Today’s blogger spotlight is the wonderful Cassie from Bake Your Day. Cassie’s blog is new-ish to me, but I’m so glad that I discovered her! She is such a friendly and supportive blogger, and I’m happy to consider her one of my online friends!

I live in Kansas City with my husband Paul and our cat Emma.  I love people, I love life, and I love living life well. I especially love living well through food. I believe that food is nostalgic, it is comforting, it brings people together, and it builds community.  I aim to create meals and desserts that are simple, yet elegant and recipes that use accessible, affordable ingredients.  I love sharing my life and how my life is connected to others through food.

What inspired you to first start writing your blog?
I had been following blogs for a long time. I had wanted to start a blog and honestly the thing that kept me from starting one was that I couldn’t come up with a name that I liked. Bake Your Day came about out of my husband’s creativity and I loved the play on words.

What kinds of posts are your favorite to write? What do your readers seem to like the most?
Reader favorites have to be desserts, particularly cookies. And I love them too so I love that my readers love cookie posts. I love to write posts that have a great story to share along with the food. I love relating my food to my life.

Do you plan a weekly menu? If so, what inspires your menu?
Yes I do. I shop weekly and I plan meals around what nights we will be home, what foods are on sale, what we like and what needs to go on the blog. It’s sort of a chaotic planning process but it works for me!

What is your favorite kind of food to make?
Cookies are definitely my favorite thing to bake. For meals though, I love making classic dishes like risotto, homemade mac and cheese, mashed potatoes and pasta dishes.
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I am here with another delicious recipe inspired by the wonderful 2012 Flavor Forecast from McCormick. (If you missed the first time I talked about this, check it out – along with a recipe for delicious Coconut Ginger Muffins – here). I am really loving all of these trends and flavor combinations from McCormick.
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Couple of items – first, I am sharing these delicious Creamy Meyer Lemon Crumb Bars over at the Cafe Zupas blog today. If you love lemon, you definitely want to check out this recipe. And if you don’t have or can’t find Meyer lemons, these are still great with regular lemons!

Second, I’m so happy because I finally have a page to highlight all of the Blogger Spotlights that I’ve featured here on Taste and Tell. You can find it anytime up there at the top of the page under “blogger spotlights”, or you can click on this link. I’ve had fun going back through all of these spotlights while compiling this page. There are so many great bloggers out there, and I’m excited to keep adding more bloggers to that list!  And if you have a blogger that you’d like to see featured, please email me at tasteandtell @ gmail.com.

Happy Wednesday!

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I’m so sorry, but I totally had to go here.  You would think that by now, I’d be tired of the whole buffalo chicken thing.  But obviously, I’m obsessed.  (If you missed it, I even compiled a list of 51 different buffalo chicken inspired recipes from around the web.)  And I’m not even going to pretend that this will be the last buffalo chicken recipe that I will post, because I’ll probably think up something else tomorrow that I just have to make.  So consider yourself warned.
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Years ago, I had a job that was just down the street from a popular local bakery.  As much as I would have loved to visit every day to sample one of their baked goods, I was too cheap to pay $4 for an eclair every day.  But there was one thing that I couldn’t resist.

They sold several different kinds of cake by the slice.  But my all-time favorite was their German chocolate cake.  But their German chocolate cake wasn’t like every other German chocolate cake.  There was one small thing that set it apart from any other cake that I have ever had.  It had a layer of raspberry puree in-between the layers.  I had never had German chocolate cake like that before, and I don’t think any other cake will ever measure up to that cake.  Both my sister and I became addicted, and it was a sad, sad day when they stopped selling that cake by the slice.

This was many years ago.  And I haven’t been able to get that combination out of my head since then.

If you’ve been reading my blog for awhile, you might remember a few years ago when I decided to make cupcakes for each member of my family for their birthdays.  Well, this year, I decided to bring back that tradition.  This month was my brother’s birthday, and he is a German chocolate fan.  I immediately thought of that cake when I thought to make him German chocolate cupcakes, and I knew I had to try to re-create those flavors.  I’m so glad I had that thought come to my mind, because I loved these cupcakes.  The raspberry with the chocolate and the German chocolate frosting was so delicious.  I hope my brother loved them as much as I did!!

I’m on the quest to find the perfect at-home, bakery style cupcake recipe.  And while this cupcake recipe was delicious, it wasn’t exactly what I was looking for.  While they were delicious, they were a little bit crumbly and hard to fill, and not the texture that I was looking for for that bakery style cupcake.  But they were still very tasty!  I’m excited to use this year and all of the birthdays ahead to try to find that perfect cupcake recipe!!

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Click through for the recipe!

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Last week, I was able to take part in a webinar by McCormick spices.  They just released their 2012 Flavor Forecast, which identifies the upcoming culinary trends.  Just from watching this webinar, I can tell that the chefs at McCormick are passionate about food, and I think they really got it right with these upcoming trends.  Read the rest of this entry »