Before I say anything else, OH YES TO AMERICAN IDOL. OH FREAKING YES.
And...those Guitar Hero commercials...WOW. Sorry Archie, I really DID NOT want to see that. It was just too weird. I will probably have nightmares about that.
On the other hand...David Cook's commercial...me-OW. EXCEPT NOT REALLY THAT ONE WAS WEIRD TOO. David Cook's was a little less weird, though, what with him actually being a "sex symbol." Archie in his underwear? No. Just...no.

Okay, I am sorry about that. I just got really excited about American Idol, this was the first time I've watched it, and I don't plan on it doing it again because I think about David Cook waaaay too much. Ha.

Now! This post doesn't really involve baking, but today is my sister's birthday! So last night I made "oreo cakes." I got the idea from a book called Tiny Treats that American Girl has, I've flipped through it at Michaels. What you do is you take two oreos, glue them together with frosting, frost and decorate them as you wish, then stick in the freezer/refrigerator overnight and they come out somewhat mushier and less cookie-like. They pretty much tasted like oreos with frosting (I wonder why???? It's a mystery!) and they were a pain in the butt to frost (it's just awkward...frosting oreos), but they were fun and cute.

Oreo cakes!


The birthday girl!

We went on a picnic then to the zoo, here's a baby gorilla!


And a giraffe!

I still smell like animals. Ew.

Peanut butter bars

Peanut butter bars
Originally uploaded by Put That in Your Cake

Yesterday I went to my sister's college graduation. She also moved back in yesterday. A few months ago, my oldest brother moved back home, he had only been out of the house for two years. For two years my twin and I had peace. Now we have to share one of our two computers with someone who sits on it all day long, we have to share a bathroom with four people (which now has a dresser right in front of the toilet, because my brother had no where else to put it) and they've basically just invaded MY HOUSE. It's not really my house, but for those two years I got used to it just being four of us.

The good thing about siblings moving back home is that my baked goods get eaten really quickly. I made these peanut butter bars on Friday night, and they were gone by 6 o'clock on Saturday (and we were gone from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m.). These bars were so good. Oh my goodness. My mom bit into one and had this face that said, "OH. YES."

I had two of them for breakfast yesterday with milk. Healthy? No. Absolutely amazing? Yes.


They also taste good while watching America's Next Top Model (go Anya!)



Peanut Butter Bars from Williams-Sonoma

Ingredients:

1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup rolled oats
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter,
at room temperature
1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 cup creamy or chunky peanut butter
1 egg, at room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Confectioners’ sugar for dusting

Directions:

1. Position an oven rack in the center of the oven. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease an 8-inch square baking pan with butter, then line it with parchment paper, letting it hang over 2 sides.
2. In a bowl, combine the flour, oats, baking soda and salt and stir with a whisk until well blended. Set aside.
3. In a large bowl, using an electric mixer, beat together the butter, brown sugar and peanut butter on medium speed until creamy, about 3 minutes. Turn off the mixer and scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula.
4. Add the egg and vanilla and beat well. Turn off the mixer and add the flour-oat mixture. Beat on low speed just until blended.
5. Using the rubber spatula, scrape the batter into the pan and spread it evenly. Place the baking pan in the oven and bake until the top of the cookie is golden and looks firm, 25 to 30 minutes.
6. Remove the baking pan from the oven and set it on a wire cooling rack. Let cool completely. Lift the cookie from the pan, dust it with confectioners' sugar and cut it into 1-by-4-inch bars.

Makes 16 bars.

Cinnamon cupcakes

I was watching a rerun of Throwdown with Bobby Flay the other day, and he had to make a wedding cake. He challenged a woman named Michelle Doll. Michelle Doll made a cinnamon-vanilla cake with Mexican hot chocolate frosting. I needed to make this cinnamon cake. I wasn't too into the frosting, though, so I decided to just go for vanilla frosting.

Luckily, there was a potluck at church coming up, so I had the perfect excuse to make some cupcakes! I like potlucks because I can make something, and I generally don't have to bring home any leftovers. I mean, I like cupcakes, but if they aren't great, I have about 23 left that my family and I don't want to eat, so they get thrown away, and that's not very cool.
They all got eaten, by the way. And I got to see a cute little girl stick about half of one in her mouth. Awwww.

I made the cupcakes in the afternoon, and they were REALLY GOOD. They had a slight cinnamon taste, and they were moist and mmm. Gooooooood.
I made the frosting that night. It was very sweet. It was butter cream, you know. At least this batch didn't taste like butter like the rest of my butter creams. Are they supposed to taste like butter? I don't want it to taste like butter. And I don't have a stand mixer so I don't want to attempt Swiss Meringue butter cream. Blah.

I didn't take any pictures of the process because I was too lazy. My camera was in my room, and it's about 20 steps away from the kitchen. That is just way too far. Anyway, here's the finished product!




Cinnamon vanilla wedding cake
Vanilla frosting

Pound cake

Yesterday I had this big hankerin' to bake something. I'm going to bake cupcakes tomorrow for a potluck at church, so I couldn't make cupcakes. I just made cookies the other day, so no to cookies as well. What else is there to bake? POUND CAKE. I wanted to make a pound cake.

Since there are 50 million recipes for pound cake out there, I decided to just refer to good old Betty Crocker to see what she had to say on the matter.

She told me to make this "Loaf O' Gold" cake. I guess "pound cake" is just too simple for Betty.

The recipe said to just dump everything in the bowl and mix it up, which was weird because I'm so used to creaming the butter and sugar, adding the eggs and vanilla, slowly incorporating the flour and milk, alternating in three and two batches blah blah blah. I liked it. And it only took about 20 minutes to measure and mix and put it in the oven!

An hourish later, I had a pound cake! About half of it was eaten within 30 minutes of it being done.

Oh yeah, the best way to eat pound cake?

YES.
I really freaking love whipped cream.

And sorry for the shadow, it was all stormy and tornado-ing today, and it was dark and impossible to get a nice picture and other excuses.