Pumpkin Bread with Cinnamon Chips

With fall weather right around the corner (which really occurred a couple of weeks ago when I actually made this bread), I couldn't resist making some homemade pumpkin bread with cinnamon chips. I got the recipe from Fake Ginger's blog, which is super cute. I visited two stores searching for cinnamon chips (which I assumed would look like chocolate chips except be cinnamon) but walked away empty handed from both stores. I started doing some searching online and found a lot of people complaining about a "waxy" taste of the cinnamon chips and that most people were unable to find any at all. I took one of the suggested recipes from these answers and just made my own cinnamon chips which was probably a better idea overall.

Cinnamon Chips (approximately 1 cup):

1/3 cup sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons cinnamon
1 tablespoon solid all-vegetable shortening (I used unsalted butter instead)
1 tablespoon light corn syrup

Heat oven to 200F. Combine all ingredients in a bowl and mix with fork until uniform and crumbly. Spread on foil lined baking sheet (I sprayed mine with Pam) and bake until melted and bubbly, about 35 minutes. Cool completely, then break into small pieces. Makes approximately 1 cup.

I left half the loaf at home for Mike and I and took the remaining pieces to work. I wish I could send some to my sister-in-law, Tarah! Pumpkin season is her fave!

Baked Vanilla/Vanilla Donuts

I have been fighting buying a donut pan for some time... I couldn't hold out and picked one up the last time I was at Hobby Lobby. (The recipe for blueberry baked donuts with orange glaze pushed me over the edge... thanks Pinterest!)

My first try was a really simple recipe for vanilla donuts (with a hint of cinnamon) and vanilla glaze with sprinkles. Everything from the dough to the piping to the glaze was simple. The pan works really well. The donuts are a bit softer and less dense than a real cake donut which I think I might prefer... still deciding. In any event, baking donuts at home will be a great substitute for picking up fried donuts on the weekends!

(On a random note - the colored sprinkles melted into the glaze but the gold ones didn't.)

Donut recipes I have been pinning and will need to be made:

• chocolate donuts with buttermilk glaze
• blueberry donuts with orange glaze or lemon glaze
• buttermilk pumpkin donuts
• maple bacon donuts
• cinnamon-sugar donuts
• cake batter donuts
• vanilla donuts with strawberry glaze

Perhaps I need to host a coffee/donuts brunch?

Snickerdoodle Cake with Brown Sugar Buttercream

I made this yummy cake for Ann's birthday. Its so good and literally smells just like snickerdoodle cookie. I added some gold sprinkles just for fun :)

I didn't have any good photos so this photo is borrowed from the original author, Always with Butter. (Which has so many recipes that I'm dying to try, anyone else need a birthday cake??)

Magical Peanut Butter Cookies

My grandmother (known to everyone as Pat) is diabetic. For her upcoming birthday, I made these diabetic friendly magical peanut butter cookies from Paula Deen.

(pic from food network)

SUPER SIMPLE to make. 4 ingredients. 12 minutes for baking. Done.

Macaron Afternoon

Mitzi, Ann and I have been wanting to try macarons for a while now. Lots of bloggers talk about how temperamental they are and how a lot of the time they collapse and aren't very pretty. In P-dub fashion, we did an afternoon of baking at my house. We had a REALLY good day and luck on our side and were able to successfully make 3 kinds of macarons!

We started out with Bravetart's French macaron recipe. Ann and I stuck with vanilla and Mitzi added 25 grams of cocoa to hers to make them chocolate. I filled mine with blackberry buttercream while Ann filled hers with pistachio buttercream and finally Mitzi filled her chocolate ones with marshmallow frosting (for hot chocolate macarons).

Gifting Cinnamon Rolls

I made cinnamon rolls from P-dub for a gift for new parents Trent and Amy. Mike and I also did their newborn shoot... Riley's a doll! Hopefully they enjoyed their cinnamon rolls. (Mike and I certainly enjoyed the ones we held back for ourselves haha!)








I'm not entirely sure how many cinnamon rolls her recipe is supposed to make... it says 8 servings but I was worried this meant 8 pans so I cut the recipe in half. I got two trays of 8 cinnamon rolls each. I also omitted the coffee from the icing recipe for my first shot. Definitely going to make these again and freeze for holiday guests!

