Reunion @ Applebee's

Some buckeye friends including Kris and I went to Applebee's for lunch while I was back in Ohio. I don't know why but Applebee's always has some special deals. I picked this "2 for 20" deal and ordered two entrees and one appetizer for $20 to share. As usual, I got mozzarella sticks. Cheese in a deep-fried bread crumbs... what can you ask more? The steak was so-so... It was too firm overall. According to Kris, Applebee's steaks are normally like that, lol. Oh, I also got raspberry iced tea. Raspberry is my life.

Baking Person

I went back to Columbus a couple of weeks ago. It was great to spend time with my boyfriend and buckeye friends:D. Before the trip, I wanted to bake something for my boyfriend's birthday. He wanted fruit tart but there was no way for me to take it to my 8-hour-long roadtrip. So, instead, making most of my ripe banana and apple bags, I baked apple banana cake! As usual, I found a recipe online and modified it to do with what I have in the kitchen, lol. I put one extra apple to make up for having less bananas. The apple chucks were taking up probably half the volume of the batter. It turned out moist and a bit fragile. Some pieces were breaking apart when cutting it into individual pieces. It is the top golden cake in the picture. Yes, I ate the little corner of the piece on the far right. It was applicious though! I would recommend this cake to all the apple lovers. I always thought I am more of a banana person but the combination of two was not so bad:D. I still have some apples and banana left. What should I bake this time???

I also felt like baking muffins. I just bought raspberry jam so I filled up a mini muffin pan. There was still a little bit of batter left so I poured it into the cake pan. The muffins were very tiny. I guess it was either I didn't add enough baking powder or the jam was too heavy. The one in the cake pan turned out flat and smooth as you can see from the picture. At first, I thought of writing a message on it but the chocolate syrop tube was too thick for that. Easy fix, draw a smiley on it. It looks like a person now. It is just a first step to bake a character cake. I will welcome any requests. I need some inspirations for this project;P.