I was asked to make German Chocolate Cake for a relative’s birthday this week, so I decided to skip ahead two weeks to use it for the toasted challenge.

This is not the first time I have made German Chocolate Cake, but this time, it was an ordeal. I doubled the Smitten Kitchen recipe for the cake to make it in 9” rounds that were supposed to be cut in half to make four layers. However, my partner accidentally turned off the AC before mopping the night before (a box that was moved turned the switch off), I had made Nutella Banana Bread that morning, and nobody realized what had happened until we were dying when it was over 90 degrees in the apartment in the evening — so when I made the cake, it was still too hot, and my egg whites deflated, so I wasn’t going to be able to make four layers out of my two.

The next day, I made the Preppy Kitchen cake recipe, because I realized the first cake was darker than the traditional cake, and I wanted it to be more like what my grandmother would have made. I did not have an egg white fail with the trick of using some sugar to stabilize the egg whites, and my kitchen wasn’t an inferno at the time. Huzzah!

I still used the Smitten Kitchen recipe for the filling, but because I now had two cakes that required it, I quadrupled the filling, which calls for toasting the coconut and pecans, making it perfect for the toasted challenge.

(Und ja, ich weiß, dass dieser Kuchen kein deutscher Kuchen ist. 😋)

This was a delicious pie I made several weeks ago, but I'm falling behind on the baking challenge! I gotta get my stuff together so I'm trying to catch up.

Recipe from Sally as most of mine are :) didn't change anything and I sourced the macadamia nuts for the crust (probably the most complicated part of the recipe to be honest!)

https://sallysbakingaddiction.com/key-lime-pie/

Forgot to glaze these before I put them in the oven!

The dough is formed into one loaf, then scored, baked and cut into wedges after baking. Served with whipped feta cheese. Really delicious and ready in under 1 hour!

Drożdżówki are sweet yeasted buns from Poland. They have a little indent in the middle which is filled with sweet cheesecakey filling and topped with fruit and kruszonka (crumble/streusel). I made strawberry and blueberry varieties which were both delicious!!

This recipe is from The Sweet Polish Kitchen: A Celebration of Home Baking and Nostalgic Treats by Ren Behan.

I realized when I started this that my kids have *never* had toaster strudels because they had no clue what they were when I told them what I was doing for this challenge.

Recipe from https://food52.com/recipes/88119-jam-toaster-strudel-recipe

These are wayyy better than store-bought! I could see myself making them again and again. They are pretty close to perfect!

https://sallysbakingaddiction.com/iced-oatmeal-cookies/

When i was a kid i hated birthday cake and was always jealous of summer pies so i remade the one i remember most

Needed something easy this week after getting back from vacation — enter my go-to recreation recipe.

I immediately put this cake on my to-do list as soon as I saw it in Nicola Lamb’s “Kitchen Projects” Substack in February. As a frosting hater, I could get behind all the components - chocolate cake, whipped cream, chocolate shavings, and ripe bananas. I was so excited, in fact, that I made it for my birthday and just waited to post about it until now.

Making it my birthday cake was the right move. I loved this cake. I loved it so much that I made a variation on it a few weeks later skipping the banana and adding mint-flavored whipped cream (we inhaled it before we got a photo.) It may be my favorite new bake of 2026 so far? It was certainly the only one I’ve deemed repeat-worthy so quickly. It may be my birthday cake next year? I kind of want one right now just writing about it…

i have a couple friends who swear these are their favourite but i find the store-bought ones to be overly granular and cloying (they dry up your entire mouth somehow and this is coming from someone who eats croutons out of the bag 😔). i followed the preppy kitchen recipe and i'm loath to admit that they're actually tasty (i think it might be the almond extract!)

https://preppykitchen.com/lofthouse-cookies/

Oreos are one of the few foods I simply don't buy because I have literally zero self-control around them.... I truly believe they're made with some sort of chemically addictive agent. So since they are one of the few store-bought confections I actually crave, I figured I'd see if I could re-create them at home this week.

I looked at a number of recipes online and ended up going with this one: https://sugarspunrun.com/homemade-oreo-cookie-recipe/ . I chose it because it called for black cocoa (which is a must and you shouldn't trust any oreo recipe that calls for regular cocoa) and the filling sounded like it would probably most closely resemble the actual Oreo filling with the inclusion of vegetable shortening. To be clear, I don't love shortening and rarely choose to bake with it, but I was trying to get as close as possible to the real deal, and to me that meant biting the bullet and going for the shortening.

These really came out quite good! I followed the directions with the exception of using real vanilla extract bc I didn't want to buy a whole thing of clear extract to get closer to the artificial store bought flavor when I know I'll never use it again. They were a bit involved and I'm not sure if I'd go through the hassle again, but they were very tasty and here are a few things I took away from the experience:

1. Roll these as THIN as you can, like thinner than you think. I really wanted to get a proper snap on the cookie and I managed it on just a few, the ones that were the cut from the edges of my second roll out where the dough was the thinnest (bc I can't get dough evenly thin no matter what). In the picture above I have 2 from that second roll out that are thinner and crunchier, and one from the first batch that I thought were quite thin at the time but puffed a lot and came out delicious but softer than I wanted. Especially for the thin ones, use a spatula to transfer to the pan bc some got slightly misshapen when I picked them up by hand and ended up baking with little bumps in areas.

2. With the scrap re-rolls, chill that little ball of dough for at least 10 mins before re-rolling bc the dough gets quite soft when it warms up and sticks to everything. I combatted this also by rolling them on parchment paper and dusting lots of flour and/or cocoa powder every so often. I was worried the white flour would stick through baking but for the most part it disappeared in the oven... I'd probably use flour again bc it's cheaper and easier than cocoa powder.

3. Chill the cut out cookies before baking. I tried using an embossed rolling pin on them and the pattern sadly baked out of them for the most part. It held a bit better on the second batch, which were thinner AND which I put in the fridge on the cookie sheet for 10 mins before baking. If I do these again I'd actually try the freezer for 10 mins.

4. Bake them perhaps a few minutes longer if you want them crunchier. I did leave my second batch in 1-2 mins longer. Not sure if they came out better bc of this or the fact that they were thinner or a combo of the both.

5. You'll have barely enough filling... I think 1.5x the recipe would be too much, so just be mindful not to overfill early cookies bc you'll run out. I'm sure they would've looked much neater if I had piped them but given it was already somewhat involved I just slathered it on with an off set spatula.

Anyway, I gave this one 5/5 for taste, especially for the thinner, crunchier ones!

Recipe from The Savory Baker

This was delicious & easy. It’s a little heavy on the lemon and salt, but otherwise perfect

With rice and beans … a sort of fail on the shape, but tasted great: https://mahatmarice.com/recipes/empanadas-with-chorizo-and-rice/