A great dessert for a virtual cookout this Fourth of July...Gluten-free Strawberry "Pop-tarts"

We headed South this Saturday for a Southern Adventure for the week and are very excited to be spending this Fourth of July week in the South.  Our first stop was Grifton, NC just outside of Greenville to see Charles’ parent’s new house and hangout for the day.  It was so nice to see them, and to have some real home cooked food, with barbecue chicken, grilled corn and some Southern style green beans.  Plus, some delicious blueberry cobbler!  The next day we headed down 95 and 26 to Charleston, SC for a wedding.  We had to stop in Husk for a late lunch and some simply amazing food because I have been wanting to go for three years now!  The journey continued yesterday to Bluffton, SC, then on to Savannah today.  Before hitting the road to head South though there were gluten-free strawberry “pop-tarts”.  Which would be a simple and easy thing to bring to a cookout this July 4^th.  No fork or napkins necessary!

Part One of our Southern Adventure...

We had to stop by the Alma mater since we were in the area.

A lot on my mind led to Baked Blueberry Maple Donuts

Do you ever have one of those days where you just need to be able to take your mind off of everything?  But, when you try to, the wheels just keep turning making things a little worse than they were to start with.  I have found my tried and true method for fixing this...just figure out what to bake and go for it.  Last night, I went just a little crazy or as Charles said this morning "nuts" and tried for a few to many things, so much so that if I had brought some fruit to work and orange juice there would have been a continental breakfast for the office.  This is what I would like to call a Friday breakfast of champions...  

There were pecan cinnamon rolls...I know this is not going with my get fit summer, but sometimes you just have a craving.

Oh and gluten-free strawberry "pop-tarts" with fresh strawberry filling and sprinkles of course!  Can't forget about all of my gluten-free peeps in the office.

Food for thought...

So I started thinking about food and eating habits last night.  I was thinking about how I would not sit down and eat half a pint of ice cream in front of a crowd of people, but have no problem sitting at home on the sofa and doing so.  I have to admit I have been going through one of those periods of not eating as healthy as I should, and it let me to think about if the world "knew" (like if I Instagramed everything I ate every day for a week or month) would I eat as poorly as I do some days.  So, in my hope to get healthy again this summer, so I am actually prepared for the upcoming bike and running races I am going to pull out some healthier fruit based recipes over the few weeks.  I am going to start to try and think about whether I would eat XYZ if I had to Instagram it first or would I maybe pick up a summer peach instead.  For the meantime though I leave you with the last time I went healthy baking for a month back in February 2013.  I think I need to make some of the cinnamon raisin muesli asap to kick start this attempt at healthy eating.  It is such a great alternative to oatmeal during the hot summer, and is jam packed with flavor and texture.

Baking for blogging...Lemon Blueberry Tart...oh an I'm a Mrs.

I think I have been putting off this post long enough...

Holy cow I got married!  The day finally came almost two weeks ago now and as I said that day..."my Pinterest dreams came true."  Besides getting to marry my best friend and the man I love; all of the hard work, DIYing, time and planning all came together for more than I could have hoped.  It made the fact that I still can't feel the tip of my right index finger from spray painting too long totally worth it.  It made carrying around and moving boxes of chargers, table runners, beer, wine, decorations, etc all worth.  BIG thanks to all of those who helped in carrying all of those boxes too!  Another BIG thanks to Courtney for acting as wedding coordinator for the day and keeping Charles and I on schedule.  A few pics from the day and then on to what this blog is really about...desserts...this time lemon blueberry tarts.

...straight from Pinterest...with hand-cut circle menu cards and hand spray painted wine bottles.

Chocolate, Chocolate, Chocolate and Pigs?

Okay I have been meaning to post this for about two weeks now...but hey there was a little on my mind getting married last weekend and all.  Back to that later.  This cake though was the groom's cake for the wedding three weeks ago.  I honestly wasn't even going to blog about it because I forgot to take a picture of the inside.  Turns out the groom did though and was willing to share.  

I might have had the most fun I have ever had making this cake.  It was a complete surprise for the groom and I was ecstatic to get to make it for him.  I chose the inside filling because I had heard from him before that he loved this cake he had from Crumbs one time with an Oreo cream filling.  This is not for those who don't enjoy a rich cake though.  It is chocolate, chocolate, chocolate with pigs on top...of course I would not recommend eating the pigs though, unless you just enjoy chewing on fondant.  The cake was devil's food cake, with vanilla frosting filling with tones of Oreos crushed and mixed in, with chocolate ganache on top and Reece's and KitKats around the outside.  It turned out looking and tasting exactly the way I wanted it to, and definitely made me want to experiment more with fondant.   Bonus though is that is tasted great too, unlike most decorative cakes.  Enjoy!

Sunrise over Old Town...there was some early morning running (pre-wedding) before a meeting a couple of weeks ago and I just had to snap a shot.

Salted Caramel Cake and 103 other cupcakes for a Wedding

This weekend I truly realized how old I am...I was 100% completely exhausted by 2:00 pm Saturday after a day and half on me feet baking.  Like it was difficult to finish washing the necessary dishes on Saturday...as in I was hunched over the sink washing dishes...as in Sunday I took a two hour nap when we got home.  But I had to rally on Saturday, finish washing the dishes, get cleaned up myself and pack up all the cupcakes, plus the cake, because (A) there was a very important wedding to go to and (B) the cake and cupcakes weren't going to deliver themselves.  Don't get me wrong it was totally worth it, but I do think I want one of those fancy padded kitchen mats now.  The cupcakes for the wedding were chosen by the bride...salted caramel (her favorite and the flavor of the cake), champagne raspberry and "Biscoff" cookie.  I have made each of these cupcakes in either cupcake or cake form before but I had to blog about it because the cake came out so freaking delicious...like the bride and groom ate the entire piece they cut.  We served the rest of the cake because who really wants year old frozen cake, and I had to try a piece myself.  Take three layers of vanilla cake with salted caramel and caramel drizzle into between each layer and what more can you ask for?  I almost didn't have a piece because even after showering I still felt like I was covered in sugar, but boy am I glad I did.  I will be making this one again!

First to start the wedding weekend out right at the rehearsal dinner there was a pig cake...a huge surprise for the groom who had been requesting it.  This was one rich cake...3 layers of devils food cake with Oreo filling and ganache on top.  Plus I has a lot of fun getting to make the pigs! (more to come on this cake)