In 2009, I vowed to make a different pie every weekend and I ended up making 57 pies that year - with no duplicates! Here's a messy gallery of them. The following year, we moved out to the woods and I wanted to bake a different cake every weekend, but with a serious lack of people around us, I ended up making only 45 cakes. Defeated, I didn't even try any self inflicted challenges like this for the next three years. Now though, I think this year I can easily meet that goal. (read)
It's wonderfully simple and could not possibly be easier to pull together. No really. It has three ingredients - 4 if you include the orange zest - you really should, it makes it more legit I think. ;) (read)
All the cupcakes I made last weekend were super fun, but the Pineapple Cream were the most sophisticated, as our Tiny Dancer would say. I love when there are fruit chunks in cake and most of the time, I love to pair citrus with a cream cheese frosting, which made this recipe so perfect! (read)
If you don't want to gut small pumpkins and puree that, you can use a can of pumpkin, but not the pumpkin pie mix. Since the pumpkin pie mix is so simple, people use it instead of actual pumpkin assuming that making it form scratch is so much harder. The thing most people don't realize is that it's the same thing as making your own pancakes vs pancake mix. Not hard, I swear! You need a can of evaporated milk either way and you probably have everything else you need already. (read)
Generally, when I come across a recipe that uses something premade in it, I shy away from it. Mostly because I'm a full blown bit of a kitchen snob. However, I'm madly in love with Miss Ree Drummond and she uses a very popular refrigerated dough in these dumplings so I went with it and honestly? They're so so good, it doesn't even matter. Also? This recipe is totally weird but I trusted it and my neighbors loved them too! In her description about these dumplings, The Pioneer Woman says she had to toss the rest of the tray after trying one (and then another and another). That's pretty much what happened to me as well, but since we don't live in the woods anymore I just packed up the rest and took them to my neighbors. (read)
Apple Cobbler is hands down one of my husband's all time favorite desserts and our kids are all big on apples. This was a hit, I loved it so much I shared with our neighbors. :) (read)
Yup, that's right. Patriotic jello. Anyone who knows me at all, knows that I do whatever I do with both feet. I'm either out or I'm all in. Sometimes this is not such a great trait to have, but in terms of moving stateside, I think it's hilarious and super fun. This year for the 4th, I will wear my ridic American flag Abby Dawn heels (in red, duh), I will barbecue epic burgers, I will bake an apple pie and I will make this jello flag dessert. That's what happened last year (aside from the shoes, those were bought for Memorial Day this year), and it's what I intend to do every year that we are here. Thanks for having us, America. ;) (read)
So technically I didn't really celebrate Canada Day yesterday. Last year I made peameal bacon sandwiches on kaisers with poutine, and this year I have to admit I'm kinda excited about my plans for the 4th so all I managed to do last night after all the kids were cleaned up and in bed (both the jiu-jitsu dojo and the dance studio really produce some sweaty kids in July) were these mint nanaimo bars. (read)
Yes. Slutty. Brownies. I know, I didn't make it up, but it's a great name, right?
