i absolutely love breakfast foods… pancakes, waffles, french toast, eggs, veggie sausage, veggie bacon, potatoes, fruit, oatmeal… and just about everything else. while i most likely make breakfast for dinner more often than other people, it is not often enough that i actually make it *for* other people. well, this week, the stars aligned. twice.
before i get started, i need to make a brief confession. i am a bad daughter. my mom’s birthday was on April 9th and I had great plans for what i wanted to send her. there is something (non-food) that i want to make her, but have not found a friend that has the things i need in order to make it. so then, i decided to save that for later, and at least send baked goods now. but she was on vacation. and then it was too hot out to ship. and then all the stores were closed.
the actual making of these cakepops was rather uneventful, however the day i made them, was not. see, lots of people have a completely irrational fear of the dentist… while i suffer from anxiety disorders, i do not have a fear of the dentist, despite my experiences. i understand that this may make me insane.
earlier this week, i brought you peanut butter pillow cookies filled with chocolate brownies; a little over a year ago, i showed you chocolate cookies filled with peanut butter; but my vegan friends have sadly had to miss out on both of these. i can’t feel too bad since i have made some other great vegan treats, but seriously, these are too good to miss out on. i can’t honestly say which of the three is best…they are all so great! if you try making them all, please let me know your thoughts on the winner!
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it is a wonderful feeling to find your soul mate… ya know, the one you were meant to be with, and everyone in your presence can’t help but agree; the one where when someone bites into the two of you together a big smile comes over their face– wait, wha??? i wonder if peanut butter cookies and fudgy chocolate brownies know how perfect they are together. while this blog is certainly no stranger to peanut butter and chocolate treats, nor pillow cookies, this is the first time i have shown you a brownie-stuffed peanut butter cookie, and it is about darn time. my sincere apologies. (in my defense, at least i showed you peanut butter-stuffed chocolate cookies).
i generally don’t even really celebrate my birthday; i am not into them and as a result, when people ask how old i am, i tend to answer with whatever age i will be that year. i am not one of those people that is totally wrapped up in age… i get that age is just a number. one of my best friends is in his 40s and he can easily compete in athletic events against guys in their 20s; another friend in his 40s does iron man races, and is doing the “escape from alcatraz” triathlon this year.
i don’t think i can ignore 30 though–it is a milestone that even i must acknowledge. a wake-up call of sorts. i am (mostly) okay with the fact that at 30 i have not accomplished nearly as much as i would have liked to, and am quite far from settling down. i struggle with not being healthy enough to be living the kind of active life i want to lead, that perhaps my mid-late 20s were wasted a bit.
i now have EIGHT short weeks left of my 20s, and i intend to make the best of them that i can! i am looking at some challenging athletic events like the metro dash and runamuck– even though i am not in my best cardiovascular shape and not as strong as i was, i could really use a sense of accomplishment. i used to be a huge fan of our high ropes course in high school and signed up a few years ago for trapeze school ny, but the classes kept getting canceled due to weather. i plan on signing up again and doing that soon (both trapeze and silks). even though i can’t travel as easily as i used to, i need to get out of my area and at least travel to nearby states.
i know that joy the baker (one of my favorite baking blogs…check her out!) is doing 30 things before 30; she has created a lovely list of things, including something that make me drool: coffee ice cream cream puffs. i hope they are drizzled with chocolate. in any case, i am not looking to rip her off in any way, but i am asking YOU to make some suggestions for some things i *must* do!
ready, set, live up the rest of the decade! and then continue to live to the fullest every moment thereafter (o:
*photo credit: andy gapin
be jealous of me…very, very jealous. yep, that right there is a cinnamon swirl banana bread ice cream sandwich. your task for the day: find or make some banana (or blueberry, cranberry, pumpkin, etc) bread or pound cake, put some ice cream between two slices, and enjoy!!! (you’re welcome)
okay, so you saw what i went through this past weekend for ed’s birthday…however i did not post the recipes. i will be honest, i wasn’t going to, but i got enough requests for it, that i feel that i should. the title of this post does not just reflect the subject line of the e-mail sent out for ed’s surprise party (which was a success btw– he was speechless, and ed is never speechless), but it is also arming you with a secret weapon. there is a reason why i went with the chocolate cupcake recipe that i did when trying to recover from the disasters: this really is the best (plain) chocolate cake ever.
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i will admit to being proud of my cookies. my scones are delightful. my cupcakes are great. my cakes… my cakes are disasters. if there wasn’t already a wildly popular site called cakewrecks, i would consider creating a section on my site with that name. let me tell you about my weekend, which resulted in putting flowers on a cake for my friend ed, a 40 year old male.
coffee, hazelnut, chocolate, cookies… all of these things are on the list of things i need more of in my life. so, today, i baked them all into one brilliant masterpiece! while these shortbread cookies might hold their own without the nutella, and could easily be wonderful with a little bit of melted chocolate drizzled on top, or dipped in chocolate, i couldn’t resist the urge to slather it on.
