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!!!