baking day: croissants and peanut butter cup cake

I had the day off on Friday, and I spent it baking! I love baking, but have been a bit remiss in my efforts lately. So I decided to make an old standby - croissants from my King Arthur Flour Baking Book - and a new recipe, a peanut butter cup devil's food cake from Bakerella.

The cake went really well. I made the devil's food cake by hand instead of from a mix, because I love devil's food and I'm kind of pretentious about cake mixes. I skipped adding the buttermilk (largely because a) I don't like buttermilk and b) I forgot to buy it at the store). For the frosting, I didn't add the peanut butter because I prefer more chocolate. It was DELICIOUS. Allen (boyfriend) ate like half the cake in one sitting. Because I am a genius.

Supplies! Yes, I did use both bags of Reese's.

Sifting the flour and the cocoa powder together. Getting the lumps out really makes a difference in the cake.

The finished mix. Delightful.

And the cake! Putting the Reese's on the top was the best part. After eating it, of course.

The croissants were a lot more involved. As always with yeast-based pastry. But this batch was the best I've done, I think. Using quality butter (wooo, Tillamook!) and letting the dough rise in the refrigerator overnight (rather than just the suggested two hours) makes the flakiness just unreal. Which is the important part in croissants. The best part was getting up a bit early to roll them out and put them in the oven, and then eating them hot out of the oven, in bed. Best day ever.

The risen dough, all ready to be rolled out into delicious croissant-beings.

Glorious! The square ones have chocolate in them!

More baking to come soon!