Hello!! We've got an interesting assortment of bakes for this roundup! Some holiday bakes and random "I'm in the mood for this" items. I hope everyone had a great holiday season and is ready for New Years Eve! We will be having jukn food at home on the evening and then depending on weather will smoke some meat or make pizza on New Years Day!
Fudgy Brown Butter Brownies
I wanted to make something quick-ish and easy and these brownies fit the bill! I don't think I had the right type of dry milk powder, because my mixture was a little chunky, but the flavor was still amazing and the texture worked itself out during baking.
Moelleux au Chocolat
Apple Cider Cake
I have made this cake multiple times and it always comes out great. The first time in a loaf pan and some mini cake pans, the next few in my bundt pan. I made the glaze for the first time, normally I skip it to make it a little less sugary, ha ha. They always came out a little short because my bundt pan is a 12-cup capacity and the recipe is for 10-cups. This time I decided to scale up the recipe to see how it would turn out. That did the trick, obviously. Now I'm going to have to scale up all my other bundt cake recipes!
This is the bundt pan I use and, as mentioned above, its a 12-cup capacity. Note: I bought a bundt cake keeper a few years ago and it comes in really handy for storing and taking the bundt with me somewhere. I also put other baked goods in it to keep them air tight.
Gingerbread Cookies
Confession: I have never made gingerbread before. I just don't really care for the flavor or super crunchy texture. I decided to finally try Jenna's recipe because she said on Instagram that it wasn't too "spicy" and wasn't dry. I actually kind of enjoy them! Plus they were fun to decorate.
Raspberry Frangipane Bars
I have had this recipe in my "to make" folder for a while and thought it would make a nice Christmas treat! It was fairly simple to make and I really enjoyed them! There were so many desserts at our celebration that we ended up with a bunch leftover. Fine by me! Ha ha. I didn't get a great photo of the finished bars because we were crazy with celebrations, so we'll have to go with these.
Pizza (King Arthur Baking Class recipe)
I'm going to count this as baking, because it went in an oven! But not the regular oven... my parents surprised me with an Ooni Koda 2 pizza oven for Christmas! I wish my mom caught my face on camera when I opened the box because I'm sure I looked nuts. Of course our first order of business the day after Christmas was heading to BJs to get a propane tank and fill it up so we could use the oven!
Our first pizza was a bit of a fail because we don't have a pizza turner yet (this was a test to see what accessories we actually needed, haha!) and it was too big to turn with a small grilling spatula. So we split the next ball of dough I had made in four to make mini pizzas that were much more manageable! I can't wait to try a bigger pizza once we get our tuner!
It's almost Halloween! We've got a couple on-theme bakes in this round-up, but I didn't do much "Halloween" baking.
Double Chocolate Chip Cookies
When Tessa of Handle the Heat posted a preview of these on Instagram I knew I would have to make them. She said it was like a brownie and cookie had a baby and that is the perfect description. They are AMAZING. I don't usually like milk chocolate but the mix of different types of chocolate was perfect here. Will definitely be making them again soon.
Blueberry Zucchini Muffins
I needed to make a quick breakfast for a trip I was taking with my parents and since we still had a bunch of zucchini these muffins seemed perfect! I didn't make the glaze before we left because I was freezing them, so imagine some glaze on top! Everyone gobbled them up so I only had 2 myself, ha ha!
Lemon Blueberry Loaf Cake
I saw this on King Arthur's Instagram account and knew I had to make it with the wild blueberry jam we bought in Maine! The recipe has you make your own, but I used the pre-made. That might be why my color isn't as vibrant. It was still delicious! I only had a few slices and left the rest for Christian - I made it for him to have when I was away.
Brazilian-Style Chocolate-Glazed Carrot Cake
While I had my membership for Milk Street I went through the site looking for fun recipes I'd like to try. I'm not a carrot cake fan because of the cream cheese frosting and general texture but this recipe looked amazing! We had carrots leftover from a few dinners so I whipped this up over a weekend and it was delicious! The carrots and wet ingredients are put in the blender so it comes out really smooth and bright orange. Such a fun bake! I'm probably going to remake it for one of our Thanksgiving gatherings because it's dairy-free and one of my aunts is lactose intolerant.
Slice & Bake Ghost Cookies
These were a cute, easy bake for a night where we didn't have any desserts left. I started them in the morning and then baked them up before dinner. They're a great shortbread cookie with a fun Halloween twist!
Monster Brookies
I was very excited when Jenna shared an updated version of her monster brookies to go along with the regular brookie recipe I love. I swapped out Reese's Pieces for Halloween colored M&Ms because we don't love RPs, ha ha. I think I prefer the regular cookie recipe for the top vs a monster cookie. The peanut butter and oats were a bit much for us in combination with everything else. So if I did this again, I would use her regular brookie recipe, add the Oreos in and still add M&Ms!
We've got an interesting mix this week, including some garden grown eats! We don't have a lot of variety growing in our garden this year (a lot didn't make it) but we've got plenty of basil, cucumbers, tomatoes and zucchini!
Peanut Butter Zucchini Bread Baked Oatmeal
We were getting a lot of zucchini in the garden so I decided to try out this baked oatmeal recipe for breakfasts! The hardest part was grating the zucchini (aka - the recipe was very simple!) After I made one batch I went ahead and made a second and froze individual squares to reheat on demand. I don't usually eat breakfast during the week but I could definitely see myself making this a regular thing.
