Gracenotes

 Hi All,

Wow! It's been 10 years since the last post, a decade. A lot has happened, and I'd love for you to check out my new lifestyle blog, "Gracenotes"

As a pianist, I love using grace notes. It's a simple way to embellish the melody. Basically, it's a passing tone on the way to the main note. 

I hope that my brief life can be an eternal encouragement to others. At the very least, I write to remind myself of truths that I so easily forget. I hope the posts both encourage and challenge you.

-Grace

Turtle Cake

Today I'm linking up with Sharon Fleming's Around the Table blog and she is sharing a great Valentine's Day recipe just in time for February 14th! To read the directions, head on over to Mrs.Fleming's Blog!! Make sure to take a look around at all the great recipes, advice for meal times, and some great giveaways too! To learn more about Mrs. Fleming and her ministry, click here. Enjoy!

Turtle Cake

Ingredients:

1 14 oz. bag caramels

5 oz. evaporated milk

1 box (18.5 oz) Devil's Food cake mix with pudding (get one that calls for oil) (and ingredients called for in cake mix)

3/4 cup butter or margarine, softened

12 oz. semi-sweet chocolate chips

2 cups chopped walnuts or pecans

And since it's Valentine's Day, wouldn't it be cute to make a card like this one to accompany your turtle cake!

Happy Valentine's Day!!!

Valentine's Day Cake Pops

Today I'm linking up with a fabulous blog called Around the Table. This blog has articles about improving family meal times, conversation starters, and great recipes too!  (If you'd like to see a previous post with my interview on "Around the Table" click here.)

 Happy Valentine's Day! I've always loved this holiday, mostly because I usually get a lot of candy and chocolate, especially from my Grandma, and I can wear all the pink I want! Well, back to baking...these cake pops are very simple to make and they're a lot of fun to decorate for Valentine's Day! This is one of those recipes where all you need is a little faith and pixie dust...NOT! But you may want some sprinkles, or if you must have some pixie dust, make sure to use edible glitter dust!

Because cake pops are tricky to present, I decided to take them off the
stick and put the cake pops on a little tray. 

Ingredients:
-1 Betty Crocker cake mix (and ingredients called for on the box)
-1 container of vanilla frosting (or your favorite flavor!)
-1 package of red candy melts (these are typically found at a craft store such as Micheal's)
-sprinkles! (red,white, pink, etc.)
-lollipop sticks
-foam block for drying and displaying cake pops

Directions:
1) Bake cake according to package directions. Let cool.
2) Once cake is cooled, crumble cake into a fine mixture using your hands.
3) Pour crumbled cake into a large bowl and mix in 3/4 of a container of vanilla frosting.
4) Mix with a spoon or your hands until thoroughly combined.
5) Melt candy melts according to package directions. Dip lollipop
sticks in melted candy melts just slightly and push inside the cake
ball. This helps secure the stick in the cake ball. Place in the
fridge for about 15 minutes to harden.
6) Dip and coat hardened cake balls in candy melts and tap stick
against the side of the bowl to shake off the excess. If desired, dip
cake pop into sprinkles until covered.
7) Stick into the foam block to dry. Enjoy!

P.S. Another way to do this, is to buy a cake pop pan!
Here is a link to another cake pop recipe!

An accidental rose pop! (The pop got dipped at a wrong angle and it turned out like this!)
As to how to make one of these, I don't really know. :)

In my heart there rings a Melodi...^

Happy Valentines Day!!!

Cinnamon Apple Crescents

Could it get any easier? This is a canned crescent roll, wrapped around an apple slice, then baked for 9 minutes. Nope, can't get much easier than that.

This is a mixture of brown sugar & cinnamon, although I prefer using white sugar.

Ingredients:

1 apple

 Yet another version of the recipe.

1 can of 8 Pillsbury crescent rolls

1/2 cup of butter, melted

1/2 cup of cinnamon/brown sugar mixture

whipped cream & caramel (Optional)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350F.

2. Wash and cut the apple into 8 pieces. Take out the Pillsbury rolls and separate into 8 triangles. Brush a thin layer of butter and sprinkle the cinnamon sugar onto both sides of the triangle, place on pan and roll up the apple.

