Monday - April 12

It's not quite warm enough outside for me to consider it "spring" time. Sure, the flowers are blooming, but the cherry blossoms have been out since February. Ninety percent of the time I'm still not able to venture outside without a jacket, which is how I determine whether it's Spring or not. Right now, the weather is stuck in its i'm-going-to-rain-a lot-season-so-outsiders-won't-move-here-and-residents-will-be-rewarded-with-beautiful-flowers-and-greenery-all-year. It's not very pleasant. Seattle's winter was uncharacteristically warm this year though, without even one snowfall, which got me thinking how I was ready for Christmas time again. That feeling doesn't usually hit me until at least October.

Apparently Crazy Cake Lady was thinking the same thing.

Apple Butter Spice Cake with Caramel Icing

"It tastes like Christmas," one coworker said after picking up one of those little crumbles on the tray and trying a bite.

It did. It was all the Christmas time spices, including nutmeg, cinnamon and cloves, encompassed in one little cake. We ate a few crumbles because it looked like it was going to be really dry and we wanted to tell you how CCL needs to make better cakes, but it was actually really moist and delicious. Probably because it has a jar of Apple Butter in it. The inch-think, dense, pure-sugar caramel icing we could have gone without, but, we won't complain because we don't want CCL to abandon us again. We'd rather get fat then have no CCL.

-Weight-gaining worker

Friday - April 9

Fridays are always the longest work day, whether you're having a good day or a bad day. The best part about Fridays, though, is that we don't have to come into work tomorrow and be subjected to fatty, sugar-filled treats.

Someone must have really liked yesterday's Fudge Filled Cookie Bars with M&Ms, because there was a $40 QFC cake with a border of the melt-in-you-mouth-not-in-your-hand candies in the lunch room today.

QFC Double-layer Chocolate Cake with Chocolate Frosting and M&M boarder

Notice how the cake is cut along the rim and not depth-wise like normal cake cutting.

We never did know how to cut a cake correctly in this office though.

Crazy Cake Lady did good this week, for the first time in a long time. Not good baking, per say, but good being consistent. She brought something everyday this week. Definitely made up for last week.

Dulce de leche cake

Dulce de leche is translated as "milk candy" in Spanish, which would explain why this cake was so freaking sweet. Caramel is the main ingredients in dishes with the name, but other than that and a few chunks of coconut we couldn't tell what was in it. Nor did we want to attempt more than a bite to avoid getting high on sugar.

We would never get sick of the sugar, but this morning we were all craving carbs.

One of our coworkers brought in a delicious-looking bagel yesterday and 24 hours later we all started craving one. The more we talked about bagels the more we wanted one. So, we bribed three people to go on a bagel run in exchange for doing their work and making a break-up call for another coworker who told the tech guy she would date his son then got cold feet. rude.

Onion bagels, Bialy bagel (with onion and cheese in the middle) and Sourdough bagel

with

Basil and Roasted Red Pepper Cream Cheese and Chives, Feta and Garlic Cream Cheese

Bagels and cream cheese, however are probably the worst food you could eat. After we scarfed them down we looked up the nutrition information. Bad idea. Those little cream cheese tubs are 2 oz. 2 oz of Cream Cheese = 200 calories, 20 g fat, 12 g saturated fat and 168 g sodium.

To top it off, on their little excursion to the Bagel store, they stopped by one of their house to pick up brownies and coffee cake:

Peanut Butter Brownies and Coffee Cake

Yeah, we're basically kissing bikini season goodbye and investing in floral muumuus to go swimming in. :(

-Weight-gaining worker

Thursday - April 8

Work has been completely unproductive today. I don't know why, it's just one of those days. We woke up with snow layering our cars, then drove to work in the rain, watched the hail bang off our window, closed the blinds on our windows because the sun rays were blinding us and hoped Adam would come to our window while it was sunny, watched the rain clouds roll in once again, and now, watching it hail again.

Starbucks, aside from making us fat, also makes us unproductive. We had to stop by this morning to get the Final 4 winner a winner coffee and all the caffeine has made us jittery and has made us only want to online shop and not do any work. But it's OK, we figured it out. If we get fired, we're suing Starbucks.

Final 4 Yay! You Win! No-H20, Dirty Chai

Here's the loser's pay-up break down:

Co-worker 1: $1.00 (he sucks because he lost by the biggest amount and gave the least amount of money. rude)

Co-worker 2:$1.75

Co-worker 3:$2.00

Congrats again, other co-worker for winning :)

Crazy Cake Lady did good today:

Fudge-filled cookie bars with M&Ms on top

Yummmmm. Yes, they were ahhmazing. And yes, we all had a bite. But, we've learned to just take a bite the size of a dice. It makes us feel less guilty and control the craving.

Secret Squirrel likes it too:

Secret Squirrel's Stash

She probably shouldn't eat that M&M because it's going to be stale because she didn't wrap it up in that paper towel. idiot.

In other news..

You know what today is, don't you?

Pizza Day!!!

That's a pile of empty boxes because we didn't want to go down to the lunchroom today because there was a mandatory meeting we were trying to avoid. We should have went though, because apparently they were giving out Fran's chocolates:

Fran's Chocolates

It was for a contest about who could keep their space the cleanest. Apparently we didn't win, because no one told us about it...

I bet whoever won was happy though, our secretary was happy, she was "Especial Happy"

We don't know what that means really... but we know we love working with people who use English as a second language because they make us laugh. :D

-Weight-gaining worker

Wednesday - March 7

National Bundt Pan day is November 15, but Crazy Cake Lady doesn't care. She celebrates Bundt cakes with nearly every cake she makes.

Stacey's Chocolate Chip Cake

We don't know who Stacey is, but apparently CCL holds her close to her heart, and stomach, to dedicate a cake to her. The dense cake tasted just like a chocolate chip cookie... there's nothing else really to say about that one.

I don't know where our minds were yesterday though, because we (and whoever makes the delivery) forgot Tuesday was doughnut day. Now we're all confused and don't know what day it is. Tomorrow is Pizza day, right? God, it's sad when you start basing your days off food items.

Doughnuts

We resisted the doughnuts, even with the maple bars' delicious smells traveling though our nasal passage to that part in your brain that intensely makes you crave a bite even though you know it won't really be that good. When a coworker asked what was downstair two others answered in unison "Doughnuts and they smell soooooooooooooooooooo goood."

But still we resisted, Secret Squirrel, on the other hand;

Secret Squirrel's stash

...never resists temptations. I'm pretty sure there are even two slices in there. We don't know why she moved her stash to the top of the microwave from the window sill, but she's not doing a very good job at hiding the food. Good thing there is always enough food to go around.

-Weight-gaining worker

Tuesday - April 6

Crazy Cake Lady brought us last night's leftover dinner rolls, today:

Dinner Rolls and a hunk of Butter

These just don't look appealing at all. In their present form they're cold and dry and if you warm them up they'll be warm and dry. The only way we would consider eating these is if we were left in a dark room with them for 16 hours. Thanks anyway, CCL.

She also brought the strangest-flavored cookies that no one can figure out what they are:

Spice and Nut Cookies with Lemon-flavored Frosting?

They're a bit sour and kind of crunchy - like dry oatmeal bars with Sour Patch Kid flavoring... I don't know what they are, but they don't have that CCL quality to them. I mean, look at that frost job. These are just a mess, CCL.

Maybe she's doing a bad job because she's mad no one pays her, or she's found another hobby like playing basketball.

Speaking of basketball, we'd like to congratulate the coworker who picked Duke to win in our office NCAA basketball bracket. Pretty sure she was one of the 3 percent nation-wide who picked Duke to win it all. She has beginner's luck on her side, though. She didn't even know what the numbers by the teams' names meant when she was filling it out. (The rankings and the win/loss record) We really wish she would have lost ;)

Beginner's Luck Bracket

For her success: a tall Starbucks coffee of choice, purchased by combined funds from the three who lost. (A total of about $1.10 per person) Of course we're going to bet fatty things (it's like a lose-lose situation and we aren't really wasting our money.) ha.

-Weight-gaining worker

Monday - April 5

This blog is already making me crave all the delicious, fatty food we have pictures of today. (I devoured two Andes mints from the leftover Easter basket before I even wrote the first sentence.) I'm just warning you...

Leftover Easter Basket

(complete with a sedated-looking chocolate bunny, bubblegum eggs, Reeses minis and Andes Mints)

"Easter, that's a weird tradition. Female voice: Easter, the day Jesus rose from the dead. What should we do? Male voice: How 'bout eggs?! Female voice: Well, w-what does that have to do with Jesus? Male voice: Alright, we'll hide 'em. Female voice: I don't... I don't follow your logic. Male voice: Don't worry, there's a bunny." - Jim Gaffigan stand-up.

The idea of eating an animal shaped treat seems pretty common for the Easter holiday, from brightly-colored sugar-covered marshmallow chicks to chocolate bunnies. It just seems somewhat wrong to nom the ears off a imitation bunny that looks too sedated to defend itself. And what about the ribbon around its neck? Is it supposed to be a tie for the bunny's Sunday best or is it signaling a gift bow, welcoming someone to untie it and eat the head off? I don't get it, chocolatiers, I don't get it.

