Baking Monday – Cinnamon Tarts

I was looking for something cinnamon to make for today while also avoiding a trip to the store. I thought that these would be good with cinnamon-sugar filling.

I made a few mistakes with these - forgot to poke holes in top, so they ended up poofing up and having pockets of air inside. They would have been really yummy with shredded apple mixes with the cinnamon sugar.

Jeff said he tried to explain all this to the crowd, but no one was really listening, because they were all busy eating cookies. The pastry is super yummy (the secret is: lots of butter. Way more than I'd usually use in a recipe!) and would be great with all different kinds of filling ... jam, peanut butter, nutella ... and maybe a sprinkle of sugar or icing on top. The recipe made about 18 round tarts. 

Fall Cupcakes & Baby Cookies

I had the opportunity to bake for a fall-themed baby shower a few weekends ago. On the menu was two kinds of mini cupcakes, red velvet and pumpkin.



Both had cream cheese frosting, the pumpkin ones with extra cinnamon and a sprinkle of cinnamon sugar on top.



I also had the pleasure of being a guest at the shower. The hostesses did such a nice job! Everything was lovely, the table decorations were very sweet.



I also made some onsie cookies as favors ... loved the fall-ish but not too baby-ish colors.

Looking forward to meeting Baby B! 

Dino Cookies!

Okay, I know that every new tray of cookies turns into my new favorite, this one is no exception! I love these sweet little dinosaurs!



The candy eyeballs make them totally adorable.



Cookie glaze can sometimes be problematic ... if I use milk, it sometimes gets spotty when it dries, but when I use water, the colors tend to bleed. To prevent bleeding, I try to find ways around mixing high-contrast colors, and my favorite trick is to use the same color piping as icing.

So happy with the way these turned out! I hope the birthday boy enjoyed them, too!

Baking Monday – Mint Chocolate Brownies

Baking Monday is back! Yay!

(This is what goes through my head every time I read "Yay!" Also? My first imbedded animated gif! Hope it's not too distracting!)

Anyhow! I'm back in the kitchen on Mondays! Pool season has started again, and it's time to dig through recipes for some new goodies. Jeff's request: something minty. These brownies are deee-licious. 

A few adjustments: butter instead of shortening, milk instead of heavy cream, and I had to add a little bit of milk to the chocolate/butter glaze, because for some reason, it was (at first) a lumpy mess. I also sprinkled some crushed chocolate cookies on top because (1) I thought they could use something crunchy and (2) they were left over in the pantry from another recipe. 

These were really super good, plus, I can envision doing different flavorings for the middle layer of frosting (specifically, peanut butter!) 

Hello! Happy to be back! 

Baking Monday – Butterfinger Bars

One of the Baking Monday regulars had a milestone birthday last week, and his wife threw him a surprise party. She asked me to make a dessert, mentioning that Butterfingers are his favorite candy bar. I searched for a few recipes and ended up with this one, which is seriously good! And oats make them healthy, right? 

The recipe says to bake in a cookie sheet, which I found to be a little ambiguous, since I use half-sheet pans for cookies. These fit nicely in an 11x17 pan. The dough is sticky, as the recipe states, but I was easily able to spread most of it with a rubber scraper and then used waxed paper to even it out. 

Aside #1: In 7th grade home ec, we were taught to say "rubber scraper" so as not to confuse with "spatula" – the pancake-flipping, cookie removing tool. But I think I'm the only one who still does that. 

Aside #2: The best rubber scrapers are, IMHO: 1. Heat-resistant (good for melting things on the stovetop), 2. One-piece (does not collect gunk where the stick meets the rubber) and 3. Stiff! (I have no patience for floppy spatulas). I have one favorite tool that is all three. They are not easy to find. 

Anyhoo ... to top these bars off, instead of whipping up a batch of frosting, I melted two cups of chocolate chips with about 1/2 cup of peanut butter in the microwave (stirring and spreading with my handy-dandy heat-resistant rubber scraper!) and sprinkled with 16 mini butterfingers, chopped. (Freeze before chopping – it's easier.) Then chill overnight and cut with your pastry scraper (you totally have one ... right?) 

These were very yummy, and even earned a personal thank you from the birthday boy, yay!

Heart and Flower Cookies

These were for my cousin's wedding shower a few weeks ago. I didn't get great pictures, boo.



I tried one with a leaf – cute!

Flowers aren't my favorite, but I liked the way the hearts turned out. 

Meet Penny!

Guess what? We're dog owners! I can't believe it either! Jeff had dogs growing up, so he has been ready to adopt as soon as he got the okay. I have always been staunchly anti-pet (I even hated the fish), but Clark is a born dog lover, and he's been asking for one of our own since he was about three. Last year, Dora got on board, and they slowly wore me down. Finally, in the spring, Jeff pointed out that if we were going to go the dog route, summer would be an excellent time to do so. 

We started visiting two local shelters and watching Petfinder to wait for the perfect pet to come along. Penny is a daschund-something mix who is under two years old (we think). She's so sweet and very well-behaved. 

Choosing a name was fun – we debated over whether she should have a people name or not. Jeff kept circling back to characters we like from books and movies. When he suggested the title character from one of Clark's favorite stories, the name clicked! Lucky penny, find a penny, plus she's the color of a penny ... it suits her! My cousin asked if her name was from Penny on Big Bang Theory, which I admit, we hadn't thought about. It will be interesting to see if she reacts when the show comes back on in the fall, since she already goes bananas every time there's a knock (even if it's on a table or from the tv.)

While Clark and Dora were over the moon, Theo was really not into the dog thing. Like really upset. Jeff and I had countless conversations: are we doing something damaging to one kid to bring a lot of joy to the other two? It's very much his personality to resist change ... my hunch was that it was more about things in our house changing than the dog itself. I told him that I wasn't really thrilled about the idea either, but was willing to give it a try. We also assured him that if a pet really was not a good fit for our family, that we'd have to find her a new home. 

Week one has been good. A few small accidents, which we were prepared for, but for the most part, she's fit in to our family very nicely. (She's also fiercely stubborn! Just like us!) The first day home was so fun. She was SO happy to be here. I'm enjoying the daily walks – it's much easier to get motivated to move when you've got a furry someone asking you to go. (Though I know when the cold weather comes, I'll be the crazy lady outside in pajamas and a parka shouting "Come on! Potty!") But the best thing of all is how quickly Theo bonded with her. At the end of the first day, he said that he couldn't remember why he didn't want a dog. He feeds her, takes her for walks, plays fetch with her and she'll snuggle up with him on the couch. Happily, she's very easy to love!