3. Bake for approximately 9 minutes, or until golden brown. If desired garnish with whipped cream and caramel sauce.

*To make the dessert even sweeter, brush the apple with the butter and cinnamon sugar.

Pretty easy right? There are lots of different versions for this recipe. I honestly thought that I was making an original. But alas, when I searched the internet for "cinnamon crescent apples," they were already made....sigh...oh well.

P.S. I'm experimenting with making this a Wordpress Blog!!! I'm hoping it will be ready by the blog's first anniversary (March 2nd). =D

Christmas Cookies

Hello!!!

I just popped in to say MERRY CHRISTMAS!

not any of this Happy Holiday stuff...just good ole Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Have you thought about making a New Year's resolution yet?

This past year I made a resolution (along with my brother) to not drink any soda OR carbonated water for a whole year. Yes, that meant no sparkling cider on Thanksgiving either.  I'm proud to say that I've stuck with it and I only have a few more days to go! 

But while I'm waiting, I made a very festive batch of peanut butter blossoms that I wanted to share with you.

Donut Muffins & Happy Veteran's Day

The other day my mom was looking at the title of the blog, and she asked, "The Baking Apprentice? How long will your apprenticeship last before you graduate to the next level?" And I thought to myself, "Hmmm, that's a very good question." Apparently most apprenticeships last for 3, 4, or possibly even more years...yikes! But, thankfully I'm not really under an apprenticeship, otherwise I'd be baking forever  for 36 months. Speaking of learning new things, I signed up for a 4-session cake decorating class to hopefully learn some new cake skills and share it with you guys!  But for now I leave you with donuts...

The Ingredients

A donut batter with no yeast!

Instead of frying the donuts, these are baked and smothered with butter and sugar. I'm not sure if that makes them healthier or not, but it does save time and should cut down on the ill effects of frying them.

You can find the recipe to these donuts right here!

 

Happy Veteran's Day!

 A very big THANK YOU to all those who faithfully serve our country. Your dedication and perseverance is greatly appreciated.

Some inspiration for celebrating Veteran's Day!
Cameo Cupcakes!

Happy Veteran's Day!
(Source: Chickabug Blog)

Scream Cheese Brownies

So, the Giants won The World Series and if you lived around here that's a really big deal!!! This brownie was partially in honor of the big win and partially in honor of the fall season and mostly because it was my turn to bring snacks to an event.  This recipe was perfect because it calls for orange food coloring which is very fall-like AND one of the Giants' colors.  (For those of you who don't really follow baseball, like me, the San Francisco Giants wear orange and black, and sometimes the catcher wears orange-looking nail polish!)  SO this brownie is a delicious, multi-purpose dessert which could be made for whatever reason you can come up with or just because you're hungry!

The Ingredients

And, here comes the orange food coloring.

The batter layered in the pan. It's all Battered up! 
Sorry, I couldn't resist especially with this baseball theme going on here..=p

It's a swirling sensation!

I found this recipe on the blog The Girl Who Ate Everything.  Catchy title, huh?!?  You can find the recipe here.  I don't know much about The World Series or baseball in general, but I do know how to make the brownies to celebrate!  PS - Did you know that there's a reason why the catchers sometimes wear bright nail polish???  It's so the pitcher can see his signals in the San Francisco fog.  There's some useless information that might just help you on a game show one day!



Maybe a Cookie or a Break or Both?

Wait?!?! You're blogging about this??

  When I first started off with this blog, I thought to myself, "okay, chex mix is pretty basic, I'll just write about that." But then I kept thinking to myself, "cookies, cakes, brownies, what other dessert is there to make?!?!" But then I did some searching and found that there are A LOT of desserts out there!!!  And there are new recipes being made every single day!  But...after all this research I found that most people don't write about the basic stuff, just the fancy-schmancy stuff that takes a lot of time, patience, and ingredients! So I thought it was time to get basic, REALLY BASIC, and put my little sister to work on some "pop'em in the oven" cookies.  Yeah, I'm talking "ready-to-bake" cookies...no fuss, no mess, get-er-done dessert!  The oven warms up the house, the smell warms up the senses, and the cookies warm up our stomachs.


                            

Believe it or not Anna photo-bombed this picture, it turned out nicely though. 

The Ingredient!

