Lemon Cream Cheese Coffee Cake

TA-DAH!!! How do you like the new look?? I felt it was about time for a teeny bit of sprucing up around here! I have to figure out a way to move my recipe index to one of those tabs, but other than that, it's all ready to go! I love it, it's cleaner and brighter and makes me happy! Plus, I did it ALL by myself! *pat on the back* Code and everything, woohoo! I hope everyone likes it. :) Please leave a comment if you find any errors or malfunctions! Also, I finally joined the social media parade and created a Facebook page for Dimples and Delights, and you can follow it with that cute little red Facebook button in the right column. See you there!

Time for something yummy and sunny, because yet again we're getting dumped on by a snowstorm! Supposedly, we're going to get 8-14 inches, but it's going to have to take it up a notch if we're going to get there. I shall snuggle in and bake some bread (very excited about this recipe!) and try to resist the urge to bake gingerbread (it's just so Christmassy outside!) and pray that this storm doesn't destroy what is left of my poor lilac bush. The last one that we missed while in Utah broke a few crucial branches. Sadness. Oh well!! At least it's still alive! I can't help it, even now, snowstorms are fun. The slushy muddy days after them, not so much, but I'll always be a sucker for snow.

Ultimate Chocolate Ganache Cupcakes

You might notice that this is the very first cupcake recipe on this blog. Ever. In 5 years. That's because I'm not a huge fan of cupcakes, to be perfectly honest. They're just too sweet for me! But this is not just any cupcake. Noooo, this is THE most chocolate-y cupcake I've ever encountered. This cupcake is so amazingly delicious that it even earned itself a nickname and a cute backstory. We call these babies "Chocolate Puppies". Why? Well, my Mom used to be THE resident treat-maker for my Dad's office. Considering this office changed every three years, thanks to the US Air Force, that was quite a badge of honor. Certain cookies and breads of her making became famous across multiple Air Force bases! So one day she hauled a few dozen dozen of these cupcakes to the office and one of the captains, a fellow chocolate fanatic, was so enraptured with them that after his first bite, he was going on and on about how good it was. He was cradling it by his face and my mom said, "Terry, get a hold of yourself! You're holding that thing like it's a puppy or something!!" Thus the nickname Chocolate Puppies was born. I actually posted them forever ago, but the pictures are simply atrocious, plus I tweaked them (of course!).

Best Chocolate Cake EVER

Last Summer I started a quest. A quest to find the perfect chocolate layer cake. I found a few fun ones, like that Double Dark Chocolate Cake with Black Velvet Icing (I mean, woah), but that wasn't quite what I was looking for. I wanted classic, special occasion. birthday party layer cake. And guess what?? I found it! Luckily for me, Stephen wanted a chocolate cake for his birthday party this year, AND we had a Super Bowl party to make dessert for, so I got to make it twice, just to be absolutely sure it was perfect. In fact, I made it dairy-free for the birthday party, and it was still completely scrumptious!

Cinnamon Crumble Breakfast Cake

So, apparently it takes 10 inches of snow overnight on top of a layer of frozen slush to cancel school here in Jefferson County. First snow day since we moved to Colorado!! That's three years! Oh, and it's still snowing. And I really need to go to the grocery store, and really don't want to... On the plus side, it's gorgeous, and cozy, and I get to hang out in my pajamas all day and let the boys be complete couch potatoes. I'll order them outside at some point, but lately their version of playing in the snow entails creating nests in the snow and sitting there, eating snow. In their defense, this fluffy, light as air stuff is completely useless for building anything, including snowballs. So, fresh air at least, right?

I didn't get a chance in my last post to apologize for disappearing for a month. February seems to be my slump-month, where it's hard to get inspired or motivated about much of anything. Maybe because I spend so much energy being excited about Christmas! I may take little breaks now and then, but I promise I'll never disappear completely without letting you know! Thank you for sticking around. :)

Pumpkin Roll

I seriously can't believe it's almost Thanksgiving. It completely snuck up on me this year!! Tomorrow I'll be cleaning house and dog, running errands, picking up a monster load of groceries and preparing for the first Thanksgiving in TEN YEARS that my whole family will be in the same place at the same time!! I hope you have a fantastic week, whether you're in the US celebrating Thanksgiving or all over the world doing whatever it is other people do this week. I hope there is at least yummy food involved for all of you! And this is a treat you can make no matter where you are or what you're doing. As long as you can get your hands on pumpkin and cream cheese, that is. Which I am learning is not as universal as I always vaguely assumed. Either way...

