As always, life gets a little crazy and hectic. The next thing Lisa and I know, it’s suddenly October and we haven’t baked yet! This time, we decided to create something seasonal and economical by using pureed pumpkins and ye old cookie cake pans. Back in July, we baked the amazing peanut butter and jelly cakewich but let’s be honest, we’re kind of running out of giant baking ideas and it’s not like we want to keep spending money on more baking molds.

So meet the Pumpkin Spice Cookie Cake Sandwich with Cream Cheese Icing!

We learned a lot from our last Giant Cookie Sandwich Cake experience: we Pam-ed the shit out of the pans, did our best to bang the bubbles out of the batter and voila…

They came out perfectly! Okay, there were still bubbles but not one piece fell off!

Then we made the icing, which consisted 1,000 oz of cream cheese, some maple syrup and a buttload of confectioners sugar. In fact, we ran out of sugar but we decided to “adjust” the rest of the ingredients accordingly (instead of making our way back down to the local Gelsons where we might run into that same crazy lady who kept asking us for our opinion about baking chocolate chip cookies for her friends for Halloween when we walked by there to pick up some flour does that make sense?). The icing turned our perfect but dude, if everyone saw how much crap went into delicious frosting, we would not have a nationwide obesity epidemic.

Look how beautiful this is.

Lisa took on the responsibility of smashing the two cookie halves together.

And…

BAM! She kept saying “Boo” instead of “cheese” to the camera. Because it was Halloween weekend. Get it?

I really need to start wearing more make-up when I hang out and bake.

Then we got carried away with some random pictures because Lisa was having trouble learning how to focus the camera, and then she got upset because she realized she had to scratch off “being a professional photographer” on her Potential Other Career Options list.

Henry got into the true Halloween spirit with his Devil Horn headdress (seen here worn as a bib) and a scary snarl.

Next month: GIANT YULE LOG!!!!!*

*If anyone has a recipe for a GIANT YULE LOG, please email me. Thanks.

So this may look like a normal peanut butter and jelly sandwich, but it’s not. Lisa and I swear. We met up this past weekend to finally bake the amazing Cakewich, which was really just a cake mold shaped like a slice of bread. Armed with my new How To Cook Everything iPhone App and some almond extract, we somehow managed to mix together Mark Bittman’s Golden Layer Cake recipe to slap together this amazing creation.

My camera ran out of batteries during the first part of the process, so I didn’t get any snazzy photos of Lisa’s amazing cake batter skills, and then we had a little emergency when we realized we didn’t have any powdered sugar for the peanut butter frosting. Plus, this cake took twice as long to bake than we expected.

And then I had to pick up B from LAX while Lisa had a date at Dodger Stadium, so we decided to let the cake cool for 24 hours and meet up the next day to finish the Cakewich. Did you follow all of that? I thought so.

So anyways, last night at Chez Lisa, we rolled up our sleeves and got to work. First, we sliced off the top mound because sandwiches don’t have mounds on them and we had to make our cake resemble a slice of bread as much as possible. Lisa got excited about the excess cake and decided to take a bite.

Then I sliced the cake in half to complete the sandwich. This is me carefully sawing my way through a Golden Layer cake. Wait…hold up.

I’ve never really looked at the top of my head before. Is that my hair part or AM I BALDING? OMG I’M BALDING. Now I have to invest in that weird scalp powder thing that covers up bald spots. Waaah.

We recruited Lisa’s roommate, Bobbie, as our new G.B.A. member (Giant Baking Adventure) since she was so cute and took over the camera.

I got the two “slices of bread” ready for some frosting.

Lisa warmed up the jelly or jam or preserves or whatever it was.

Commence frosting. Can I just gush about how amazing this peanut butter frosting was? It only consisted of butter, peanut butter and powdered sugar which together tasted like heaven.

This part was a little uneventful. To be honest, it was actually a little disappointing. Lisa and I realized that frosting this cake was really just like…making a giant peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Surprising, I know.

But hey, it was still giant!! Here we go!

BAM! Then we realized that it really did just look like a giant peanut butter and jelly sandwich. This was kind of a letdown.

So Lisa made a regular sized peanut butter and jelly sandwich as a comparison with the cake so we could show everyone that yes, we DID MAKE A GIANT SANDWICH CAKE.

So there. See? Now you believe us?

