Chocoholic Anonymous

The final recipe for this month (for me anyway) is Chocolate Caramel Chestnut Cake chosen by Katya of Second Dinner.  I decided to take advantage of the leniency in the TWD posting rules for this month, and this week in particular, so that I could have this beautiful cake on my Thanksgiving menu.

I very nearly did not make this cake because I was not able to find the chestnuts or chestnut paste the recipe called for and it looked like a very time consuming recipe, but the picture in the book looked gorgeous and, as I’m sure you’re all well aware by now, I find it very difficult to pass up anything chocolate.

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This week I decided to make the Cran-Apple Crisps selected by Em of The Repressed Pastry Chef.  I was rather excited about this one.  I love the cranberry apple combination and I really appreciated the idea of the individual crisps.

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This week’s recipe, Sugar Topped Molasses Spice Cookies (pg 76-77) selected by Pamela of Cookies with Boys turned out to be quite the pleasant surprise.  Before I even made these cookies I told “Prince Charming” that I was sending them into work with him because I didn’t think I was going to like them.

Why not you ask?

Well, the picture along side the recipe showed a very thin flat cookie that looked very much like it was going to be a crisp cookie.  In my book, cookies should be soft and chewy, never crispy or crumbly.  So it was with that preconceived notion that I began making these cookies…

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I think November is my favorite TWD month.  Our November hosts go out of their way to pick holiday friendly recipes and I really enjoy the more free form structure of being able to bake/post the TWD assignments for the month in whatever order I please.

“Prince Charming” and I decided we would start out the month with the All In One Holiday Bundt Cake  chosen by Britin of The Nitty Britty.

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This week’s TWD hostess is April of  Short + Rose and she chose the Cherry Fudge Brownie Torte.  Unlike our lovely hostess I really prefer not to sully my chocolate with cherries (or any other kind of fruit for that matter).

After reading the recipe I really wasn’t sure if I wanted to attempt this one or not – it was a more complicated and time consuming recipe which I wasn’t certain the little prince would give me the opportunity to complete and I wouldn’t even get to enjoy the fruits of my labor.  But “Prince Charming” was very supportive and nearly insisted that I should get back on my TWD wagon…of course he absolutely loves cherries and chocolate so I think his motives may have been somewhat suspect!

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Yesterday marked the one year anniversary of “Prince Charming’s” and my marriage.  One year ago we, or rather my mother since we were off celebrating our wedding night, carefully packed the top tier of our wedding cake away in the freezer to await our first anniversary.  Why did we do this?  Did we really want to eat one year old cake? Well, to be perfectly honest the only answer I could have given you was because it was traditional…. Read more…

Thanks to “Prince Charming’s” assistance with our new little prince, I’m finally able to make and post a TWD assignment – the first time in 3 months!

Since I never know how long the little prince is going to sleep I’m going to try to keep this post short and sweet…

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Well, more or less anyway.

For those of you who don’t know, my roughly 3 month hiatus from this blog was due to the birth of my first child – a beautiful baby boy.

Towards the end of my pregnancy I really didn’t feel up to baking and I wasn’t supposed to be spending any time on my feet (doctor’s orders).  I rather naively thought I’d be able to get back to baking once the baby was born – he’d be sleeping a lot, right?

While he does in fact sleep quite a bit it has taken him nearly 2 months to settle into something sort of resembling a schedule.  Now that he has, I will be baking more frequently which means I’ll be back to posting here again.  I apologize for my long absence, but it was what I needed to find some balance in my life again.

This is a truly rare event lately; I’m posting my TWD efforts for this week on time!

For today’s recipe Karen of Something Sweet by Karen picked Applesauce Spice Bars on pages 117 and118.  I know there isn’t a lick of chocolate anywhere in this recipe, but I loved the picture in the book and it was just such a comforting homey type of recipe.  Read more…

That’s right folks, it is another TWD double header.  Unfortunately, it is a late TWD double header…I guess that makes it a WWD double header.  Not that it is really an excuse by any means, but I just can’t seem to actually be on time for much of anything lately.  So, for now, I’m operating on the premise “better late than never.”

I was actually all ready to make last week’s Banana Bundt Cake but when I checked the basket I always keep my bananas in I had an insufficient supply of over ripe bananas, in fact I had an insufficient supply of bananas period, a grand total of 2.

I thought about just using a smaller pan but I really wanted to make the bundt cake.  So I looked for a smaller bundt pan while I was out and about and had no luck there either.  So I bought some more bananas and waited (patiently I assure you) until this week to make both the Banana Bundt Cake and the adorable Brownie Buttons.

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