Romy's Baking and Cake Decorating

Pineapple Upside Down Cake. On a recent nice summer evening my French conversation group met at our house for a Summer potluck.  This Summer has flown by, and we've hardly had a chance to host people on our patio. I tried to organize something with this group a couple of weeks ago, but had to cancel due to the weather. I rescheduled and had amazing luck with beautiful weather on the new day! I considered making eclairs, because with 12 people coming it would have been an opportunity to make a large-batch dessert and they would have enjoyed it. But ultimately, I realized I wasn't going to have time. So looking at old recipes I hadn't made in a while, I decided to try Pineapple Upside Down Cake . It's very good, summery, and an old-fashioned recipe you don't see often. I used Sally's Bake Blog  recipe . I'd used it before, and when I checked her blog it had been updated.  I went with the new version, using cake flour and egg whites only to make a less-dense ca...

  Chocolate Doughnuts  with Vanilla Glaze and Fondant Hearts On this Valentine's day I decided to make a small batch dessert that still felt special. We hadn't had home made doughnuts in a long time, so that gave me the idea to make Chocolate Doughnuts . I used  this recip e from Preppy Kitchen. I followed it to the letter but cut the amount to only make six doughnuts. Here they are right before going into the oven. Filling doughnut pans is always a bit of a pain to me, so I only enjoy making them in small batches. Doughnut batter in the pan. I was surprised, since our new oven bakes so hot, that the doughnuts took a full 12 minutes to bake. I checked them at 8 minutes, which is the minimum baking time according to the recipe. But they were raw inside. Not wanting them to get dry, I turned oven down to 340 and checked again at 10 minutes then at 12.  At 12 minutes a toothpick came out clean. After the doughnuts were cool I coated them with a vanilla glaze. I love...