The ante is upped this year, as six months ago I decided to forsake all sugar and sugar related recipes unless there's an event demanding celebratory yummies. I made this difficult decision after spending over a week eating little more than birthday cake for every meal. Even when it wasn't a birthday week, it wasn't uncommon for me to, say, make a pie, eat pie for every meal for three days, make another pie, and repeat.
Moreover, I was a stress baker. Paper due and three classes to teach? Create experimental cheesecakes. Super broke and possessing nothing but frozen fruit and oatmeal? Fashion some sort of crumble. Bad day at work? Take it out on the dough for some bad ass cinnamon rolls.
Given all of that, you can only imagine the pressure I now feel as I approach a special occasion. For one, this is one of my few opportunities to bake. For another, more sweets aren't coming any time soon. Or at least not until Mr. Crafty's birthday in March. I realize that may not seem like a long time to some of you, but over a month of having to stress bake with beets is psychologically taxing to a person with the predilections laid out in the previous paragraphs.
To take the frantic "what to do, what to do!" out of my brain, I'm trolling for the opinions of my readers. The line up of options follows. Please cast a vote! Recipes for the curious or adventurous are linked to the goodies on the list.
Option number one: a nod to my homeland with Kentucky cream candy.
Numero dos: cardamom cake. I'm thinking it should have cream cheese frosting.
Option three is a Valentine's classic: red velvet cake. Also with cream cheese frosting.
Then there's a healthier option for number four: fruit with mascarpone cheese and meringue. This is an option I find both appealing and terrifying because I'm not a skilled meringue maker.
And number five just sounds awesome: pear upside down chocolate cake.
Quick! Vote! And please feel free to add to the mayhem by giving me more recipe ideas, too.
Much love to all of you! <3
Posts
7 comments:
i'm voting for the kentucky cream candy, just because i know nothing about it ;)
Fruit with mascarpone & meringue! Yum...that looks so delicious. I've never made meringue, but from the looks of that picture the struggle might be well worth it!
Good luck with whatever lovey pastry you end up making! I'm sure it will be yummy.
By the way, did you nix all sweeteners or just processed sugars? I've cut back on the processed stuff, too, but I can't let go of my honey & maple syrup!
Oh, I haven't given up honey; nor could I ever! The same for maple syrup, although I don't use it as frequently.
The problem with baking using those two sweeteners is that so much of them must be used! A cup of honey costs so much more than a cup of sugar, you know?
Kentucky Cream Candy, all the way! (That said, Chocolate Pear could be really good... And you can't go wrong with Red Velvet, if you want a sure thing.)
red velvet!
how can you NOT have a red cake for valentines day?!!! YUMM!
Although the red velvet cake has my heart....mmmmm.....cake....the fruit with mascarpone cheese and meringue really is yummy. If you put a little good quality chocolate with it to scoop up the cheese on it's even better :).
Ms. Smitten... where do you find your mascarpone cheese? It was nowhere to be found in the city. I so wanted some after reading your chocolate suggestion. Yum!
And for all you red velvet voters, I'm thinking I should have followed your advice! More on that later.
And for the cream candy voters, I'll have more on that later, too!
Thanks for all the help! <3
Post a Comment