A Baker's Dozen

Before I delve into our Athens Trip photos and blogs, I thought I would share some of my recent baking endeavors.

First off, I have to credit both of these recipes to Pinterest.  If you haven't heard of Pinterest, you really must go there right now.  It is an amazing website where you basically create boards and pin photos to them that you like.  So whenever you're on a webpage and you see something you like whether it's an idea for home decorating, a DIY project, recipe, etc. you can pin it to your corresponding board.  You can also follow other people's boards.  I have only had an account for a couple of months now, but I have already logged quite a few hours.

I think I may have heard of Pinterest before from some of the blogs I follow, but one of my friends, A, from Raleigh/Durham actually prompted me to start using it.  Also, I think the fact that they "put you on a waiting list" to get your account gives you even that much more anticipation.  Once you get an account, you can follow me!

All that to say, about 6 weeks ago we had 3 of Paul's buddies over for a  mexican dinner, went golfing, and then came back to our place for some catch phrase.  I decided to make the Orange Pull-apart Bread which sounded spring-y to me and looked delicious.  It was actually much easier to make than I expected.  And quite delicious I might add--even with only being cooked about halfway through (it was supposed to be done rising about 30 mins into our golfing round, so it got a little bit out of control while we were gone).  When you are making the orange zest and mixing it with the sugar--it smells delightful!  You can find the recipe from my pin here.

I love how the pieces just pull apart :)

Delicious sugar-y, orange-y delight

The second item is Cookie Dough cupcakes.  The moment I saw this, I could not get over how amazing they sounded.

The photo on pinterest looks much more appetizing :) (And yes, I do eat my cupcakes without icing when i get the option)

These too were surprisingly easy--you just need to have a planning and get started the day before. You can find this recipe from the pin here.  (Note:  If you make these, I would stick with the "ball" cookie dough shape and not the cylinder like she recommends...I tried that and they didn't fit in the cupcake batter.  Also, I just used boxed yellow cake mix which both Paul and I love.  Finally, I ran out of butter and didn't get to try to frosting...I guess that's just a good excuse to make them again.)

I overfilled the cupcake tins a bit much...you can see how some of them overflowed

Yum, yum, yummmmm