Cranberry rolls and cherry blossoms

It's not always all cake all the time with me. I like to branch out and do a little savory sometimes too. I joined a few friends for a picnic on the National Mall last year and brought along these Cranberry-Nut Rolls made from a recipe found on Epicurious.



I love making bread. Not as sweet as cake but every bit as versatile. The cranberries and nuts in these were absolutely fantastic!



I also love how yeast makes dough rise. It's like magic!



The recipe made a TON of rolls, all about the size of my fist. Far more rolls than three friends could eat at a picnic lunch. I was noshing on rolls for the rest of the week.



And after our picnic, we went for a nice stroll around the National Mall and the monuments. It was cherry blossom time, so we took in some beautiful views among the massive crowd.

German Chocolate Cake

In my quest to bake everything in Rose's Heavenly Cakes, there are cakes that are easy and ones that are difficult. The German Chocolate Cake was almost ridiculously simple.



But there are a hell of a lot of ingredients in it.



While the cake is a pretty basic chocolate cake, the star of the show is the coconutty filling. Extremely sweet and flavorful.



Pretty and delicious. Maybe a little sweeter than I'd like, but it seems I have a really low tolerance for sweet lately.

Almond Samah Chiffon

I am still alive and baking, although I am also still too lazy to update with any kind of regularity.  It certainly doesn't help that the internet decided to eat my original post.

In any case, today's cake is that Almond Samah Chiffon from Rose's Heavenly Cakes.



It's been over a year since I made this, so I don't remember very much about it. I think it was for a birthday?



I do remember that I made my own almond flour for this though. Sugar and almonds. A little pricey, but very tasty.



I also had to purchase a bottle of amaretto to brush on the cake. My liquor cabinet is an extremely diverse collection of bottles with only two tablespoons missing from each.



I am very bad at decorating, but I can do simple stuff with a piping bag and whipped cream. Raspberry whipped cream topped this cake and made it extremely tasty.



The cake was ultimately eaten during the weekly pub quiz. Even though we probably didn't do very well, at least we had good eats!