Baking Machine

There's nothing like being without a kitchen for a while to make you appreciate cooking for yourself, and over the past week I've made lasagna, welsh cakes, soup and the following extra special treats...

I had some friends round for brunch over the weekend, for which I attempted Challah bread, a fantastic Jewish egg bread that makes really nice french toast. The Smitten Kitchen recipe makes 2 loaves, so I made one large one for the french toast, one small one for myself, and then used the rest of the dough to make cinnamon buns, as I'm on a never ending quest for the best cinnamon buns in the world! I think the challah dough is actually the top contender, so I'm going to make it again and post step by step photos next time.

We also celebrated a friend's birthday on Monday, and I took advantage of our peanut-allergic friend's absence to make these: chocolate peanut butter mini-cakes. These were adapted from another Smitten Kitchen recipe (I love that blog!), but instead of making the triple layer cake I made a dozen small cupcakes, trimmed the tops to make them flat and then sandwiched them around the peanut butter cream cheese frosting. It worked out really well! And because the cake was rather rich, it ended up being the perfect amount - I wouldn't have wanted any more in one serving.

Up next, baking a cake for the retirement party of our department secretary...I still haven't decided what to make, but I'm debating at the moment between a Russian Honey Cake and a Honey and Lime cake...