Baking for fun

I was in a baking mood this weekend and decided to try my hand at some new stuff! One of my favorite cakes is a recipe from one of my favorite friends from Japan, Michelle B. Her name is a link to her blog, but it's password protected, so you'll have to know her and ask for an invitation to view it. :) It's a pistachio rum cake and it's absolutely delicious! I posted the recipe on my Facebook page, but if you aren't my Facebook friend, you'll have to e-mail me for the recipe. Or post a comment and I'll e-mail it to you. :) Instead of the cake, this weekend I decided to make cake cookies. I found a cake cookie recipe and combined the two recipes. And the result was DELICIOUS!



I also have been wanting to make bread from scratch. I had come across this recipe awhile ago, and decided this was the weekend to try it. SO GOOD! I was pretty proud of myself. Jim helped a lot, though, so I can't take all the credit.



I rolled my half in salt and just sprinkled it on top of Jim's. It was good either way. Of course, the dogs decided they thought it would be delicious, too. And they took what was left of my roll (minus three slices I'd eaten) and licked all over it. Well, it was good while it lasted. Highly recommend the recipe, though!

This morning (around 11:30; I'm not a completely crazy pregnant woman!) I really wanted chips and salsa, but all we had left were chip crumbs. So I took some whole wheat tortillas that we had and brushed them with olive oil and ground some sea salt on top and baked them at 350 for about 12-15 minutes, until they were crispy, moving them around and flipping them a couple of times (I coated both sides with oil and sea salt). I let them cool and they stiffened up a bit more. They were so good!

I'm pretty proud of this weekend's baking endeavors. I'm an okay cook, but I've never been really keen on baking. I guess I'm getting better!