Homemade Weekend

Last weekend was the first weekend in a long time that I didn't have anything planned. No races, no-out-of-town trips, no events to attend. Since the spring running season is pretty much over, I am not training for anything either. It was both refreshing to have no obligations and weird to not be out running. So, I started working on my to-do list. I did knock several things off the list, including a couple of recipes I have been really wanting to try. So, over the weekend, I made cinnamon banana cake, 2 loaves of cinnamon swirl bread, and homemade pizza dough from scratch (yeast and all). The bread is something I make often, but the cake and dough were new. Both turned out amazing. Definitely keepers (well, usually only the keepers make the blog)!

The banana cinnamon chip cake is sooooo good and good for you! I have been wanting to try this one for months. Seriously! I hunted around town and could not find cinnamon chips anywhere. So, I ordered them online. It felt really weird to be ordering baking goods online, but it turned out perfect (although I may have ordered a few too many bags of cinnamon chips if anyone needs to borrow some). I made two changes to make it healthier: I substituted egg beaters for the eggs and used whole wheat flour. It was amazing. There is no oil in the cake and it stayed moist for days. I ate it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The best was heated up in the microwave for 30 seconds paired with some vanilla ice cream. Oh, so good! I highly recommend this recipe. I think I will be making it as often!

My other endeavor was a new pizza dough recipe. Much like sugar cookies, I am on a quest to find a really good pizza dough. This recipe tops the list by far. I have tried many dough recipes and this was really good and really easy to make. Making dough from scratch can be time consuming. This went quickly and didn't require much work or kneading. I followed the recipe as stated, but I used my KitchenAid mixer with dough hook. I will say I used a little more flour than mentioned in the recipe. The bottom was crisp, and the sides were soft, not chewy. I want to make this again and see if it works as a calzone crust. We baked one pizza on a pizza stone and one in a cast iron pan. I think it turned out better on the stone, but that was "my" pizza. I will also be trying this one again! It is highly recommended as well!