Bake 52: Week 17

This week Talesha's pick was Baklava!

 I was super excited for this week.  Any mention of Baklava brings back fond memories of the Greek Festival we had in Price every year growing up. I never imagined that was something I could make - that was just something you buy!   It was so fun to see how it is actually put together. 

After LOTS of layers of phyllo dough and LOTS and LOTS of butter, some nuts, cinnamon, cloves and a honey syrup, here is the Baklava.  It was absolutely delicious!

Check out the recipe on Talesha's Blog!

Bake 52: Week 16

This week we baked Strawberry Rhubarb Pie.  Only I couldn't find any rhubarb at the stores yet, so I baked a Strawberry Pie! I don't think I've ever had a baked strawberry pie - only the cold ones, you know, with all the red gelatin around the strawberries in an already made crust? Yep, that one.  Well I was dying to have a strawberry pie in a real pie crust so I was really excited for this week.

I loved that I finally learned how to make the edges of the pie pretty - and it was so much easier than I have always thought! However, I wish I would have sealed the edges better because some of the filling leaked out during baking - just added a little color though, nothing too devastating.

The recipe also had you soak the strawberries and sugar for an hour to let the extra juice drain out so the pie wouldn't be soupy.  I saved this juice to pour over the finished product with ice cream....YUM!

Check out Valerie's Blog for the recipe!  I would definitely recommend trying out this pie crust!

Bake 52: Week 15

Take 3 layers of rich chocolate cake, fill & cover them with rich chocolate pudding (and another layer of cake crumbs) and what do you get?
Chocolate Blackout Cake!

I had never seen or tasted this cake, but my-oh-my was it delicious!

It was actually quite easy to make and a forgiving cake too - I don't know about everyone else, but I had a hard time getting the cakes cut in half and staying together.  Luckily I could piece them together and cover them with pudding!  This cake is extremely rich, but delicious!  My kids loved it too, but could only eat a small amount.  I ate way more than I planned, but couldn't resist all of the CHOCOLATE!

I would definitely try this cake again.  I would also just make the pudding by itself, I had never made pudding from scratch and it turned out to be really easy. Check out Courtney's Blog for the recipe!

Bake 52: Week 14

Who doesn't love a Tres Leches cake? What is not to love? Cake. Heavy Cream. Sweetened Condensed Milk. More Cream. Oh - and this recipe even has you cook the sweetened condensed milk to make dulce de leche. Ok, you had me at Tres Leches. 

I thought I would be so nice this week and make a gluten-free cake, not only for my husband, but for my sister-in-law who was in town visiting. I was so excited with this recipe and the steps. Somehow, my flour substitution didn't go so well (you never know what you're going to get when you go gluten-free!). My batter was very runny, but I baked it anyway. It did bake up nice and absorb the milk mixture nicely. However, the middle of the cake was super dense and dry. How could it be dry when I poured that much milk on top of it? BUT the edge pieces of the cake were marvelous (especially the next day). For some reason, the cake around the edges turned out perfect and absorbed the milk like it should. Kris and I ate all of the edge pieces (one bite at a time.  How did those bites add up to half a cake?!?) Saturday while we worked on putting in a kitchen floor - it's what got us through! One tip - this cake goes really well with diet coke! (OK, really, what doesn't?) So - I will definitely try this again. I have baked a GF Tres Leches before and it turned out great, I just messed something up on this recipe. Definitely have to do a redo. This recipe was fabulous and I'm glad it was chosen! Check out Amanda's Blog to get the recipe!

My sister-in-law gave it two thumbs up (thumbs get cut off when you use a camera on your phone).  Unfortunately, this was before she actually tasted it. And she got a middle piece.  Sorry Julie!