It’s been raining here in Arizona all week. Yesterday and this morning have been especially harsh; flooding, high winds, closed airports, several feet of snow up north, (plus a leaking roof for me!) – just crazy stuff for our dry desert state! This weather makes me want to bake and the chilliness and dark skies make pumpkin and spices seem like the perfect thing to pop in the oven.  I was planning to make a regular Bundt cake, but while digging through the cake pans, I found my mini-rose shaped Bundt pan. These pretty little cuties bring a little warmth and sunshine to an otherwise cold and rainy day.

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we're friends and we're neighbors! Lori, Ronnie, Amy, and me

Before you even look at this recipe, disclaimers all around! This is not an original recipe, this amazing cake was inspired by a recipe in the December 2007 issue of Bon Appétit. Since it just was not expensive, time-consuming, or impressive enough already; I added in the toppings of vanilla pastry cream, whipped cream and fresh berries! Want to know what is really crazy– I made this cake 5 times! I needed to make a total of four cakes for two separate cooking classes that I taught back in December (four cakes so I would have the various stages of the cake for each class). I used two of those cakes to actually serve at the classes, two as prizes for students who visited my blog, and finally the fifth one was for my dear friend, Ronnie’s, birthday. Unfortunately, the pictures do not show the cake with its toppings because I was too tired, broke, overbooked, and overworked to put those on Ronnie’s cake.  Although, even without the extra work and calories of the toppings,  it is truly a showstopper and undeniably delicious too!

Ronnie not only got gypped by not getting the cake toppings, but also was ripped-off on my blog, when I didn’t even mention that it was her birthday! You see, her birthday is December 23, so I’m sure that all her life, she’s felt slighted in the birthday department -always being upstaged by Christmas, and here I did it to her again. Sorry, Ronnie, I love you and dedicate today’s blog to you! xoxo

Consider making this cake for the next big birthday in your house or maybe even for Valentine’s Day, as long as there are at least a dozen of you celebrating together (kinky!) because, boy is this thing rich!

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Lemon Curd Lemon Roll - getting ready for the trip down to Tucson

December 1, 1987 – one of the happiest days of my life! The day my gorgeous daughter, Marissa Lynn, was born. We celebrated as a family on Sunday going to brunch at The Phoenician here in Scottsdale, surprising here with a gift she’s always talked about – a skydiving gift certificate. I will be jumping with her, and will post about it when the day comes, so stay tuned.

This is one of Marissa’s favorite cakes. I was going to ship it overnight, but then found out that Marissa’s darling roommate, Paige, wasn’t heading out to Tucson until Monday afternoon, thank you for the delivery service Paige!

Happy Birthday baby girl. Hope you enjoy the cake with Alberto, Kaley, Petra, Paige, Kelsey, Lindsey, Astrid, Billy, Ryan, Blake, Isaac, and whoever else is with you today. I love and miss you!

Marissa with her brother, Connor, at her birthday brunch

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Now that’s one of those jingles that just gets stuck in your brain and won’t go away – “because, sometimes you feel like and nut, sometimes you don’t!!!”  Almond Joy candy bars are my absolute favorite, OK well, those and Kit Kat bars (“gimme a break, gimme a break, break me off…”  Alright, enough already!).

So with Halloween a few days behind us, why am I still craving an Almond Joy, even though I did have a couple of the minis? I need to bake a batch of cookies for a charity donation, and since I can’t stop thinking about Almond Joy, I’ve come up with this recipe to recreate that wonderful taste blend of chocolate, coconut, and almonds. It honestly turned out to more the consistency of cake then cookie, but still a tasty treat.

The filling layer includes cream of coconut, which is a thick and sweet concoction made from coconut milk and sugar and is found in liquor stores or in the liquor section of the grocery store. Although it is sometimes used in baking it is most commonly used in mixed drinks such as Pina Coladas, so look for it near the mixers and such.
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I had a lovely birthday, thank-you for all your sweet birthday wishes.  My wonderful friends, Ronnie, Amy and Lori took me to the Queen Creek Olive Mill for lunch; it was a gorgeous afteroon that we spend under the olive trees enjoying wine, antipasto, and sandwiches. Afterwards, we headed off to the Pork Shop and unfortunately, we discovered that they are closed on Mondays and Tuesdays, so no amazing bacon, sausages or chorizo for us to take home….next time we’ll remember that! For my birthday dinner, Dave took me to Prado at the InterContinental Montelucia Resort and Spa where we shared a bottle of wine and Paella with mussels, clams and scallops. It was tasty, but I have to say my paella is really much better; I include sausage, chicken, and shrimp plus peas.  I’ll have to make it next time the kids come home and post the recipe.  Until then, we have Halloween to contend with, so here is a fun Spider-Web cake that is fun for kids but has an adult taste, with the addition of Espresso in the frosting.  You will find the Medaglia D’Oro instant espresso powder at any Italian Deli or locally at A.J.’s or on the web at this link. I use it often in baking and once you try it you will too, so invest in a jar now and I promise I’ll be posting more recipes using it in the future.  I am working tonight, and certainly don’t need to have a whole cake around the house, so I’ll be dropping it off at our monthly neighborhood Bunko night for the ladies to enjoy.

For the 7-minute frosting, or anytime you are beating egg whites, be sure the bowl and the beaters are completely clean and free of any grease.  The egg whites will not beat up and increase in volume with even a trace amount of fat, such as from the egg yolk, present.  Also, eggs separate much easier when the are cold, straight from the refrigerator, but they whip up best when they are at room temperature, so separate them a little bit ahead of time. Finally, ever wonder what my kitchen looks like after I’m done cooking and taking all these pictures and ready to put up a new post? You’ll see at the bottom of this recipe – scary indeed!
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HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAVE!!!

Today is my husband’s birthday. Carrot Cake is a family favorite and it is oh so pretty. It doesn’t make much sense to make a big old layer cake with only two of us here, so I’m taking it to his office this afternoon to celebrate there.

Whenever you’re working with a recipe that calls for dry ingredients to be added to wet ingredients, it makes for easier clean-up to measure the dry ingredients onto waxed paper or foil instead of in a bowl.  It’s easier to fold the paper or foil in half and pour it in this way than it is to pour from a bowl. Plus you can reuse the paper or foil for this purpose over and over again.

Be very careful when toasting the coconut used to decorate the cake. It takes a while to go from white to a nice toasted brown but then goes from that nice brown to burnt, smelly, black and ruined very quickly!

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