I've Moved!

Hello loyal blog followers.

I just wanted to let you know that i have moved! I wanted to change my blog, and decided just to start fresh! I am going to leave this blog up, because frankly, I made some things on here and lost the recipes... so this is my recipe book now. :)

But from now on I will be posting on my other blog.

Please come visit/follow me at:
www.bakecraftparty.blogspot.com

There are no posts as of yet, but will be this weekend...

Thanks for reading.

Happy Baking,
-A

I Love Gingerbread Men...

....But I hate the taste of them.
I just think they are really cute, smell really good, and they are fun to decorate. I never decorate them all the same, because that would be boring.

Gingerbread is a Christmas classic, and I do not want to mess with a good thing, so I always use Martha's Gingerbread Recipe.
Her recipe suggests cutting the gingerbread into star shapes... I made my gingerbread stars into Patrick Stars.

My brother and dad (yes, dad) are huge Spongebob Squarepants fans, which means I am watching Spongebob, Patrick, and the rest of the Bikini Bottom gang at least once a night.

I also made some regular Gingerbread Men... Here are some of my favorites:

This one had a little trouble when I was transferring him from the cookie sheet to the cooling rack... I call him "Oh, Snap"

I call this one: "Bears. Beets. Battlestar Galactica" aka Dwight K. Shrute, from The Office.

I call this one: "I find this Humerus"... like your arm bone. Don't judge me, Susan.

This one is Gingy, from Shrek. Circa Shrek the 4th. (note the 2 broken legs)

This one is a cannibal Gingerbread man... Notice the adorable gingerbread shaped sprinkles that I found.

I call this one "Life's a beach"

:)

Snack Pack Hot Chocolate Flavored Mini Muffins

Yes, I know that is a long name. I have the worst time naming stuff. So... Snack Pack Hot Chocolate Flavored Mini Muffins it is. I found snack pack puddings in the cupboard, so I wanted to use those in a donut, but I have made a lot of donuts recently. So I decided to make mini muffins, because that is so different. :). Then I found mini marshmallows and cocoa powder. So I thought, hot chocolate. And that is pretty much where these delicious little mini muffins come from.

Snack Pack Hot Chocolate Flavored Mini Muffins

(yields approximately 3 dozen mini muffins)

1 stick butter, softened

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla

2 small chocolate pudding snack packs

1 c. sugar

½ c. brown sugar

2 ½ c. flour

½ c. cocoa

½ tsp. salt

½ tsp. cinnamon

¼ tsp. cloves

¼ tsp. ginger

¼ tsp. nutmeg

1 c. buttermilk

Mini marshmallows (optional)

Preheat oven to 325. Mix dry ingredients together, set aside. In a mixing bowl add butter, egg, vanilla, snack packs, sugar, and brown sugar. Beat until all are mixed.

 

Add the dry ingredients, alternating with the buttermilk.

Once mixed, put into greased mini muffin pans and add a mini marshmallow.

Bake for 16 minutes

Oh, and enjoy. :)

Thanksgiving Donuts.

I couldn't decide what to name these donuts. I was going to name them Thanksgiving Donuts, but after tasting them, I decided on Pumpkin Pie Donuts.

This was one of the recipes I made up as I went along, I knew I wanted them to taste like Thanksgiving, which to me means cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and cloves. It should be noted that these Thanksgiving donuts do not taste like turkey, stuffing, or mashed potatoes.

Here is the recipe I came up with:

Pumpkin Pie Donuts

(yields approximately 3 dozen mini donuts)

1 can pumpkin

1/4 c. butter, softened

1 c. sugar

1/2 c. brown sugar

1 egg

1 tsp. vanilla

2 1/2 c. flour

1 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. cinnamon

1/4 tsp. nutmeg

1/4 tsp. clove

1/4 tsp. ginger

1 c. buttermilk (or make your own, 1 tsp. vinegar in 1 cup 2% milk)

 

Preheat the oven to 325. Cream the pumpkin, butter, sugar, brown sugar, egg, and vanilla until just mixed.

Sift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and spices. Add to creamed mixture alternating with buttermilk. Mix until combined.

Put into mini donut pans, or a mini muffin pan would work. I like to fill my dough into a pastry bag and pipe it into the donut pan. It makes for a cleaner pan, and it is a lot easier to get even donuts.

Bake in the oven for 8 minutes. Immediately after they get out of the oven put into a frying pan with oil heated to medium heat. Fry the donuts for about 30 seconds on each side, or until they turn a golden brown.

