Favorite Things

What a year 2013 has been!  I hope that you all had a fantastic Christmas with loved ones and that you are posed for a great start to 2014.  I'm really excited about what is in store here at The Geeky Loft for this upcoming year.  If you're feeling the strain of the holiday season on your budget and have always thought about couponing but it's felt overwhelming I'll be starting off the new year by walking you step by step through how I do it without going crazy or spending hours and hours on it every week.

Of course there will be plenty of crafts and recipes posted although with the baby expected to arrive in early February I'm not counting on having a lot of time so we may be seeing more lifestyle type posts for a little bit.  In the interim though I've been amassing a number of tutorials that I can't wait to share with you!

Enough about what's coming up now, let's take a look at some of my favorite posts from this last year!

11 Quick & Easy Items to Make this Christmas

Still looking for something special to make this Christmas season?  Maybe your house or apartment is needing a little extra cheer or you're desperately seeking ideas for homemade gifts to give.  Or perhaps their are a couple of kiddos running around your home who really need something to occupy their time while they are off of school.  Whatever the reason may be I've rounded up my favorite crafts from this past year to help give you a bit of inspiration.  Enjoy!

Chocolate Brownie Cake

You know how there tend to be those staple recipes that everyone has or wants to have?  Something that you know you can make consistently every time and is also absolutely delicious.  Well for the longest time I have been deeply saddened by the fact that I had no standard chocolate cake recipe to go to, or for that matter a vanilla cake recipe.  I have my brownies down, even my snickerdoodles are consistent, but the standard chocolate cake continued to allude me.  That is until now!  

Butterfly In The Sky...

Last week saw me making a marbleized cake as the inside needed to be just as pretty as the outside.  But why did that matter?  Well, some friends of mine were throwing a small baby shower and I offered to make the cake and in anticipation of the little girl to come I wanted something elegant, girly, and fun.  Plus I'd been seeing a number of ideas for how to shape a butterfly cake on Pinterest and was dying to try one out. :)  Ultimately I settled on using this tutorial from Handimania to get the shape just right but as I'm not exactly a girly girl myself and would have made the cake all blues, greens, and black I still needed some inspiration for the coloring/decorating which is where this picture came in handy.  Let's get to it, shall we?

Marbelized? Marbleized? Whatever, It's A Swirly Cake!

Ahh, baking a cake.  One of my favorite pastimes.  Granted it doesn't happen all that frequently seeing as how an entire cake left alone in the house with just The Husband and I disappears at an alarming rate.  Nonetheless, over the past year, really ever since I made the Spider-Man cake, I have found myself growing ever more fascinated with the art of decorating cakes.  Learning how to use different icing tips, experimenting with food coloring, trying different recipes, etc.  I find I take just about every opportunity that presents itself to bake a cake because it has become something I truly love learning about.  I think I'm getting pretty good at making the outsides fun and pretty but for the most part my cakes themselves tend to be all but pretty.  Generally my rationale is that all my time will be spent on the icing and therefore it's ok to not focus on the cake but what if I told you you could take your favorite tasty recipes and consistently make them pretty as well?

Chocolatey Cheesecakey Mini Cupcakes

Do you ever just want a small snack?  You know for sure that baking a cake would be too much without a specific occasion, you don't really want to take the time to bake and ice individual cupcakes, but you're tired of your brownies and cookies?  A number of weeks ago I found myself in this situation, perusing through America's Test Kitchen baking book not knowing what I was looking for and or just how much effort and time I wanted to spend in my kitchen that afternoon.  I then stumbled across a recipe for Black Bottom Cupcakes, a combination of chocolate cake and cheesecake which required no icing and could be completed from start to finish in less than an hour!

Pretty Popsicles for Parents (Or Other Adultish People)

In most parts of the country June means summer.  Schools are letting out, no one wants to sit in an office all day, the sun is shining, and a pool or beach quickly becomes a necessity.  While the kids munch on avocado popsicles shouldn't there be something just for the adults?  How about a variation on a Maple Brown Derby Popsicle?  Let's spend the afternoon combing maple syrup, bourbon, and orange juice (or grapefruit if you prefer).

Shockingly Satisfying Popsicle Surprise

It's the end of May.  You've just spent Memorial day picnicking, parade watching, attending weddings, grilling, and spending time with family and friends.  It's time to pack everything up and get back to the daily grind.  There's only one problem...it's still sunny and you aren't ready to be done lounging around outside.  You want more freeziepops, burgers, brats, and salads.  But you also know that the time wherein you are expected to wear clothing which showcases your pasty whiteness is just around the corner and you do so want to try your best to look decent.  I have an utterly shocking revelation for you!  A one-of-a-kind dessert so unthinkable you'll most likely doubt it's very existence.  It's sweet, cold, and yet almost completely healthy.  I have one now awaiting me in the freezer with an enticing combination of food I love and food I never thought I would like.

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, may I present to you the Avocado Popsicle!

Crownies? Brookies? Brownie Cookies!

I recently found myself in a conundrum.  Baking was certainly going to happen but I couldn't decide between a delicious simple pan of brownies or a plate full of cookies.  What's a girl to do?  Let me show you!

Easy, Breezy, Beautiful, Brownie Mug

We all have those days.  The ones where you just need some chocolate, not necessarily a bake an entire pan of brownies need, but the ones where simply eating chocolate chips straight from the bag seems unnecessarily undignified.  Don't get me wrong, I'll spring for a handful, or three, of straight chocolate chips unashamedly, but what do you do when you want something with a little more consistency?  A more complex flavor?  The answer my friends is a mug brownie!

