Last night I informed Robert that I do not want to bake another sweet thing until Easter, at least.
Maybe it was because I didn't do much Christmas baking, due to our move, that I had the Valentine baking bug this year. Here's a recap of the baking week:
Monday:
Sugar cookies with a pink swirl and sugar sprinkles on the edges--on a stick. I wish I had taken a picture of the process, because the jelly roll dough looked so awesome! The cookies turned out a little bubbly, which sort of misshaped the swirl. Oh well! The recipe can be found
here.
Wednesday:
Baked donuts, Valentine style! I have been very excited about making these Valentine donuts for the neighbors--I even bought a donut pan just for the occasion. I basically spent all day making these, because I did three batches, and I only have one 6 donut pan. You also have to ice them, and let them cool before you frost and decorate. Plus I have a baby here. Yeah, it took all day. Here is a bit of the process:
Make the batter. This is red velvet donut batter--looks like Christmas with my green bowl!
Let them cool for a bit, and dip them in a thin icing to seal in the moisture. I should have sprayed the cooling racks, though, because they really wanted to stick to those.
After cooling, it's time to decorate!
The red velvet ones have a vanilla cream cheese frosting.
Then load them on to plates for all of your visiting and home teachees:
Don't you wish I were YOUR visiting teacher? :-)
This is one of those things from Pinterest that WORKED! They turned out beautiful and delicious. And despite the fact that it took me all day making this many, they're actually really simple and don't take that much--I'd say easier than sugar cookies any day. All you need to know for the red velvet ones is
here and all for the chocolate ones is
here.
I should mention that I also dipped gummy lips and hearts into chocolate for my co workers, but I didn't take a picture of that...
Thursday:
Vanilla cake with strawberry cream cheese frosting and a huge layer of strawberries, jam, and frosting in the middle. This took all day on Thursday, and man--it was no joke. The recipe called for 7 eggs....ah! It made TONS of cake. You can't tell from this picture how much it really is. And actually, since about half of the cake I made decided it wanted to stick to the pan, it ended up being smaller than I had planned on. That "stick" factor also caused it to have only one layer instead of the 3-4 I was hoping to try. But! It is delicious. This was Robert's Valentine's Day surprise. Get the recipe
here. You should go check it out just to see the pretty pictures. And notice all of the time waiting for things to chill, etc. Another reason why it took all day.
Oh yes--I also made this pretty garland with white Christmas lights and heart doilies. I love the way it turned out!
And here is what Tommy did a lot of this week:
Watch Mom work in the kitchen in his saucer.
Hope you all had a wonderful Valentine's Day!
