-
Wedding Cupcakes
I made two versions of this cupcake – the plain, unfilled cupcake with buttercream, and the same cake with a whipped lemon filling. The plain cakes are for my mom, who LOVES wedding cake. The filled cakes are for me, because I like to fill cupcakes. =) This cake actually uses a box mix as the base for the ingredient list – I wasn’t a big fan of that idea and I could really taste the “boxed cake taste” when they first came out of the…
-
Easy Lemon Bars
I wish I would have snapped a picture of the sky today so I could show you, but take my word for it – it was gray. Not like pretty-hazy-snowy-gray, it was cold-damp-dreary-icky-gray. I’m so over winter, guys. I just want it to be February already, so I can say that “at least it’s February so that means it’s almost March which means it’s almost April and then things will finally warm up.” Sigh.
-
Peanut Butter Cupcakes
It’s funny where my cupcake inspiration comes from sometimes. These particular cupcakes were born when I found a bag of mini Reece’s Peanut Butter cups at the grocery store last week. I thought, “Oh – those are cute, they’d be a good cupcake garnish!” I then spent all of last week trying to find the perfect peanut butter cupcake recipe to hold my cute little garnish. I’m sick, I know. I decided on this recipe for a couple of reasons. First, it’s easy. The chocolate cake starts with a…
-
Cinnamon Swirl Bread
There are few things more rewarding in the kitchen than a successfully made bread recipe. Whether it’s your favorite pizza dough, cinnamon rolls, a buttery dinner roll or just a loaf of sandwich bread, there’s something about fresh bread that makes you feel like a rock star in the kitchen. I don’t know how many times I’ve made bread (it’s a lot) but even so, every time the yeast starts to do its thing, I do a little happy dance. The thing about bread, though,…
-
A look back at 2013
Wait, can anyone else believe that 2013 is over? Where did it go? I feel like I spent a good portion of it in the kitchen, and that’s just fine by me. I hope you’ve enjoyed the goodies I’ve shared with you over the past twelve months. I know I have. I love to look back at the end of the year and see what you guys liked the best. I have to say, your favorites this year are some of mine, too. Take…
-
Easy Entertaining for Last-Minute Guests
We do a lot of last-minute entertaining at our house. While I am always one to go overboard when it comes to birthday parties and other celebrations, over the years I’ve figured out how to entertain guests on a much smaller scale. My kitchen is right in the middle of my house, and it’s open to EVERYTHING. This is good, because my intention was to make the kitchen the heart of our home, and it really is. On the flip side, however – it’s open…
-
A Rainbow Party
Last weekend we celebrated my daughter’s and niece’s 4th birthday with a Rainbow party. They’ve been talking about it forever, pretty much since the day after their Princess Party last year. We were a bit hurried, especially after we ate dinner because the weather was supposed to get bad, and everyone kind of left in a mad rush to beat the storms. As usual, I focused the decoration for the party around my dessert table. A simple white table cloth allowed the rainbow colors to…
-
Caramel Pecan Apple Pie
So, you really can’t go wrong with apple pie. Am I right? Even bad apple pie is usually pretty tasty. Or maybe I’ve never had bad apple pie? Aaannnd, now that I say that, I’m envisioning really bad apple pie, so I guess I could theoretically imagine an apple pie so bad that it might not be worth the calories. But this one? For Pete’s sake, it’s covered in a crumb topping. And then. THEN. That crumb topping? It’s topped with toasted pecans and caramel…
-
Cinnamon Rolls
Ahhh…cinnamon rolls. I’m not sure that there’s anything better than a really good cinnamon roll, but in my opinion a good one is really hard to find, and a good recipe is even harder to find. My biggest problem with most cinnamon roll recipes is that the bread part of the roll is usually bland, and the only cinnamon flavor you get comes from the filling itself. This recipe, however, has cinnamon in the dough itself, so the bread is flavorful too. But, if I’m…
-
New York Style Cheesecake
If it were up to me, I probably wouldn’t post this recipe. I’ve made it twice now, and truth be told, I just didn’t like it that much. But I’m pretty sure it was just me. My family loved it. They all looked at me like I was nuts and rolled their eyes (as they always do when they think I’m just been too critical of my treats) when I told them I didn’t love it. My husband, who doesn’t like cheesecake all that much…
-
Red Velvet Truffle Brownies
So, it’s almost time to start thinking about Thanksgiving dinner, right? Almost time to start planning our meals, which stretchy pants we’re going to wear, and how to make it from point A to point B in under an hour and eat a full meal at both places without offending either party. Right? Yes. But first, before I can even go THERE, I have an eight year old’s birthday party to plan and execute. A Teen Beach Movie birthday party, at that. Because you know, it’s…
-
Fried Pickles with Spicy Ranch
You know when you get a craving and it just won’t go away? Yep, you guessed it. I’ve been craving fried pickles for about six months now. I’m not really sure why. I don’t really crave fried foods, ever…but something about warm, battered pickles dipped in cool ranch dressing just does it for me, I guess. I’m just exuding classiness, aren’t I?
