I kind of fell off the baking wagon over the past few months. I’d like to say that it’s because I switched to eating raw vegetables and fruits, and thanks to be pastry-free diet I’m 20 lbs lighter. But I’m as fat as I was before and my diet is nothing to be envious of.

I did come down with a terrible bout of food poisoning shortly after making–and eating–whoopie pies as part of December’s challenge, so that kind of put me off of baked goods for a few months. It took me about a month to throw away the container of leftover cream cheese frosting in the fridge; just looking at it made me gag for a long time.

At any rate, the whoopie pies were OK, from what I remember. The cakes were a bit dry, though, and I wasn’t a fan of the frosting, and I used the default recipe provided in the challenge. I would not make them again. In all fairness to the challenge host, my stomach flu was probably incubating at the time and I might have been sloppy with the recipe. (The December Daring Bakers’ Challenge had us all cheering – the lovely and talented Bourbonnatrix of Bourbonnatrix Bakes was our hostess and challenged us to make fun, delicious and creative whoopie pies! Delicious little cake-like cookies sandwiching luscious filling in any flavors we chose… What else is there to say but “Whoopie!”)

Here’s a pic:

I did make a big batch of them and gave them to a homeless charity that a friend runs. So hopefully they went over better with the recipients than they did with me.

Fast forward to this month, and we were challenged to make Brazilian cheese bread, or pao de queijo. They’re little chewy cheese balls that taste great right out of the oven. This month’s Daring Bakers’ Challenge took us on a trip to beautiful Brazil! Renata of “Testado, Provado & Aprovado!” taught us how to make Pao De Queijo, tasty cheese buns that make the perfect snack or treat, and that will make your taste buds samba!

I loved these. They were really easy to make, and I was able to freeze half the recipe to bake later. I used pepper jack cheese (hey, it was preshredded from TJ’s) and it gave it a bit of a spicy bite.