Pullman Loaf Bread / Pain de Mie
I got a Pullman loaf pan for Christmas this past year and have been trying to make a perfect loaf. The first few times I used a King Arthur recipe but it just wasn't working for me. I thought it was because I was making errors somehow or it was too cold to rise properly, but I tried this new recipe and it worked perfectly! The flavor of the King Arthur version was great, it just never filled the pan for me. I could probably adjust the recipe to make more dough but now that I found this recipe I don't really need to.
Flourless Chocolate Cookies
I saw someone post these on reddit and they looked simple and tasty so I decided to try them out! They were a little messy to portion out because it is super liquidy, but they came out tasty! It's also a small batch of only 8 cookies so good if you don't want to make a ton. Not sure I'll make them again because they were tough to get off the parchment, but the flavor was good.
Brown Sugar Cinnamon Pop Tart Shortbread
I have had this recipe saved for a while and finally decided to make it! Brown sugar pop tarts are definitely the best flavor, but I always hate how little frosting they had on them. This recipe solved that by having every bit frosted, plus its easier than making pie dough.
Milk Street's Stovetop Chocolate Cake
I don't remember where I first saw this recipe mentioned, but it sounded fun and easy so I gave it a shot one night before making dinner! Christopher Kimball, formerly of America's Test Kitchen/Cook's Illustrated/etc., started Milk Street in 2016 to continue his culinary career. If you don't have a membership you can also find the recipe here (I signed up for 12 weeks for $1!)
I only had an 8in pan instead of 9 so I knew I would have to steam it a little longer. It ended up taking 60-ish minutes instead of 23. It was delicious! Christian thought the texture was weird, but I enjoyed how steaming made it soft and light!
Mini Loaf Pan Focaccia
Our garden was in tomato producing mode so I decided to make some focaccia with them. I found this small batch recipe a while ago (I think I posted it once already) and find it's easier for us since there's only two of us. I make one for each of us and we can eat it all at once or in 2 servings. Along with the tomatoes I used basil from the garden! I almost could have used garden rosemary too but I had to buy some a couple weeks before when ours wasn't ready so I wanted to finish that up. I went a little extra and put our initials on them, ha ha.
Brookies
I first made these when they were a newsletter subscriber exclusive, but she has since posted the recipe on the blog! Jenna of Butternut Bakery shared herself testing these on her Instagram stories in May and I knew I would have to make them the moment she posted the recipe. Sadly, for me, she said in the post that they wouldn't be posted until after her maternity leave. THEN she got so much love for them that she decided to release the recipe for email subscribers only before she created the full blog post. I was missing one ingredient so I had to wait until after our next grocery store trip to make them. They were so easy to make and super delicious! I slightly underbaked them (my pan was a little smaller than what the recipe called for) at first so I threw them back in the oven for about 10 minutes the next day and that fixed them up! The brownie layer is super fudgy and the cookie on top had almost a brownie-like crackle on top. So perfect!
S'mores Fudge Bars
Easy Blueberry Muffin Cake
Birthday Cake Confetti Cookie Bars
My brother's birthday was during our annual family camping trip so I decided to make him a little birthday treat! This recipe is from Handle the Heat's The Ultimate Cookie Handbook. I increased the recipe to fit in my large Le Creuset dish because there were 12 of us. They were quite a hit with our whole group, almost everyone had two. Christian and I had the last few for breakfast the next morning, haha! It's such a fun, colorful and easy birthday treat to make instead of a cake.
Moist Chocolate Cake (aka Matilda Cake)
Buckeyes
We're getting closer to Summer which means trying some lighter bakes. I remade some past favorites and also tried some new recipes that will definitely be added into the rotation.
Bakery Style Chocolate Chip Cookies
Every few months I'll mix up a batch of these cookies, let the dough marinate, form the cookies and then freeze them so we can have fresh cookies whenever we want. They are so good and always come out perfect. What's not to love about a chewy, buttery, chocolatey cookie!?
Strawberry Lemonade Bars
These popped up a King Arthur Baking email and I knew Christian would love them. I still had some freeze dried strawberries in the pantry and we had some extra lemons hanging around so I decided to try them out! They were super easy to make, bars and frosting, so I was able to do it on a Monday in between work tasks. Christian really enjoyed it and I wasn't a huge fan of the frosting. I'm not a huge buttercream person so that's probably why.
Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars
I made these super quick one night because we were heading to my aunt's house the next day and I figured I should bring a tasty dessert! I wasn't in the mood to make cookies or a brownie but cookie bars sounded pretty good! I think I found my new "I want cookies but I don't want to make cookies" recipe, ha ha! I forgot to take a good picture after we cut them up, so a post-bake shot will do.
Strawberry Bundt Cake
This bake has become a "welcome to Spring" tradition bake for me. I made it for Mother's Day this year and as usual the family devoured it. So delicious. I love that it uses real strawberries in the batter and the freeze-dried strawberries in the frosting really bring the strawberry flavor punch.
ChocohotoPots
Whenever we don't have dessert in the house and are really craving something sweet I whip up a batch of chocohotopots! They last us two nights because I bake 2 the night of and then we have 2 more in the fridge that I'll bake fresh next time. These are from the past couple times I've made them this year.
Chocolate Fudge Cake Doughnuts
It's been a while since I used my donut pan and when Christian and I were watching something on TV they had donuts and we thought "maybe we should have some." I decided to try a King Arthur recipe for chocolate donuts with chocolate frosting this time. They came out so great! Little pops of chocolate chips were a nice surprise. (Previously I made chocolate donuts with glaze that were also pretty tasty.)
