Back to Baking.

Hello blogsters! It's been WAY too long since my lil' fingers have danced on the keyboard and written you a foodie love letter. For that, please accept my sincerest apologies. I didn't stop eating or cooking, but I did take some time to shift gears and re-focus on some health stuff. I haven't baked in a really long time and sincerely have missed it.  I missed the sweet sounds of my stand-up mixer beating butter and sugar together in a harmonious song. I missed the whisking of dry ingredients and I missed the sound of my jazzy turquoise timer going off, "it's ready, it's really ready"!

During this time de-blogging status, I bookmarked several recipes to try and when I read Luisa Weiss' post about donut cake, I just knew it would be the first thing I would bake. I rarely bake the same thing twice in one week, but this donut cake recipe is without a shadow of a doubt, worth baking more than once a week. Your friends, family and co-workers will forever be grateful, I promise. It's such a simple recipe (eggs, butter, sugar, flour, vanilla, salt, buttermilk, cornmeal, baking powder and nutmeg) and it delivers grand results.  Yes, your kitchen will smell like a donut factory, but who is going to complain about that? I wish I could've bottled up that smell into a fragrant candle. 

P.S. - If you don't have a springform pan in your cupboards (mine sadly passed away when I made the cake for a second time), a 9" round cake pan will do just fine.

HOT OFF THE PRESSES!!!!!! A ZINE GIVEAWAY!!!!

For the last 9 months or so, I've been stewing and brewing up my very first ZINE!!! What's a zine you ask? It's an independently published magazine. They can be about anything you can imagine and it's a unique subculture amongst the zinesters out there.

So without further ado, Bitchin' Kitchen presents Cake Geek Volume I - my first foodie zine dedicated to cake recipes! These are easy cakes, perfect for any occasion!

Want to win a copy for FREE???? Just post a comment below on the blog and be entered to win! Comments can be posted until Sunday night 11:59 pm PST. FIVE WINNERS WILL BE SELECTED and (using www.random.org) will be revealed on Monday, March 14th! SPREAD THE WORD!!!!

NPR and Cakes.

Call it what you may, but living in Los Angeles forces most of us to spend some "quality time" in our vehicles driving to and from work. Last night, sitting in traffic, I was listening to NPR and caught a wonderful story which featured a very special lady. Melissa Gray (who works at NPR) is known around the office as a "baking guru". It's not hard to spot this kind of colleague, those employees who spend evenings in front of an oven, rolling out pie dough, or whipping up some homemade buttercream frosting for a delicate sponge cake. You know the kind I'm talking about, I happen to fall into that category myself. And as a result of Melissa's dedication and love for baking cakes of all treats, she has published a book entitled "All Cakes Considered". The title is a play on NPR's broadcast, All Things Considered. As I continued my commute out of downtown Los Angeles, Melissa's featured recipe for Sweet Potato Pound Cake practically had me foaming at the mouth. Click on the link above to hear the story, read the article and print the recipe. I know what I'm going to bake this weekend, and now you do too.

Photo courtesy of www.npr.com