Valentine's Day

 Here's a better picture of the H&M dress that I posted about (picture taken from their website). I wore it yesterday for Valentine's Day. I'll do an outfit post with it soon, but for now, enjoy this pretty model!

Also, in case you were wondering, here's how the cupcakes for my boyfriend turned out. (Dark chocolate with peanut butter frosting and peanut butter balls in the middle; I also put peanut butter M&M's and Reeses on top. Recipe here.)

And as for my romantic surprise, he made me my favorite: chicken pot pie! (Notice the little dough hearts he cut out? Aww.)

Like I said, I'm not usually much of a Valentine's Day person, but I have to admit that I'm starting to come around. Now I have to go eat the expensive chocolate that my boyfriend got me. Hope your Valentine Day was awesome!

Valentine's Day Cupcakes

My boyfriend loves peanut butter and chocolate cupcakes (well, who doesn't?) so I'm planning to make these for him tomorrow as a special treat. I was probably going to do it anyway, but now I absolutely have to since he's been hinting about some romantic surprise that he has planned. We're not huge Valentine's Day people, so you can imagine my surprise when he let that one drop. He's also not one to do romantic surprises, in all the three years we've been dating. I'm insanely curious, and I figured I better have something for him in return... thus, cupcakes! I got the recipe and the photo here. 

The Search for the Perfect Carrot Cake

Every November, I bake a carrot cake for my boyfriend's birthday. It's his favorite cake (and I might say it's mine too), and I swear he starts looking forward to it in August. I usually use the same recipe that I found via Google. Sophisticated, I know, but he's never complained. This year, though, I was thinking about looking around at different recipes to see if I can really take it up a notch. Here's a few that I found on Pinterest that are the main contenders so far:

1. This one has cinnamon cream cheese icing; perfect for fall. Plus, isn't it just so pretty?

2. This one has a buttermilk glaze added on top of the cake and under the frosting. Hmm. 

3. This one looks really good too, and easy; although I always leave out the addition of things like raisins and nuts and pineapple. We both prefer our carrot cake plain and simple.

4. This might be a good idea, in addition to the cake rather than instead of it, if I have leftover batter/icing: Carrot cake whoopie pies! 

5. And finally, I couldn't resist this idea even though I probably won't go for it: Carrot cake in a jar.

Also, I want to play around with the icing this year to make it look super pretty (more for my benefit than his, I'll admit). 

This rose-icing tutorial is gorgeous--maybe too gorgeous for a dude's birthday cake? Sigh. 

More likely though, I'll probably just do some simple texturing with a spoon, like this:

After all, I'm pretty sure he cares more about how it tastes than how it looks.