TWD--All in One Holiday Bundt Cake

This week, I present to you Dorie's All in One Holiday Bundt Cake. The recipe was chosen by Brit of The Nitty Britty for the week of November 24th. However, since November is a busy time, the bakers from TWD have been given the flexibility to bake the recipes in what ever order works best for them. So, even though this recipe has been chosen for Thanksgiving week, I am posting about it now. And I am here to tell you...Make this cake! It could be for Thanksgiving or any day of the week!


It doesn't have to be for dessert on Turkey Day, though it would look lovely on the dessert table. Studded with cranberries and nuts ( I used walnuts) and full of pumpkin and spices, it's great anytime and it's the picture of fall.


I baked this at the very beginning of the month and although the presentation of a bundt is lovely, I wanted an easier way to share the wealth. I was able to get 4 mini loaves and 3 mini bundts out of the recipe. I shared some with my sister and stuck the remaining little cakes in the freezer, for Thanksgiving, of course!


It smelled heavenly as it baked in the oven and when I sliced one of my little loaves to taste it, what a delicious surprise. It was so tender and moist, and I think I was sort of expecting it to be a bit more on the heavy side. I'm so glad I was wrong.


Thanks, Brit for a perfect choice for the month. You can find the recipe on Brit's blog, since she was wise and posted it early! Be sure to stop in next week for Dorie's Sugar Topped Molasses Spice Cookies. That's my pick!

CEiMB--Linguine with Shrimp & Vegetables

Oh, Farah!! What a delicious choice this recipe was.

I'm getting ahead of myself. This weeks CEiMB recipe was chosen by the lovely Farah from the blog Confessions of a Novice Baker. The picture in the book looks pretty delicious, but the taste of this dish is divine.

Ellie does it again. This will be a definite repeater in our house, thanks to Ellie and Farah! Other than extra clove of garlic and using fettuccine instead of linguine, I followed the recipe exactly.


My apologies for the bad picture. With the time change, I am having a difficult time getting nice pictures of dinner. There's just not enough light or time. Anyway, it was delicious!

If you would like the recipe, you should be able to find it on Farah's blog or you can click on the link below.

Linguine with Shrimp & Vegetables

TWD--Cran Apple Crisps

There were a lot of yummy recipes chosen this month. I even got to chose one myself! Thanks to Laurie, the organizer of TWD, we were given the opportunity to bake out of order for the month because of Thanksgiving. I decided to make Dorie's Cran-Apple Crisps this week, which were chosen by Em of The Repressed Pastry Chef.

I made 1/2 the recipe and some how ended up with only 3 ramekins instead of the 4 I thought I would get. Guess my ramekins are bigger than I had expected.


Anyway, with daylight running out, I baked these up and my house smelled INCREDIBLE during that process. As soon as they came out of the oven, I grabbed one and ran outside to catch the last of the natural light for a picture.


The verdict? I didn't eat one yet, but Marc is like putty in my hands when I make him Apple Crisp. He really enjoyed this, with some vanilla ice cream, of course! Thanks, Em for a pretty easy, awesome smelling dessert! Please go to The Repressed Pastry Chef for the recipe.

Dorie's Coconut Tea Cake with Lemon

In honor of Mary, The Food Librarian, I am posting a bundt cake. In all honesty, I've had these pictures laying around since late August and I have just been too lazy to write a post. But now seems like the perfect time to share this post. I'm sure many of you know that Mary is hosting 30 days of Bundt cakes over at her blog. Yes, Mary Likes Big Bundts...don't we all?? I mean, really.


Anyhoo...I made this cake late in the summer and it was delicious. I loved the added lemon with the coconut. Unfortunately, I'm not as crafty with the cakes as Mary is. Therefore, I didn't get a shot of my whole cake out of the pan. I do recall that I cut the cake in half and shared with my favorite librarians, though!


Seriously, I had a tough time keeping my hands off this one.

Dorie has many options for playing around with this cake, and I would love to try a few more and the lemon again, as well. So yummy!

In honor of Dorie and TWD, I've decided not to post the recipe. But I think you can find it out there.

Go bake a Bundt!

CEiMB--Pumpkin Pie Muffins

Yum! This Autumn treat was chosen by Oddball Oven Mitt for our weekly installment of Craving Ellie in My Belly.


Pumpkin Pie Muffins. The recipe made enough for me to get a single mini loaf as well as my dozen muffins. I froze all of the muffins to enjoy at my leisure and we ate the mini loaf right away. I had to have something to write about!



I really like that the recipe has whole wheat flour as well as all purpose flour, but since this is Ellie, I'm not surprised. I didn't have any pumpkin seeds, so I skipped them. The molasses and all of the spices were just wonderful in the recipe. Of course, I tasted the batter after getting my pans loaded up and was pretty surprised at how much it actually tasted like a pumpkin pie.


It probably goes without saying that these would be AMAZING with some cream cheese frosting, but that would taking away a lot of the healthy aspect, wouldn't it? Oh, but it would so good!

Please check out Oddball Oven Mitt for the recipe or click here.

TWD--No Cherry Fudge Brownie Torte For Me...

My apologies to April of Short & Rose for not baking along this week. I had every intention of making this recipe, because it sounds like a sumptuous one. Earlier in the month, several of my Twitter friends were talking about it and my mouth was watering. I decided I would do half a recipe just to try it.

But I know me and everyone in my house. I knew that Marc would have only a bite or two, and that the boys probably wouldn't want it since it doesn't at all resemble a Nilla wafer, and that I would be faced with a small torte, begging me to eat it.

After stepping on the scale several times this month and being greeted each time by a slightly higher number, I decided to sit this one out. That's when I realized that I have gained over 15 pounds since starting TWD! Yikes! Anyway, I've been having an on again/off again fling with Weight Watchers and I think it's time we became exclusive.

I'm not taking myself out of the baking loop, I'm just going to have get a little more selective, I guess. Or I'm really going to have to hunt down more people to take the goods off my hands!!

Anyway...since I have no Cherry Fudge Brownie Torte for you to drool over today, I leave you with these two pictures. By the way...these boys are in no way, shape or form excited about Halloween.


Please go to Short & Rose for this weeks TWD recipe.

Hello, Meatball...

This soup may very well be the hardest thing that I have ever tried to photograph. How do you make grayish looking meatballs and dark green Escarole sitting in chicken broth look as good as it tastes??

You don't. Well, at least I don't.

Good soup, though!

Italian Wedding Soup
Giada DeLaurentiis