Kat's Day Off

So this one time I had a day off. A WHOLE DAY OFF. And it was a Thursday!! When does that happen? I'll tell you when: Freakin Never.

Our beautiful little tree :)

So I got up and put on makeup. Be impressed. Then I cleaned a bit, and got in my car and WENT SOMEWHERE. Where? Safeway. Bought stuff. For treats.

But first, I set a record for the earliest set up of a Christmas Tree ever. November 8th, people!! And I don't even care. I'd been playing Christmas music for at LEAST two weeks by this point. Christmas: too good of a holiday to sell short. And in Canada... once Thanksgiving hits I say roll out the reindeer.

Anyway. Back to the important stuff. Baked goods.

I have this issue with being excessively indecisive when it comes to choosing something to bake. Literally, I riddled out what I wanted to spend Thursday making for at least 3 days. I finally narrowed it down to a cake and a batch of cookies. One of which would be a cinnamon/sugary thing... while the other had to contain molasses. My internal battle went a little something like this: Molasses Cake and Snickerdoodles! Done!.... well... I could do a Streusel Cake and Molasses Cookies!! But if I do molasses cookies I may as well do the gingerbread snowflakes.... Oh wait. No cookie cutters. Okay! Definitely Molasses Cake! But wait. I just had the Gingercake at Earls (to DIE for....) so is that what I really want? Where the heck do I buy candied ginger?? FINE. Streusel Cake. WHICH streusel cake? Too many recipes, and none of these look good. Martha Stewart, you saint. Ultimate Streusel Cake, done. Okay, Gingerbread Snowflakes! Frick, NO COOKIE CUTTERS. Plan B: Snickerdoodles. But wait, no! Too many cinnamony-sugary things!! Molasses. Cookies. Martha.

She saves me from myself.

I even got to christen the BOSCH my mommy sent up for me to use :) since the Kitchen-Aid moved to the States... it has been beyond my reach. And my poor handmixer is well, a handmixer. Great for frosting, not so great for cookie dough. While I am just grateful to have something to make cookies with... When I get my own standing mixer... It. Will. Be. Kitchen-Aid.

The Bosch is a little hard to deal with... I don't get how the attachments work. It doesn't have the capacity to press ravioli and make ice cream and do laundry.... and I have to scrape the outside of the bowl AND the inner tube pretty frequently. And it's just not as nice to look at. Eh, what am I crying about? She got the job done. Who cares if she's the unfortunate sister? I appreciate her toughing it out.

Had to make a well to fit all that yummy streusel :)

Anyway. This streusel cake? I wasn't expecting much. But to put it simply... TO DIE FOR. It uses coarse salt in the cake AND the streusel... so every once in a while you get a little extra salty bite (which I love)! There's no skimping on this filling, I really didn't think all of it would fit. The cake is dense, but not quite a pound cake. The crumb is soft and buttery. It's like a pecan cinnamon roll with cake instead of a yeasty bread! The powdered sugar milk glaze is much more complimentary than it initially sounds (but I know that batch of cream cheese icing would do JUST fine too... :) )

The cookies? Oh. Well. About them cookies. They were big, super soft, spicy, moist, and just delicious. And the recipe says a yield of 12? It's a lie. I made over 30. And they were huge.

Fill

Top with more batter.

USE ALL OF THE STREUSEL!

Bye Bye For Now!

Well Hello There Cake.

Aren't you looking dapper this evening?

 So my roommates came home to fresh baked Cookies AND Cake AND Christmas Music AND a Christmas Tree!

Voila!

So Thursday was AWESOME. Totally in my element. Felt great to bake and decorate and clean and just DO THINGS with no prior commitment. No homework. No studying. No place I had to be....


..... How many days till Christmas Holidays? Oh yeah. 24!!!

Hey, I remember you!!

*Blows off dust*

Holy. Has it ever been a while. I'm not exactly sure why I am posting today... maybe it has something to do with the fact that I'm SICK for the first time in a really long time. What's the best thing to do when you're sick?? Well, for me it's do all those little irritating things that you seriously DON'T want to do all the other days when you are perfectly healthy and fit to do so.

You know. Things like... Clean out and organize your bookmarks bar. Catch up on some reading. Recover the old blog you used to do.

I finished my semester last week.. and that was a quick and dirty one. 14 of the longest weeks of my life. I'll spare most of the gory details... but in a nutshell, brownies for dinner practically every night. 10 finals in two weeks. Brink of my sanity.

So this whole "free evenings and weekends" thing is something I've only heard whispers of on phone commercials. Foreign concept.

Since being back in Edmonton not much baking has transpired. My big project this summer was my sister's WEDDING CAKE.

My first endeavor with fondant.

I was a little intimidated. As I was shopping for my supplies, we were told that Michael's does cake decorating COURSES. I considered this possibility... but the schedule was heavy. Why would I sign myself up for cake boot camp on my very last summer vacation??... Oh right. I wouldn't. The saleswoman told me that I might be able to muddle through basic fondant without training... but no way with anything on a larger scale.....

... Are you seriously telling me I can't deal with glorified play dough? Whatever.

There were tears. I'm pretty sure I aged about a decade constructing this cake. I have had so many people ask me how long it took me. Honestly, I didn't time it. But a guestimate?.... about 12 hours.

The inside was The Gold Cake. Aka: That beautiful Martha Stewart cake made with dark brown sugar, coarse salt, and rum. Each layer is then soaked in homemade butterscotch and the whole thing is enrobed in brown butter cream cheese frosting. Then you cover the outsides in toasted pecans.

<---- Yes, this was inside of....



                                       















This. ----->














Yeah, she was a big one.

Anyways. Since the trauma of the wedding cake.... I have done a few other little things.

 Dad's Birthday Cake!! Italian Cream Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting. It was stupid good. Notice that awful icing job? This was the first thing I baked since the wedding cake. I still remember saying "I don't even care." over and over as I frosted this cake.

 Classic Red Velvet Birthday Cake!! One for Tera <3 and one for Megan <3

 Tiramisu. Apparently much too strong.

 Momma Carmen taught me to make pie crust :) 

We scratch made pecan, pumpkin, and coconut cream pies! The flakiest crust EVER. 

 Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes filled with Dulce de Leche, and frosted with Dulce de Leche Buttercream. Apparently quite sweet. o.O

Chris and Blair got married, so I made their wedding cake. 4 thick layers of dense chocolate cake filled with Nutella Buttercream. 

So that's a quick little summary of my most recent baking projects! I am happy to announce that... It is officially Christmas Time!!! Who am I kidding, I changed my alarm to Christmas music at least a week ago. Looking forward to MANY baking adventures this holiday season :)

Here's a little bucket list of the must-makes:

Cuban Lunches
Christmas Macarons
Holiday Colored Peanut Butter Rice Krispies with TONS of Callebaut
Ginger Snowflakes
Aged Almond Pecan Shortbread
Mexican Wedding Cookies
Sugar Cakes
Assorted Truffles
Super Secret Decandently Delicious Mystery Christmas Dinner Dessert!!

Also. I'm off for holidays from the 14th of December all the way to the 2nd of January!! I'm SERIOUS!! This means that this Kat (ha.) is heading back to the homeland at quittin time on the 14th. Car packed. Presents wrapped. Treats in tow. Christmas playlist playing. Hair and makeup done, with a cute seasonal outfit.

Speaking of trips home... I happen to be going tomorrow! I always forget at least one thing... and I'd love to have THIS be the time I break that habit and remember EVERYTHING I planned on bringing down. Good to be back! Happy Baking :)