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Sticky Toffee Pudding Cake

 I'm still on schedule!! Hurrah! I'm back, folks. Back in my blogging groove. Actually grooving at the moment too, headphones in and everything, listening to a rather odd mix of new favorite songs. Cheezy country love song, silly pop nonsense, awesomely random soul/rock/something... I don't even know how to describe that last one. Lets just say I need to learn the words FAST. We're still in single digits over here, but we saw the sun for the first time since Monday! Who is experiencing plummeting temperatures with me and who has yet to freeze? This week has been kinda fun, no one wants to go out at night when it's this cold and snowy, right? So all of our weekly obligations have been canceled left and right and we're all reveling in our natural homebody/hermit state. Watching way too much TV and, in my case, eating way too much of my favorite dessert of all time!! Yes, that would be this one, right here. I baked it three times, just to get it perfect. For you of course. Not so I could eat it three meals a day. All for the blog...

Strawberry Cream Cake

Sometimes, you just need a fancy cake.

Happy Birthday tomorrow, Aunt Renel!! :)

Double Dark Chocolate Cake with Black Velvet Icing

You guys, I am flipping out just a little over here right now. You know I'm a little self-conscious of my photography skills, and layer cakes are the bane of my existence. No mater what I do, they look all skeewompus, and could not for the life of me figure out how people got those PERFECT cake shots! I'd set up the shot JUST like the pictures I admired, perfect slice, perfect angle, perfect plate, perfect light... and it just didn't work. It was like the fun house mirror version, every time. That's why the cake shots you get from me look like this:

Instead of this:

Cooks Country

Ugh. 

Turns out, I need one of these:

Look at that lens! What a beast! My Dad was nice enough to let me play with his completely awesome camera this week, and all I had to do was stand all the way across the room (so weird), point, and click... And it was PERFECT!!! I squealed. And danced. And cried, just a little. So. Apparently I need a giant beastly lens to get cake pictures that don't look like the leaning tower of Pisa, or force me to only photograph a corner of the darn thing. Or something. I shall be lens shopping for the foreseeable future... I love my camera, despite its non-DSLR-ness, so I need to discover the equivalent lens for my camera. Should be fun! And lots cheaper than buying a new camera! I'm soooo excited. This means I am not just food-photography challenged! There is hope after all!

Chocolate Chip Coffee Cake

Cherry picking was so FUN!! It was just starting to get hot when we arrived, so we were on a MISSION to get as many cherries as we could in an hour. Turns out my Mom is a cherry-picking machine. I underestimated her. Dad turned into a cherry-picking ladder, hoisting Joe (and for a much shorter time, Stephen) up to the top to find the best bunches of perfectly ripe cherries. Stephen and I stuck to the lower branches. Sometimes he'd get inside, under the branches, and we'd call ourselves the "Inside Out" team. It was a lovely hour, and Stephen said that cherry-picking was "kind of like meditating. So relaxing!"

 The Geologist was a little bit shocked when I told him how much we picked... (He's off visiting a rig in Utah somewhere) ...but I figure sixteen pounds of cherries should last me at least a year, right??

Victoria Sponge (or Sandwich) Cake & High Altitude Baking

Since I started this blog almost two years ago next Friday (can you believe it??) I've learned a LOT, about cooking and baking and blogging and social media and PINTEREST! What an awesome invention/way to waste tons of time. :) No seriously, I love Pinterest. Thousands of recipes at my fingertips?! Genius. I try to answer as many questions as I can, looking them up for you if I just plain don't know, and learning with you! One thing I get asked about a handful of times is high-altitude baking. You'd think, living just a few feet shy of 6,000 feet above sea level, that I'd be all over that, right? Nope. Not a clue. I tend to veer away from tall, fluffy cakes in favor of quick breads, muffins, and biscuity things that aren't affected much by altitude. Actually, I've scrapped half a dozen cake recipes in the past year because they all collapsed after multiple attempts, and I had no idea until a few weeks ago what the problem was. Altitude. Baked three different versions of that darn lemon ginger cake with no luck. So after much searching and reading and testing, I found the best high-altitude baking guide ever, from King Arthur Flour. Those people are geniuses, I swear. In fact, it's SO good, that I'm sticking the link in a tab up above, in case anyone needs it for future reference. I have followed their tips to the tee with three completely different kinds of cake since, including this one, and the results have been perfection! It looks like a lot of info, but once you've done it a few times, it becomes part of your recipes. Subtract some flour, decrease the leavener, add some liquid. Voila, perfect cakes at high altitude! From now on, I will include high-altitude adjustments in italics to my cake recipes when needed. If there are no adjuments, assume that the recipe works just fine the way it is, even at high altitude!

