How Many Bundts in the Oven?

There was a trend this year in the food blogging world, a trend of "healthier" baked donuts.  I don't want my donuts to be healthy.  I want them to be fried in oil and glazed with sugar and I want them to be spelled "doughnuts."  I also want them to be readily available in my kitchen without the purchase of a specialty "baked donut" pan.  Give me a bottle of canola oil, a pint glass and a shot glass (because I still don't have a doughnut cutter), and a roll of paper towels, and I'm ready to go.

But these baked donut recipes were just so pretty!  They looked so fluffy and light and dainty!  I wanted to bake them and drizzle them with pink icing and plate them on delicate china next to a paisley turquoise napkin.

I came across a mini-bundt pan in a thrift store close to where I work.  I don't even have a regular-sized bundt pan, but I picked up this $2.49 beauty for one reason only - mini-bundt pans look an awful lot like baked donut pans.

Mini Bundt Cake on Grandma's Saucer

These fluffy treats, more cake than doughnut, are perfect as a single serving or a shared treat.  The recipe was inspired by Tracy at www.shutterbean.com.  These cakes were so good, I made them twice in one weekend.

Jello Not Included

I worked with Michele for 5 years.  Michele has long red hair, glowing skin, and a penchant for sparkly shoes and floral accents.  She also likes strawberries and cream.

Strawberry Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

When Michele announced she was ending her tenure with our company and moving on to her next adventure, I wanted to give her a fancy send-off.  I had never made a strawberry cake before, and all of the recipes on the Great Wide Internet and in Mom's Recipe Box included strawberry jello.  In these recipes, the jello is the only added strawberry flavor, and imparts an alarmingly bright pink shade to the batter.  

No, thank you.

A Humble Beginning, or, a Study in Chocolate

I am a lucky girl.

I love my job, I love my neighborhood, and I'm fortunate to live with and work with people who inspire and support my creativity.  At the end of last summer, my employer came to me with a proposal:

Make the cakes.

I work for a locally-owned company that treats its employees like family.  And when an employee works on her or his birthday, well, we get cake.  My boss asked if I would be interested in baking these cakes for a few months, to see how it would work out.  I said yes immediately.

Chocolate Chocolate Chocolate Cake for Jenn's Birthday