Bourbon Vanilla Bean Ice Cream

Well, ice cream attempt number two was another good one. This one was a real, egg based ice cream that took a little work but was really good. (I got a little impatient and shaved an hour off the cool time to get it into the machine and freezer hoping to serve it after dinner. It is a little softer than real ice cream which may have to do to the shortened cooling time or its due to the bourbon, not sure.)

The recipe from Serious Eats doesn't specify the amount of bourbon to add. I used 5 tablespoons then added an extra at Mike's request. Its got a serious bourbon-y kick.

Cake Batter Blondies

After making the cake batter ice cream, I had a little over half a box left of yellow cake mix. Not wanting to just toss it, I made half the recipe for cake batter blondies found on pinterest. Yum.

Cake Batter Ice Cream

As if Mexican Thanksgiving needed anything else, I also whipped up a batch of cake batter ice cream. There's nothing smarter than making a new recipe with a new contraption right before friends come over for dinner right?

Well, that's generally what I end up doing. Sometimes it doesn't work (case in point the Friday night before when I made artichoke and white bean crostini for my cousin and girlfriend which promptly ended up in the garbage due to its weird smell). Sometimes it does work, like with cake batter ice cream.

I think this was a great recipe to try my new ice cream maker attachment since its a total cheat... it uses milk, cool whip, and yellow cake mix. It came together like a charm and froze right up. I had mine with sprinkles and the boys had theirs with chocolate chips and sprinkles... Erica just ate Nick's after protesting she was too full. Lesson learned - You just can't say no to ice cream that smells like cake batter.

Oatmeal Cookies with White Chocolate and Sea Salt

I made these crisp salted white chocolate oatmeal cookies (from Smitten Kitchen) over the weekend. Maria brought me some large flake sea salt and this was the perfect recipe to use it on.

The cookies aren't your typical oatmeal cookies. They come out of the oven much thinner and crisper than other recipes. I thought the first batch was too thin (a lot like lace cookies) so I added a bit more flour and the remaining batches came out a little more my taste. The salt flakes on top really change the taste of the cookies!

Banana Pie Pops

First off, my "pops" lost their sticks. Technicality.

I've been obsessing over this blog post from Luxarie: http://luxirare.com/float/

OBSESSING I tell you. How neat are those?

Mike closed one night over the weekend so I found myself home on a rainy night without much to do so I tried to recreate the banana pie pops.

I think I was mildly successful. Overripe banana, mashed, with cinnamon and brown sugar. I cheated with a ready made pie shell that I rolled flat. My sticks didn't stick so we basically have little mini-pies. (I also added some turbinado sugar to the tops so they look pretty.)

I'll put up a real recipe once I get the process down. I'm also taking pie-filling suggestions. (Beware if you come to our house or invite us for dinner... you'll probably get pie pops!)

Blackberry Champagne Cupcakes

For a second treat to take to Nibbe's cupcake party, enter the blackberry champagne cupcake from Darjeerling Dreams.

I tweaked the recipe just a bit... instead of cutting part of the cupcake out and filling the middle with blackberry jam, I just swirled it into the cake batter to get dark colored streaks through the cupcakes (plus I thought this would be much simpler). I also left the icing ingredients off my shopping list so I substituted with fluffy vanilla icing from Martha Stewart's Cupcakes. (And topped with sugar I dyed purple!)

I also won the door prize at Rachel's! Banana cupcake mix. Yum!

Maple Bacon Cupcakes

I made mini maple bacon cupcakes (thanks to Vanilla Garlic's blog) to bring to Nibbe's afternoon cupcake party. I think they were a hit... definitely a surprise to all as they ate the salty and sweet cupcake. (I'm sure it goes without saying that Mike liked them... they are made with bacon after all.)

I think I would have liked a little more maple flavor... or maybe I'll add a dash of cinnamon next time! I have run out of icing but have a couple of cupcakes left that I think I'll dip into maple syrup... just to make sure they don't go to waste ;)

Baked Apple Streusel Pancake Bars

The second part of the post-photo brunch was the baked apple streusel pancake bars! (recipe from The Kitchn) These tasted good and were simple to put together but I think in halving the recipe the bake time or some of the items didn't bake quite right. As you can see below, my cinnamon topping sunk right to the bottom! I'm going to try this recipe again though... we all enjoyed it! Mike also topped his with some maple syrup which was a nice addition!

Cookies & Cream Bark

I made my sister this cookies & cream bark as part of her birthday gift. Its a really easy treat to make!


