Lemon Angel Food Cake

It's been forever, I know. It' s not that I forgot; I just don't bake as much as I used to. Plus, a majority of the people who read this blog are the same ones who I bake for so that motivation to write a post is also gone. I don't know if I'm even going to announce this post on social media - especially since the recipe was for Easter and I'm writing this on Father's Day weekend 🤦 (which I admit was partially because I forgot about the blog).

As I've mentioned before, I don't like to be wasteful so I save the egg whites that are leftover from the Pepperoni Pinwheels and freeze them. Once I had 12, I held onto them to use in an angel food cake. This year, I decided to make it a lemon one since (for once) I had asked my mom for some lemons from the lemon tree outside their Arizona house. After some searching, I finally landed on a recipe from Two Cups Flour (which ended up backfiring - more in the notes).

Lemon-Raspberry Cake with Meringue Topping

Mother's Day was a little different this year. My parents were home from Arizona before the day instead of on it like previous years. Since Auntie Vicki and Uncle Rob weren't going to be home (Carly graduated from Gonzaga that day), Mom and Dad hosted Mother's Day with me, Nonni, Anthony, Kati, and the boys. Because I once again had 8 egg whites in the freezer, I started looking for recipes that use them when Mom asked me to make dessert. She requested no cookies so I was a bit limited. I eventually found a food tip that suggests replacing frosting with meringue, complete with measurements for a 9x13 cake. For the cake itself, I looked through my Berries/Mixed Fruit board on Pinterest for a lemon raspberry cake (a popular flavor combo in my family). I eventually found a simple recipe from Betty Crocker's website.

Angel Food Cake

A couple of weeks ago we got together to celebrate my grandma's birthday. I volunteered to make an angel food cake, with the intent on using the egg whites I'd accumulated over the past 6 months (mainly when making Pepperoni Pinwheels for a snack). So I started searching for a recipe that used a lot of egg whites. I ended up choosing one from Serious Eats.

Except when I told my mom what I was going to use for egg whites, she asked if I had been freezing them. I said no, they'd been in the fridge. She informed me that they probably weren't good anymore. Meaning my efforts to not waste egg whites for once had failed. We found a solution though: boxed organic egg whites (more in the notes).

Easy Strawberry Cake and Frosting

I feel like there are some flavors that are universal in my family. As in, just about everyone likes them. Other than chocolate (because, duh), peanut butter is the main one that comes to mind: with the exception of Carly and Stefan, I think everyone in my family likes peanut butter (just don't put it into frosting 🤦‍♀️).

There's also strawberry. Other than my dad, I'm not sure if there's anyone in my family who doesn't like strawberries (if there is, they're not as vocal about it 😏). So since he wasn't going to be here for Easter, I decided to make something with strawberries in it. After looking at both hard copies and digital copies, I decided on a cake and frosting recipe from The Spruce Eats.

Pumpkin Cake

Last week we had a potluck to celebrate the end of the fiscal year and reward ourselves for working hard and doing a great job (I have a feeling this'll be the last potluck for a while). Because it's fall I decided to make something pumpkin flavored. After a bit of debate over what kind of dessert to make (bars, cookies, cake, cupcakes...) I finally decided on making a cake since I hadn't made one in a while and I wanted to use up the the last of the caramel cream cheese frosting (based on some of the pins on my Pumpkin/Fall board, caramel goes just as good with pumpkin as it does with apple). I finally decided on a Pumpkin Snack Cake from Kitchen Meets Girl.

Chocolate Velvet Cake

Last weekend we had a family birthday party for Kevin and Declan. I offered to make something so my mom said I could make the birthday cake. Kevin and Declan both wanted chocolate cake so I started looking through my thousand or so chocolate cake pins. I eventually decided on a chocolate velvet cake (yes, velvet, as in red velvet but without the red food coloring. Apparently there's a velvet cake for all colors/flavors. I now have a Pinterest board for them) from Add A Pinch.

Soda Cake

As much as I like sticking with the familiar, I like to try new things when it comes to baking. Like macarons (still working on perfecting those things. Almost got it though). So when my mom asked me to bake the dessert for her and Dad's night while in Chelan, I decided what better time to bake a soda cake than vacation?

Yup, that's right. A cake baked with soda.

I've seen them throughout the internet, specifically Pinterest. All you do is take a boxed cake mix and a 12-oz. can of soda in a complementary flavor (like chocolate mix and pretty much any dark-colored soda), mix the two together in a bowl, pour the batter in a pan, and bake. Simple, right?

Well, let's find out:

Chocolate Sheet Cake with Peanut Butter Frosting

This year the Super Bowl coincidentally landed on the day after my dad's birthday. So when I asked my mom what she and Dad were doing for the game, she decided to invite friends over and asked me to contribute a birthday cake for my dad. I decided to focus on peanut butter and chocolate since Dad loves both flavors. And because I knew I'd be baking his cookies, I decided to look at the cake mix books I have in search of a chocolate or peanut butter cake I could dress up. I quickly found a Chocolate Sheet Cake with Peanut Butter Frosting in the first Cake Mix Doctor book.

