Cake Day: Peanut Butter Cake with Peanut Butter Frosting (AKA Pure Peanut Butter Decedance Cake)

This is the day the Lord made, let us rejoice and be glad in it.

That, my dear Baker, is all the inspiration you need to bake a cake. The day you are living in, right here, right now, is made by the Lord. It is beautiful, extraordinary, special and blessed. Why? Because God made it. He brought the sun up. He kept the world rotating on its axis all night long so that this morning you could awaken to a new day designed by the hand of God.

Sometimes, some bakers, wait for a celebration to bake a cake. A birthday, an anniversary, a graduation... but a Monday? How about a day when you get horribly bad news, have an attack of MS or just don't have any plans or excitement on the day's agenda? Is there reason to bake a cake on those days?
I believe there is because I believe the Bible and I want to heed the words of 1 Thessalonians 5:16.  "Rejoice always..."
Rejoice.... that's the flour, the sugar, the baking powder and soda, and - in today's cake - the peanut butter. Rejoicing in every circumstance is at the heart of following Christ. It is at the heart of living filled with the Holy Spirit. Rejoicing is a command. It is not an option. It is not a directive given for certain people or certain situations. Rejoicing is forever, for always, for everyone and everything.
Even Mondays.
Even on days when everything goes wrong.
Even on days when the news is bad and the future looks bleak.
Even when we are tired, weak, worn out and sick.
Rejoice in everything.

If you are struggling today, finding it hard to rejoice, then I recommend baking a cake. Yes, a cake on Monday when no one is having a birthday and no one has any big accomplishment to celebrate. Just bake a cake anyways because what you and I are celebrating today is the magnificent God we serve.

I have personally deemed Monday to be "Cake Day" in my baking life. Some people have "Throwback Thursday" and bloggers have "Friday Favorites." Well, I have cake on Monday because there is no better way to start the week then by rejoicing in a new day and a new week made by the Lord.




Today's recipe is a family recipe but I don't think it's a secret, so I'm going to share it with you. If you love all things peanut butter than this cake will be right up your dessert alley!

Peanut Butter Cake
1 3/8 cups flour
1 cup sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup softened butter
1/4 cup creamy peanut butter
2/3 cup milk (I used 2%)
1 egg

Preheat oven to 350 and grease an 8x8 pan. 
Combine dry ingredients. In a separate bowl, beat on medium speed the peanut butter and butter until smooth. Add milk, flour mixture and egg. Mix until just combined. 
Pour batter into prepared pan and bake until tester comes out clean (about 30 minutes).
Let cool before frosting.

Peanut Butter Frosting
1/3 cup peanut butter
3 cups confectioners sugar
1/4-1/3 milk (depending on consistency)
1 1/2 tsp vanilla

Beat on medium-high speed peanut butter and sugar. Slowly add milk and vanilla until desired consistency is reached. Frost cake.
Eat.
Enjoy.

Banana Chocolate Chip Cupcakes

The name of this post is "Banana Chocolate Chip Cupcakes" but really it should be called "An Unexpectedly Good Treat."
If you are like me then this combination of fruit, flour and chips all molded into one miniature cake sounds off-putting. Cupcakes should not contain bananas. Or chips for that matter. At least that's what I had always believed until I stumbled upon this recipe. In it I found an odd assortment of ingredients that I didn't believe could work well together in one paper lined muffin tin. But there it was, in black and white, topped with a chocolate cream cheese frosting. I found this recipe in my favorite cookbook, The Back in the Day Bakery Cookbook that I keep referring to on this blog. I highly recommend it. Trust me, it's worth the splurge. Each recipe I've tried has been a success and these strange little cupcakes are no exception.
This unexpected recipe with unexpected ingredients actually produced an unexpectadly tasty result. The crumb of the cupcakes was just right thanks to the nontraditional method of preparing the batter with oil and whipped egg whites as opposed to good ol' butter. And the frosting made almost entirely of cream cheese was the perfect balance to the sweet banana of the light and airy cupcake below.
For reasons I can't explain, when baked at 350 degrees for twenty-two minutes, these strange bedfellows of ingredients came together to make perfectly round, perfectly moist cupcakes. I didn't see the success of these cupcakes coming but I am pleased to report that they were not at all an utter disaster - as I had expected.

