A backlog of baked goods.

A bunch of my friends have birthdays in December, so to celebrate and please both the chocolate and vanilla lovers I made marble cupcakes. I used my go to recipe for marble cakes (more like a pound cake). They were tender and moist and even better on the second day.

I was also cleaning out my digital camera and came across these lovely pictures. Aparantly I forgot to import them which is a shame really. I'm pretty sure these are my infamous pumpkin cinnamon buns aka the best cinnamon buns I have ever made. I only make them in the fall because it seems weird to do something that has pumpkin in it outside of harvest season. It' like making a buche de noel in the middle of summer, but they're lovely! They proofed perfectly, the pumpkin gave it a nice golden brown colour and they were nice and tender even after a couple days (which you know can get shifty when it comes to yeasted breads) Check out flickr to see a picture of them with icing.

Lastly I made some apricot date squares for work for a party. We didn't have enough dates for a complete recipe of my usual date squares, so I pulled out my Taste of Home Cookies since I knew there was a recipe for some apricoty bars. They were fairly easy to put together, not quite as much oats as your typical date square-a little more on the shortbread side if you will. They topping is a little messy while eating, but only really tasty things are.

It's all in the cocoa.

We ran out of cookies once again, so my family requested brownies. I usually use my go-to recipe where I mix premium cocoa with Ghiradelli unsweetened Cocoa, a little coffee, and some cayenne which turns out some pretty dirty (and by dirty I mean good) brownies. They're extremely fudgey, moist, and melt in your mouth and are even better if you nuke them in the microwave before you eat them.

This time around I ran out of both of my usual cocoas as I made a bunch of my infamous coal cookies for my family and sister's boss so instead I used the only stuff we had left-generic store brand cocoa powder. I'm not saying that all store brand or no name products are horrible as I do enjoy President's Choice products these days, but this time the crapy cocoa made a difference. I had a bit of the old cocoas left and even just looking at the two I had my "Really? I'm not impressed?" grossed out face on. I even mixed in some truffle-filled chocolate bar chunks my sister brought back from Europe, but you could see and taste the difference.

See how light it is? Normally it's the rich, deep, dark colour of fertile earth or a flourless cake whereas instead it's a chalky brown. They still tasted like a good brownie, but they didn't taste like my best brownies. I'm going grocery shopping today and will be getting some new cocoa. Anybody want some partially used cocoa powder?...