Blogging and baking

There are professionals who do this blogging thing and then there is me. Grammatically incorrect, less than perfect pictures, unoriginal recipes... the list goes on and on. I love following the professional blogs. They give me a lot of great ideas and the motivation to do things like whip up a cake on a Thursday evening.

Example #1 - The Pioneer Woman

She may be the "Godmother" of blogging. More than anything I love her sense of humor and how incredibly witty she is. Not to mention the woman can cook. I've tried a number of her recipes and everything has been good so far. The best thing about her recipes is how detailed she is and how she shows you step-by-step how to make things. I attempted her Perfect Pound Cake.

Behold...

I mean, really? Who makes cakes that pretty?

She also does this great up close and personal "cast of characters" pictures of the ingredients.

Here's my try...

I think I need to work on my staging.

The cake however was exceptionally easy. My handy, dandy mixer was a must for this recipe. She suggested mixing after every ingredient... after each egg, each cup of flower, etc. That's a lot of mixing!

And more mixing...

In the end I think it was a success... The cake tasted great! Her cake ended up more aesthetically pleasing than mine did. Although it looked pretty darn great in the cake pan, but that whole turn-me-upside-down-and-let-gravity-do-its-thing took a wrong turn and half of my cake dropped out and the other half needed some help. Here's proof I did grease the heck out of my pan!

I'll give myself an 9.5 on taste and a 3.5 on plating. It wasn't nearly as pretty or picture worthy as hers. So, I'll just leave you with what I aspire to...

(courtesy of The Pioneer Woman - her cake, not mine)