Hey There!

Excuse my absence yesterday & earlier today- I have been a busy bee. Not only at work, but also in the kitchen. The past two nights I have had a date with my oven

This morning was Craig’s holiday breakfast, and I had a TON to make & bake! Not that I minded one bit- I was getting paid to bake I loved every minute of it….well, ok except for one thing last night, but I’ll get to that shortly.

I wanted to share all of my recipes with you! I hope you enjoy them.

First up:

Mixed Berry Coffee Cake. (adapted from this recipe)

Directions

1. In a large bowl, combine flours, sugars, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and salt.
   
2. In a separate bowl, combine buttermilk, butter and eggs; add to dry ingredients and mix until well blended.
   
   
   
3.  Fold in berries. Pour into a greased 13-in. x 9-in. x 2-in. baking pan.
   
   
   
4. Combine topping ingredients; sprinkle over batter.
   
5. Cover and refrigerate several hours or overnight. Uncover and bake at 350 degrees F for 45-50 minutes or until cake tests done.
   
   

Second: Pumpkin Gingerbread. (based on this recipe)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease two 9×5 inch loaf pans. (or one big loaf pan & two mini loaf pans, as I used)
2. In a large mixing, combine sugar, oil and eggs; beat until smooth. Add water and beat until well blended. Stir in pumpkin, ginger, allspice cinnamon, and clove.
   
   
   
3. In medium bowl, combine flour, soda, salt, and baking powder. Add dry ingredients to pumpkin mixture and blend just until all ingredients are mixed. Divide batter between prepared pans.
   
   
4. Bake in preheated oven until toothpick comes out clean, about 1 hour.
   
   
   

Third: Blueberry Streusel Muffins (based on this recipe)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Grease 12 muffin cups or line with paper muffin liners.
2. Combine 2 cups flour, 2 teaspoons baking powder, and 1/2 teaspoon salt in medium bowl.
   
3. In a small bowl, sprinkle 1 to 2 tablespoons flour over blueberries, and set aside. (This simple trick will keep you from having “purple” batter)
   
4. In a large bowl, beat 1/2 cup butter with 3/4 cup sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs, and stir in vanilla and lemon zest. Fold in dry ingredients alternately with milk. Fold in blueberries. Remember, fold gently, don’t stir. Spoon batter into prepared cups.
   
   
5. Combine 2 tablespoons flour, 5 tablespoons sugar ,and 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon in a small bowl. Cut in 2 tablespoons butter with fork or pastry blender until mixture resembles course crumbs. Sprinkle over batter in muffin cups.
   
   
6. Bake in the preheated oven for 20 to 25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in center of a muffin comes out clean. Cool in pans on wire rack.
   
   

Fourth: Monkey Bread.

Directions

1. Cut biscuits into bite size pieces, I used a pizza cutter. (I make about 6 bite size pieces per biscuit)
   
2. Put sugar & cinnamon in a zip lock bag- shake well. Drop biscuits into bag & shake well. (this works really well if you use a 2 gallon zip lock bag, rather than a one gallon bag)
   
   
3. Melt butter or margarine, mix in 1/2 cup brown sugar & vanilla. Pour mixture over biscuits.
   
   
4. Bake in a preheated 350 degree F (175 degrees C) oven for 30 to 35 minutes.
   
   

Fifth: Christmas Mice Cookies.

Ingredients

• 24 double-stuffed cream-filled chocolate sandwich cookies
• 1 cup Chocolate chips
• 2 teaspoons shortening
• 24 red maraschino cherries with stems, well drained
  
• 24 Hershey chocolate kisses, unwrapped
  
• 48 sliced almonds
• 1 small tube green decorative icing gel
• 1 small tube red decorative icing gel

Directions

• Carefully twist cookies apart; set aside the halves with cream filling. Save plain halves for another use.
  
• In a microwave, melt chocolate chips and shortening; stir until smooth. Holding each cherry by the stem, dip in melted chocolate, then press onto the bottom of a chocolate kiss.
  
  
• Place on the cream filling of cookie, with cherry stem extending beyond cookie edge.
• For ears, place slivered almonds between the cherry and kiss.
  
• Refrigerate until set. With green gel, pipe holly leaves on the cream. With red gel, pipe holly berries between leaves and pipe eyes on each chocolate kiss. Store in an airtight container at room temperature.
  
  
  

Last, but not least: Ruldolph Cookies

Ingredients:
-1 cup chocolate chips
-1/2 stick butter
-1 package Nutter Butter cookies

-1 bag of pretzels (you will not need the whole bag, I just didn’t count exactly how many I needed)
-Red M&M’s

-Black decorating gel
-White decorating gel

1. Melt chocolate chips & butter in a saucepan, on low heat. Remove from heat.
2. Take the nutter butters & dip them individually into the melted chocolate. (just be careful, it’s hot!

3. Lay them on wax paper. Put two pretzels on the chocolate, for the antlers. Put one RED M&M on the bottom of the cookie for the nose.

4. Set in freezer for about 5-10 minutes to let them set. Then take the white decorating gel & make two large circle for the eyes & then use the black decorating gel to make a dot in the center of each white circle to make the pupil.

And, that my friends is a WRAP!

I loved making all of this. The only issue I ran into was when the ziplock bag for the monkey bread broke open…which meant sugar & cinnamon ALL over our kitchen floor- YIKES! But, thankfully I managed to catch it quickly & I then double bagged it. It was quite a mess though.

Craig told me that everyone LOVED everything. There was NOTHING left! He said so many people came up to tell him that I should open a bakery. I wish, that is definitely a dream- but they are SO hard to start up. Maybe one day…a girl can always dream, right?!

One of his co-workers already has another ‘order’ in for the berry coffee cake. He said that was the ‘hidden’ gem at the holiday breakfast party. Most people thought it would just be regular coffee cake, but then they took a bite of it & apparently were really impressed.

Well, I’m off- I’m DEAD- that was a LOT of pictures to upload But, I hope you try some of these recipes..or at least one I promise you won’t be disappointed!

I’ll be back soon to re-cap my recent eats & awesome workouts. (<–my chest is still super sore from the workout I did yesterday. today was an HIIT workout)

Anyways, enjoy your night! We are going to watch The Office shortly! WOOOHOOO