Vanilla Bean Cake with Pecan Praline Glaze

I've been baking this amazing and delicious Bundt cake since 2017, when I tore it out of the September issue of Better Homes and Gardens, one of my favorite sources for new recipes.

Buuuuuuut, people.  You can't put "1 3/4 cups butter" on the ingredients list, only to have the instructions tell you to use 1 cup of that butter in the cake and 3/4 cup of that butter in the glaze.  I'm going to mistakenly use ALL one-and-three-fourths cups of butter in the cake, every time.  

So, you're welcome, the Internet, I made this recipe easier to read.

It's delicious and moist, and if you mix up some cake release paint (equal parts melted butter and powdered sugar) and generously brush the inside of your Bundt pan, it comes out like a dream, every time.

Pecan Pie

I made this pecan pie for my favorite police officer, after he helped
me with an EPIC April Fool's Day joke {STORY BELOW}.
His talented wife, Amanda, in addition to being a good friend
 of mine, is a professional photographer and took this beautiful
picture for me!!!
~PHOTO by AMANDA C. PHOTOGRAPHY~

This is my husband's second favorite pie at Thanksgiving (after chocolate cream pie), and I got the recipe from his mom, who is both an excellent cook and a wonderful friend!  I've never been a huge fan of pecan pie myself, but I like doing nice things for my sweet hubby (especially when the nice things are this easy!).

Making your pie crust will take longer than making this simple, delicious filling.  The recipe calls for a single crust, and I often have one already wrapped up and frozen in the freezer, since my flakiest pie crust recipe makes a double crust.

These metallic or silicone pie shields are meant to keep your crust from getting too dark, but they also hold it up on the edge where it's supposed to stay, which I recommend for every single-crust (and some double-crust) pies, too.

  

Bake for 45 minutes, check the color (it should be a nice, caramelly brown), then bake for 5-15 more minutes, as needed.     

Serve on a caramel-covered plate like Amanda if you're feeling fancy.

Coffeecake Muffins

Holy cow, these are divine.  I think they may have just kicked Cinnamon Ripple muffins out of the number one muffin spot.  And they should be good, because they are pretty labor intensive.  If I ever make these muffins for you, it means I love you from the depths of my soul.

First of all: pecans.  They are, like, ten dollars a POUND.  You can eat filet mignon, or you can eat pecans.  And I promise you, people, this recipe makes it worth it to shell out (heh, heh . . . like a shell?  Like a nutshell?  Never mind).  Since it only calls for a half-cup of pecans per dozen--you'll probably have some left over for other yummy recipes.  (I added some to the streusel in my peach pie on National Pi Day and it was delectable).

***Downright Heart-Warming Personal Anecdote:
We had two very mature walnut trees when we lived in Arkansas, and when my dad came to visit us, he could not believe our good fortune.  He promptly bought us a walnut/pecan roller, like this one:

We used it to roll along the ground and pick up the walnuts--like one of those Fisher-Price Scoop And Whirl Poppers.  Both walnuts and pecans are inside a leathery green husk that you have to rip off to get to the nut--a walnut husk stays on, but the husk around a pecan will dry out and fall off on its own when it's ripe.  We visited a farmer who had an old-fashioned walnut huller and he hulled our walnuts for the price of half that we had picked.  It was so cool to watch!

We drove by our old house on our last Arkansas visit to show the kids where we used to live, and discovered to our HORROR that the new owners CHOPPED DOWN the walnut trees. The 75-year-old walnut trees that were still giving fruit!  What?!

At least I kept our walnut-roller. I gave it back to my dad, who now uses it on his own walnut tree that he planted twenty-eight years ago.   It's finally been bearing nuts for the past five years now, and seeing firsthand all the work it takes: planting, waiting twenty-plus years, picking, hulling, drying, then finally cracking and eating, has made me realize that nuts are expensive for a reason. ***

You don't have to drizzle glaze on the top, but why wouldn't you?

Mmmmm . . . glaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaze.

National Pi Day = Exponential Happiness

3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197169

And it just keeps going . . .

No circle ever looked so tasty . . .

March 14th is a perfect day to have a holiday--it's a month after Valentine's Day and a month before taxes are due.  Which is a mathematical equation for STRESS.  Enter pie as a variable.  Problem solved.

This year for Pi Day, I made Brigham City Peach Pie, with my Flakiest Pie Crust recipe, because the first time I made it, I gave it to Troy as a birthday gift, and never got to taste a single slice myself.  I had a bunch of pecans left over from making Coffeecake Muffins, so I added about 3/4 cup to the streusel that gets mixed in with the peaches.  Another welcome variable to this equation.

Other pies you might enjoy:

Cookie Pie

Banana Cream Pie

Classic Apple Pie

Chocolate Cream Pie

Pecan Pie

It's very difficult to make this without a food processor,
so you better get one.  I love my Bosch processor.
BOSCH Compact Food Pro

Just because this pie crust recipe is for beginners not not mean it
is not DELICIOUS.  Because it is.

Brigham City Peach Pie

Peach pie.  I mean, it sounds good and it looks good . . . but I don't think I ever would have made it if it hadn't been a birthday request.  So I'm glad it was, because it turned out to be a great recipe (I got it from allrecipes, one of my favorite cooking sites).

I made this pie for Troy--he's a great friend and his wife, Brenda, is an even greater friend (sorry, Troy).  He's a pretty generous guy and has made the birthdays in our family special.  So, I told him I'd make him an apple pie on his birthday and he quickly countered, "How 'bout peach?"  

Peach it shall be.  (I used my flakiest pie crust recipe).

Our family before the hour-long wait on a busy Thursday

It seemed fitting that he requested a peach pie only a few days after my family and I visited Brigham City, Utah---peach capital of the state.  We went there to tour the inside of the newly competed Latter-day Saint temple.  Before a temple is dedicated, it is open to the general public, and I highly recommend taking a tour if you ever have the opportunity!  There's no better way to find out what "Mormons" believe and why temples are central to our focus on strengthening families, both now and in the afterlife.  Here's a sweet video clip about part of our temple experience:

But back to the pie.  I think it's the only food on this site that I have not actually tasted myself {update: I had it on Pi Day 2013 and it is delectable}.  Both Troy and Brenda assured me that it was delicious--even better than the pastry that Troy ordered for himself on the Internet for his birthday.  I could have told you that, Troy . . .

Any recipe that calls for you to cut butter into a crumbly stage
is bound to be delicious 

Layer the peaches in the bottom of your pie crust, then generously
layer butter crumblies.  Repeat with remaining peaches and crumblies.

Troy got his bull elk with a BOW the day before his birthday,
so I thought I'd pay homage to his prowess with an antler design . . .

T for "Totally"
I used an egg yolk wash: water and egg yolk
beaten and lightly brushed over the crust

Scrumptious.

Troy took this picture and FBed it to me.

It wouldn't have been a true birthday gift without a poem from yours truly.  I would have printed it out for Troy, but my printer was/is out of ink.  Still, I can share the digital version with my Internet audience.  I think Troy would want it that way.

Aren't limericks the best?  Poo on sonnets and haikus . . . you can't convey this kind of emotion in those rigid forms . . .

Celebration-worthy, people.

I added pecans to my streusel the second go-round and it was
over-the-top good.

National "Pi" day: 3.14 every year.  Circles never looked this tasty . . .

Finally, the actual recipe card:

Sticky Buns

So easy, and so yummy.  Stock up on frozen rolls, because you won't be able to make these only once.