YAY! [Please disregard my greasy face. Also, isn't Lisa the most photogenic person ever? Yes, I know.]

Then we decided to see if Henry (Lisa’s cat) would like a nibble. He did not.

So now it was time for each of us to pose with the sandwich cake, as if we were eating a regular sandwich.

That’s one big sandwich slice!!!!!

The end.

So after the Giant Cupcake and the Rainbow Pancakes, Lisa and I decided that our next baking adventure would be a Giant Cookie Sandwich. At first we thought about the Giant Donut but it looks like a round Bundt cake and what’s the fun with that? So after a quick trip to Williams Sonoma amidst the ladies who lunch around Beverly Hills, we were ready to conquer yet another territory in the Giant Baking Adventure Land.

Let me just say, I think chocolate has a personal vendetta against me, or maybe I’m just lacking in the chocolate cake department. For some reason, I can never get it right; it’s always too chocolate-y, too dense and too rich. I love light and fluffy chocolate cake, so how come mine never turn out like that?!

Anyway, we made some mistakes along the way (i.e. forgetting to tap out the air bubbles in the batter, not using room temperature butter, etc) but it was still GIANT AMOUNTS OF FUN.

I also think we didn’t let the cakes bake long enough. They looked like yummy brownies out of the oven and though we let it cool completely, the cake was still super delicate. Our bottom cookie kind of fell apart on the plate, but we managed to squash it back together. Plus, who cares. It was the bottom cookie. No one cares about the bottom cookie. No one.

Then we made the icing. I almost barfed thinking about how much butter and sugar went into this thing, but after we tasted it, I forgot all about my butter-and-sugar woes.

I mean, how could you when the taste of pure deliciousness was making its way around your tongue? That sounds gross.

Lisa was busy making plans for that night like the social butterfly she is, but she agreed that the frosting was yummy.

And then we iced away. We ran out of powdered sugar so we made less icing than what the recipe called for, but again, who cares.

Lisa was very good at getting the cookie cakes out of the pans in one piece. It’s a valuable talent. We just had issues in getting them onto the plate in one piece.

Let me tell you. Did you know that the word “cookie” upside down spells “cookie” backwards? It’s because all the letters are symmetrical. That was a mind blowing moment when we realized that. I mean, think about it. If you spelled my name upside down, it would read EYOW. CRAZY.

And then after a lot of gasping and nail biting, we managed to smash the two cookie cakes together to make a GIANT COOKIE SANDWICH!

It’s so nice to have such photogenic friends.

Then we sat around our beautiful creation, philosophized about life (as Lisa said, “The world is just like this cookie sandwich. The cracks are where we have all the earthquakes”…or something like that), nibbled parts of the bottom cookie (because no one cares about the bottom cookie, remember?) and talked about the Bitch Book. Apparently it’s this book where you learn how to be a bitch. I know most of you guys would say I wrote that book, but shut up. I’d like to read this book one day. It sounds amazing.

THE GIANT END.

PS. Any ideas for our next Giant Baking Adventure?

We woke up early this Sunday morning because the amazing Lisa was all set to run the 2010 LA marathon, which happened to run right by our apartment and we were assigned to cheer her on. I was really paranoid about missing her so I made sure we reached our spot bright and early.

It was strange to walk around the neighborhood with Hollywood Blvd all shut down. We weren’t alone, though, because some other onlookers had already showed up and the street was busy with bikers whizzing by. I guess you have to take advantage of open streets when it comes to riding your bike in LA.

Since I didn’t have the skills to make a huge sign, I decided to wear my Yeti hat from Halloween and a bright green sweatshirt in hopes that Lisa would be able to pick me out when she ran by. It was either this or the dinosaur head.

I realized we had gotten there super early because the only people going by were the wheelchair and hand cycle racers, who were AWESOME. I mean, I can’t even imagine running an entire marathon but the thought of cycling all those miles with your hands makes me want to cry. It was also nice to clap and cheer them on, because well…I mean. THEY’RE CYCLING WITH THEIR HANDS.

More and more people slowly showed up to show their support. Maybe I’m weird, but seeing groups and crowds of people coming together to rally for a single purpose makes me feel all warm and mushy inside. Unless they’re gathering outside of an abortion clinic with horrible signs about killing babies. Or if they’re that awful Westboro Baptist church. Then I just feel disgust. But anyways…

The sun was in my eyes, so  I decided to run across the street for a better view of the oncoming runners. B did not follow me as I thought. Look at that loner.

