Every Peanut Butter Cupcake in the Book

For a recent work birthday, I needed to make something that involved chocolate and peanut butter. I'd started to feel that over the years, I'd done all the varieties of things I could make (cakes, pies, ice creams), so this year, I opted for cupcakes. When I perused Julie Hasson's 125 Best Cupcake Recipes, I ended up deciding to make all four of the peanut butter-chocolate cupcake recipes. Each one made a dozen cupcakes, so I was sure to have leftovers. I made a double batch of her peanut butter frosting for half of the cupcakes; for the other half, I used a chocolate buttercream.

Savory Scones

I don't often bake savory items, but when I saw the recipe for Bacon-Cheddar-Scallion Scones on the King Arthur Flour blog, I was intrigued. I could be completely vegetarian if it weren't for bacon. Put some bacon in a biscuit with cheddar cheese and scallions (I used chives in the scones I made)? Is it possible that this could be the perfect food? By all accounts, this scone might in fact be the perfect food.

Birthday at the Lake

I'm behind on blogging, as usual, but a couple of weeks ago, we celebrated a birthday after a Sunday-morning run at the lake. After breakfast, I broke out this beauty. It's from the More From Magnolia cookbook by Allysa Torey: chocolate cake and chocolate frosting. I know I've made this cake before and liked it a lot because I have made notes about it in my copy of the book, the most important note indicating that it should be baked in three 9-in.-dia. pans instead of two.

Thanks for not ordering the pancake this year, John.

Orange Marble Pound Cake

This cake is from a recipe in The Buttercup Bake Shop Cookbook by Jennifer Appel. I've kind of had an eye on this recipe for years because it uses club soda as an ingredient; it's a little off the wall. All in all, this cake was good, with a bright orange flavor. My only issue involved the chocolate swirl in the center. The recipe directs you to remove a portion of the batter, then mix in unsweetened cocoa powder. Although the cocoa blended into the batter just fine, the chocolate center was really dry after baking. If I try this one again, I'll add a little extra liquid to the cocoa batter before spooning it into the Bundt pan.