I would have never thought to put sweet potato in a cake but oh man is it tasty.  I called my mom up to ask her how she cooked sweet potatoes and to my surprise it was the same way Melissa’s mom told her to.  My mom informed me that my dad loves sweet potatoes (also known as camotes) and that she makes them for him at least every other week during the winter.  Once I confirmed how to bake them I began my task.  For this recipe you need to get begin early because you need to first cook and cool the sweet potatoes before mixing it in with the rest of the ingredients.   I used the methods that Melissa previously mentioned about being patient while creaming the butter and mixing in the rest of the ingredients thoroughly.  I also made sure to center the 10-inch tube pan in the oven and not the actual rack.

Things new to me:
Sweet potatoes
Maple flavoring
Granny Smith apples

I had never used maple flavoring before or worked with apples.

What I learned from this recipe:
Patience

I was too impatient and when I attempted to flip the cake it broke.  Oops.  Since we had already called my in-laws and told we were brining cake I used confectioners sugar to cover some of my mistake. Normally I would have just baked another cake and taken that one but since I am turning over a new league and trying to be less of a perfectionist I took it anyway.

So what did my in-laws think about this cake…

..they loved it.  My hubby thought that this cake was good but not great.  I thought it was surprisingly good.

The recipe for this cake can be found here.

The name of this cake was funny to me but not so much to my hubby who said, “Why do you need to catch a man?”  To which I replied, “I don’t need to catch one I need to know how to keep one.” So I told him I would rename it if I could to the man keeper.

When I began reading through this recipe I realized that by taking the challenge on of baking all these recipes one every week I was going to find myself purchasing ingredients I had never used before.

Things new to me:
Lemon extract
Orange extract
Tube Pan

What I learned from this recipe:
Patience
How to cream/mix butter/ ingredients properly

I’m not kidding I realized that I was the type of person Melissa Gray jokes about that keeps opening the oven door thinking that is going to speed the baking process along. I also learned along with my patience that taking the time to cream the butter makes a lot of sense.  I think that if I owned a stand mixer my task would have been easier but since I’m the frugal type and I don’t have one of those fancy Kitchen Aid mixers I just used my hand held one.

Okay so I began to prepare for the big day when I was going to start baking I had to decide who my first victims (oops I meant to say tasters) were going to be. Since my hubby and I have game night with some of our friends on Wednesday nights I decided to take it along to share with them.

So after I baked my heart away what did the boys have to say…

…delicious. Well they really didn’t say anything but I didn’t have any leftovers to bring home so I’ll take that as delicious. My hubby did say that he loved how sweet and citricy (is that a word) it was.

So the verdict was that the Man Catcher-Sour Cream Pound Cake was a big hit!  I had never used sour cream in my baking experience or had ever made a pound cake but I did both and it was amazing.

You can find the recipe here

Now that I no longer have to spend my nights diy items for the wedding I seem to have more times to myself and for my hubby.  Many people told me that there was going to be avoid and I wondered to myself if this was going to be true.  I began my fall quarter shortly after the wedding and that filled up some of my time but not all of it.  One of the things that has filled up my time is baking. I love to bake! I’m not a pastry chef by any means but I love every minute of it.

On el dia de los Reyes Magos which falls on January 6th my hubby surprised me with a book I wanted.  He got me All Cakes Considered a book that one of the producers from NPR, Melissa Gray wrote.  As I began to read it I was becoming more excited about all the baking possibilities and who besides my hubby I was going to share all the deliciousness with.  Melissa Gray writes that she shared her pastries with the staff of All Things Considered I mean the hubby and I love to eat but eating everything ourselves that’s just nuts. I don’t work so I don’t have co-workers to share it with but I do have friends and family which is what I’ve been doing.  So far I have baked 5 cakes from the book and now I have decided to share them with you.

Note: I will not be posting the recipes here because I really think getting the book is worth it.