Chocolate Chip Pound Cake!

After much time away from blogging, I have finally found time to sit down and give you an idea of what I have been baking. Don't worry, I haven't been slacking in the area of baking, rather I have just been too dogone busy to take/post any pictures or blogs. On a lighter or should I say fatter note, last night was a fantastic evening of eating. We started off with bar-b-que pork roast that sat in the slow cooker all day, baked corn on the cob drenched in olive oil and garlic pepper, and green beans. We finished off our fantastic night of eating with my newest experiment, a chocolate chip pound cake drenched in a vanilla sugar glaze. A couple people have been asking why I have not been posting my recipes and I though why not! Have a look and let me know how it turns out for you!

Cake
-In small bowl combine: 3 cups of all purpose flour, 1 teaspoon of baking powder, and 1/2 teaspoon of salt. Set this mixture aside.
-In a different bowl, mix: 2 cups sugar, 1 cup unsalted butter, and three tablespoons vanilla. -Once this mixture has reached a creamy consistency, add 4 eggs and mix till smooth.
-Next add flour mixture and 3/4 cup milk. Be careful when adding the flour mixture as your mixer may cause floury eggy chunks batter to fly at you defenseless kitchen walls and appliances.
-Last but not least fold 12 ounces of semisweet chocolate chips into the batter
-Pour the batter into a prepared pan and set in the oven to bake at 325ish degrees. Bake the cake until it is a perfect golden brown and a knife inserted into the middle comes out clean.

Glaze
-Once the cake has been allowed to cool for a bit, prepare the glaze.
-In a pot melt 1/3 cups unsalted butter. Once butter is melted, add 2 cups powdered sugar and 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract and 4 tablespoons hot water. Once smooth, immediatly pour the glaze over the cake, as it will harden quickly. Enjoy!

Happy Baking!
~Catherine

Devilishly Good Chocolate Cake

You probably do not know this, but my first and last experience of baking a chocolate cake from scratch was quite disatrous. I mean, you could quite literally drive a nail into the countertop using this cake as a hammer; or if you so chose, chuck it at your greatest enemy for quite a blow.

Lucky for me my experience this evening was quite different from the experience I just shared with you. I am convinced it is all in the flour. Since that horrid day of chocolate, I have sworn to use only "cake flour" when baking my cakes.

Unlike last week this cake did not take quite as long to prepare, but in my opinion was twice as good and very very mmm mmm good CHOCOLATELY!!

Happy Baking,

Catherine

Intense Lemon Pound Cake

My fiance is a huge fan of the Starbucks lemon pound cake, so I decided that I would try my own version of this delicious cake.

After 3 plus hours of zesting, grating mixing and much much more I have finally put the cake in the oven. Anyone who has ever said or thought that the baking of a lemon pound cake is easy is a joker. Don't get me wrong. I had a blast baking this cake, but wasn't quite sure I would ever reach the end of the mixing process and be able to put the cake in the oven.

I should have known I was in for it when I realized that I did not have a zesting tool and 4 large lemons that needed to be zested. I do not recomend zesting lemons with a knife but if you have a lot of time on your hands and a great radio station to sing along with, it can be a quite fulfilling and lemony refreshing hour. After zesting the lemons, I removed the pith (Removing the pith from a fruit such as a lemon is a new process for me. If you were wondering, the pith is the soft white stuff between the outer yellow shell and the inner juicy lemon. ) and seperated the segments and juice from the seeds and membranes. Warning: lemons will squirt all over the place...be prepared. After this lemon process was complete, I moved on, to the normal cake baking process that many of us are already used to. You know how it goes; sugar, flour, eggs, baking soda, etc.

One hourish later I have a beautiful lemon pound cake drizzled in a lemony glaze. Now if I can just keep my fiance away long enough to let the glaze set. Mmmmmm.... I cannot wait to try a slice!!

Happy Baking,
Catherine

My First Blog!

This is my very first blog! I know, I know the Internet has been around forever and practically everybody who is anybody has created a blog at some point in their life. It is finally official, I am no longer a virgin blogger.

I know it sounds silly, but I actually got the idea to write this blog from Julie & Julia. Just like Julie, I too am a lowly worker in Corporate America; punching the time clock, just working for the next paycheck so that I can have a little fun; and by fun, I mean baking.

I look forward to sharing my journey from corporate clone to blissful baker!

Happy Baking,
Catherine