New York Style Crumb Cake

My to bake list, a collection of ideas off the Internet, is growing out of control.  In addition, I have 3 new, now months old, cookbooks which I haven't made a single recipe out of yet.  It was clearly a sign that I was neglecting my oven.  So this week, I did two things.  One, I added my to bake list here to my blog to help move things along.  Two, I made a crumb cake out of the Baked Explorations cookbook which I received months ago for my birthday.

What I learned is that crumb cake is not interchangeable with coffee cake in New York.  A crumb cake does not contain cinnamon swirls nor nuts of any kind.  Those elements were not missed at all in this crumb cake.  I did reduce the "crumb" topping by half but the cake and the crumb topping still balanced each other out perfectly.

My Niece, The Future Baker

I can't believe that Cake4Kids.org's second annual CakeOff-4Kids event is already taking place next month!  I entered last year and won the best decorated category but this year, I wanted a chance to taste the 50 cakes by other volunteers.  However, my 10 year old niece will be entering the kids' 15 and under category.  In preparation for the event, she asked to come over and make a cake for her Dad's birthday party this past weekend.  She did an amazing job!  I was quite impressed with her piping skills.

Cake was Baking Illustrated's Yellow Layer Cake which is now a go to yellow cake recipe for me.  It wasn't too sweet and very fluffy.  She frosted the cake with the Hershey's Perfectly Chocolate Frosting.  The writing was done with melted candy melts.

Happy National Ice Cream Day!

In honor of National Ice Cream Day, I rounded up a few of my favorite ice cream recipes:

Mochi Ice Cream


Toasted Almond and Candied Cherry Ice Cream


Pralines and Cream Ice Cream

DIY Wedding Favors

Remember, how I made madeleines for my bridal shower favors a few months ago?  Well, I had the crazy idea to make my own wedding favors too! 5 batches of chocolate chip cookies and 3 double batches of brownies later, I had 150 wedding favors for my wedding this past weekend.  Couldn't have done it without the generous help of my sister, her boyfriend, and my now husband!

Brownie Meets Cookie Bars

Do these look familiar?  The last time I made these, the brownies were on the bottom and the cookies were on the top.  I decided to switch it up this time around. It made much more sense to have the crunchy cookie to hold the bars together.

I used my go to brownies recipe and my go to chocolate chip cookies.  I recommend not using a dark pan as it will make the cookies bake up faster than the brownies.  There's no need to bake the cookies first either as it will get hard and crunchy.  I think next time I would not double the brownie recipe to fit a 9x13 pan as it did take a lot longer to bake up.  In the picture you can definitely tell that it is still on the fudgy side.