Strawberry Tall Cake

This weekend I received my monthly issue of Southern Living. I usually browse through it quickly then toss it onto the coffee to remain untouched for about two weeks, until I finally muster up the strength to toss it in the recycling bin. However, this month had a article about the best southern bakeries, this peaked my interest, so I sat down and read about the different bakeries below the Mason-Dixon line.

One cake that I saw looked amazing. It was a vanilla cake with vanilla buttercream and piled with strawberries. Now maybe it's because we've been having unusually good whether, or maybe I just needed a break from chocolate (crazy, i know) but I decided immediately that I would make this cake. So I went to the store and picked up some strawberries and started baking.

New York Style Crumb Cake

I was having trouble deciding what I was going to make last night. I had thought about making sticky buns because my grandma had made them over Christmas and they were amazing. But then I started thinking about the time it would take to make a proper yeasted dough and having to scrape the delicious sticky goodness off one of my pans and it quickly got me out of the mood. I still wanted to make something in the breakfast/dessert category, but it needed to be quick. That's when I landed on coffee cake. You can have it in the morning with a cup of coffee and in the evening with a big bowl of ice cream, or at least I can... and will.

Cheesecake Factory Cheescake

Cheesecake is a very interesting dessert. It seems like it would be easy enough, just cream together some cream cheese, sugar, and eggs, right? Not so much. You have to worry about the texture of the filling, the crunch of the crust, the heat in the oven, the jiggle! I've made a couple of cheesecakes and while I've been able to avoid the infamous CRACK I have yet to perfect crust... I put the cheesecake in a water bath (to ensure even cooking), but no mater how much foil I wrap it in, water always seeps in. I'm at a loss. I mean the texture is perfect and the taste is amazing, but the crust doesn't have that crunch that I want. Oh well, maybe I'll just have to forgo the water bath and live with a cracked cheesecake...

Homemade Oreos

I came back to work last week and it was like a ghost town. it was so dead I may have even seen a tumbleweed roll by my desk at one point or that could have been a mirage from me going delirious with boredom. Needless to say there was absolutely NOTHING to do, so I stayed busy by drooling over foodgawker pictures and updating my Pinterest boards. Why didn't I just go home a veg on the couch, you ask? Well, mommy needs a paycheck! So while I eagerly perused the gawkerverse I happened upon a homemade Oreo recipe. I had seen these a couple times before, but also wrote them off. I mean, you can't beat the original and I don't like making cookies... that's right, I said it! For some reason, cookies just don't excite me. SUE ME! Nevertheless, I clicked on the link and decided that I would make them, immediately. Or at least once I got off work at 3.