Pumpkin Bundt Cake

Pumpkin Bundt Cake with Cinnamon Glaze

Chocolate Birthday Cake

Chocolate Buttercream Frosting
A Baked By Jen Original
Makes enough to frost a 2-layer 8-inch cake

3 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature
6 cups powdered sugar
1/2 cup cocoa powder
2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1-2 tablespoons milk

Beat butter in mixer on low to medium speeds until creamy.

Sift into the bowl powdered sugar and cocoa powder.

Resume mixing at low to medium speeds, stoping to scrape down the bowl occasionally, until incorporated.

Stir in vanilla extract.

Stir in enough milk until desired consistency is reached.

Cheddar Jalapeno Scones

Cheddar Jalapeno Scones

Recipe from The Pioneer Woman

Makes 32 servings

Ingredients:

3 1/12 cups all purpose flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

12 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into small cubes

1/3 pound sharp cheddar cheese, cut into small cubes or shredded (recommended)

1/2 cup jarred jalapeño slices

1/2 cup heavy cream

1/2 cup milk

2 whole eggs, reserve one for brushing on unbaked scones

1-2 tablespoons jalapeño juice (from the jar), optional

Directions:

Whisk together, in a medium bowl, all the dry ingredients.

Using a fork or a pastry cutter, cut the butter into the dry ingredients.

Stir in the jalapeños and cheddar cheese.

Stir together the wet ingredients, including the one egg and jalapeño juice, if using in a separate bowl (I like using my 2-cup pyrex cup). Add the milk mixture to the dough mix, stirring together slowly.

Roll out the mixture onto a floured flat surface, flatten and shape into a neat rectangle using hands, rolling pin, and/or pastry cutter.

Cut the rectangle into squares and then cut the squares into triangles.  Lay out the triangles onto a silicone mat or parchment lined baking tray.  Beat the reserved egg and brush each scone with the egg wash.

Bake at 400F degrees for 14-17 minutes until lightly browned.  Cool on tray and serve warm or at room temperature.

Best eaten day.  Can be stored in an air tight container for 3-5 days.  To reheat, warm in the oven for 5 minutes at 375F degrees; do not microwave scones, if possible.

Peach and Raspberry Tart

Peach and Raspberry Tart from Martha Stewart's Pies and Tarts

Jalapeno Cheesy Cornbread

Step 1

Step 2

Step 3

Feels like summer is officially here in the Bay Area with temperatures reaching the 80s this past weekend.  In my household, we grill year around whenever the weather permits but we definitely take full advantage during the summer months.  One of my favorite side dishes is cornbread.  I fancied up the basic Jiffy cornbread recipe by making it both spicy and cheesy.  It's a huge crowd pleaser around here.  What are your summer grilling must makes?

Jalapeño Cheesy Cornbread
A Baked by Jen Original
Makes 16 2-inch squares

Ingredients:
1 pkg Jiffy corn muffin mix
1 egg
1/3 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup of frozen/canned corn kernels
1-2 jalapenos, deseeded and chopped
1/2 cup of shredded cheddar cheese

Directions:
Preheat oven to 425 degrees.  Combine all the ingredients in a medium size bowl.  Blend well (batter will be lumpy).  Pour into an 8 in square pan lined with foil.  Bake for 10-15 mins.

Chocolate Cream Pie

Half way through making this cake, I realized I made almost the exact same thing for my sister's boyfriend just a year ago.  This time around, I didn't include the flourless chocolate cake layer and I made an oreo whip cream layer.  This was a lot less labor intensive to make yet just as delicious and rich.

Recipes: Chocolate cookies crust was from Martha's Stewart Pie and Tarts, chocolate pudding was from Baked Explorations, and whipped cream frosting was adapted from Junior's Cheesecake cookbook.

Orange Sherbet

My cousin and sister are the biggest orange sherbet fans I know.  For my cousin's birthday, I wanted to surprise him with a tub of homemade sherbet which I saved some to share with my sister as well.  I found a simple recipe from Cook's Illustrated Baking Book that even blew my mind on how good it turned out.  It tasted just like an orange creamsicle.  I already have multiple requests to make more soon.

Irish Cream Brownies

I had this recipe for Irish Cream Brownies from Brandy's Baking bookmarked for as long as I can remember.  I finally had a chance to make them on honor of St Patrick's day!  I followed her recipe for the Irish Cream (1/2 portion) as is but I did use my own go to brownie recipe.  I would double my own brownie recipe next time as there wasn't enough to actually cover the irish cream batter.  I ended up doing a swirl to cover up the error.

If you are looking for additional inspiration, I featured a St Patrick's day roundup here and later updated the Guinness cupcake here.

From The Archives

Was reorganizing my photos this weekend and found a few items that I baked and photographed but never shared here for some reason.  Enjoy!

Brookies with nuts made from one of my favorite chocolate chip cookie recipes and my go to brownie recipe.

Chocolate chip cookies (possibly) from All Recipes that are big, fat, and chewy.

Cornbread made from scratch from Cook's Illustrated.

Chocolate almond toffee from David Lebovitz which was delicious alone and even better in ice cream.

Funfetti Cake

Funfetti cake (white cake with sprinkles) for my sister's birthday. 

Funfetti Cake
adapted from King Arthur Flour
Makes 1 2 layer 8 inch cake

Ingredients

2 3/4 cups cake flour
1 2/3 cups sugar
1 Tablespoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup (12 tablespoons) unsalted butter, softened
4 large eggs whites plus 1 whole large egg
1 cup full-fat vanilla yogurt or 1 cup whole milk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 teaspoon almond extract
1/4 cup to 1/2 cup of rainbow jimmies (sprinkles)

Directions

Preheat oven to 350F. Prepare 2 8-inch round cake pans by lining them with parchment paper and greasing the paper.

Mix all of the dry ingredients together in a large mixing bowl. Add the softened butter, 1 tablespoon at a time. Once butter is all incorporated, add the eggs, one at a time. Scrape down the bowl after the addition of each egg.

In a 2 cup measuring cup, stir together all the wet ingredients. Add the mixture in, 1/3 at a time, to the batter; scraping down the bowl after each addition.

Stir in the sprinkles by hand until fully incorporated. Do not over stir as this will cause excessive color bleeding into the batter.

Poor batter into the prepared pans. Scatter a few more sprinkles on the surface. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean.

Remove cake from pans and let cool completely on the racks. Frost as desired.

Strawberry Buttercream Ruffle Cake

White cake and cupcakes with strawberry frosting for a friend's football themed baby shower.

Caramel Topped Flan

This caramel topped flan is only my second recipe out of  Dorie Greenspan's popular bake book.  The first recipe I tried was the rightfully named Perfect Party Cake.  After all the rave reviews,  I'm definitely moving this book up my repertoire.

Quick tip, do not despair upon seeing how much (err, how little) caramel there is to cover the bottom of the pan.  As you can see in my picture, there was a nice amount of the sauce after it was cooled and flipped over.  If you're wondering, to make it even more delicious, I added vanilla bean paste instead of vanilla extract in the recipe.