The Lego Lover's Cookies

There are now days that it legitimately feels like Spring over here, the sun comes out, the rain goes away, everyone walks with a smile on their face.  It's good, it's fun, it's time to bake something colorful to share with the kids in the parks, your neighbors, bake something they won't expect.

Easy Easter Eggs

With this Sunday being Easter I thought something a little holiday inspired would be fitting.  Dying Easter eggs has always been something my siblings and I look forward to each year.  The bowl in the fridge full of extravagantly decorated edible decorations is a simple reminder of the approaching holiday.  As kids we always bought the packages with the dissolving tablets, the stickers, crayons to create white spaces, and those plastic bands you could put around an egg and would shrink to fit.  Now that I'm an adult I'm lucky enough to have a husband who's supportive of my occasional desire to relive my childhood but as always I set out to find a cheaper way.

One Spice, Two Spice

I wanted to share something a little different with you this week.  It's not quite a recipe, not quite a tutorial, and yet something you can do at home all the same.  We're talking about making your own spice rubs!

His & Hers Granola Bars

Ahhh, the granola bar.  That proverbial grab and go snack.  The breakfast of champions on those mornings when it's all you can do to remember to brush your teeth.  The choices faced in the grocery store...chocolate, dried fruits of all kinds, maple, brown sugar...the choices are never ending, but what if I told you that in practically no time you could make your own in any combination you could dream up?!

Delectably Divine Double Chocolate Cream Cheese Brownies

Recently I had one of those days where I desperately wanted chocolate while at the same time feeling bored with the recipes I had.  Everything I've made over the past number of weeks has had chocolate chips thrown in, but sometimes a person simply needs pure chocolate with a twist.  Enter the Cream Cheese Brownies.  These delectable morsels will satisfy the deepest chocolate craving while providing perfect proportions of gooey non chocolatey cream cheese goodness.

Bisquick From Scratch?

Almost without fail I am that person who must bake everything from scratch.  There will be no cake mixes, no muffin boxes, no icing tubs in my kitchen.  Almost.  You see, long ago in the confines of a college apartment kitchen I threw a pot of soup on the stove, realized I desperately needed warm biscuits to go with it and my addiction to Bisquick was born.  Granted it always was my exception to the no boxed mixes ever rule for the ease with which pancakes and waffles are made on those too sleepy to function mornings but the biscuits.  Oh my goodness those biscuits.  Yet, there was still a part of me that cringed every time I took the box down, a part of me that thought, it can't be that hard to make this mix from scratch, to save all that money spent on a boxed mix.  I have problems.  Feel free to point and laugh.  But here it is, most humbly borrowed from Fake-It Frugal.  As The Husband humorously refers to it:

Subliminally Sublime Snickerdoodles

I think everyone has their thing.  That one item that is frequently associated with them.  It could be a meal, a dessert, a craft, it's not that this thing is their identity, or by any means all that they are, but there are associations being made.  It seems sacrilegious for me to make my friend's Thin Mint Truffles because that's what she bakes, what she brings to parties, but I have the recipe and think of her when I make them.  I see a particular book or author and am immediately reminded of the people who introduced them into my life.  Movies and TV shows are the same way, constant reminders of the people who care about them.  Those are their things.  What might my thing be?  I'm not going to pretend to think so highly of myself to be able to answer that question and honestly I think the answer would vary dramatically.  What I can say with certainty is that I've never met someone who hasn't said good things about my snickerdoodles.  These are my go to cookies for taking places, the one recipe of mine my Mom has asked me for.  You know you've done something well when your Mom is asking for recipes!  Oh and true story I have even mailed some to a friend in Paris!  (And I have it on good authority that they arrived...late, but still soft and tasty!)

Om Nom Nom, Gingerbread!

Well hello!  I hope that all of you had fantastic holidays and are slowly starting to get back into the swing of everyday life.  It's been nice here with the craziness that is the holiday season over and no plans to go anywhere or do anything major in the next couple of months.  For the first time since The Husband and I moved it feels like we can breathe and figure out what life looks like for us here.

Before we completely move on to expecting snow, praying desperately for summer to arrive, or whatever it is people look forward to after the holidays I wanted to look back on one of my favorite aspects of the holidays this year.  Gingerbread Houses!!!

Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Muffins

It's Fall.  Well really it's now Winter but sometimes I like to pretend that it's still that perfect Fall where there's a chill in the air but it hasn't started slipping into Winter weather just yet and it's certainly not the apparent nine months of dreariness that is the North-West.  But that's ok.  I have a pick-me-up for that.  A solution if you will.

For some reason pumpkin flavored things are forever stuck in my mind as a Fall thing, they are most certainly not for Winter.  No sirree!  So when searching for the perfect item to satisfy my constant chocolate craving and make it feel like fall Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Muffins seemed to fit the bill quite nicely.  I found a fantastic recipe in The America's Test Kitchen Family Baking Book for Spiced Pumpkin Bread, inserted chocolate where it called for nuts and cranberries, followed their advice on turning a bread into a muffin (P.S. it's just baking them for half the time!), and voila!

Perfection!

Spider-Pig, Spider-Pig,...

In the spirit of Thanksgiving I am writing this from my Mom's living room as pies are being baked in the kitchen and 23 family members are preparing to make the venture to Virginia.  Currently the immediate family is reveling in the small amount of calm before the storm.  A storm that we grow more excited for with every waking minute, a storm of laughter, food, love, craziness, and loudness.  I can't wait! 

With a number of posts that could be written today I asked my sisters which they wanted to see.  After going back and forth on whether or not a sappy post about Thanksgiving was something I wanted to do (did the first paragraph suffice?) they responded in unison that they wanted the Spider-Man Cake.  So here it is: