This is a recipe that brings back so many good memories. My mom would make this often for us and I can still remember getting so excited about watching it puff up in the oven. Now my children get to enjoy it as well. Continue reading »
Aug 13
I’m so excited to finally share the making of my daughter’s 8th birthday cake. What a blast I had making this! I felt all of my creative juices flowing with every step of this challenge. I should mention that this endeavor was made a success due in large part to my sweet twitter friend @ednascafe. She volunteered to be my cake coach and held my hand via twitter the whole way through ;-). Thank you so much Janet! Continue reading »
Jul 30
Applesauce is a staple in our home. It’s my go to sub for butter or oil and it’s always a great snack to have on hand for kids. I wanted to whip up something quick and light and came across this recipe. I had all of the ingredients on hand and I liked that it called for a small amount of butter. Continue reading »
Jul 23
Do you ever feel like you just came up with a recipe that no one ever thought of, only to google it and find out its been made in several variations? LOL, that’s me all the time. I still have hope that I will come up with a really unique recipe that no one has ever thought of.
So after getting over the fact that I’m not the first one to think of key lime scones I go to my Simple Scones recipe to use as a base and get started. They turned out delicious, refreshing, and exactly how I envisioned them. Continue reading »
Jun 28
Lemon cookies are one of my favorites! Less than five ingredients make this recipe simple and fun to make with kids. I also like the fact that you don’t have to be Betty Crocker to make this recipe, making it great for someone who is just getting into baking.
I didn’t have lemon extract on hand the first time I made this recipe but the lemon flavor still came shining through. Most reviews state to leave out the lemon extract and use fresh lemon juice in place of it to help out with the fruit loop taste that some have mentioned. I think trying the fresh lemon juice will help with the fruit loop taste but I love fruit loops ;-). Continue reading »
Jun 15
This cookie was just a blast to make. I had so much fun recreating my version of Nutter Butters. They couldn’t have turned out any better than I had envisioned. I combined a recipe that I found on Allrecipes for the cookie and Martha Stewart’s recipe for the peanut butter filling. What a combo! Definitely better tasting than the store bought version.
I omitted the shortening and used unsalted butter only, reducing it by 1/4 cup. To make up for the loss of butter I added 1/4 cup more of crunchy peanut butter ;-). I reduced both sugars by 1/4 cup just to lower the sugar a bit.
I think these would look great individually wrapped for a bake sale. Get that glass of milk ready because your going to need it with this cookie! Enjoy! Continue reading »
Jun 10
Just last week a new Sprouts Farmers Market came to Sunnyvale, CA (my home town) and I was so excited to attend the Grand Opening. I packed up all the kids in the car early on the day of it’s grand opening and we headed to Sunnyvale. One word to describe the store on that day was “chaos”. I basically walked through the outer rim of the store with all 3 kids walking like ducklings behind me ;-), briefly looked at some of the goodies in the middle aisles, and then headed for the exit.
I should’ve known that it would be a mad house. Well on that short excursion I happened to see a bag of key limes calling out to me and I knew I had to have them. So I came home to find out how early Sprouts opened each day and decided I would head out Saturday at 7 am to avoid crowds and lines of 15+ on a mission to get a bag of key limes. Continue reading »
Jun 02
I’ve been wanting to make this cookie for my mom ever since I saw it on someone’s blog. She loves cherries and will eat them fresh, in a jar, or dried. So when I stumbled across a recipe a few months back I kept telling myself that I need to buy some dried cherries and get this cookie in the oven.
Well I couldn’t find the original blog post, not sure why I didn’t bookmark it, but I searched and found this one that seemed to fit the bill. I liked that the recipe already had a reduced amount of butter in it so I only ended up reducing the sugar by 1/4 cup and the cherries down to a 1/2 cup. Next time I may add another tablespoon of chocolate chips and maybe even keep the original 2/3 cup of dried cherries.
The cookies turned out great with a chewy texture. I thought they were fantastic considering I’m not a huge cherry fan. I like cherries but wouldn’t just pick this recipe out of a bunch and be super excited to make them. I was more excited to make them for my mom ;-).
May 23
Yum! These muffins turned out great. They are very moist and I’m loving the chocolate banana combo. I decreased the butter by 2 tablespoons and cut the amount of sugar in half. I had very ripe and sweet bananas so they didn’t have to have the extra sugar to make them sweet. You can sub vanilla yogurt for the lite sour cream if you like and you can sub some whole wheat flour in as well.
The original recipe is made in a loaf pan but I prefer making it in muffin tins so I can distribute easily to my family. Plus it makes them easy to freeze. If you’re looking for something different to use up your ripe bananas give this recipe a try. Enjoy!
May 21
I have to give thanks to my husband for finding this recipe online. He was searching for pictures of Death Valley for my sons project when he came across this site. After a while he said, “Hon, check out this Lemon Scented Pull Apart Coffee Cake. It looks really good.” I took one look and fell in love with the recipe.
Lola Mansurov, author of the post, takes you step by step through the making of this lemon coffee cake delight. Her photography is just stunning and inspirational. This is one of those recipes that makes you want to bake it right then and there. And if it wasn’t so late I would have ;-).
I love baked goods with lemon and the fact that this was a pull apart coffee cake made it very intriguing. Continue reading »
