/never bites his sister, your baby will stop sleeping through the night/eating vegetables/start crying all the time/bite everything all the time.

So this one time, I was at the grocery store with my husband and he tried to buy a gross, pre-made pie in a box from the bakery section. I was like, “DUDE, I BAKE.” and he was all “But can you make a LEMON CRUNCH PIE?” and I was all “You’ve heard of GOOGLE right?” But then I was like “Oh no, none of these recipes on the internet look like the pie from the store! I’ll have to make it up as I go!” and he was like “Oh geez, that sounds hard. Do you think you can really do it? and I was all “Watch me, bitches.”

So I invented a Lemon Crunch Pie. The end.

Lemon Crunch Pie

Crust:

1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup shortening
4-5 tablespoons ice cold water

Throw the flour and salt in a mixing bowl. Toss in the shortening too and then mash it up with a fork until it’s in little pieces. Don’t mix it TOO well, since the little pieces of shortening in the crust is what makes it flaky. Add cold water about a tablespoon at a time until the dough is sticky enough to hold together. Do most of your mixing with the fork but make sure you test it by squishing it together with your hands or you’ll end up adding too much water. Roll it out, press into a 9 inch pie plate and crimp the edges.

Bake the crust at 400 for 7 minutes.

(If you MUST, I will allow for store bought pie dough but only if you recite the Pledge of Allegiance while rolling it out to prove you’re not a communist.)

Filling:

Juice and zest of 2 lemons
1 1/4 c. sugar
3 Tbsp. cornstarch
3 well-beaten egg yolks
1 1/4 c. boiling water
3 egg whites

Separate egg yolks from whites. Zest and juice the lemons. Pour 1 ¼ cup water into a medium sized sauce pan. When it comes to a boil, mix in juice, sugar, cornstarch, and well-beaten egg yolks. Stir until well blended and cook until thick – this happens pretty quickly so be sure to keep stirring. Remove from heat. Beat egg whites with an electric mixer until stiff. Fold the lemon mixture into the whites.

Pour into baked crust.

Topping:

1/4 cup all-purpose flour
4 crushed graham crackers
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
3 tablespoons chilled butter

Toss it all in a food processor and mix for a few seconds, until it’s crumbly but not too fine. Spread out over filling, bake at 350 degrees for 17-20 minutes, or until topping is slightly brown & all the butter has melted.

Refrigerate for a couple hours and serve cold.

Not the prettiest pie I’ve ever made, but really really delicious.

I linked up my recipe to Mique’s Pity Party at 30 Handmade Days

I wasn’t going to blog today because I’m deep in my knitting and trying to finish up three different projects to post pictures of later this week. But what I need to share with you is SO IMPORTANT I have set aside my needles for a few minutes and rushed to the computer. The information below may just change your life. I’m not even joking.

Here’s my super important announcement:

GO BUY ONE OF THESE IMMEDIATELY.

That magic little device is a VeggieChop Vegetable Chopper. I bought mine from Williams-Sonoma a couple years ago, with a gift card that was burning a hole in my pocket and a hatred of chopping onions that bordered on total obsession. I HATE the cutting-stuff-up part of cooking. HATE IT. But this thing has totally changed the way I make dinner. It’s easy, uses no electricity, effective and dishwasher-safe. I want to mail one to every single mom I know to help save them precious minutes during dinner prep.

And if you’re like me and get sudden, urgent cravings for fresh salsa, it is a LIFESAVER.

I had all this stuff in my fridge: tomatoes, cilantro, red onion, garlic

Throw in a good pinch of sea salt, some lime juice and a dash of hot sauce…

…and you just pull the handle. It’s like starting a teeny tiny lawnmower (there’s a video on the Williams-Sonoma site). You can pull just two or three times to get a rough chop or lots and lots of times for a fine chop. I think I probably pulled 5 or 6 times. Took less than 30 seconds.

It was the most delicious salsa I’ve ever had. I ate the whole bowl while writing this. I ran out of chips and just used a spoon. True story.

This post is not sponsored or endorsed by anyone. I just want your life to be full of delicious salsa and chopped onions that don’t make you cry too.