MIA

This is what happens when I leave town for a week. I had 3 posts set to show up on my blog while I was away, but they didn't, so now I'm playing a super quick catch up. Unfortunately I had to start working full time again today. I was lucky to be able to be home with my 3 kids for the past 4 months, but now it's back to work for me. Hopefully my baking habit doesn't suffer too much because of it though.

So here is what I have been up to in my kitchen:

Chocolate Cranberry Cupcakes- this was supposed to be for the Iron Cupcake Challenge, but since it didn't post, I missed out on that one. Whoops! Basically, I made my Surprise Cupcakes, but added 1/2 cup cranberry sauce to the cream cheese filling (I made the cranberry sauce using the fresh cranberries, sugar, and water following the recipe on the back of the cranberry bag) and another 1/2 C to a very rich buttercream frosting. I topped it off with some sprinkles of cranberry rimming sugar that I found on clearance at Target after Halloween. Absolutely AMAZING! I would say it was probably one of the best cupcakes I have ever had, and I just sampled 6 different cupcakes from Sprinkles while I was in AZ for Thanksgiving. My cranberry cupcake was totally moist and the frosting was so fresh tasting. I recommend eating them chilled.

Next was the caramel cake for Daring Bakers. For some reason when I read the recipe at the first of the month, I thought it was for a chocolate caramel cake so that is what I had my heart set on all month. When I made it for my mother in law's birthday I added 1/4 C of cocoa to the batter to satisfy me. This cake was dense and rich and moist and I loved it, but still way too much work for a cake. I have had plenty of very good cakes that didn't involve so many steps. I absolutely loved the frosting though and licked that bowl clean.

Check out the Daring Bakers blogroll for the rest of the details. Sorry I'm so late with this!


Last but not least is Tuesdays With Dorie. I missed last week. I feel awful. I should have been more prepared and done my recipe ahead of time, but because it was for Twofer Pie which sounded perfect for Thanksgiving dessert, I waited, but forgot to bring my recipe with me. I'm still going to make it sometime because I was really really excited about it.

I just finished this week's recipe for Linzer Sables and I still have 30 minutes of it still being Tuesday, so technically it's on time! It was a lovely little sandwich cookie perfect for the holidays with all of the great spices in the dough. You can fill them with jam or chocolate and if you can believe it I filled them with my leftover cranberry sauce. Yum! Cranberry is just a flavor I don't think I can get sick of.
See the TWD blogroll for all the beautiful cookies my fellow Dorie bakers have made. Thanks Dennis from Living the Life for choosing the recipe. See his blog for the recipe or go get the cookbook. Are you sick of my saying that yet, because I'm kind of sick of writing it every week.

That's all for now. I'll get on top of things now that I'm caught up with laundry and everything else that comes with skipping town for a week. I've even started my holiday baking and can't wait to share when I've been making. I have such lucky neighbors!