84/99: Quail Egg Cake

 

Out of all of the crazy things that I have done for this little baking adventure of mine, I think quail eggs makes the top ten.  Usually its just me annoying the grocery store workers with some crazy request or complaining to the manager that they don't carry castor sugar, muscovado sugar, etc.

But honestly, who orders quail eggs? But then I guess another fair question is who decides to bake 99 cakes in a year? Oh yeah, that's me.

Hoping for a Green Thumb

I get in these phases where I think I can do anything. One day its making 99 cakes in a year, another its cheese making, and the next its gardening.

So for I'm 1 for 2 in the cakes/cheese making ventures but hopefully this venture will up my record.  I planted a few seeds about a month ago (basil, mint, and parsley) and they finally started sprouting in the past few weeks.  It was incredibly exciting to discover that I didn't kill them and that they could actually grow.

83/99: Orange Glow Chiffon Layer Cake

This cake is the same recipe as the bostini recipe, except for the fact that it has all purpose flour and is baked in an ungreased springform pan.  Rose said to put a rose nail in the middle of it so that it cooks evenly but I couldn't find mine... (note the foreshadowing).

82/99: Golden Lemon Almond Cake

I feel really behind on my cakes.

After this one, I have another one that I haven't posted yet so that means I have 16 cakes to make in the next 48 days. I'm getting a little worried because I'll be gone for spring break and I have midterms coming up. But I am going to make it.  I am determined.  I set a goal and I am going to meet it- no extension or exceptions.

I think my problem is that I'm getting a little sick of it.  I absolutely love it when I'm doing it but I think it's the planning part that I don't like- grocery store trips, prepping, mixing, baking, cooling, cleaning, photographing, blogging. Add that to 18 hours of upper level courses and my to do list gets pretty long.  But i'll stop complaining... no one wants to hear that. On to the cake:

81/99: Double Chocolate Valentine

 

Happy Valentines Day!!

Tonight, my friends and I celebrated my dear friend Anna's birthday AND Valentines Day at our favorite restaurant in Oxford, Snack Bar. We were definitely that table on Valentines night with eleven girls making all the noise.  The rest of the restaurant was littered with couples so we may have stood out a little bit.

 I had the Rabbit au Vin with a side of Parmesan Truffle Fries. I think if I could eat there every day I would.

To top off the night, we had the double chocolate valentine cake.  I made the cake yesterday but it ended up taking forever because we were all watching the Bachelor and hating on Courtney the whole time.

79/99: White Velvet Butter Cupcakes and 80/99: Golden Neoclassic Buttercream

Happy Super Bowl!

Honestly, I'm not a huge super bowl person. The only one I've ever watched fully was the Saints game and that rocked. I asked today who was playing and I was told that we're rooting for the Giants. Of course we go for any team with a Manning (go Rebs) so go Giants!

These cupcakes were really good. They are really light and easy to eat (maybe that's a bad thing). They went over really well.

Note: There are two recipes in the book for white velvet butter cakes but one is a cake and one is for the cupcakes. I already made the white velvet butter cake but I made it in a cupcake pan- this is the actual cupcake recipe so that's why it counts as two different recipes.

78/99: Hungarian Jancsi Torta: A slice and a scandal

Belgians, Royalty, Gypsies, Hungarians, Scandal, Chocolate, Walnuts:  the words that come to mind when describing this cake. I love that the cake comes with a story... and I also love that the two are equally as good.

77/99: Sicilian Pistachio Cake

Surprise of my day: I actually like this cake. I'm getting down to the cakes that I am not incredibly excited about (fruitcake, quail egg cake, etc) and this one was no exception.  But I think I wasn't as excited about this cake because of this confession: I've never had a pistachio before this.  I am a recovering picky eater so in the past, I looked at them and thought "strange looking green vegetable looking nut" and so I've never been tempted to try it.  As a curious baker and an adventurous eater though, I tried one as I was shelling them and surprise surprise, they were tasty.

One of my friends commented as I was making the cake that she heard that pistachios are the most unhealthy nut that you can eat.  But, thankfully, she was wrong (sorry to whoever said that but fear not, I won't name you).  I looked it up and according to my extra-credible source, Shape.com (I hope that you're catching my sarcasm here), pistachios are actually one of the top five most healthy nuts that you can eat.  They are high in cholesterol-lowering plant sterols (I don't know what that means but I like it) and have more potassium than most nuts.  Hooray!