Weekend Breakfasts

During the week I get to work about an hour and a half before I am "contracted" to be there.  I put that in quotes because if I showed up at my contracted time, I would have kids entering the classroom along with me. So as you can imagine weekday breakfast, like yours, are quick...typically instant oatmeal or toast.  On the weekends, I love to bake breakfast!

I do in fact mean bake not make.  I am not an egg eater (unless it's baked into something amazing!), nor do I care for bacon (I know, I know! You LOVE bacon!) or sausage.  So I usually end up baking something carb-filled and scrumptious!  I most often make pancakes or waffles. I could eat pancakes every day, but my husband prefers waffles.  I have fantastic recipes for both, that maybe I'll share on here!

The kitchen counter displayed some very ripe bananas this morning.  I hate to just throw bananas away, so I make banana bread or muffins...which are far from being good for you.  I recently found this pin for Banana Oatmeal Breakfast Muffins and figured they'd be a much healthier way to use up the bananas.

I followed the recipe almost exactly.  The recipe called for 2 Tbl. of flaxseed, which I did not have.  Flaxseed is used for a few different purposes- one of which is an egg substitute.  Since the recipe called for eggs, I knew it wasn't that.  Another purpose can be as substitute for oil or butter, and once again, this recipe had Greek yogurt, so I figured I could rule out that purpose.  I decided the flaxseed could have been for flavor, so I added a dash of cinnamon instead.  The tiny hint of cinnamon was fantastic!

My verdict: I'll definitely make these muffins again- I didn't feel guilty for eating two!

Birthday Cake

There's nothing better than dipping your finger (I am mean, a spoon...) into scrumptious buttercream frosting.  My husband even nags me to make the frosting long before the cupcakes (or cake) are ready for them.


Saturday I was baking a cake for my dear friend *of 16 years* birthday.  I didn't know what to make, but decided a more traditional cake would be best.  So I went for my yellow cake with chocolate buttercream.

My hands down favorite yellow cake recipe, that I've made came from King Arthur flour.  The recipe can be found here: Golden Vanilla Cake. Everytime I make this cake though, I am afraid that I have over baked it.  The outside feels dry, but then everytime I bite into a piece of this cake, I am so impressed with how moist it is.

For the frosting, I have made various chocolate buttercreams.  My favorite has been Georgetown Cupcake's recipe for it (Found in the book, The Cupcake Diaries).  This time though, I decided to search around for a different buttercream just because...well, maybe I am anxious to get to the 250 mark of Pinterest recipes I've tried. So anyway, I read a few recipes and decided upon Savory Sweet Life's posting of Chocolate Buttercream.

My thoughts?  It was an excellent consistency.  For my layered cake I made 1.5X of the recipe. The frosting had great flavor, but tasted more dark chocolatey than a traditonal chocolate buttercream.  Will I make it again? Probably, but I think I am set in my ways of favoring Georgetown Cupcake's chocolate buttercream.

Here's the final product- complete with a number sign I made with my Cricut.