Happy Birthday. Love Auntie BB.
My Little Pony Cake: Twilight Sparkle
Piecaken: The Monstrosity
Covid-19 has assaulted the world ripping it of all its pleasures, well besides fat, sugar, and salt.
2020’s Thanksgiving was cancelled.
There would be no hugs from nieces, no nephew running into the dining room wearing only a Superman’s cape, no spontaneous outburst of song, no childhood stories reenacted, no new memories made.
So I combatted the deep depression, waiting to ponce on me, with syrupy strength of roasted pecans. And when that wasn’t enough, I baked into a red velvet cake. And when that wasn’t enough, I drown a sweet potato pie into spice cake batter, and baked it for almost two hours.
The swirling whisk of a stand mixer hypnotized me as it turned a block of cream cheese and a pound of powder sugar into a billowing cloud of frosting.
We’ve all had to get creative during this pandemic. We’ve had to find new ways to do our job, bond with loved ones, worship, and create our own joy.
If you need a way to spend an entire day I do not recommend trying your hand at the piecaken. The outer edge of your cake dries out before the middle even begins to firm up. But if you must I recommend the original! The secret is to layer the pie rather than bake it into the cake.
In closing, F*ck you 2020. I mean Happy Thanksgiving. I hope you found something to be grateful for even if it was just sugar.
hope is a delusion
There may not be a ton of hope in 2020 but there is cookie dough frosting…
S’more Cake Please
Good enough to stick your finger in. Happy Birthday!
Surprise Inside Shamrock Cake
Scour your pantry. Discover that your memory is a big fat liar. You don’t have a single box of vanilla cake mix. Berate yourself when you find: lemon, gluten free strawberry, and german chocolate but no vanilla. Until, wait…wait…F*ck Yeah, you got some Funetti in the back!
Prepare said Funfetti and dye a cup and a half of it green. Spray your pans with that special powder-oil-in-one stuff (bakers spray) and fill those shamrocks with batter. You’re going to need about as many shamrocks that it takes to fill a bread pan.
But you’ll be an impatient little sh*t and only bake four. You’ll just “space ‘em out” you say. You remove the baked shamrocks from their pans and freeze them till you have the time to finish the outside layer of the cake. You refrigerate the leftover batter till you are good and ready for it.
A day passes. Netflix captures your attention, giving you entertainment, in exchange for your time. Another day passes. You remove your shamrocks from the freezer.
Then you fill the bread pan with batter. Pouring it over the frozen shamrocks before they had time to come to room temp. Then like a jerk you stuck them in the oven to bake at 375 degrees.
And guess what, you got a surprise you didn’t bargain for. Yes, that’s right your cake baked clear through on the edges but remained absolute goo in the middle. You baked and baked and babysat that cake sticking a chopstick in its various weak spots every three minutes.
And finally after 25 minutes (okay you don’t exactly know how long it took. You had other things to worry about) it was DONE. You let it cool. Stuck it in a ziplock bag and popped it in the freezer. Immediately planning to salvage your brick of a cake by cutting off the edges and drizzling it with an Irish Coffee glaze featuring Baileys and Jamison. 
When BAE’s on a Diet & that BAE is You
Keto Sugar Cookies, You’re Welcome
Ingredients:
1 cup butter
1 cup almond flour
1 cup coconut flour
¼ cup vanilla protein powder
½ Tsp vanilla
2 packets splenda
Pinch of salt
Pumpkin spice
Egg Whites (helps with browning)
Combine all ingredients in a stand mixer except the pumpkin spice and egg white. That comes after!
Roll your dry dough real thin and cut into shapes. Brush the cookies with the egg white and sprinkle them with a mixture of pumpkin spice and splenda. Bake at 375 degrees for 6 minutes, turn and then bake another 6. Keep an eye on them so they don’t burn.
Sprinkle with the pumpkin spice mixture. Eat your heart out.
Love, Bear.
