I love to cook and I especially love to bake, but it wasn't until recently when I got my new oven that I've had the ability to cook well. When you can't tell what temperature you've set your oven to, it's hard to do much of anything without a lot of guess work and offerings to the culinary gods that you didn't mess it up. Now that I can cook again, I think I'm going to make an effort to journal about my kitchen experiments.

With that in mind, I thought I'd show pictures of the kiddo's birthday cake from start to finish. I made a two-layer peanut butter cake with chocolate buttercream frosting. Both the cake and icing were made "from scratch." (Have I mentioned I love my new oven and my Betty Crocker cook book?)

( Cut for NINE, yes, NINE pictures. I'm insane. )