Novel Ideas, Heroic Deeds

Holy. Cow. Just when you think you have heard of the coolest thing on God's green earth, doesn't the creativity of the human race just come and surprise you with another delicious creative outlet!

I poked around on my favorite foodie blogs - I love nothing more than a rainy Saturday when I can just jump from one blog to another, seeking out the best new recipes posted this week - searching different recipes of "Opera Cake" that the Daring Bakers just finished for their May recipe challenge. I was so excited to see what this month's recipe would be, and (of course) it was another astounding success. I don't know if I am brave enough to try it on my own (it's a pretty involved recipe), but it sure was amazing to look at and drool over!

Anyway, back to blog jumping. As I moved from site to site I fell upon this amazing little blog called Champaign Taste (yup, that's how it was spelled) and I found such an amazing, creative idea nestled in its posts.

It's called Novel Food, and unlike most roundups that are quite specific in their culinary criteria, this challenge is merely to make a food that is inspired by a book! Well shit, yo, I'm in! If there is anything, anything! I possibly love more than baking...it's books. To the point that I've had to take my visa number out of my online bookstore shopping account since it was being used just a little too frequently with it ready-programmed in there!

The next deadline is June 21st, and I am totally going to try it. I can't wait to look around. Of course, I'd love to find a book that related back to cupcakes, but that might be a stretch. And frankly, baking something other than cupcakes might be a good stretch for me!

Of course, I never would have become so adventurous if it wasn't for another, more taste-specific challenge, that will keep me in cupcake heaven. It's called Cupcake Hero and it's an awesome cupcake roundup that I've been watching for a couple of months. I wanted to make sure that this wasn't for really accomplished bakers, because I'm definitely not there yet, but it seems to appeal to a high number of foodie blogs and non-foodie blogs of all talent levels. So: I'm in. This month's ingrediant was cocoa powder...which sounds really easy right? But when I started thinking about it, I realized that the fact that there was so much choice was actually the hidden challenge in this month's challenge. Supposedly all the entrants will be posting today, or around today, and I can't wait to see what has been created!

So freakin' delicious. It can rain all day at this rate!