Sneaky Ingredients
Sneaky Ingredients:
Blueberries– you intended to eat them, but faster burning sugar (candy) got the best of you and you ate that crap instead. Berries lose nutrition with every passing day so you gotta eat em or pitch em. We don’t pitch anything at the booze infused kitchen.
Spinach– ah yes. Again, it’s Jan. 1 and the diet is in full effect or at least the good intentions are. But you can’t just buy the spinach, you have to eat it. But you let it sit in your fridge lamenting with the berries about their inevitable demise until today…
Other Ingredients:
Chocolate Cake Mix
3 eggs
⅓ cup oil
2 Tsp vanilla
2 tbs Coco powder
1 cup coffee
First in a food process (or whatever contraption you own that will take solids and liquify them) pulverize the berries and spinach until they become one.
This purple mixture of vitamins will go undetected in CHOCOLATE CAKE. Yep. Eat cake and get your vitamins too. You’re welcome.
Combine all the ingredients in the food processor, (one dish to clean-greatest gift ever).
Spray your cake pan. Bake for 30 mins at 375 degrees rotating the pan ½ through.
When your cake is cool enough to touch press the rounded belly down using a paper towel. Instead of cutting it off and eating it all to yourself, as a reward for all the dishes you’re about to do. Am I the only one who does that?
Boom! Flat cake. No trimming necessary.
To maximize the moistness of your cake, when it’s cool, remove it from the pan, double wrap in cling wrap and then pop it in the freezer.
Then frost that sucker.
Ingredients:
7 oz (one container) Marshmallow fluff
1stick of butter
2 tsp vanilla
4cups of powdered sugar
Splash of your favorite flavored liquor (*or milk if it’s for the kiddos)
For a little protein and a ton of flair, combine a container of star sprinkles, chopped peanuts and chocolate chips. Press the concoction into the sides and corners of the cake.
Holy Shit It’s Crickets
- 2 cups rolled oats
- 1/3 cup 100% Pure Mighty Cricket Protein Powder
- ½ golden raisins
- ½ chopped dates
- 1/4 peanuts
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 tsp turmeric
- 1 tsp coriander
- 2 tsp paprika
- 2 tsp chili pepper
- 1 tsp ginger powder
- 1/2 tsp cayenne
- 2 egg whites
- 1/4 cup water
- 1/4 cup bourbon maple syrup
Preheat oven to 300°F assuming you have a working oven, unlike me. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
Mix dry ingredients. Mix liquid ingredients. Combine.
Spread granola onto baking sheet. Bake until you smell burning. For those of you, with legit ovens, god knows. 60 minutes? Don’t forget to stir every now and then and to rotate the pan.
When your house starts to smell amazing, it’s ready. When cool, add golden raisins and chopped dates.
Spicy and sweet. Can’t even taste those high protein, sustainable critters.
Margarita Cupcakes
You wanna know how to get booze into your cupcakes without having to cook any of the intoxicating benefits out of it? First make jello shots. Boil a cup of water, add the gelatin, and stir, stir, stir.
Combine 1/2 cup of cold water and 1/2 cup of your spirit of choice with the gelatin. Use an entire cup of booze if you prefer to slur your words vs. actually enjoying the flavor of your cupcake. In my margarita recipe I used tequila and orange curacao (poor man’s Grand Marnier). Any booze will do. Add lime or orange zest to enhance the otherwise artificial flavor of the jello.
Allow your jello shot concoction to cool while you poke holes into the cupcakes using chopsticks. Drizzle the cooled booze and jello onto the cupcakes.
Top your cupcakes with frosting flavored with more orange curacao. 2 sticks of butter. 4 cups powder sugar. 2 tsp orange curacao. Soooo good. One of my favorite frosting to date.
Eggnog Cupcakes with Booze
When you take a yellow cake mix and replace the water with eggnog, you can do magical things. You can make people swoon with delight. Go on, try it.
For the frosting: substitute milk with Evan Williams Eggnog bourbon. Who needs calcium? 
booze infused kitchen 