Dip the donuts into a glaze. I made a glaze of powdered sugar, brown sugar, cinnamon, and a sprinkle of nutmeg mixed with milk.

Dip the donuts into the glaze and enjoy. Warm or cold. :)

Halloween Party

October weather in Michigan has been crazy this fall. It has been surprisingly warm and no snow yet *knock on wood*. The weather for my Halloween party was perfect, it was dry, and was warm enough that no one was freezing cold, but it wasn’t so warm that you couldn’t sit around the bonfire.

I decided to go as a deviled egg, a costume that took a very small amount of money and an even smaller amount of effort. Literally, it is a yellow paper plate, piece of cardboard, and a dollar store package of devil horns and devil fork? Septer? Spear? Trident? (shout out, little mermaid)…

There was a ton of food. We had chili, hot dogs, chicken taquitos, veggies & dip, donuts, apple crisp, and a s’mores station.  All delicious.

And of course, a table full of colored themed candies (purple, orange, and green). So much candy.  

Too much candy? No such thing.

I would be sad about Halloween being over, but they have already started selling Christmas decorations and playing Christmas music on the radio, so I will manage. :)

Andrea

Are you ready for Halloween????

Maynard is.
[[I should note that the majority of my family (everyone but me) thinks the name Maynard is crazy for a dog. Have they ever watched the office? Andy Bernard... Nard Pup... mayNARD... Nard Pup.... wordplay! Anyways, certain members of my family call Maynard, "Bean"... I am not sure where it came from, but he answers to both]]
So, Maynard is going to be a "beanana" for Halloween.

I have not decided what I am going to be for Halloween yet. I have narrowed it down to 3 possibilities. And, my holiday idea journal is full of Halloween inspired treats that I am going to try... and I will post about them here.

Happy Fall!

It is offically my favorite time of year. The weather is perfect (at least in Michigan) for baking and sweater wearing, and it is almost Halloween. [[aka my favorite holiday.]][[ aka the most wonderful time of the year.]]

Today I wanted some dessert, because I was doing my nutrition homework. And nothing makes me want to stuff my face with sugar more than 3 hours of reading about how bad sugar is for you.

“If sugar is so bad, how come it taste so good” –Parks and Recreation

And I digress.

I went to the cupboard and I was going to make these:

Yes, box mix. [[pause for gasp]]. Say what you will about box mixes… they are tasty, cheap, and convenient.

Then I looked down and saw this little ditty:

It brought my back to 2009, living in my townhouse with my roommate, Katie, who also loves Halloween and all things pumpkin/apple cinnamon/fall flavored.  So I decided I would try my hand at pumpkin baking. I have never make anything pumpkin flavored before, and after I opened that pumpkin can for the first time, I almost did not make anything today. Some things are better left uncanned. This reminded me of squash, like the baby food kind. It made me gag *a little*… but I also gag at the smell of butter, mayonnaise, really any spreads. So, take the fact that it made me gag with a grain of salt.

The only recipes I found in my cookbooks had chocolate chips in them, and I didn’t want that, because I don’t like chocolate. [[yeah, I said it. I am a lady who doesn’t like chocolate. I am also an American that doesn’t like pie, not even on the 4^th of July.]] I did find a recipe on food.com. It is called “Best Pumpkin Cookies”, so I figured they should be good.

You can find the recipe yourself here, the website also has a glaze/frosting that you can top them with, but I think they are delicious without. [[granted, I did not try them with the frosting, so my opinion in biased. Take it or leave it]]

Here is the recipe exactly as it appears on food.com:

                Best Pumpkin Cookies:

Ingredients

• 1 cup butter, room temperature
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
• 1 cup canned pumpkin
• 1 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon salt

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Have ready some ungreased baking sheets.
3. In a large mixing bowl, cream butter and the sugars together until light and fluffy.
4. Blend in pumpkin, egg and vanilla extract.
5. In separate bowl, stir together flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon and salt.
6. Mix flour mixture into butter-sugar mixture.
7. Drop tablespoonfuls 3 inches apart on ungreased baking sheets.
8. Bake the cookies for 10-12 minutes until golden around the edges.
9. Remove warm cookies and transfer to racks.
10. Let cool completely (this is where they add the frosting, but I skipped that step)

They really are the “Best Pumpkin Cookies”. They are really soft and moist; they taste like little pumpkin pies. I would definitely make them again and again. And you should too.

Seriously, so delicious.

Happy Fall!!

<3, Andrea