Orange Pound Cake

One of the first chick flicks/romantic comedies I ever watched was My Big Fat Greek Wedding. I think it's kind of what started me and my mom having shared interests (and also our friendship despite the fact that I was a teenager and what teenage girl wants to be friends with her mom?). One of the scenes that has always made us laugh is the beginning of the family dinner when Ian's parents meet Toula's family and Ian's mom brings a bundt cake, which Toula's mom has a hard time understanding (both the concept and the name).

So when my mom asked me to make for her birthday an orange cake that I had pinned on Pinterest but couldn't remember which one, I decided to make one that used a bundt pan. It was perfect because we were celebrating at Anthony's girlfriend Kati's parents' house (we ended up basically copying the movie because Anthony and Kati announced their engagement at the part =D). OK, I mainly made the cake so I could reference the movie and the scene in this post. But when Mom saw the cake we both laughed about the scene, so mission accomplished? (Except we forgot to put a flower pot in the cake's "hole." Oh well.)

Old-Fashioned Cola Cake

I'm addicted to a lot of foods and drinks that are bad for me. Soda is one of them. So when I offered to bake dessert for the BBQ my parents were having for Mother's Day, I was intrigued by the Old-Fashioned Cola Cake I found in The Cake Mix Doctor during my search (because of the lemon bars for my mom I figured I should find a quick recipe). To keep things simple I stuck with just the cake and decorated with a can (or two) of frosting.

Simple Cocoa Layer Cake

When I told my mom that I was going to make jelly bean fudge for Easter, she didn't think that was enough and suggested I make a cake. So I turned to my plethora of cookbooks in search of a chocolate cake recipe (because who doesn't like chocolate? Plus, I had given up chocolate again for Lent). I finally settled on a fairly simple recipe from the Hershey's 1934 Cookbook.

I also searched for decorating ideas. Because bringing a plain cake seemed boring. Sadly, I wasn't able to execute the main idea I liked as it involved bunny Peeps and all I found at Target was chicks. Still, I did my best with drug store and dollar store finds, plus a prepared decorating bag (already filled with frosting - you can find them in the baking aisle) that I wasn't able to use for decorating St. Patrick's Day cookies. I might've gone overboard on decorating.

Tagalong Cake Bars

Sometimes you gotta bake something that you're not gonna eat. Like yesterday: I had the random urge to bake and decided to use the for-baking Tagalongs I'd bought last year. Despite the fact that I gave up chocolate for Lent and wouldn't be able to have whatever I made until Easter. Still, I've baked with chocolate during previous Lents and had a much harder time not licking the spoon than I did this time. So I did a little searching and came across the Tagalong version of the Thin Mint Gooey Cake Bars I had made last year for Kevin's birthday. Apparently the food bloggers who posted the recipes are friends who had gotten together and made some delicious magic. (I do at times wish I had a friend like this.)

Reese's Peanut Butter Cup Cake

I love my cousin Carly. She's one of my favorite people. She's sweet, creative, and loves to hug. That being said, there's one thing I don't like about her: the fact that she's allergic to peanuts. As much as I don't like baking with nuts as an ingredient, I LOVE peanut butter and baking with it. Except I can't choose a recipe with peanut butter when picking a recipe for family gatherings (which isn't a problem: there are plenty of peanut butter-less recipes). So when my parents decided to have friends over yesterday - no family - I jumped at the chance to bake something with peanut butter. I started in the Reese's recipe folder of my bookmarks and came across this simple chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting from Dulce Dough.

Thin Mint Gooey Cake Bars

Apparently Kevin had wanted lasagna for his birthday, not burgers and hot dogs like a couple weeks ago. So tonight we got together to celebrate Father's Day and so Kevin could have his birthday lasagna. I was asked to make something for dessert for the both occasions. I decided to make something with Thin Mints since both everyone likes Thin Mints (especially my dad, who didn't want to make a big deal out of the day) and since I had bought a box specifically for baking with. After some searching, I found this recipe on the blog Picky Palate.

Maryann's Chocolate Layer Cake with Chocolate Syrup Frosting

Last weekend we celebrated my brother Kevin's birthday and our cousin Declan's birthday. I volunteered to make Kevin's cake. Of course, he wanted chocolate. Because I wouldn't have a lot of time to make it (the celebration was the day after Relay for Life) I figured I'd compromise and use a cake mix as a base. I went to two of my baking cookbooks, The Cake Mix Doctor and its follow-up, and found a good one in The Cake Mix Doctor Returns. Because Kevin often has a bowl of ice cream with chocolate syrup, this one seemed perfect.

Vanilla Cake

My cousin Matteo is one of the coolest 12-year-olds I know with one flaw: he doesn't like chocolate.

Crazy, right?

For some reason I didn't know this until the topic of celebrating his recent birthday came up. I volunteered to make his cake and asked for an idea of what kind of cake to make him. She told me vanilla because he doesn't like chocolate. It took me a while (nearly all vanila cake recipes I found were for cupcakes and I'm not expert enough to translate baking times from one size to the other) but I finally found a vanilla cake recipe (I almost just decided to make a white cake and add a couple tablespoons of vanilla to it).