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!!!