November Daring Bakers

I'm still completely bummed that I missed last month's pizza challenge. Its just a tad difficult to bake when your oven is in the living room, next to the dishwasher and refrigerator. sigh...

BUT I do have a shiny, new, awesome tile floor so I suppose I'll survive.

This month's challenge is all about the sugar again. Literally. Brought to us by Dolres of Culinary Curiosity, Alex (Brownie of the Blondie and Brownie duo), and Jenny of Foray into Food.

Caramel Cake from Shuna Fish Lydon of Eggbeater

I was completely intimidated at first reading the problems some people were facing with this recipe - greasy, oil messes, dense, flat cakes. I was pleasantly surprised that I really didn't have any issues at all.

I've made caramels before so I'm familiar with the "carameling" process (is that even a word). I think my biggest issue was that I had no clue how to "brown" butter for the frosting. (*ducks head*). I figured I'd just cook the heck out of it until it browned and whadday-know, that's how you do it ;).

I'm afraid that I overcooked my cupcakes though. I figured 15 minutes would be a good "look and see point" and when I peeked, they were golden...sigh.



My cake is dense, but not horribly so. It reminds me almost a bit more of a cross between a coffee cake and a pound cake, but neither are good examples.

The icing is ridiculously sweet though. I ended up added sea salt to it, to get that nice occasional salt crunch.

All in all this was a pretty easy challenge and I'm happy I gave it a try.

I'm a winner! :)

Thanks Michelle of Simply Blessed for nominating me!

The Rules:

1. Put the award up on your blog


2. Add a link to the person who awarded it to you


3. Nominate at least seven other blogs


4. Add links to these blogs on your blog


5. Leave a message for your nominee on their blog


And my nominees are:

http://myversionofthestory.blogspot.com/
http://delucasworld.blogspot.com/
http://thebookishone.blogspot.com/
http://kidsinthesuburbs.blogspot.com/
http://pbdreams.blogspot.com/
http://www.tredways.org/
http://abigcupoftea.blogspot.com/

Rock Star!

So I've been woefully behind here.

We had Ally's 4th birthday party a couple of weeks ago. A Princess extravaganza complete with a castle cake.



Ally's newest obsessions:
Bratz (and my hatred of them cannot be adequately expressed...)
Getting a puppy
Riding a horse
and chapstick.

Oh and becoming a Rock Star


She's got the attitude. Ooh, how she has perfected the attitude!

On the Phone with Great-Grandma

Overheard Ally on the phone with her great grandma last night:

"We got the big, old turkey today, but its dead, not alive one."

The day I thought I went blind

So I went out to lunch yesterday with my sister and a co-worker. About 1/2 way through my eyes started getting weird. I thought I had looked at a light a little too long. It was a little comma of vibrating, pulsing, shimmering colors right in the center of my vision. Got me a little worried.

Driving back to work (I wasn't driving) I noticed it was getting bigger, more like a crescent, and was moving to the side and was in both eyes. Freak out commenced.

By the time I got back to my desk it was a HUGE crescent of shimmering, pulsating colors and had taken over 2/3 of my field of vision. I could barely see and was pretty hysterical. Thankfully my opth was able to squeeze me in if I got there ASAP.

Couldn't drive, was now crying at my desk at this point, figured "I lost, game over, I busted every blood vessel in my eyes and was going to be blind forever." (dramatic much?)

My sister drove me to my parents (my mom had the day off and was going to drive me to the opth). By the time I got to my sisters car, it was completely gone. Totally normal vision. From start to finish it had lasted 20-30minutes.

Then the nausea hit.

Praying it was a 1 time deal, but eye doc thinks I may start to suffer from "classic" migraines. The type with auras. What I described to him was a 100% classic aura. I was pretty nauseous yesterday with a mild headache. The boomer hit last night and is still going pretty strong. Not the worst headache I've ever head, but still not fun.

At least I got an eye exam out of the deal. Those puppies are still going strong. ;) He did make me do a peripheral vision test which is NOT fun when you're nauseous and have dilated pupils, but I apparently passed.