August Bakin' Friends - Chocolate Shot Oatmeal Cookies

This month, I decided to join the Bakin' Friends group from the lovely Stephanie of Steph's Bite by Bite. Every month, she pairs interested persons with each other and then they bake something for their new friend using a secret ingredient! This month our secret ingredient was oatmeal, which for me meant lots of possibilities and a good case of decision paralysis!

I was paired up with Katie from Sweetness Hunter and I spent a good week anxiously awaiting her package of baked goods! Thankfully, she ended my torment by letting me know when she had shipped it and when I should receive it!

Culinary Orientation and Magical Peanut Butter Cookies

Today was the culinary program orientation, which in my mind was going to be a magical experience, full of wonder and amazement. I left work early, thinking I would have spare time to wander around and find my way to the correct room.

Instead, I got there 10 minutes before the start. No big deal - still plenty of time! I pulled up to the staff parking gate, entered the code...nothing. "Hmm, maybe the star sign at the beginning will work!" Nope, nada. "Well maybe they said sometimes it's the pound sign." Access...denied. So I sat digging through my purse, desperately trying to figure out where my work badge disappeared to, because I own not one, but two of them! Then, the unthinkable... someone pulled up behind me!

Sunken Treasure Cake with Vanilla Glaze

In my family, my mother was known as the baker. Growing up, I remember her spending hours making wedding cakes, themed birthday cakes, and candies. Much of it I don't recall as I was fairly young, but I do remember certain baked goods and candies that made regular appearances or were requested fairly often. One of those frequent requests just happened to be Sunken Treasure Cake. It's a devil's food cake with crushed up Heath bars and a simple vanilla glaze on top. While baking, the candy pieces sink to the bottom of the cake, causing the chocolate coating to melt and moisten the cake and the toffee to change texture. Instead of the normal crunch a Heath bar has, the toffee slightly softens from the melted chocolate so that the outside is gooey but the middle of the larger chunks is still a little crunchy.

Banana Cake with Vanilla Cream Cheese Frosting

Eating healthier means we always have bananas in my house, which sometimes means they get a bit overly ripe before we've had a chance to eat them. I'm one of those people who spends too much at the grocery store on fruit and veggies, thinking we'll eat them much faster than we sometimes do. And usually, this ends in such tragedies as ripe bananas being thrown away. (*gasp* I know! What am I thinking?!) Not this time though! I had recently seen a recipe for banana cake, which oddly made me cringe. If I've ever had banana cake in my life, I don't recall it. Banana bread: absolutely! But something about banana cake made me wonder if it could really be all that good. Maybe I was imaging flavored box cakes mixes - you know, that rarely taste as good as you imagine.