Sunshine Chiffon Cake

I make this cake just about every year for my little sister's birthday and apparently, I've never posted a picture of it. I forgot to bring my camera to the party so here's a picture of the piece I took home.

The cake itself has a nice lemony flavor and is similar to an angel food cake in texture. It was served with a raspberry coulis and fresh whipped cream. Also vanilla ice cream and potato chips -- it was a birthday party after all.

This cake is also known as the go-nowhere, do-nothing cake.

Sweet Potato Pie

I went to a clam bake that had leftovers so I came home with some clams and sweet potatoes. I asked for A sweet potato, but came home with four. I used the (three dozen!) clams in Manhattan clam chowder, which turned out great, and the sweet potatoes in the pie pictured above.

I thought the sweet potatoes were incredibly sweet so I cut the sugar to 3/4 cup. I also added cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves. I used a graham cracker crust because I had graham cracker crumbs that needed to be used up.

There are a lot of variations to sweet potato pie and this one was exactly what I was looking for. I didn't want to use evaporated or sweetened condensed milk or make the filling too custardy. The end result tasted just like I thought it would from reading the recipe. I love it when that happens!

Blackberry Muffins

I had some out-of-town guests that requested muffins. I should have made blueberry but the blueberries I found at the grocery store were expensive and not that great looking. I went to the farmer's market, but there were no blueberries to be found. I did find blackberries so I made blackberry muffins. I figured they were close enough to blueberry. They almost were.

Next time they're in town, I'll bake blueberry muffins.

Brownies

For Labor Day, I baked some brownies. They were delicious when served with a cold glass of milk, which is how I ate the last of them today.

At the barbecue they were served as pre-dessert for some, with ice cream for others and with ice cream and peach pie for the rest. I didn't make the peach pie but it was beautiful and delicious and I should have taken a picture of it at the party since the piece I took home wasn't that pretty once it got to my house.

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Muffins

From the Ultimate Muffin Book. I made them with mini milk chocolate chips, but I think I like them better with regular semi-sweet chocolate chips.


The recipe was supposed to make a dozen muffins but it made eight muffins and six muffin tops.

Here's a better perspective of the muffin top. It's about half as tall as a cupcake-sized muffin. I guess it would be the top of a jumbo muffin if it was an actual top of a muffin.

I'm not sold on the muffin top pan yet. The first tops I made stuck to the pan. These didn't stick, but they turned out darker than the muffins even though they were baked at the same time. Maybe a 400 degree oven is too hot for the pan. Also they don't taste like the top of a muffin. They taste like a muffin baked in a shallow muffin tin.

Kelleys Island

I spent about a day on Kelleys Island. I took just a few pictures at first because it was cloudy. The next morning it was bright and sunny so I took some from the ferry as I left.

Boat dock

Kelley Mansion

Sun-kissed lake

White cranes

It was a very relaxing time. We didn't really do anything, but that was the point. It's that kind of island.

Tiger Party

Here's the cake for a baby's first birthday party. The ears are made of cupcakes so the little guy could dig in and make a mess without destroying the main cake. The cake was yellow Special Birthday Cake. The orange and white frosting was Won't Melt Whipped Creme Frosting and the brown was Hershey's "Perfectly Chocolate" Chocolate Frosting. I frosted the cake white and handed over the decorating duties to the baby's mom. I think she did a great job.

I don't know why I thought we needed cookies in addition to the cake, but these are Swedish Sugar Cookies cut-out in the shape of no. 1 with orange frosting and chocolate sprinkles or "jimmies" to give them a tiger look. You can never have too many sweets at a party!