Cakes, Cookies & Running

Lets face it, because I can't even fight the inner struggle anymore. I have a love for baking amazing treats for family and friends and errr, sometimes myself too. I dream up cake and cookie ideas and wake up early to sneak away into the kitchen to make them. It has strangely become an addiction.  Turning on the oven at 350, whipping butter, sugar, eggs, flour, etc, pouring the delicious batter into the pan. That's just the beginning. But it's all so relaxing to me, sorta equivalent to being at a spa. Don't ever get me a gift certificate to the spa, I know I may need it, but seriously, a Kitchenaid Artisan 5qt Mixer will guarantee you a place in my heart indefinitely and not too mention an occasional sweet treat or two. Totally not bribing you here, I'm just saying.

So, because of this obsession, I am forced to do something that's sort of on the opposite end of things I love, it's called running. Moving one foot in front of the other repetitively for miles and miles and miles. That's 3 miles. Slowly working up to making 10k a regular thing. So there, this is why I run. Not because I love it. But I do enjoy the benefits of running, the calories burned, the weight loss, the sisterhood of my running group, and the races. I am trying to create some sort of healthy balance between baking and running. We all know that tons of sugar, flour & butter (mmmmmm) isn't all that great for you, so while I work on tweaking my recipes for healthier ingredients, I run!

This week has been a pretty hectic week in the kitchen, it started with me baking a few treats for my children's playgroup. We had a cute little St.Patricks Day party, and I made a delicious 4 layer ombre butter cake with a delicious buttercream frosting, and 2 dozen cake pops.Yum! I totally forgot about my cake pop maker collecting dust in the garage, so I pulled it out, dusted it off and had a go with it, for 3 days straight,  making a total of about 120 cake pops over the past 3 days. Don't judge me! Here are a few snap shots (taken with my iPhone) of this week's deliciousness.

Enjoy and Happy St.Patrick's Day!