Apparently Easter got everyone back in the baking spirit though, because we have a record number of fatty work treats today. Crazy Cake Lady has returned and our lovely fans have submitted lots of delicious-looking foodporn.

CCL's Pear Upside-down Cake

Crazy Cake Lady avoided a riot when she returned today with a dense cake that took a once healthy food and made it a sugar-coated obesity contributor. We didn't get a chance to ask her where she was all last week, but we're hoping she sticks around for a while. While we try not to eat most of the treats she makes - a reason for this blog - her absence is not good for our coworker's emotional well-being.

It seems, though, if CCL were to go to baking rehab and realize her obsessive hobby is kind of odd, this blog would still flourish thanks to our fabulous readers:

Jade and Becca from Indiana submitted three delicious, Easter-inspired deserts. The deserts were made by three separate people - if they weren't I think we'd have to have a bake off between CCL and Indiana baker.

Strawberry Cheesecake

Apparently this was made by a 20-year-old baker named Adam. (No relation to our bird friend.) I heard his cheesecakes are famous around his small-Indiana town. He makes them for special occasions, holidays, and for girls he likes when he was in high school. I wish we could be so lucky.

Carrot Cake

(I don't get why half of the cake is bumpy... and umm.. Where are the orange frosting carrot-shaped decorations? No one is going to know what this is.)

Oreo Bon-bons

These look delicious, but in a way, they look like rolled up Oreos that were left in the bottom of a milk glass too long, then dipped in white chocolate. They also look like they would coat my teeth with chocolate mush in one bite.

"J" from Washington also sent us another picture from her work:

Lemon "surprise" Cake

"We have a crazy Cake Lady too, but I guess you could call her our crazy desert lady," J said in an e-mail to us. "She likes to bake, but due to being single she does not like to keep what she bakes around her house; as she does not have anyone to share the calories with. So she brings it in to the office for the rest of us to eat. Well this is just not working well for me as I'm trying to loose weight, not gain it. So I've decided every time she brings something in I'm just going to forward it to you for the blog so all your readers can share in the calories."

Awww, it's so nice when people "share" the calories. Is that how McDonald's got so popular?Ronald was just like "Hey, I make a mean hamburger, but I'm going to get obese if I eat these everyday, so I'll just "share" them with other people who could make their own healthy food, but probably won't because these hamburgers are so convenient and reek of taste bud-begging MSG."

What's the surprise? That you'll get fat if you eat too much of CDL's treats? Surprise! One slice is half your daily recommended value of calories and double the recommended sugar intake. Thanks CDL ;) Stay strong, J.

Last, but not least, @OffShoreAir tweeted us a picture a "newlywed bossman's wife made" for the office:

Death by Chocolate

We can't really tell what is in this, but Wikipedia says a dish called "Death by Chocolate" might be:

• A layered chocolate cake, with fudge, ganache or chocolate moose between the layers
• A dessert made in a trifle bowl from alternation layers of broken-up Kahlua-soaked brownies, chocolate mousse, crushed Heath bars and whipped topping
• A molten chocolate cake
• A flourless chocolate cake (sometimes called "chocolate decadence")

I'm going to guess option 2 for this one, let me know if I was close @OffShoreAir ;)

At least Newlywed Baker doesn't hide the fact that enough of her desserts will, in fact, kill you. We like that kind of honesty. CCL and CDL should take note.

Thanks for your pictures today everyone! Looks like we all feel fat today.

-Weight-gaining worker

Friday - April 2

Well, the dreary work week ended... dreary. The wind and rain was so intense in Seattle this morning that it knocked out the power at work. At first it flickered and came back on. You could hear the groans from everyone in the building. Then it flickered again. And stayed off.

We stayed in the office for about an hour, trying to think of what games we could play... hide-and-seek in the dark or hangman... but we ended up just eating pretzels and being very unproductive. We told our boss we were going to go to the library, then escaped to a co-workers house to watch the TV while we worked. (shh. don't tell)

As we drove out of the parking lot and stopped at the first outed street light, all of the sudden the lights came back on. Our light turned red, which was probably a signal we should turn around and go back into work, but instead we sped off as soon as it turned green. Thank god we got out of there when we did!

Crazy Cake Lady has ignored us all week, but thankfully we have other coworkers who like to eat desserts so much they'll bring their own food:

Doughnuts

Yumm. They aren't even QFC doughnuts. He should have brought more though, because once the power went off everyone in the building retreated to the lunchroom to find only 2 treats. I think there's going to be an uproar against CCL at the office if she doesn't straighten up. Hopefully we'll all eat lots of good food over the holiday weekend. We hope you do!

-Weight-gaining worker.