But then he did, despite pointing out that it would be impossible to cross back over once the race starts. Oops. My bad.

Finally, the Elite Men (male?) Runners came by! That was crazy! Look at those Kenyans!

Later, I realized that the winner, Wesley Korir, was one of them (which made sense…because they were first). Look!

WHOA. I could have totally sabotaged his race. The thought of the power made me feel delirious.

And then these non-Kenyan dudes ran by.

And then THIS AMAZING MINNIE MOUSE ran by. What!? I love it. I know a lot of people have fun at the marathon, but this man was not only having fun but also seriously running ahead of the race. I like that.

I don’t get this guy, though. Boxers and bare feet?! He wasn’t the only runner we saw without shoes, too. They must have hobbit feet.

And then the crowd came. We saw Chef Gordon Ramsay, B saw a lot of balls (seriously, guys, let’s take control of this when you run), a blind runner (guided by another guy), men in drag, and a teacher took a picture of me in my hat. A homeless guy on a bike came by and asked me where I bought it. I was like the star of the marathon. But where was Lisa?

THERE SHE IS! I thought I kept seeing her but they turned out to be random Asian women. Weird, I know. But I was scanning the crowd and then she came running towards us! It was awesome!! I was so proud of her and I had no idea how she saw us first. It was probably my Yeti hat. Yay!! I cheered her name super loud and then she disappeared into the race.

Seriously. I blinked and then she was gone. We clapped some more, saw some Elvises and then decided to head down the street. That’s when I checked Twitter and saw that a winner was already announced. Maybe next year, Lisa?

Then it rained oranges.

The End.

This weekend saw the follow-up to our Giant Cupcake Baking Adventure with a giant Rainbow Pancake. I thought we were going to make mini pie jars but it turns out that Lisa doesn’t really like pies for some odd reason but seriously, how can you NOT like pie? It’s the most amazing thing in the world. It’s like a giant pastry of goodness that you eat in slices.

So we compromised with Rainbow Pancakes, which was a lot harder than you think. Not only do you have to find a good pancake recipe (which we made from scratch, thank you very much, with milk pilfered from the office kitchen, which I had nothing to do with, thank you very much), but you also had to make sure there was enough food dye to create the vibrant colors of the light spectrum.

But we did it! I also love our new camera.

The difference in the pancakes’ thickness was due to our lack of planning in how many pancake rainbows we were going to make and then ending up just making one giant pancake per color. Yeah. Listen, this is tiring work.

Also, my camera makes Lisa feel very self conscious but how could I resist? She’s so photogenic.

Coming up next month: a giant Oreo cookie cake. We are not kidding. We just have to figure out what to put inside, since apparently all the Fluff we had for our cupcake is all gone.

So I’d like to present to you our giant S’Mores cupcake, made from Mark Bittman’s Simple Chocolate cake recipe, stuffed with marshmallow fluff, topped with vanilla buttercream frosting and decorated with graham crackers–ALL MADE FROM SCRATCH!! Well, except for the graham crackers and fluff.

No, we’re not sure how it tasted because by the time we were done, the fluff filling kept oozing out and it just seemed too sad to destroy a giant cupcake that we had spent all afternoon making.

Really, giant cupcakes are really hard to put together. Also, this cupcake was NOT 25 times larger than a regular cupcake. Whoever designed this pan clearly never enjoyed an actual cupcake from Sprinkles or Magnolia, because we estimated that maybe this cupcake was more like 5 times larger than normal.

More photos after the jump!

The secret inside our fluff filling: a peanut butter Oreo!

Lisa covering the secret Oreo with more fluff.

Ta-daaaa! (This was before we topped it with graham crackers.)

Coming up on our Baking Adventures: Jars of Pie!!!! That sounds like some sort of Christian rock band.

This is Lisa’s cat, Henry.

Lisa likes her cat to be properly dressed; hence, he wears a proper sailor collar (which she properly washes and dries for him–because he keeps improperly barfing all over it). I asked if it came with a miniature mop so he could wash the deck while singing songs, but she said that her cat clothing doesn’t come with chores.

I think that’s wrong because everyone (including pets) should do chores around the house to help out.