petite white layer cake

the top layer sliding ever so slightly, this is a total mom cake. i'm pretty sure the first time i celebrated my birthday with a store bought cake was when i turned 19. it was the first year i spent my birthday away from my mother and her homemade cakes. my mom recently reminded me how much my sister and i begged for a store bought cake as kids - which while i don't remember this specifically, i'm not all that surprised that it happened - and then thanked her as adults for always making our cakes. to this day, my mom's layer cakes never look the best - always a little lopsided, one layer sliding off another - but no bakery cake can compare to the flavor of a homemade cake.

simple carrot cake with cream cheese frosting

i mentioned early this week that we hosted some friends with little ones for an easter egg hunt and brunch last saturday morning. this carrot cake was the first dish i knew would be on the menu as my mom has made it a handful of times for various birthdays, holidays, and saturdays. it's the perfect cake for a party - it's easy, coming together in basically one bowl and no fussy layers, delicious, fitting for easter and springtime, and i felt a little less guilty letting my toddler have a piece knowing there are carrots tucked inside. oh and i've yet to meet a person that doesn't like carrot cake.

apple butter crumb muffins

last month we took the boys apple picking. an hour and a couple meltdowns later, we left with about 30 pounds of apples. while a few were destined for other things, the overwhelming majority were processed into one of a few perfect foods - unsweetened apple sauce. i canned somewhere in the neighborhood of 25 pints, hopefully enough to last until next year. it's hard to keep this house in applesauce, with a toddler gobbling it up and his almost seven month old brother finally onto solid foods. 

midway through my applesauce making foray, i decided to sacrifice a few cups and turn it into apple butter. in our house, we enjoy jams and fruit butters a couple ways: slathered onto homemade scones, a top crackers spread with peanut butter, and mixed into muffins.

secret recipe club: mini cinnamon roll cakes

we are spending the holiday weekend camping with both boys - a two year old and four month old - for the first time. the intent was to make this cinnamon bread from sweet as sugar cookies to snack on or appease a grumpy two year old. after a disastrous first try - scroll down for the result - i turned the bread into mini bundt cakes and topped them with a cream cheese frosting. they taste like cinnamon rolls with about a quarter of the work. needless to say, all six were long gone before we left for our camping trip.

secret recipe club: meyer lemon iced raspberry yogurt cake & slow cooker chicken cacciatore

a couple weeks ago, a friend of mine mentioned making a blueberry lemon cake on facebook. after reading that and seeing the post, i couldn't get the thought of a meyer lemon layer cake out of my mind. the very next day i scoured claire k creation's blog for cake recipes. i bypassed - and pinned for later - this best ever carrot cake, this lemon tea cake, and this coffee cake for this greek yogurt & raspberry cake. topped with meyer lemon buttercream, it made two pregnant women - she 38 weeks, me 32 - very happy.

coconut lover's cake

i've had coconut layer cake on the short list of birthday cakes for a couple years now. when i was pregnant with baby winn - whose really a toddler now, so we'll just call him winn - the coconut craving hit me hard, and it's really never left. so why have i waited so long to make this cake? jason hates coconut. loathes it.

peppermint yule log

last year was the first and only year that i have hosted christmas. granted there were only four of us, including a six month old, but it was still the first time jason and i cooked christmas eve and christmas dinner at our house. while we decided early on to have ham for dinner, i became slightly obsessed with finding the perfect christmas dessert. my mother has made what we affectionately call chocolate log - chocolate sponge cake filled and covered with chocolate buttercream - for years, i have never made a rolled cake before. luckily i had been around more than once to help prepare the chocolate log and learned her trick to prevent any rolled cake from cracking. and while this is a bit late for your christmas gathering, it would be perfect for a new years eve party as it can easily serve a lot of people or your new years eve dinner.

secret recipe club: chocolate snack cake

i totally agree with holly at phemomenon - sometimes all i want is a simple piece of chocolate cake and all the microwave cake recipes out there aren't cutting it. so for this month's secret recipe club, her simple chocolate snack cake is just what i was looking for. in less than 30 minutes, i was digging into an iced piece of cake. i had some cream cheese frosting in the freezer that i defrosted, whipped, and added cocoa to make it chocolate cream cheese frosting. it was delicious and i'm sure this cake would be just as good with your favorite chocolate frosting. or even some powdered sugar in a pinch.

secret recipe club: bacon topped maple french toast cupcakes

this month's secret recipe club pick was obnoxiously easy for me. as soon as i saw these maple french toast and bacon cupcakes on food ramblings, i knew they were mine! ever since i made these pig out cookies - a peanut butter cookie with bacon and chocolate chips - jason has been asking for more baked goods with bacon included. it seems to be a universal food - i've never met a person that doesn't love bacon!

meyer lemon cupcakes with meyer lemon buttercream

it's been a while since i've made anything sweet. honestly, i think the back to back cakes in january had me sugared out. last week i picked up a bag of six meyer lemons in the store. two were already spoken for, leaving me with four. the perfect number to make these cupcakes. 

i love lemon desserts, almost as much as hubs, so it's no surprise these cupcakes are one of my favorites. ever. using meyer lemons makes the cakes not too sweet, not too tart. and the buttercream is the perfect finishing touch. so last week, while everyone else was watching beyonce sex it up, i was mixing up these cupcakes. definitely not a bad way to spend a sunday evening.