While delivering these unique cupcakes to my dessert loving loved ones the lesson of the unexpected cupcake dawned on me...
There are sets of life circumstances that I often assume will be bad. I expect sickness, heartache, loneliness and trials to produce negativity in my life. I look at my life's road blocks and detours as things to just get through and survive.
But sometimes all of those circumstances can produce something unexpectedly good.
Joseph is a prime example of horrid circumstances working together for his ultimate good. He was sold into slavery and thrown in prison even though he had done nothing wrong. Most would say that his situation was rotten and unjust. Yet, God has something glorious in mind for Joseph. He took those undesirable circumstances and did something unexpectedly amazing with them and with Joseph.
God used Joseph to prepare Egypt for a coming famine. Through Joseph's interpretation of dreams, God was able to sustain the people of Egypt through years without a harvest. Even Joseph's brothers were spared thanks to the storehouse of food Joseph had set aside.
When Joseph's brothers came to Egypt in search of food they must have been shocked to find their brother, who they sold into slavery years ago, second in command and overseer of the lands of Egypt. Unexpected? You bet!
But Joseph said to his brothers, "You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives." (Genesis 50:20).
God took a life that looked as good as dead and did something totally unexpected with it, He used it to save an entire nation. Joseph had been a slave and an inmate, not exactly the pedigree for second in command over a country. But that's how God works, He takes the unexpected and uses it to glorify His name and further His Kingdom.
That's exactly what He did with Joseph and that's exactly what He can still do today in the unexpected circumstances of my life and yours.
Multiple Sclerosis has thrown me a curve ball with the word, "unexpected" written all over it. But I believe in the ability and will of God to do extraordinary things with the unexpected. He can use my MS to bring praise to His name and further His Gospel. I don't know precisely how He plans to do that with my unexpected life just yet but I trust that the plan He has for me is being worked out even now, in the trials and difficulties of my illness.
Unexpected, yes. But good? Most certainly, yes. Even the most unlikely of life's ingredients can come together to make something beautiful. Just like Banana Chocolate Chip Cupcakes.

Sweet Potato Cupcakes with Maple Frosting

There is a kids show on TV called "The Suite Life of Zach and Cody." Don't jump to conclusions, I'm not sitting at home spending my evenings tuned into the Disney Channel catching up on my latest tween sitcoms. I have, on the other hand, witnessed snippets of this show while visiting my nieces and nephews. Trust me, that was enough of Zach and Cody for me. Their "suite" life lived out in a luxury hotel wasn't my kind of entertainment or my kind of "suite" life.

I happen to have my own kind of suite life and it isn't found in a hotel room or in a gold lined plate delivered by room service.
My suite life revolves around the sweet that is received through the act of giving. True sweetness is found in the blessing of being a blessing. Every other life leaves an overindulgent, sickeningly sweet aftertaste. But the sweet life of a giving life warms the soul, spreads love and always leaves the giver with a lighter spirit and fuller heart.

The truly sweet life is one that isn't focused on the self. It isn't concerned with accumulating stuff or even experiences. It isn't focused on its own desires, wants or even its needs (obviously I haven't reached that point in my spiritual maturity, I'm a work in progress).
Acts 20:35 says in quoting Jesus, "it is more blessed to give than to receive." Who could say it better than Jesus himself?

I was reminded of this scripture and this truth again this week as I laid in an oxygen chamber receiving hyperbaric oxygen therapy. I had taken a break from this type of therapy for a couple of months but wanted to give it another shot to see if it could help my MS.
Don't get me wrong, I believe oxygen therapy can be beneficial but as I laid in that chamber I couldn't help but feel like I was in the wrong place. I couldn't give to anyone while shut up in that chamber. I couldn't bless anyone or share the love of Christ with anyone while laying in a glass tube. All I could do was look straight ahead at a TV playing some meaningless rerun. The life giving oxygen I should have been relishing was actually making me feel dead inside. I wanted out of that coffin like contraption. I wanted to get back in my kitchen and get back to blessing other people!
That is when I remembered Acts 20:35: giving is better than receiving. It was then that I realized I wasn't meant to be laying in that oxygen chamber. I was created to be a giver.
So I'm out of the chamber and back in the kitchen. This is where I'm supposed to be, preparing delicious desserts and blessing my beloveds.
That is truly the sweetest life and it is a life infinitely better than any "suite" life sitcom.

As an ode to the sweet life today I am baking Sweet Potato Cupcakes with Maple Marshmallow Frosting. And then I will give them away… That's my kind of therapy.

To try out this delicious recipe and become a believer in sweet potato baked goods visit the link below!
http://overtimecook.com/2013/11/20/sweet-potato-cupcakes-with-maple-marshmallow-frosting/