 

 

 

 

The secret to keeping them fluffy is to make sure
they have time to cool, at least my sister believes this.
And if you just can't wait, turn on the fan to help speed things up a bit. 

I apologize if this post was a bit too basic or culinary boring for you, but little kids have to start somewhere.  And hang in there because I've got some unusual fall recipes coming up...really cool stuff like candy corn cupcakes, scream cheese brownies, pumpkin cheesecake, and no-fry cinnamon donut holes. Soooo excited for the fall baking season, now do you see why I took a quick break in between? Anyway, stay tuned!!!

 

Scotcheroos

Would you like one?

I absolutely LOVE to try out new recipes but unfortunately my siblings aren't always happy about this. You see, they LOVE the tried and true desserts such as chocolate chip cookies, coffee toffee bars, and all the "proven to be good" stuff.  I usually save those recipes to take to events and then I do all of my experimenting on the family!  My blog would get pretty boring if all I wrote about is how I made chocolate chip cookies, but here is a recipe that turns some basic ingredients into a yummy dessert.  Who knows, maybe it will even fall into the "tried and true" category.  You decide...

The Ingredients

*Spoiler Alert!* They turned out a bit crunchy!
I'm giving my Dad's teeth a good work-out! =)

This is probably the step where I messed up.
It's hard to concentrate, when you're taking a picture,
 reading the next step, and trying to make sure nothing sticks to the pan...

Chocolate and the "secret" ingredient - butterscotch.

Super happy that I got a picture with her even though she didn't get to try one.  

Here is the recipe.

Sometimes when I run out of time for a writing assignment, or can't think of an ending, I'll end the paper with, "After everything we've just discussed I'll let you, the reader, draw your own conclusions."  So, I'm running out of time to finish this post, guess how it well end? "After everything we've just discussed, I'll let you, the reader, decide if you want to make this or not..." =)

Fruit-Filled Oatmeal Bars

It's October!!!  And that gives me lots of fall inspiration and ideas for the beginning of the cool weather baking season! (P.S. - Stay tuned for my post about fall cookie ideas!) I realize that P.S.'s should usually be at the end, but oh well, tomorrow is Columbus Day and I have the day off school so let's take a break from proper grammar rules too! Anyway, back to baking...this recipe is sort of similar to Apple Crisp. The biggest similarity is that it also contains apples. =)

The Ingredients

I've been writing to some companies and trying to negotiate a giveaway in exchange for free advertising on my blog!  I can't wait to see if any of them respond and YOU, my faithful readers, will be the first to hear about it and benefit from it if that does happen!

Something must be happening in this kitchen, it's sooo messy!

Sometimes I make this apple filling and pour it on to waffles or pancakes.  It tastes really good!

Ingredients

1 c. all-purpose flour
1 c. quick-cooking rolled oats
2/3 c. packed brown sugar
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/2 c. butter
Raisin or apple filling (below) or 10 oz. jar preserves

In a mixing bowl combine flour, oats, brown sugar, and baking soda. Cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Reserve 1/2 cup of the flour mixture. Press remaining flour mixture into bottom of ungreased 9x9x2 inch baking pan. Spread with desired filling. Sprinkle with reserved flour mixture.Bake in 350 degree oven for 30-35 minutes or until top is golden. Cool in the pan on wire rack. Cut into bars. Makes 25.

RAISIN FILLING:

In a medium saucepan, combine 1/2 cup water, 2 tablespoons sugar, and 2 teaspoons of cornstarch. Add 1 cup raisins. Cook and stir until thick and bubbly.

APPLE FILLING: (This is the one I used!)

Peel, core, and chop 2 medium apples. In a medium saucepan, combine apples, 2 tablespoons sugar, 2 teaspoons of water, 1 tablespoon lemon juice, 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon and a dash of ground cloves. Bring to boil, reduce heat and simmer 8-10 minutes or until tender.

An apple a day keeps the doctor/dentist a way...
BTW, there's hardly ever a time when we don't have apples in the fridge.  You see, my dad's a dentist and he likes to have his daily apple.

Pros: 

-I always have apples in the fridge.

-I have never had a cavity even with all this baking.

-If I ever have a toothache, there's always a dentist around to fix it.

-Dentists are known for having a sweet-tooth and that's how some of the dessert I make gets eaten. =)

Cons:
-I really can't think of anything...