Baking After Midnight: Not quite so crack cake.
So this month is cake month over at Baking After Midnight.
I had two goals.
1) To use the buttermilk I had in the fridge
2)To perhaps make something with berries as I have a small container of blackberries, and a large 4lb container of strawberries.
I succeeded in the first one.
The berries, not so much. None of the recipes for using berries seemed even remotely appealing. All of them in my initial search called for berry flavored jello to be added to the mix.
Sigh. I hate all those midwestern women who think mayo and jello are the hight of gourmet cuisine.
So instead of wading through ten thousand recipes involving jello I decided to scrap the berry idea.
Going with the buttermilk situation, I found a recipe for Crack Cake.
It sounded good, and everyone voted for me to do it on FB. Supposedly it’s such a good cake that you can’t only eat one slice.
I halved the recipe, as I didn’t need a 9×13 coffee cake that you supposedly couldn’t resist sitting around when I’m the only one home.
For me it’s Not Quite So Crack Cake.
Perhaps it was my fault… I made the glaze topping with buttermilk instead of regular milk… but every bite I had of the cake tasted salty.
I’m not entirely sure if it’s just the glaze that tasted salty, or if it’s the entire cake it’s self. I’ll have another bite at some point later and only nom the bottom part to see.
Moving along… I’ve discovered that while knitting late at night, it is not a good idea to watch Ghost Whisperer. Specifically season 4, and even more specifically the second disc of season 4. (meaning episodes 5-8)
You will cry.
It’s very difficult to knit lace while your eyes are filled up with tears. Just sayin’.
And with that, I leave you for now.
Baking after Midnight: Dreaming of Pumpkin Pillows
So, hola chicas.
Last night was Earth Hour, and Mother of Mine and I did in fact turn out all the lights. We had a few candles just for illumination sake, and I will be honest here…. we had the telly on. I know I know… the telly should have been off.. so sue us.
For an hour neither of us did any knitting either… which to be quite honest is a weird thing. Normally one of us is on the laptop, the other is knitting. Yes, that’s how we spend our evenings.
Last night I started a project. And apparently, for ironies sake… I wasn’t the only one who did so. My minion over at Random ramblings of this guy (who shamefully hasn’t blogged about it yet… 😛 ) also started on our little pet project last night as well.
What is it, you might ask?
Baking After Midnight.
Kinda self explanatory right?
Well, it’s still in its infancy, we are still figuring out what we want it to be… But there might be themed months… and I even see a contest or two in the future (that last part is all mah own planning… don’t go asking Minion as he’ll simply say “huh?”).
So the other night after My Minion put up the FB page, I started tinkering around with some artwork. Hope you like the one above. I have another little badge in the works so you can display your baking love.
During many cycles of working night shifts, or late shifts where I was up till the wee hours unwinding, I rather enjoyed baking after midnight.
In the more recent yearly cycles where I was going to bed at 8pm and getting up at 430, this obviously did not lend it’s self for late night baking.
Then when I started this new chapter in my life… I was still going to bed between 9-11 pm, and still getting up between 6-7. I was alright with this.
Then Daylight Savings time happened… I will admit it kicked my ass. I’ve not yet adapted to it even this many days later. I’m sure part of the problem was that the time change happened the morning after the GBS concert. That night, I didn’t even get to bed till 1 am, and so the vicious cycle started of staying up late, and sleeping in all morning.
As I also quit doing my aqua class (headaches from the chlorine), I no longer had any excuse to actually get my ass out of bed for class at 830am.
So I had been feeling very much like a slug as of late.
I do plan on getting back to a more normal 7 am start time with a reasonable bed time… but at the same time part of me thinks that this might be my last chance to have slug times like this for a long time.. so mayhaps I should take advantage of it? We’ll see.
Moving along… the baking!
I discovered an amazing website thanks to the Pioneer Woman. It’s called Tasty Kitchen, and it’s a little place to get together and swap recipes.
I lurve it. Really I do. And woot. I finally spelled recipes correctly. It’s been a plague on me forever, and finally I appear to have gotten it right without having to resort to spell check. This makes me happy.
What did I make for the inaugural run?
Pumpkin Pillows.
Oh yes, you heard me correctly. Little bits of fluffy pumpkin heaven smattered with chocolate chips.
Fresh out of the oven… they were orgasmic.
This morning, in the harsh light of 9am sunlight… they were pretty darn nummy for brekkie.
Forgive my massive bites from it pre photo. I couldn’t help it. It was calling to me. That siren song of pumpkiny goodness.
So if you are inclined to join us in a little Midnight Baking, please feel free to join our little Facebook group here: Baking After Midnight
There isn’t any commitment. The goal is simple. Bake as often or not as you like. But if you happen to do some clandestine moonlit baking… take a photo… blog.. share it with us.
If you have any ideas of what you’d like to see… send a shout to us.
No matter what… Have fun!
Oh, and the recipe for the Pumpkin Pillows can be found here:
myjournalofimpossiblethings.wordpress.com 