cherry vanilla cake

the last few years, my birthday cake has been a labor of love. two years ago, when i turned 29, it was all about pistachios and last year, for the big 3-0, it was all about salted caramel and chocolate. this year, it's cherry overload. 

i usually start thinking about my birthday cake, and narrowing it down to a couple recipes, around christmas and i have the recipe chosen by the time i return to work after new years. this year, i had a hard time deciding exactly what i wanted. the pistachio and chocolate masterpieces were both from the baked cookbooks. in hindsight, i should have stuck with one of them, but i wanted something different. something with fruit. if you love maraschino cherries, this cake is for you.

secret recipe club: scalloped ham & potato bake and andes mint cake

i am kicking off the new year with potatoes and leftover christmas ham doused in cheese sauce and a four layer chocolate cake filled with candy and covered in mint buttercream. what, this isn't what you had in mind after two months of "holiday" eating?!

i either had family staying with us or was staying with family from mid december to after the new year, so i was itching to spend some time in the kitchen. these choices from melissa's blog, i was born to cook, for this month's secret recipe club were perfect. not only were they easy, and delicious, melissa taught me to embrace scalloped potatoes. sorry mom (hi mom!), but scalloped potatoes are one of the few things you made that i just plain didn't like as a kid. since before we were married, jason has requested it whenever we have ham leftovers. this time i gave in to his request and am so glad i did! these potatoes were delicious. and would make a great addition to a potluck.

pumpkin spice bundt cake

i should make bundt cakes more often. they're easy to make, feed a lot of people, don't need any fancy styling to look good, and transport well. it doesn't hurt that i've never met one i didn't like. but i suppose that's true of all cakes, not just the bundt variety.

spiced pumpkin chocolate chip loaf

i wish i didn't procrastinate so much. the weekend before halloween we carved pumpkins with friends. that same satuday, we drove to my parents for my mom's halloween party & spent the night. both were planned weeks in advance. yet somehow, that saturday morning, i left myself way too many things to do: pack overnight bags for me & the baby, wash a load of diapers, buy pumpkins to carve, and make some kind of food to bring both to parties. this loaf cake fit the bill perfectly. i whipped it up in no time first thing in the morning, did laundry and packed bags while it baked, showered while it cooled, and since it makes two loaves, had the perfect amount for both parties. i plan to make christmas stockings this year. let's hope they're done in time.

white cupcakes with blueberry almond buttercream

we haven't "entertained" much since baby winn was born in june. not only do we not have the time, but our living room typically contains no less than four space hogging baby gadgets at a time (in current use: pack & play, bouncer, floor mat, and swing), which leaves little room for actual, adult conversation. which is why in mid-september jason declared we needed to have a party.

banana cake with chocolate cream cheese frosting

this is the first thing i baked after baby winn was born back in june. it was the week of july fourth, the baby was about a week and a half old, and i needed something to get me back in the swing of baking and some semblance of normalcy. and since my sister and her husband were on their way to meet the baby for a few days, i figured it would be a good time to bake a cake. this cake was perfect. perfectly light and moist. and the frosting is to die for. so much so that my sister emailed me asking for the recipe a couple weeks later.

black bottom peanut butter pie

this year i kept the peanut butter and chocolate theme going for jason's birthday with this peanut butter pie. way back in january, when i whipped up baked's sweet and salty cake to celebrate my own birthday, i was torn between that cake and a version of this pie. knowing chocolate and peanut butter is jason's all time favorite combination and that he's not really a fan of cakes and especially sweet buttercream, i shelved the pie until july. which is probably for the best anyway, since the day i made this, it was over ninety degrees out and definitely not a day i wanted to fire up the oven to bake a multi layer cake.

banana cupcakes with honey cinnamon buttercream

these are the best cupcakes jason has ever had. better than red velvet, butterfinger topped with ganache buttercream, brown sugar poundcakes with brown butter icing, dr. pepper cake, and the most shocking - better than classic chocolate with peanut butter icing. these banana cupcakes aren't just banana bread, dished out in individual portions topped with buttercream. they're soft and light, everything you would expect from a good cake, spiced up perfectly with cinnamon and nutmeg, and topped with one of my favorite buttercreams.

strawberry cupcakes with strawberry buttercream

the last couple weeks i was pregnant, i was on a cupcake kick. while other soon to be moms are sitting with their feet up (or is that an illusion, and we're all still working like crazy?!), i was baking cupcakes each week. and these definitely didn't disappoint. i love how the fresh berries cooked down and turned almost jam-like in the middle of the cakes, so each bite had some jammy goodness. they're a great way to use up some overly ripe berries.

and i found the perfect finish. ever since i made this white layer cake with blackberry buttercream - which is still one of my all time favorites - two summers ago, i've been looking for an excuse to make the buttercream with different berries. and this strawberry version is just as good - if not better - than the blackberry.

buttermilk skillet cake with strawberries

while june has a brand new meaning for us this year, it's still the start of fresh produce at the market and one of our all time favorites: strawberries! last year, i jazzed up mojitos with them, turned them into sorbet and ice cream, rolled puff pastry around them, transformed them into jam which went into cookies, and added them to lemon bars and cake. this year, i'm kicking off berry season with this simple buttermilk cake topped with sweetened berries cooked ever so slightly. it's perfect for summer barbecues and since it can be whipped up in less than an hour, last minute picnics.