Chocolate almond cake

Pinterest was again the inspiration for this cake.  I found the recipe for this Chocolate Almond Cake and knew it would be a good pair with the blueberry ice cream I wanted to make.  I had a pint of blueberries in the freezer waiting for me and I had been wanting to bring out the ice cream maker all summer so now was the time!

I asked for an ice cream maker from my dad for Christmas a couple years ago and used it frequently the first summer and since then it's been hanging out in my kitchen collecting dust... well that was no good! We love ice cream around here and there is NOTHING better than homemade ice cream.

This chocolate cake used almond butter which I am not familiar with and while the almond butter alone set me back almost $8, this recipe was worth every penny.  The cake was delicious, not too sweet but perfect accompanied with blueberry ice cream. The recipe calls for toasted almonds on top, but I never have luck toasting nuts... I burn them almost every time so I skipped that step and dusted with cocoa powder instead.

Ladybug Cake

This cake was all about the decorating and since I was putting on a party complete with little ladybug appetizers made with cherry tomatoes, olives and chives and other little time-intensive snacks, baking a cake from scratch was not in the cards. So this is from a yellow cake box mix but every spot of frosting was decorated with these tired, very sore hands!

To my three year old ladybug girl! Happy Birthday!

Baking in the summer is hard!

My husband usually works on Saturdays which means that it's baking day for me. I make the kids a big breakfast and set to work on making a cake and other goodies for the week. But in the summer my husband has been off on Saturdays and so we've been setting off on summer adventures! Trips to the zoo, going out for runs, camping outings, days at the beach or days spent on our boat. These have been more important than baking, rightfully so!

But that means that I've been disappointing you and failing to meet my goal of a cake a week! I'm so sorry... but I will make up for it with some extra-special cakes this fall! Maybe I'll even sneak in a few extra cakes to make up for those that I missed this summer!

Look for a cake coming soon!