Baking, Blogging, & Birthdays.

I hope you brought confetti today... cuz it's my birthday! 

Well... my blog's birthday, my one year blogiversary. What! Crazy. An entire year of blogging? I think we should celebrate. With cake. This cake, a simple, but beautiful, two-layered chocolate cake with pink vanilla buttercream. 

... yeah. I know. I made it just for you. 

Somehow I stumbled across the Pioneer Woman's website in college and fell absolutely in love with the idea of writing a blog and learning how to bake something. Every so often, if I had a law paper to procrastinate or school was getting stressful and I was missing home, I'd check out her blog and stare at some photos of Bassett Hounds and cinnamon rolls and melting butter and feel instantly less stressed. And happier. With this compulsive urge to go bake something with flour and sugar and sprinkles.

Which turned into this compulsion to bake, take photos of everything important/not important at all, and plaster it all over the Internet. 

And I've loved every single moment of it. Writing about it, creating new recipes, making mistakes, learning new things, and sharing it all with you. Honestly, you're all amazing. I never thought anyone besides my best friend would read this so I'm incredibly thankful to every one of you who finds my little piece of the Internet worth reading. 

So... some things happened in the last 365 days. 

I published my first post. And then 102 more. 

I got addicted to things, like Pinterest and spicy, delicious feta and fancy frosting and frozen peanut butter cups.

I met Ree Drummond, the Pioneer Woman, and temporarily forgot how to breathe.

There were pounds lost, week-long bakeathons, sneaky puppies, and perfect birthdays.

I got creative and dreamed up a few recipes of my own.

Like blueberry snickerdoodles, cake batter popcorn, and three of my favoritest recipes ever: chocolate chip cheesecake cupcakes, rocky road brownie bites, and chocolate chip cookie treats. 

I got on this. 

And you liked me! 436 439 of you! That's more friends than I have on my personal Facebook. 

And then there was the baking. Yeah, I did some of that. I made my first layered cake. I made whimsical cauldron cakes and ate them for breakfast. There were maple scones that tasted like pancakes and pancakes that looked muffins, cupcakes baked inside ice cream cones and cookies shaped like reindeer. I made homemade brown sugar, because I could, and homemade cinnamon bread because... it's cinnamon bread.

And I went to Disneyland too, which isn't so much baking-related as it is awesome-related.

Oh and I made cookies. Did you notice? Lots and lots of cookies. 

So, just for fun, here my personal top ten favorite recipes from my first year of blogging, plus the recipe on the site that you all loved and stalked the most.

1. Fluffernutter Chocolate Gobs.

2. Cinnamon Pinwheels with Maple-Coffee Icing.

3.  Peanut Butter Cup Treats. 

4. Graham Cracker S'mores Candy.

5. Peanut Butter Crunch S'mores Bars.

6. Salt River Bars.

7. Texas Sheet Cake.

8. Chocolate Chip Cheesecake Cupcakes.

9. Cowgirl Cookies.

10. Black & White Cookies.

And the most popular recipe is... *trumpets and confetti* Oreo cupcakes!

What were your favorite posts this year? What would you like to see more of in the coming year? More how-tos? More healthy recipes? Savory recipes? Less cupcakes? More real life? Let me know!