The Adventures of a Frustrated Baker

I don't know how many of you are familiar with the show Masterchef, but I am in love with it!  I could watch it everyday...as a matter of fact I kind of do.  After I missed an episode cause I had to work, I looked for it online and in the process found out that there is a Masterchef Australia, which is on like everyday!  It is also addictive and awesome, as a matter of fact I like it more than Masterchef US.  Mostly cause they do Masterchef class, where they teach the students and the viewer a few recipes.  The one I watched last night featured Vincent Gadan, who is an amazing pastry chef.  After watching that, I HAD to bake, I just HAD to! So I opened the fridge this morning, and what do I see?  A big tub of leftover chocolate frosting from my brother-in-law's birthday cake last week.  I knew that I couldn't waste it...so what to do with it?  I know, combine it with oranges in a mini cupcake.  Low and behold, the chocolate ...

A few weeks ago now, our family had two graduations on the same day...my little one graduated from preschool (I feel so OLD) and my brother-in-law graduated from high school.  In honor of such wonderful occasions I decided to make some cupcakes.   For my daughter's, I made mini cupcakes with blue and pink graduation hats since those are the colors she and her classmates wore from graduation.  Then for our little BBQ at home, I made big cupcakes with green hats (that was my brother-in-law's school color) and pink ones for the graduation girl.   Now, I must confess, that with all the things going on that week and the fact that I had to bake goodies for the end of the quarter parties at the college I work at, I cheated on these cupcakes.  Yup, that's right, I used box mixes.  See, I do it sometimes...not often but every once in a while you just don't have the time or energy to bake from scratch.  I do it, you guys do it...we all do.  So do y...

Tonight and tomorrow morning, the classes I test are having end of the quarter potlucks.  I have to say that these things are my favorite part of the quarter.  We all get to sit and socialize and eat yummy food.  What more could you ask for, right?  Since this is also my daughter and brother-in-laws graduation weeks (my daughter's from preschool, and my brother-in-law's from high school) it is a crazy hectic week for my family.  I already am going to be working hard on Friday decorating and working on some mini chocolate chip cupcakes made to look like graduation caps...I didn't want to spend all of today baking too. I decided I wanted to make something simple, something I could throw in a baking pan and be done with.  I thought of blackberry crumble.  Seemed like the perfect idea till I though of having to bring a spoon and dig out two baking dishes and so on, yup I was back to square one.  Then, light b...

Earlier on this week, my husband turned to me and asked if I was planning on baking this Friday, and if so, he had a request.  Now originally I had planned on taking this week off since I baked three things last week but my hubby almost never makes requests so I decided to humor him and make his delicious request.  You see, he wanted brownies...peanut butter brownies.  I don't know about you all, but I feel like there is no better combination in the world than peanut butter and chocolate...it is like a gift from God!  Yummy! So Thursday night, I found myself contemplating these peanut butter brownies...should I put peanut butter swirls...or peanut butter cups...or I know, crumble up peanut butter cookies?  What to do, what to do?!  I decided to take a page out of the Mythbusters book...you know the Mythbusters, right?  (I love me some Mythbusters!)  Well, I decided if it was worth doing, it was worth overdoing!  I did all of them, the pean...

On my last day off I found myself contemplating the typical question my whole family wonders about from 2-5 pm...what is for dinner?!  (And who's cooking it...though on the nights I am home that is usually the easy part to answer.)  I felt that we needed to have something fun and yummy...and rewarding since about half of the family was outside slaving away to get some garden work finished before it started raining again.  Seriously Washington, I know you are known for your rain and all, but it was Memorial Day weekend...it was supposed to be nice! After much thought and consideration of how energetic I felt about cooking, I decided on pizza calzones.  They are pretty easy and fun to make, plus my family loves them.  They disappear every time.  I mean, what's not to like, its like a pizza pocket but way better! Start by making a batch or two of pizza dough.  You can also buy store bought, but it really isn't any easier to work with and the homemade...