*Note: In case some of you thought this original recipe was already adjusted for high altitude, I'm so sorry for the confusion! I'm adding the adjustments I made for high altitude, in parenthesis and italics, into the recipe. I'm at 6000 feet, so if you are significantly higher or lower, please check the King Arthur Flour link to the left to adjust for your altitude. since there seems to be a decent demand for high-altitude baking, I'll include those adjustments from now on. Sorry again!! *

Super Cinnamon Ribbon Coffee Cake

I... have nothing interesting to talk about. My peony bushes are huge. I heard the closest lightning strike I've ever heard today, at the beginning of a 15 minute rainshower. Colorado is so weird and awesome that way. We're planting seeds in our little garden plot on Friday! I'm excited!! But boy, trying to decide which varieties of tomatoes to plant was dizzying! Do you have any favorite varieties? Specifically varieties that can well? (Why do we call it canning when we usually put things in jars?) I'm kinda winging it, I got Better Boy for canning and some kind of "Beefy" thing for eating. We shall see. I still need as much sleep as a toddler, which is odd. I wonder when that particular symptom will wear off... I love my house more every day, though I'm lousy at cleaning it. Our carpet got scheduled!! It will be installed next Wednesday! We're also having our big window replaced and installing French doors, which we ordered forever ago and I just found out the doors were broken on arrival so they had to reorder them. Oh well! This cake is delicious! 

Easiest Pineapple Cake

 Ahhhh, General Conference, my second favorite (and bi-annual!) holiday of the year! Technically it isn't a holiday, but it sure feels like one. We get to stay home from church in our jammies (or brand-new comfy jeans, yay!), bake lots of treats and listen to our church leaders speak to us (on TV, radio, or internet) on every subject under the sun. I love how my home feels during Conference. I love that my boys already have a favorite apostle. And I love how much I learn. I don't talk about my faith very often on here, that isn't really one of my goals. But if you're ever intrigued, I do have a link to more info over there on the left! Now I will leave you with this cake and go make rice krispie treats. :)

Angel Food Cake

Well, Joe caught the flu, my bracket is destroyed, and Spring Break starts tomorrow. Which is normally a fun thing, but not with another sick kid and those nasty little germs just waiting to take down the rest of us!! Fingers crossed!! And at least when it comes to basketball, I can't possibly be the only one out there with a bracket in tatters. This year is NUTS!!

In honor of yet another bright and warm sunday following a cold snowy saturday, I present to you, homemade no less, the most classic summery cake ever. I hope you try it out, because I think there are few cakes that have made me so proud. And it's not as hard as you might think!!

Strawberry Cream Cheese Loaf

I have a confession. I am an addict. I have a tendency to get addicted to foods, then eat them every day for weeks. Sometimes this isn't a problem, like ham and cheddar omelettes, or guacamole... Not exactly balanced, but at least it's real food! On the other hand, it's often not so healthy, like blue raspberry saltwater taffy or orange dream ice cream. Currently, it's just about as bad as it can be. Spicy Cheetos. Oh, they are so vile, and so addicting. My brother named them "Crack Cheetos", and he's not far off the mark. There's something dangerous in there. I thought I was done with them, but a moment of weakness... actually, grocery shopping at 3:00 in the afternoon while having eaten nothing all day... brought them back. I must break the habit! Gah!

Spiced Pear & Buttermilk Cake

It snowed, it snowed!! It is officially the holidays, truly feels festive, and we put up our Christmas tree! And I, as you can probably tell, am jumping for joy. In fact, the snow has stuck around for two whole days! It'll melt later this week. Finally, a real Colorado winter! 

I have the most marvelous memories of Colorado snowstorms... School canceled for a week, Christmas music playing non-stop, hot chocolate and jigsaw puzzles, baking treats and playing games, movies and popcorn and laughs... It was always best if Dad got to stay home from work too! A few times we had real no-kidding blizzards, and you couldn't see past the windows. Makes staying inside even cozier! In Colorado, a White Christmas is always a possibility!

Pumpkin Spice Cake with Vanilla Spice Buttercream

My "ittle bittle" is 6 years old!! His new favorite nickname is "green bean", because he's getting so tall and skinny and his favorite color is green and he LOVES beans. 

My Grandma is awesome. She tries her darndest to send out an email with pictures and "blurbs" on every birthday in our whole extended family. She was having computer trouble the night before Joe's, so my Mom took over. Hers was so awesome I simply can't improve on it, so I'm borrowing it!

"The Man of the Hour is Joester, Joebee, or JoeMoe...but just don't call him Jojo, or you'll be ignored, or corrected! He may be small... Only six years old today, but he's larger than life inside. He's pretty intense, and passionate (wonder where he got all that from? *cough cough* parents *cough) He is a musician, and artist, and a great hiker. 

