FUBAR: F**ked Up Baking At Renée’s

So this weekend was an epic fail in the baking department. I was planning on having some kick ass geek cookies for you guys today, but the Sugar Gods were not on my side. I didn’t even take pictures of the disaster to show you. Sharing my shame would destroy my fragile ego, not to mention my reputation as the “cookie lady.” After that I thought I would make some sort of peanut butter swirly brownie thing so I would have something to post about today. I mean, peanut butter and chocolate, what could go wrong? But nooo, the Sugar Gods weren’t done testing my faith quite yet. I thought I knew what I was doing, but when all was said and done, I had a caved in mess that has a slight burnt peanut taste. I thought of trying again, but by Sunday, I was out of flour (and the will to carry on).

So I’m hiding from the oven for a day or two. But I want to show you SOMETHING. So here is a recipe I concocted a while back and posted on Group Recipes:

Cream Cheese Swirl Zucchini Bread

Ingredients

Cream Cheese Filling:

* 1 (8 oz.) package of cream cheese, room temp.
* 1/3 cup sugar
* 2 tbs vanilla
* 1 egg
* 1 tbs cornstarch

Zucchini Bread:

* 3 1/4 c AP flour
* 1 tsp salt
* 2 tsp baking soda
* 1 tbs cinnamon
* 1 1/4 c oil
* 1 1/2 c white sugar
* 1 c brown sugar
* 1 tbs vanilla
* 3 eggs
* 2 c grated zucchini (about 1 large zucchini)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 325

2. Grease and flour a bundt pan or 2 loaf pans. Set aside.

3. With an electric mixer, cream together the cream cheese and sugar. Once blended add the egg, vanilla, and cornstarch. Set aside.

4. In a separate bowl, mix the dry ingredients (flour, salt, baking soda, and cinnamon) together. Set aside. (Got enough stuff “aside,” yet?)

5. With an electric mixer, combine together the oil and both white and brown sugar until creamy. While the mixer is still running, add the vanilla and then the eggs one at a time, letting each incorporate before adding the next.

6. Now add the dry ingredients in thirds. The batter should look WAY too thick at this point, but never fear. Add the zucchini and it will thin out considerably.

7. Pour half of the zucchini batter into your pan(s). With a large spoon, add the cream cheese mixture to the batter, but make sure that it doesn’t touch the sides. We want to “seal in” the cream cheese mixture so it doesn’t escape. Pour the remaining batter on top and pop that baby in the oven!

8. Bake for 60 - 70 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean.

9. Let the bread/cake thing cool for at least 15 minutes before slicing.