Chocolate Loaf Cake Quest and results!

Who knew I had such picky peanut butter cookie testers? After much tweaking, we arrived at our ultimate cookie - using Adam's peanut butter (Aaron's request), brown sugar (mine stipulation), and plenty of chopped peanuts (in honor of my Dad, who must have chopped nuts). These are truly awesome cookies.

But I can't share the recipe with you. How else can I get you to come to my bakery someday? But, I promise to do a cookbook later. Just not now.

And now, on to the next week of testing. This week - Chocolate loaf cake. Honestly, I'm going to be making friends with new neighbors, dropping these off. Just hope they don't hold it against me that I've taken a few slices out of it first!


Now I just have a boatload of peanut butter cookies to get rid of. Good thing I'm feeding the missionaries tonight!

Peanut Butter Cookie Quest

And so it begins - the recipe testing and tweaking and more testing. This week is the Peanut Butter cookie showdown. I've got about seven recipes I want to try so I can build my ultimate. The problem - I can't taste test these, so I'm going to have to rely on Aaron (and Laurel's) judgment.

For me, they have to have peanuts in them. And they can't be too sweet. A little chewy would be nice. And lots of peanut flavor - most just don't have enough in my book.

Wish me luck! I'll let you know how it goes!

P.S. The reason I can't taste test them is that when I eat peanuts, I get big gross canker sores in my mouth that don't go away for a while and it makes me miserable. So, no peanuts for me. It sucks. Because I love Snickers. And Reese's. And Butterfingers.

What I've been up to lately

• Reading - lots of reading for school - Charlotte's Web, Winnie the Pooh, Wind in the Willows, Tom Sawyer, Treasure Island, and now The Jungle Book
• Cutting - rotary and scissors - stuff for quilts and doll dresses for Laurel's birthday/Christmas this year
• Recipe tweaking - working on the bakery menu and our ultimates
• Celebrating nine years with my sweetie!

That's pretty much it. No picture, sorry. I'll photograph the doll clothes once they are sewn. I'm planning to do as much as possible during the break between quarters. And I have to sew Laurel's Halloween costume then too. Ugh! But it's awesome!

Where have I been?

Oh, at school. And stuff.

But I'm putting on my apron and heating up the house (even more, thank you Seattle heat-wave) because I'm entering another recipe contest.

More on that later. But I'm entering three recipes. Because I love the sound of all three.

Pictures to come as I polish them off. Not personally. I would never eat it all myself. Well, maybe a bit, but shhhhh. Don't tell Aaron. He thinks I share everything with the neighbors!

Christmas Quilts

There is no denying that Christmas is my favorite holiday. I love love LOVE it! So I have quilts in the works.

First, I'm making this quilt with this fabric, fussy cut as the center squares and then surrounded by a whole mess o' red and white prints.
I'm using a white on white snowflake print for the sashing. So cute!

Next, I just discovered my new favorite pattern designer and ordered two right off.


I'm going to make both using this line of fabric:

Pretty cute, eh?

School starts for me soon, but I will make as much time as possible for sewing.

I have a problem

I want to be cool, really I do. I want to be a scrappy quilter. It sounds so, well, tough to me. Like "I can make anything from what I've got." Instead of being the matchy-matchy quilter I started out as. I've got a big ol' box of scraps. I just can't figure out how to do it.

My problem? I want a pattern. Here's a TMI moment, but I look for patterns in things. Everywhere. And I do mean everywhere. Like, as in the tiles on bathroom floors everywhere. I go nuts if I can't figure out the pattern. I like symmetry. I like it to make sense. This might explain why I love math.

Quilts like these I love to look at. But when I have to try to put them together, my brain starts fritzing out. I can't do it! I find myself falling into a pattern. And then it doesn't look scrappy. It looks like I meant to do it. Grrr!
So I'm trying for color themes, like the rainbow zig zag above and this red/aqua below. I figure I can manage the scrappiness within certain parameters. I'm going to have to ease into this. It is not the Polar Bear Club. I'm not jumping in feet first here.

So I've got a whole big stash of red/aqua prints for a half-square triangle quilt. Love the brightness of it.

See, this quilt here is more my style. And cute. I might do one of these too. Just to have fun with it. I have some adorable cupcake prints that would be great with polka dots. Or an umbrella print. Or....something.
It is fun to look at quilt pictures, isn't it? LOVE these quilts. I'll adjust to my scrappy nature. It's just going to take me a really long time!

Boy Quilts

I'm liking this fabric for two quilts for my boys - these are just the car fabrics. There are other coordinating fabrics that go with them and they are all bright and fun and boyish.

What do you think?





My other thought is to just do bright colors in a traditional pattern like a zig zag or an Irish chain or a pinwheel quilt.

What do you think? If I make something just in bright colors, it might last longer, right?