Two things, first off a BIG thank you to any and all who donated this is my last post where it is mentioned for a year. I learned this week that while demographically speaking while I don’t have that many men (mostly ex-boyfriends) who read the blog, a large percentage of them donated to me. As well as college students which is a big deal as they are giving up pizza and beer money there. So thank you, thank you, thank you.

Second, thanks for the encouragement with me and MDP. I can say that my favorite part about coming out so to speak is that I no longer have former students giving me advice such as “show some more boob Ms. G (my maiden name) that’s what works for me”. Though now we have moved onto “yeaaaa, get some Ms. G” so I’ll be honest in saying, not sure which one is worse. I’ll mull it over and let you know.

We got random snow this week and that always makes me want to bake with yeast thanks to my mom always doing that when we were kids. Except it’s pretty much the worst time to as everything takes twice as long to rise because of the cold. The first batch I made at night and would have been great right up until the point where I forgot to put it in the fridge. So I woke up to a little fermenting blob running down the sides of my bowl and dryer…laundry room is the warmest room in the apartment. After some colorful words I cleaned it up and decided that I was going to make dough that would take less time.

So back to the drawing board. Found one. It sat and sat and sat and never rose. I still don’t know what happened exactly. To say I was cranky was putting it mildly. So again, after some colorful words (if my dog could talk number one I would have a crap ton of money and number two her first words probably would have been the f-bomb ) I decided to try one more time.

I was hoping for third times a charm and that’s how it turned out. I had an idea after watching Guy eat some Baklava on Triple D that I wanted to make cinnamon roll like buns but instead use Baklava filling…one of my better ideas in a while. Now, I’m pretty sure these are horrific for you calorie-wise but I was a good girl and only ate one…every four hours, you know, like medication.

Of course if you are a Baklava purist these are not for you, but if you like the flavor of Baklava you will sooo enjoy these. I thought about making more of a honey glaze but decided just to drizzle honey over it instead.

Baklava Buns

½ batch sweet dough (brioche is nice), I used this one
2 cups unsalted pecans
1 tsp. cinnamon
3 TBSP granulated sugar
2 TBSP unsalted butter, softened

Spray an 8-x-8-inch baking pan with baking spray and set aside. I used an 8-inch spring form pan as my other pan was dirty.

Prepare you dough according to recipe directions. My dough had to be refrigerated overnight then brought to room temperature, so keep that in mind if you think you are going to just whip these out.

Using a food processor add the nuts and cinnamon and pulse until you get a fine crumb, don’t go too far or you will get nut butter and you don’t want that. Set aside.

Roll out your dough as if you were making cinnamon rolls, so about a 9-x-12 inch rectangle. Spread butter across the dough leaving a 1 ½ inch boarder on the far edge. Sprinkle sugar evenly over butter.

Sprinkle nut mixture evenly over sugared butter.

Starting at the side of the rectangle closest to you, roll the dough tightly. Pinch the sea well to seal the flap. Roll the log back and forth a few times to seal the layers. Gently stretch the log with your hands.

Cut log into nine equal pieces and place into prepared pan cut side up, trying your best to space evenly.

Let rise for about an hour, or until they have doubled in size.

Bake at 350F for 30-35 minutes (you might need to tent yours with foil so they don’t get too dark).
Serve with honey.

So while I do get lovely email asking about my sex life, the number one question that come via email is do you have an easier way to print your recipes? And before the answer was always no. The other question is do you have a newsletter I can subscribe to? That answer remains no. I seriously have enough trouble figuring out what to put on this blog let alone come up with a newsletter, which would be called Baking from a Crappy Apartment Kitchen. Which is what I would like the title of my Food Network show to be.

But in all seriousness you will all be excited to learn that thanks to RECIpage you can now print my recipes. Well right now 22 of them. But eventually all of them once the arm is feeling better to sit at a computer and put them all in. And you can Pin them…there’s a button. You can Tweet them…there’s a button. And you can Facebook them…there’s a button. Lots of options (email, text!). But the most important being the ability to print them.

