Party Hopping

Party hopping! On Saturday John and I had two parties to go to. So Saturday morning I got baking! The first was a party for a friend of John's, who he had not seen in 15 plus years. His friend got married and they had a little party for people who could not attend. As a little gift I made the couple Espresso Swirl Brownies from Alice Medrich's Cookies and Brownies Book. These brownies turned out fabulous, I tried one and they are wonderful and full of espresso and chocolate flavor.

The next party we went to was for John's best friend. It was his birthday! I made regular chocolate cupcakes with yummy sugary frosting! I put some fun electric blue sprinkles for decorations. The funny thing with these cupcakes was the actual cupcake did not stick to the baking cups so I had to take the cupcakes out of the cups because it did not look pretty!

Read the Directions!

When I was in Bali, I took a cooking class. The first thing the chef said was read the recipe all the way through before you start. I thought to myself, that is such a basic request, I kind of laughed at the idea. Because, I have been cooking and baking and always scan through the recipe before I begin. After the goof of making brownies last week, I will ALWAYS read through the WHOLE recipe before beginning! Anther thing I will do is not assume things! Growing up when my mom would make brownies she would use a 8x8 pan, so I have been doing the same thing. So, when I made a recipe for brownies out of "Baked" I assumed that the recipe called for a 8x8 pan, but in fact in called for a 9x13 pan! That would explain the gooey middle that I discovered when I was trying to cut the brownies out of the pan and it was a complete mess I figured it out! But, the taste was so tasty that I ignored the gooey and still enjoyed the mess!