Every time we use the bundt pan, there is a period of at least 5 minutes where the only thing heard in our kitchen is laughter and that stuttering "it's a bundt" "a butt?" "a bundt!" "a bunk?" "A BUNDT!" "Ahh, its a cake" conversation from My Big Fat Greek Wedding. You'd thank that after all this time, 8 years, that the joke would have lost its edge. Nope, we still make it and we still laugh. Its amazing what being in a good mood can do for your sense of humor, the better the mood, the easier the laughs. Why it takes two college educated grownups to figure out what any 4 year old could tell you we'll never know, but its still as true as can be. Its also true that good food can change your whole mood too. In this case, we did this cake on a day

Nothing goes better with cake than new toys. Right. What? It turns out Eric is obsessed with finding reasons to by new toys. Tools, gadgets, gizmos, every project or endeavor seems to need just one more. Want to put new floors in? Have to buy a nail gun. Fix the fence, need a new saw. Fix the other fence, gotta go get a different saw. Start a food blog? Must get a new camera, new lens, new flash, new tripod, new computer, another new camera, one more lens... and you get the picture. Sometimes the new toy tool costs more than the rest of the project but ends up in the cart because it has to. This is exactly the kind of thing that puts a real gleam in Eric's eye whenever theres a new project or something gets broken, which is exactly what happened to our camera flash last week. We were getting ready to start shooting

Today's entry, titled "Nectarine Cupcakes with Brown Sugar Frosting" (or as Eric called it "A plate full of Oooooh yeeeeaaaah") is one that almost didn't happen. How could that be you might ask, since we are right in the middle of nectarine season here in Silicon Valley. This is something we'd wanted to do for some time, ever since the first little buds started growing in on the nectarine tree in the backyard. Tree? Sorry, we mean shrub-that-will-be-a-tree-next-year. See, everyone thought it had died some time ago and was basically cut down to a stump. But after a little (a lot) of TLC from Charisse and her green thumb it flared back to life this year, with a vengeance. It blossomed in the spring, looking so pretty we both knew we were in for a treat come mid summer. Sure enough, all summer long we've been watching dozens upon dozens of

Last weekend was the 4th of July, so we had some friends over for a BBQ potluck and Charisse prepared a nice cake, with a colorful surprise! The idea of a red white and blue cake is something Eric's sister Elaine discovered around memorial day, and Charisse applied her own cake recipe to produce this patriotic dessert. We tried to snap as many pictures as we could, but believe you me, this cake vanished faster than anyone could say "Mmmm, let me have another slice". Let us know what you think and hit the break for pictures and recipe!American Flag CakeWhat You Will Need3 cups flour4 teaspoons baking powder1/2 teaspoon salt2 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature2 1/3 cups sugar5 large egg whites, room temperature2 teaspoons vanilla1 1/2 cups milk, room temperaturered gel food coloringnavy blue gel food coloringCream Cheese FrostingWhat you will need2 sticks of butter16 ounces of cream cheese4-6 cups of

"Chocolate Carmel Banana Upside Down Cake", long name, delicious results. Also quick and easy! This cake is a must do for those deep dark chocolate lovers out there, but you should also love banana. Charisse does *not* love bananas. Actually she hates bananas, just the smell is enough to make her gag. Something to do with her dad leaving a banana under the seat of her car when she was younger, it rotting and stinking up the car for weeks. She is what we call "banana sensitive", she is able to detect even the slightest hint of the fruit hidden in anything you serve her. But since we were cooking Patrick and Monica's anniversary present dinner, and Patrick requested this cake, Charisse set aside her dislike of bananas. We were all very proud of her. Now banana slices covered in caramelized brown sugar and deep dark chocolate cake probably sounds amazing to almost everyone

So we had this cake almost a week ago, and we still pop open the fridge from time to time looking to see if there is just one more slice. Of course there isn't, we ate the whole cake in 2 days.But we're still dreaming about this cake. In Charisse's dream She's floating on a slice of it drifting thorough the milky way and it's wonderful. In Eric's dream, he's just eating it. This cake is another recipe that we certainly wont have tried if Charisse didn't wander into that Food Savers and come out with an array of random products. Since she did come out with some evaporated milk and some condensed milk for no apparent reason the only thing she could find to make was this moist cake. Lets be honest, how many recipes are there that involve sweetened condensed milk and evaporated milk? Not that many. Tres-Leches