If you look on the top right hand side of my blog where there are words you will see one that says Recipage. If you click on that it will take you to a page that has my recipes so far this year and the ones from December. Like I said, eventually I hope to have all six and a half years of recipes in there.

So I hope this makes you the reader a little more happy…I aim to please. Well not really. Well okay, kind of. Speaking of pleasing, almost everyone I know loves a red velvet cupcake. Which are popular around Valentine’s Day which (FYI men) is coming up soon (less than a month). These have a little twist with a White Russian Cream Cheese Frosting added to it…so not kid friendly, but can be made kid friendly.

Red Velvet Cupcakes with White Russian Cream Cheese Frosting

Red Velvet Cupcakes:
2 1/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 cups granulated sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 eggs
1 cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon distilled white vinegar
1 cup vegetable oil
2 tablespoons (1 ounce) red food coloring
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

White Russian Cream Cheese Frosting

1 (8-ounce) package cream cheese, softened to room temperature
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
4 cups (about a 1-pound package) powdered sugar
2 TBSP Kahlua
2 TBSP vanilla vodka
Cream to thin

For the cupcakes:

Position a rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line a 12-cup muffin pan with paper liners and set aside.

In a bowl of an electric mixer set on medium speed, lightly beat the eggs.

Add the buttermilk, vinegar, oil, food coloring and vanilla, beating until well-combined.

Slowly add the dry ingredients, mixing until combined. Pour the batter into the prepared muffin cups, filling each cup about 2/3 full.

Bake for 25 to 35 minutes, or until a wooden skewer inserted near the center of a cupcake comes out clean.

Remove the muffin pan from the oven and cool on a wire rack for 10 minutes. Turn the cupcakes out of the tin, and place them on the wire rack to cool completely.

White Russian Cream Cheese Frosting
1 (8-ounce) package cream cheese, softened to room temperature
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
4 cups (about a 1-pound package) confectioners’ sugar
2 TBSP Kahlua
2 TBSP vanilla vodka
Cream to thin

In a stand mixer with a paddle attachment on medium-high speed, cream the cream cheese and butter.

Reduce the speed to low, and gradually beat in the powdered sugar, until the mixture is fluffy.

Beat in the Kahlua and vodka. Thin with cream if need be.

Adapted from The Greyston Bakery Cookbook by Sara Kate Gillingham-Ryan

I’m not totally sure how it started but someone suggested I run for President. I said no thanks that I had too many skeletons and it wasn’t a very fun job anyway. Then someone else piped up that I should just run for Congress then, as they are allowed to have skeletons. We had some lovely slogans all centered around my joke that I stay larger so people can see me better.

We had things like “there’s more of me to love thanks to bacon” and “vote for Peabody I have more cushin’ for pushin’”. That last one coming from my bff in California who hates overly skinny women.

To ensure I keep up with my figure to run for Congress I best figure out how to eat more bacon in my everyday life. We were discussing on my Facebook page how restaurants and recipes don’t call for enough bacon. You will notice this recipe calls for a pound. You can use more or less but I didn’t want to skimp after we just had a discussion about it.

These are a diet killer in every way possible. In the words of people I was sharing this with “why can’t I stop eating this?”. The answer is because I’m evil. And a genius. And an evil genius. Moderation doesn’t really exist with these unless you eat this with a lot of people. Then it becomes a death match to get the last pieces.

Maple Bacon Monkey Bread

About 1 cup brown sugar
2 cans (16.3 oz each) Pillsbury® Grands!® Homestyle refrigerated buttermilk biscuits (or any fridge biscuit)
About 1 ½ cups pure maple syrup

1 pound center cut bacon, fried, toweled for oil, and chopped into pieces

1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
3 TBSP maple syrup
3/4cup butter , melted

Heat oven to 350°F.

Lightly grease 12-cup fluted tube pan with cooking spray.

In a shallow bowl add 1 cup brown sugar (you might need more). In another shallow bowl, add maple syrup.

Separate dough into 16 biscuits; cut each into quarters.

Dip each piece into maple syrup and then into brown sugar.

