In Which We Bake

 

For a while, I was baking something pretty much every week.  My motto was "If you you want to eat fresh cake, then you have to bake fresh cake."  And you know what?  I got to be good at it.  But I got distracted by all that Super Agent Fred dying stuff so I've only baked a couple of times this year. 

I decided it was time to get back up on that pastry horse and so tonight I thought I would make the easiest baked good that exists: a Seven Layer Bar.  It's sort of a cross between a candy bar and a cookie.  It is so easy, it's how they teach little baby girl scouts the elements of baking.  You just measure the ingredients, mash them in a pan, and shove it in the oven.  Pretty much the most difficult step is crumbling up graham crackers to make a crust, and if that is beyond your skill set, maybe baking is not for you.  Maybe you should just go back to the sheltered workshop. 

The layers are, in chronological order, graham cracker crumbs, melted butter, chopped nuts, chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, condensed milk, and shredded coconut. Here's the deal though, I do not like chopped nuts in cookies and I don't like shredded coconut in anything, period.  So I replaced the chop nuts with peanut butter and Nutella.  I kicked the shredded coconut to the curb.

My baking experience has taught me that trying to incorporate Nutella into any recipe is just asking for heartache.  Unless you decide to bake with super glue, I don't think any other ingredient is as sticky and messy.  Plus, despite my tendency towards OCD, I am not a terribly tidy baker.  I am resigned to making a mess and then cleaning it up.  You can't make an omelette without breaking some eggs and mrpeenee slings eggs all over the kitchen. 

Speaking of sticky goo, I also had to deal with condensed milk, which is pretty damn gluey in its own right.  Between the two I am lucky I wasn't permanently stuck to the counter.  As it was, I had to wash my hands a half dozen times during what was supposed to be a simple little project.  But now it's in the oven, it smells fabulous, and the cats have reappeared from wherever they were hiding while I was loosing madness in the kitchen.  

Seven layer boys: 

I think all cars should come with something like this in the trunk.

It's all about that pretty hair for me.

Hit the road.

It's bathing suit season.  Perhaps you've noticed?

Skinny boys with big dicks: it's a thing.

Yep.

In Which We Bake Off

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In Which We Bake

Quit bragging.

 My dear friend drumstick had his 50th birthday this last weekend.  50!  Can you imagine?  What a baby.  I told his wife, Hotfoot, that I'd make a cake for his birthday because earlier this summer he had said how much he liked my streusel cake.  Hotfoot said that was a great idea and then asked if I could possibly make two because they were going to have a big party and one cake might not be enough.  If anyone else had come up with that idea, I would have said, "Oh you know what? No." But I love them both as if they were my own poorly behaved, not very bright children so I agreed.

Both drumstick and Secret Agent Fred had told me their idea of the definitive birthday cake is chocolate with "white icing." They agreed when I asked them if they maybe were referring to "vanilla" since apparently that's too exotic for either of their tiny little brains.  

Everybody at the party laid into both cakes like some kind of pastry locusts.  I didn't get any of the streusel and only a couple of bites of the chocolate.  I guess such enthusiasm is gratifying, but I wouldn't have minded getting an entire piece.  Also gratifying was two of the guests asking me for the recipe.  Could there be any more flattering response?

Anyway, couple of nights ago I decided to recreate the chocolate cake so I could have as much as I wanted.  Naturally, It did not turn out as well as the party version; the cake is delicious, but for some reason,  the icing refused to cooperate.  It tastes okay but it's a sticky, slaggy mess at the best of times and this time it refused to come together and instead turned into sort of a tasty glue.  

Not pretty, but delicious.

Boys are who might be delicious, they certainly are pretty:

Cute and goofy, what an unbeatable combo.

The meaty appeal of Paulo Victor Melo.

Jett Way was in our last post, but I find him just so darn irresistible. And why is "irresistible" spelled that way anyway?

Speaking of frequent flyers in the mrpeenee photo selection, Marbys Negretti.

Lanky

An absolute landscape of pussy.

Beefiness may not be next to godliness, but it is somewhere close by.

The beach is closed for the season.  Sigh.

Inked up and ready to go.