He passed his first parent teacher conference with flying colors, and so it looks like Kindergarten is going to keep him. 

Not even being born waaaay too early could stop this little Mr. Man. He fought for his life six years ago, and has been sucking the marrow out of it ever since. 

*In case you can't tell, Grandma Garney loves her grandson, and can't wait to have lots of hikes with him in Colorado and Utah for years to come."

Happy Birthday Joe!

Now of course, because the boy is obsessed with pumpkins, he demanded a pumpkin cake. Lucky for him, he was born in October!

Lemon Banana Bread

Stephen came home from school yesterday with bandages wrapped around both hands. "What the?!" Obviously I was a little alarmed! Especially because his school tends to call me about every slightly concerning happening possible. So I asked him, "What happened? Are you okay??" He shrugs and says, "Monkey Bars."

Monkey Bars?! I unwrapped his hands when we got home, the bandages were getting pretty grimy. And let me tell you... He had blisters on his palms, popped and unpopped, bigger than any blister I've had in my whole life. They were awful!! And he was just annoyed that they hadn't let him go back on the monkey bars after wrapping them up! That's hard core for a seven-year-old! I was a bit dazed... then I asked him, "Do you remember when we watched the Olympics last year? Do you remember the gymnasts?" And his whole face LIT up. So today, I am finding this kid a gymnastics class. Because any seven-year-old that loves monkey bars enough to play through giant blisters deserves some dedication and investment! Heck, even if he only does it for a year or two, it could be SO good for him! I'm excited. Who knows, in 10 years we could be looking back at the day he knew he wanted to be a gymnast, watching him compete! 

Classic Buttermilk Coffee Cake

A day of random facts! I wish I was a redhead. I hate heat, and tend to get cranky past 80 degrees. The volume in my car must be set at an even number. I'm more than a little emotionally attached to my car stereo.  I can remember movie quotes and song lyrics like you would not believe, but forget doctor's appointments all the time. The furthest out of the country I've been is a few hours past the border into Mexico, with my best friend and her family when I was eight. All I remember is cold fish tacos *shudder* and olive trees. I will never speak in hashtags. If presented with all the clothing colors of the rainbow, I will usually pick dark red, charcoal, or lavender. Occasionally forest green. I will never wear mint or coral. I could watch The Avengers over and over and over and over and over... Running horses make me cry. I used to always have my fingernails painted, often with awesome, intricate designs, but now I never do. It feels weird. I am really really lousy at ALL sports, except swimming. I occasionally (okay fine, often) act like a 4 year old. The cute kind, not the infuriating kind. AND! I love coffee cake. :)

Blueberry Buttermilk Breakfast Cake

Ohhh, my friends... I may have wimped out, slept in, and missed my lovely tranquil morning hours... But I am currently blogging with the patio door open and a thunderstorm blowing in. I am in Heaven!!! Bracken, not so much. She's a bit anxious, and at the first grumble from those iron-grey clouds she will be hiding behind the toilet in our bathroom. After a while, if the thunder doesn't stop, she'll slink (very quickly) across the apartment to the boys' bathroom and try their toilet. It isn't a whole lot more secure, so she spends the next while rotating between bathrooms, unless the thunder is especially loud, then she just won't move. Poor girl.

It's truly getting to be the end of summer vacation. All Stephen wants to do is read (or watch movies) and he's dying to go back to school. Joe just wants to play his own games without dictation from his older brother. The draw of the pool has diminished, it's only fun to play outside in the evening (except the past three days), and they're just a little tired of each other's constant companionship. Summer vacation has served it's purpose! One more week and they're off to school. I hope to have my morning habits well established enough to wake up before the boys and make yummier breakfasts this year, something other than cereal and microwave oatmeal. Something like this!

Honey Bee Cake

The cabin is the only place I know where the world disappears. No need to answer the phone, watch TV, check the news... Up until a few years ago, no Internet even! We play games till midnight, each day thinking "tonight we'll go to bed on time", and never do, and it never matters. The clock on the wall has been stuck at twenty to eight, and hasn't been reset for as long as I can remember. You can plan ahead, or not plan at all. Adventure around in the wilderness or just sit and be. Make friends with hummingbirds and fall asleep to the sound of the river. We've had rainstorms and sun, drizzles and downpours, discovered a bird's nest under the porch, heard Japanese spoken with a Russian accent, discovered that the Geologist still doesn't know what a platypus looks like, napped and hiked and laughed till it hurt. Tomorrow we head home, loaded with pictures, this place ingrained in us just a little bit more. It will be good to go home, and good to know home will always be here.