Leftovers = Brownies

This isn't very typical, huh? When leftovers become brownies?

Well, I had some leftover unsweetened Baker's chocolate from when making my BIL's birthday cake. They screamed at me and I caved. Eh. My inner fat kid, who is named Philipé, caved. 

And, come on. Who DOESN'T love brownies?!

Recipe Free.

This is the first time I've ever made, and used, fondant. Everything on the cake is 100% edible. w00t!

Happy 21st Birthday, Jonathan!

King me!

When I asked my brother-in-law what kind of cake he wanted, he was very blah about it. 

"CAKE! I don't care. I just love CAKE!"

>.<

I've personally been itching to try making another checkerboard cake. I've tried making them in the past without having to buy the special pan inserts, but they haven't come out looking the prettiest. So, I decided this would be the perfect time to try again.

The idea of the checkerboard cake is that when you cut a piece out of it, it will have a 3x3 checkerboard pattern on it. I'm doing it in chocolate and vanilla, and you can use food coloring to change the color scheme.

This will be a 3 layer cake, so using 3 cake pans of the same size would be easiest. Seeing as I only have one cake pan, I'll be washing the pan between bakes. That kinda sucks, but it's crazy what I'll do for family.

And so it begins again.

Fondant Hell.

My brother-in-law is coming to Missouri from California for a visit, and his birthday falls on his vacation here. So what did I do?

Well I HAD to bake him a cake, ofcourse!

For this cake, though, I decided I wanted to go all out. I don't even do this for my kids. I love them to pieces, but I'm not sure this would ever be something I'd do again. Ever. 

I tried making fondant for the first time. Marshmallow fondant. It tastes delicious. But it's a HUGE pain in the ass. There was a lot of foul words thrown around in the kitchen that night. Kyle was getting a kick out of it all. You know, as he sat back playing his XBox 360. *eye roll*

Melty marshmallow goodness.

This is where the Hell begins.

"McDonalds or homemade?"

I've never made a pie.

Ever.

Ironic, huh? I cook and bake almost everything under the sun that I can, but I've never tried a pie.

SO, in order to pop my pie cherry (insert Warrant song joke here), I decided I had to go all out.

I had to make it completely from scratch. Pie crust and all.

And it had to be apple.

>.<

So, I sent Kyle out to get me the apples and I searched for a recipe. I like AllRecipes because of the variety of recipes, plus the 5 star rating system. It really helps me filter out what I want. But I'm going to repost the ingredients and such here, so you don't have to go all over the interwebz.

*I baked this in a casserole dish..because I don't have a pie dish. I don't suggest doing that.*

An asian..cooking...mexican?

For some reason, whenever we have someone over I'm obligated to make these. Not anything else, just my burritos. They're simple and quick, so I don't complain, but it kinda confuses me, to say the least.

Large tortillas FTW. Also make great baked nachos.

Mixmixmix.

Beans, beans, the magical fruit....

Everything tastes better with cheese.