Arrange in pan, adding bacon among the biscuit pieces.

In small bowl, mix brown sugar, 3 TBSP maple syrup, and butter; pour over biscuit pieces.

Bake 28 to 32 minutes or until golden brown and no longer doughy in center (this is hard to tell).

Cool in pan 10 minutes. Turn upside down onto serving plate; pull apart to serve. Serve warm.

Adapted from Pilsbury

When I went a few years ago to a Food Blogger Conference I was in awe of how many people told me I was just like I was on my blog. This didn’t make any sense to me as of course I was like how I was on my blog, it’s my blog. Until I started to mingle with other people. People who’s blogs I read and realized that many of them in real life are much quieter in person and reserved compared to their blogs. In a way their blog is their way of letting out their inner extrovert. This was facsinating to me but also a good lesson. It’s a good lesson to remember if you follow me on Pinterest.

Let’s review a few emails involving Pinterest. I’m just posting this one but I can assure you that this question gets asked A LOT:

“This comes from a place of love even if it’s nosey. I follow you on Pinterest and you pin bunches and bunches of wedding dresses, are you getting married? Oh please say yes, I would love for you to be getting married and be happy.”

First off, I do realize that when I get email like this or others inquiring about if I am getting any that you guys just want me to be happy. Yes, I pin a lot of wedding dresses. My friend S is getting married at the end of September in a place where it will still be warmish. She wanted help with finding a short wedding dress or highly detailed dresses and we figured pinning was the easiest way to show dresses off. But here is the thing with wedding dresses…OMG are they gorgeous. I am a girlie girl. I love me some gorgeous dresses, wedding or not. Just because I post wedding dresses doesn’t mean I am getting married. No one asked if I lost a ton of weight and plan on wearing bikinis all summer long because I have a bunch of bikinis on there….just think they are cute. Or if I won the lottery to pay for the $4000 designer coat I pinned on there. Oh and for the record…you don’t have to be married to be happy.

“I started following you on Pinsterst and this will sound racist but hopefully not too bad as I am Asian myself, but are you secretly Asian?”

Hmmm, no not secretly Asian but this did amuse me greatly. Maybe because I post a lot of Hello Kitty stuff? That could also mean I am secretly 5 years old. Which I hope I’m not because I don’t really want to go through high school and junior high again.

“How can you stand to be on Pinterest and see all that yummy food? I don’t have the will power for that.”

The yummy food is one of the main reasons I go there to get inspired (like the banana bread in this post). Also I spend a lot of time reading other people’s inspirational quotes and posting workouts to get Carrie Underwood’s legs and other stuff they will never do…so I burn calories that way. So it all evens out. Seriously though people…want to be fit? For every one of those I’m not saying goodbye to my fat because it’s not coming back or 2011 is that last year I am fat pins…do 100 jumping jacks.

Anyway this bread does come from Pinterest. I was a little nervous about it at first because it didn’t seem to have as much flour but it was crazy good and very, very banana filled.

Cinnamon Swirl Banana Bread

For the bread:
3-4 over-ripe bananas, mashed
1/3 cup unsalted butter, melted
1 cup granulated sugar
1 egg, beaten
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp baking soda
dash of salt
1 1/2 cups flour
For the swirl:
1/3 cup sugar
1 TBSP cinnamon
Preheat oven to 350. Butter and flour a loaf pan (9-x-5). Just keep a close eye on it in the oven, and adjust the time as needed.
Mix bananas, butter, sugar, egg, and vanilla together. sprinkle baking soda and salt around on top of the banana mixture. Then gently stir in flour. Be careful not to over-mix!
In a small dish, mix together the 1/3 cup sugar and 1 TBSP cinnamon.
Add 1/2 of the batter to the loaf pan and then sprinkle half, or a little more than half of the cinnamon-sugar mixture all over the batter in the pan. Add the rest of the batter, and then sprinkle the leftover cinnamon-sugar on top.
Bake for 50-60 minutes, but remember, if you’re using a different-sized loaf pan, be careful and keep a close eyeball on it!

Recipe from SandwichHoss