Monster Cookies

You come home after a rough day and you're in the mood for some peanut butter cookies, but then again, you could also go for an oatmeal cookie, but then you think, what about some old-fashioned chocolate chip cookies?  Quite a dilemma you have on your hands.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcakes

A couple weeks ago the hubby and I took a couples cooking class at the Institute of Culinary Education.  We had a great time!  There were four different groups in charge of various meals.  Our group was in charge of making Ahi Burgers with Asian Slaw and Ginger Wasabi Aioli, Minnesota's Juicy Lucy, French Fries, and Chocolate-Peanut Butter Cupcakes.

Everything was absolutely delicious!  Bonus: we got to bring home all the recipes.

I love the cupcake recipe!  It is soft, spongy, and makes me just want to dive into a sea of chocolate.  The frosting was great too, but I found that some of the ratios were a bit off, so I've created my own using my favorite vanilla buttercream recipe as the base.

Pear Galette

Happy New Year!  Wishing you all a joyous and healthy new year...with some baking of course =)

There are so many desserts I want to make, but very little time to make that happen.  So, when the holidays come around, and I have time to bake, I know I can trust my family to be my guinea pigs =)

When it comes to family gatherings, we are simple folk.  My mom and aunt love danish rings from the local bakery, so I knew I wanted something tender and flaky.  I knew it also needed to have fruit: hello use for the pears in my fridge!  After racking my brain for a few days, I finally decided that a galette was the way to go.

For the crust, you can either buy frozen puff pastry at the supermarket, or you can make it from scratch.  You can use this puff pastry recipe if you'd like to make it from scratch.  For this recipe, the directions will be as if you are working with store bought puff pastry.  Sometimes, when life is busy, you just have to take a shortcut.

Orange Madeleines - The Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap

A few weeks ago I posted about The Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap.  I was assigned 3 people (In Natalie's Shoes, Hye Thyme Cafe, and Cheesy Pennies) and was to send each of them a dozen cookies.  Even better, it was to help support a great cause: Cookies for Kids' Cancer.  Together, we raised over $7000!  It gets better.  Land O'Lakes, Dixie Crystals and Oxo matched what we raised!

I love this idea and everything behind it and I have to send a big thank you to The Little Kitchen and Love and Olive Oil for putting this together!

This was the first year I participated and I was terribly nervous.  I made 3 different cookies, and from the first bite, I immediately knew which one I was going to send out.  

The first batch I made was orange cranberry oatmeal cookies with an orange glaze.  I thought it was good but the hubby didn't like them.  The second batch of cookies I made was butter cookies.  I didn't like them but the hubby loved them.  Finally I made one more batch: orange madeleine cookies.  We both loved the look, the flavor, and the texture.  Ding ding ding...we finally had a winner!

Lemon Mousse Tart

Every year, on Thanksgiving Day, my husband and I go over to my aunt's house.  All of those that I love gather around the table, plates full to the brim, and we say grace.  We thank the Lord above for each other, the food on our plates, our health, and we ask God to continue blessing us with His love.  In addition to all this, I thank Him for my ability to bake and how much I have learned and continue to learn.

Challah Bread

The clocks have turned back an hour so I decided to use that extra hour to bake some challah bread.  More time in the day equals more cooking and baking.

This was my first ever attempt at baking any sort of bread, so I used a recipe from the kitchn.  This recipe was easy to follow.  The bread itself was pillowy-soft with just the right amount of crunch on the outside.

Here we go!

The Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap

That moment when your phone chimes, letting you know another email has come in...ugh!  Usually it has something to do with work, and that last thing you feel like doing at the end of the day is more work.  

However, when it is an email that reads "The Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap," how can you not smile?!

Lindsay from Love & Olive Oil and Julie from The Little Kitchen have teamed up again to organize this amazing swap.  Basically each food blogger receives the names and addresses of 3 other food bloggers, then sends out 1 dozen cookies to each of the 3 names received.

There is also a great cause behind it all: they are partnering with Cookies for Kids' Cancer.  Each participating food blogger donates just $4!  Dixie Crystals, Land O'Lakes, and OXO will each match the donations up to $3,000.

More Information

If you'd like to participate, head on over to Julie's blog or Lindsay's blog for more details.  There are some requirements that need to be met by each participating blogger.

In the meantime, I'll be thinking of cookies.

Happy Baking!