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Um, hi! I’m new here. Is this seat taken? I’m painfully shy you see, so starting a blog is making me quite anxious. My husband, (hubby) has been very supportive of me during this week long journey to start this blog. What’s that? You think taking a week to decide whether or not to start a blog sounds a little neurotic? Stick around, I’m going to take neurotic to a whole other level!

I’ve finally come to terms with the fact that I have no life outside of hubby, my 3-year-old daughter ‘L’ and my other daughter, 8-month-old ‘E’. I no longer have time for real hobbies, like mountain climbing, or scuba diving, or cross country skiing (nor do I have the muscle tone, stamina, desire, or love of the outdoors to perform said activities). So, for now, my life revolves around my girls. And I’m ok with that.

I do however, have a passion for baking. I don’t think ‘passion’ even does my feelings justice. Perusing cookbooks is my secret pleasure. My perfect Saturday afternoon would be spent sipping lemonade with a stack of dessert cookbooks. I would lazily read through every recipe, ooo’ing and ah’ing, dog-earing and bookmarking my favorites, imagining what party or occasion would warrant such a delicious dish. I don’t really like to ‘cook’. I like to ‘bake’. And yes, there is a very distinct difference, at least in my house. Hubby cooks, I bake. I am one of the incredibly lucky women who has a husband who not only enjoys to cook, who not only is fantastic at it, but also does 95% of the meal preparation in our house! That alone is reason to marry someone, no?

You may have noticed that my blog title mentions Bundt Cakes. So you would rightly assume that I would be including a recipe for a delicious Bundt Cake, and you couldn’t be more wrong. See, I’ve never made a bundt cake before, but ‘Babies and Bundt Cakes’ was just too cute not to use (thanks again, Danielle)! I promise I’ll find a wonderful bundt cake recipe and share it with you. BUT…so you don’t feel as if you left empty-handed, I do have a fantastic recipe for a pound cake that I baked in a bundt pan! So it’s close enough, right?

I’ll provide for you the original recipe in all its buttery goodness, but I altered it a bit just for grins. I wanted more of a vanilla-y flavor to it so I threw in an entire vanilla bean with the sugar and blended it in the food processor (yes, that is an entire vanilla bean in addition to the 3 tablespoons of vanilla extract the recipe calls for). I sifted the sugar and poured it in my mixing bowl. I love the little flecks of vanilla bean in each piece. A tell-tale sign of real vanilla, if you ask me. However, it didn’t give it the intense vanilla flavor I was going for. I know, sounds crazy, but it’s true. It was still delicious though!



Oh, and hubby had a great idea. He suggested I use the Tahitian Vanilla extract that was brought back for us from Tahiti (from friends I’m still miffed at because they wouldn’t agree to purchase tickets for us to attend the wedding of their family member in Tahiti – whom we’ve never met - totally unreasonable people, and I’m still contemplating staying in contact with them), since they do produce some of the most phenomenal vanilla. Brilliant idea hubby! But perhaps that idea should have been provided PRIOR to the measuring, mixing and baking processes. Ah well. So, if you happen to try this recipe and happen to have any Tahitian vanilla on hand, be sure to use it and tell me all about it!


Butter Pound Cake


8 oz. Cream Cheese, softened
3 sticks butter, softened
3 Cups sugar
6 eggs
3 Cups Cake Flour
3 Tbsp Vanilla


Cream together cream cheese, butter and sugar. Add eggs one at a time, incorporating completely. Add flour and vanilla.

Pour into a greased and floured bundt pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 1.25 hours.