What's Baking February Round-Up

As I mentioned in my last post, I was lucky enough to host What's Baking this month!  Everyone did a great job making their own convenience products from scratch!  I was really impressed with the variety of entries!  Take a moment to click through and check out everyone's hard work!

Jen from Beantown Baker made her own cran-raspberry preserves to fill a delicious-looking layer cake with white chocolate frosting.  I'll take a slice of that, please!

Coleen of the Redhead Baker tackled homemade mascarpone cheese!  What a great item to make from scratch, since it's so expensive in the store!  She suggests using it in tiramisu, cheesecake, or to fill profiteroles or cannoli!

Amanda from Our Italian Kitchen showed us how to get the best of both worlds by making your own cake mix from scratch!  Imagine that, the convenience of boxed cake mix, but without all the unpronounceable ingredients!  She used the mix to replicate her wedding cake for her anniversary.

Catherine from Pursuing Domestic Goddess-ness decided to take a more savory route and decided to try to replicate a certain famous store's Swedish Meatballs!  She put her own twist on them by tossing them in a chipotle apple sauce instead of the more common cream sauce.  Yummy!

Carrie of Carrie's Sweet Life tackled one of my personal favorite convenience products--pie crust!  She used it to make ham and cheddar quiches (sounds like a great breakfast to me!), but the recipe is versatile and would work in any pie recipe, too!

Jaida of Sweet Beginnings isn't usually a breakfast person but says her homemade English muffins just might change that!  Who knew that cooking them on a griddle pan is the secret to making this convenience product at home?

Eva from Eva Bakes had 2 pounds of local Virginia peanuts (hi, neighbor!) that she needed to use up, so she decided to make her own homemade peanut butter!  While she's not a peanut butter fan, her husband loved it and really enjoyed getting to adjust it to be as sweet or as salty as he wanted!

Lastly, I made some fresh ricotta that I then used in a ricotta cheesecake--delicious!

Next month's host is Jen from Beantown Baker, and her theme is Sprinkles!  Be sure to check out her blog at the end of March to see what these creative ladies come up with!