We're one year old!

Well, we're actually 27 and 28 years old (almost 28 and 29)... but our partnership as the East to West Bakers turned 1 today!

Sharing our recipes with you (the good, the bad and the occasionally ugly) has been a blast. I've enjoyed your comments, your feedback -- and I get especially excited when you tell us that you used one of the recipes to successfully whip up something delicious.

Baking isn't always a smooth ride. Every baker has an off day. Although this Boston Cream Pie tasted amazing, I did learn the importance of greasing not just the bottom of the pan, but also the sides. Not the prettiest cake ever, but I'd say the taste made up for it.

And, of course, there was the oven dying debacle in which my poor, old, decrepit oven made a disaster out of a batch of brownies and some chocolate chip cake bars. I had to act on the fly and whip up these M&M pretzels for Super Bowl Sunday, and then I had to say a sad goodbye to my trusty oven.

But now and then, you create a real gem, sometimes unexpectedly. One of my most surprisingly easy successes was the biscotti that I made for a beach trip with my in-laws and again for my co-workers. (Actually, I made this again for Easter and this time I brushed the unbaked biscotti with a beaten egg and then sprinkled it with a mix of 1/4 cup sugar and 1 tspn ground cinnamon. The result = a favorite new variation that you should really try. I got the idea from the Heather Drive blog. Heather is always posting delicious new recipe ideas.)


But the baking adventure I am most proud of during the past year is my replication of Mike's Nana's Christmas Roll-Out Cookies. He talked about them with such reverence that I wanted to make sure I recreated them perfectly, and with the help of my friend Kelly, it was a huge success. This will be an annual tradition.

We've enjoyed the baking blog journey so much during the past year -- and I hope you've enjoyed reading. Now's a great time to give us feedback! What have you enjoyed reading about? Should we do more theme weeks, a la Lemon Week and Desserts of the World? Are you tired of cookies but craving more candy? We want to know!

I hope you enjoy reading through the next year's adventures (we've got to start practicing for all those future PTA meetings) as much as we've enjoyed baking for you this year.

Happy anniversary eve to us!

A little more than a year ago, Meg suggested that we start a blog together. A baking blog. We didn't know what would become of it, but we were EXCITED. Several of our favorite things came in to play. Baking? Check. Writing? Check. Doing something together despite being separated by 1,000+ miles for the past six years? Check.

And so the blog was launched. At first, we went crazy, baking up a storm to try to get several new recipes out each week. Eventually, though, we *had* to slow down because of demands from life, work, school, and most recently, our still-gestating babies. We've continued to try to provide at least one new post a week, and over the last 12 months we've worked hard to vary our offerings so that you don't find 90 cookies recipes and one muffin recipe. You've read along during our theme weeks and while we shared our pumpkin obsession with you on Pumpkin Fridays.

We've been able to share some of our favorite tried-and-true recipes, and we've also tested out some new ones, combing recipe sites on the internet, other blogs and old-school recipe books for our newest baking adventures. We started with a scant two blog followers and have grown to 22 followers. The blog celebrated 100 posts AND a redesign (old header is at top of post). We've led two rounds of Operation Baking Gals, and many of you have supported our troops by participating.


Over the course of the last year, we've had some major baking successes ... some of my favorite recipes from the past year include the party-pleasing Cookie Pizza (right), the oft-requested Pumpkin Bread Pudding, the sinfully decadent Cheesecake Cookie Bars, the ever-popular Cookie Dough Dip, and my favorite, easy-to-variate stand-by, Cakies.

And now I'm officially hungry :)

And of course, there have been some unappetizing failures. One of my most notable failed recipes was for S'mores Bars. While they turned out edible, they did not impress me at. all. I struggled with the recipe for Haystacks around that same time. My initial return to baking after a Lent-long hiatus was also quite a disaster.

Thank you to everyone who has been along for the ride so far. We're looking forward to the recipes of the future, and we'd like to get some more feedback from all of you. Sooooo ...

What do you like most about the blog? What do you like least? What would you like to see more or less of? Feel free to leave a comment here on the blog with your thoughts, or e-mail us at easttowestbakers@gmail.com.