Adapted from Martha Stewart Living magazine:

about 1 lb. total your choice of chocolates (I used 2/3 semi-sweet and 1/3 white)
12-15 oreos, mixed use

Cover a 9 x 13 baking sheet with parchment paper.
Crush about 2/3 of the oreos. Set aside. Break the remaining oreos in half/quarters. Set aside.
Melt the chocolates (separate bowls if using different types). I used the microwave method - cut chocolate into pieces and microwave in 30 second increments, stirring each time, until melted. Pour the crushed oreos into bowl/bowls of melted chocolate and stir well. Spoon chocolates onto baking sheet (alternate flavors) and swirl to make a marbled pattern. (Smooth the mixture out as thin as you prefer.) Drop remaining oreos on top. Place baking sheet into refrigerator until hard. Crack into pieces and serve.

Chocolate Stout Bundt Cake

I have been so MIA lately... and Mike's been more than understanding and making up where I was lacking so I decided to do lots of nice things for him over Valentine's day weekend.

I gave him a new camera...http://blackbirdflycamera.com/ He was talking about wishing he had one of the originals... little did he know I had already purchased this version which uses 35mm film.

I also made this chocolate stout bundt cake from Real Simple's December 2010 magazine:


Shellie & Ann got a few extra cupcakes I made knowing I would see them at brunch the next day :) Nibbe also stopped by to see the house and sample a slice of cake!

I also attempted to make mike chicken fried steak and homemade tator tots. Eh. If there's something I'm not good at, its frying things. Which, I'm semi-ok with the fact that I'm not very good at it because I really don't enjoy doing it. Mike liked the chicken fried steak... I was less than thrilled. The homemade tator tots were ok... not worth all the trouble. I also made gravy and biscuits to go with our supper. Those two parts I really liked but the rest I could have skipped.

Overall, a pretty successful weekend spent spending time with Mike, catching up with friends, cooking and trying to get the house back in order.

8th Dish of Christmas 2010 - Oatmeal Cranberry Chocolate Chip Cookies

As I was watching Saturday's Giada episode, it dawned on me that I had all the ingredients in the kitchen to make these cookies and that they would be great bagged up for the girl's as a small Christmas gift. So with two hours before the fondue party, I printed out the recipe and got to work!

Here's a trick - I had been running the oven to make my other goodies that day so to quickly soften the butter, I sliced it and put it on a dish in the oven and shut the door. The residual heat softened it really quickly!













I packaged them in a simple brown paper bag and off Mike and I went to the fondue party!

6th Dish of Christmas 2010 - Orange Marshmallows

When I started talking about making marshmallows, I always got the same response... "what do you mean make them? don't they come from... well, i don't know where they come from."

Well. Way back, people actually used a marshmallow plant. It didn't grow actual marshmallows but Egyptians did use an extract from the root to make confections and later the French used the extract in meringues. Today's marshmallows actually use no marshmallow. They now "come" from unflavored gelatin, sugar, water and the kitchen-aid basically.

I saw this Giada recipe during a Halloween episode and thought orange marshmallows would be great for dipping in chocolate at the fondue party. The recipe is not hard per se... it just takes great patience which I generally do not have in the kitchen. Waiting for the mixture to come to 240 degrees on the stove took a while! Once the marshmallows are whipped into a frenzy - it dries very quickly! Basically the reason Mike and I are calling them abstract marshmallows. No perfect square ones here! Some commenters said they tried to flatten the marshmallows into a 13x9 pan instead of having giant marshmallows from an 8x8 pan. I was not quick enough to flatten it all out before it started drying but I got them somewhat smaller than I would have had otherwise.

I'll definitely make these again and work on the technique as well as try out new flavors!

unflavored gelatin & water

condensed milk, sugar & water

getting there...

whip on high!

marshmallow!

beater after scraping

attempting to make them in a 9x13 pan... almost made it!

use LOTS of powdered sugar while cutting the marshmallows... they are STICKY

final result... can you see the orange zest in it??

5th Dish of Christmas 2010 - Brown Butter Rice Krispy Squares

I posted a blog about the new cookbook I got for Christmas last week - FLOUR. The first recipe I made from it happened over the weekend for the fondue party at the Tsuk's...

Brown. Butter. Rice. Krispy. Treats.

vanilla bean

butter

browning butter with vanilla bean seeds

dump in marshmallows

finished treats

close up of the treats - see those tiny brown flecks? vanilla bean seeds!

The vanilla bean and browned butter make these treats ever so slightly classier than the treats we ate as kids. Great recipe!