Marriage and cookies

Today is my one-year anniversary. On this day 365 days ago, I married my best friend, the man who has stood beside me for six years and has promised to stand beside me forever. The man I long-distance dated for three years before we finally ended up together in Florida, then got engaged, then planned a long-distance wedding. Needless to say, November 15, 2008, is a day I will never forget, for many reasons.

We live at least 1,000 miles away from our friends and family. Our wedding day was a rare chance to get everyone together, and in that blending of families and brief time of togetherness, I chose to highlight a tradition that was a nod to my Pittsburgh roots: The Cookie Table.

We had wedding cake. We had a decadent raspberry cheesecake as the groom's cake (and incidentally, the groom nearly didn't get a piece of it!). But the thing people have been talking about all year is our Cookie Table.

I first heard of the Cookie Table starting as a Pittsburgh tradition. Really, a western PA tradition. As I started to propose having our own Cookie Table, I received arguments that it was a Youngstown tradition. After doing some research, I found evidence to support both sides. The bottom line for me was that this Pittsburgh-born, Ohio-bred, Florida-living, Columbus-marrying bride was having a Cookie Table. No argument there.

And the basic premise of the Cookie Table holds true no matter where the tradition started. For me, it meant having friends and family (both my own and my soon-to-be husband's) bringing cookies to bridge all the parts of our lives together. Meghan brought cookies from Phoenix. My friend Stef brought cookies from Florida. My sister made some treats. My college suitemate made some yummy cupcakes, among other things. There were cookies from various pieces of our lives, and the eatin' was good. We had a brief period of time between the ceremony and reception, and guests were invited to munch on cookies in the downtime. I put out a short, framed explanation of what the Cookie Table was, and the cookies were all labeled with the name of the baked good, as well as ingredient warnings for people who might be allergic or avoid things like nuts, coconut, peanut butter and other such things.

I love how the Cookie Table represented the caring nature of our friends and family on our special day. After all, when you go to a wedding, you expect to take a gift and get all the good things that go along with a reception: food, drink, cake, dancing. So for us to ask our loved ones to go above and beyond and bring an offering to this Cookie Table on our special day ... it just really makes me warm and fuzzy when I think about how generous the people in our lives are.

And I love the fact that many friends and brides-to-be since then have told me how much they love the idea of a Cookie Table, and I'd like to think it's a tradition that will continue to be passed down along the lines of our wedding guests and others who have seen photos or heard stories about the Cookie Table.

Today I remember my wedding - from the early morning wakeup to the last-minute details, and from the vows I made to the man I married (love you, babe!), but I cannot forget the cookies :)

On my anniversary... I am craving cake

Sunday marks mine and Mike's one year wedding anniversary. I cannot believe how fast the year has gone by.

Thinking back on the wedding now, a few things really stand out to me.

The feeling of having all so many of our family and friends in one place at one time. How a near-monsoon could have wrecked everything but instead cooled the temperature down to a comfortable level (this was uncharacteristically lucky for me).

And the cake.

Yes, the cake.

First of all, it was pretty. See?


And second of all, it was the best cake I've ever had. (Thank you, Piece of Cake.)

We got a fairly small one, but even so, it was much too big for our tiny guest list. So, instead of traditional favors, I sent everyone home with boxed up cake. I dreamed of going back to our suite at the Arizona Grand that night, cracking open a bottle of champagne and digging into some of that cake.

Imagine my dismay when we finished lugging the gifts and bags up to our room and I realized we had forgotten to grab a piece for ourselves.

Thankfully, my mom stashed away a few extra pieces, and she passed them along to us the next morning.


Ok, it doesn't look as pretty there, but man did it taste good. Carrot cake with cream cheese frosting. Chocolate and bavarian cream. Bananas Foster. Drool, drool, drool.

And, of course, Mike's Penn State football groom's cake, which was a simple vanilla cake with chocolate fondant (Thank you, AZ Cakes).


Mike even managed to snag the piece with the Penn State logo, which of course, he ate:

I seriously considered ordering an anniversary cake from Piece of Cake because one year later, I am having some major cravings. But alas, the pictures and memories will have to suffice this year.

Happy anniversary, hubbers.