These brownies involve chocolate chip cookies, Oreos and well, brownies. These treats have been made and blogged about and made again and blogged about again all over everyone's favorite foodie blogs but as far as I can tell, it was Rosie over at The Londoner that first introduced these to the internet. (read)
Wednesday we ditched our plans to go out in favor of hanging out at the pool and making these ice pops (and a few other recipes we froze and ate in record time thanks to my Fastpop Popsicle Maker). It's so rad. I just store it in my freezer, so when I want to use it, it's ready for me. Usually, ice pops are ready in less than 10 minutes with this, but dairy-based ice pops take a bit longer, which is kind of a no brainer if you've ever made ice pops before. (read)
Technically, cake pops are made by mashing frosting into cake and shaping into balls before poking sticks in the ends and dipping in melted chocolate. Lately, I have been using my Babycakes Cake Pop Maker and then poking a stick in and dipping in chocolate. This time around though, I felt that it called for 'traditional' cake pops and I went with mashing frosting into cake for the right texture. (read)
The flurry of pink, purple and red construction paper is in full swing here already and when it was time to bake tarts for dessert naturally my first thought was cherry for the color but Miss Wee One #2 was inspired to cut a little heart in the corner of one of the crusts. Never to be outdone, Wee One #3 took that idea a step further and insisted we cut wee hearts from the leftover pie crust for small, flaky pie crust cookies. Cute!! (read)
These are another piece of the trifecta of awesome that was my tart collection at our first American Thanksgiving. Half a dozen are made without any run and the other half are spiked with Sailor Jerry. (read)
Lemon meringue has been one of my husband's favorite pies since we met so I have a lot of practice with this, and I've tried a few different recipes over the years but this has been the absolute best one. (read)
Years ago, I came across a recipe for homemade hot chocolate mix and then last year my girl Sammie made homemade instant cake mix and I've been searching for just the right recipe this season. Mason jars filled with hot chocolate mix and tied with a cute ribbon are a simple but still sweet gift to give to people you might not know well but see ALL. THE. TIME. Like the FedEx guy (even though he's always kinda surly) or the UPS guys (who is always super nice). This recipe is crazy rich - which is perfect for the holidays, right?!! (read)
So I feel the need to make the best butter tarts there ever were in order to educate all our new American friends about Canadian pastry. ;) The best way to describe Butter Tarts to the uninitiated would be that it is very similar to the base of the typical pecan pie minus the pecans. Sort of gooey, but it holds itself together and is very-to-extremely sweet. (read)
These little treats are almost a brownie, almost cakey in texture but are chocolate chip cookie all the way in flavor. Which of course means my kids love them - brownie, cake and chocolate chip cookie all at once? Oh! That actually gives me an idea for later! Ahem. These Congo Bars take maaaybe 5 minutes to get in the oven, 7 if you have a toddler pulling at your skirt and like 20 if your toddler insists on helping. (read)
Extremely simple caramel recipe!! I initially made this to use in the Snickers Bars I recently made, but since then I've used it as an ice cream topping, dip for apple slices and berry skewers. The only thing that can throw you off here is allowing the caramel to stop boiling when you add the cream - so don't! (read)
I'm not going to lie to you here, these are going to take the better part of your afternoon to make - but not all at once. There's a lot of chilling and rechilling and setting and chilling again. So make sure you make this for someone who will really appreciate it, or someone you're really down with - or both! I made these for our friend Steve's birthday this weekend. He's got a bit of a serious sweet tooth. His cake was even more epic than these - more on that later this week. I'm happy to report he loved them, his girlfriend loved them and their guests loved them too! Winning all over the place. (read).
I’m almost positive I’ve posted this recipe for brownies before but I’ll post it again because I know it by heart and it’s such a great brownie recipe you should know it by heart too and I swear it only takes like maybe two whole minutes longer than a mix. True story. It’s easy for a weekday dessert for the kids too! (read).
I know this is a week late for a lot of people, but the Eastern Orthodox Easter Bunny (aka the Greek Easter Bunny in our house) is hopping around this weekend for a lot of us. I've mentioned about a zillion times before that I'm from a mixed heritage family, lovingly described as half painfully Canadian and half hardcore Greek. I love this family makeup and as I've married into a painfully Canadian family (a painfully Canadian family that I adore) I choose to be the hardcore Greek half, even though I'm hardly Greek enough for the role. It just means I'm a stern mama (most of the time), I insist on celebrating both Easters, both Christmases and the occasional name day - oh and I totally support the desire for two kitchens or at the very least two fridges. If you know any Greeks, that'll make sense to you. If you don't, too bad. :) (read).
I wish I could remember which random 'special interest publication' this recipe came from. You know at Christmas you see Better Homes and Gardens and Good Housekeeping and even Martha and Pillsbury have a 'special' cookie magazine? It doesn't come as part of a subscription, it has like 300 pages and is more than double the price of a regular magazine? This is from one of those from at least 5 years ago. Last year I went through my Hoarders-esquestack of closet of magazines and ripped out the pages I was holding on to them for. I put them in page protectors in a painfully organized binder. This post is proof that I actually bake some of those recipes too! So anyhoo, while that's nice and tidy of me, there is no trace of what magazine I pulled it from. Whoops. (read).
The only slightly complicated thing about this treat is making your own marsacapone cheese and if you can't be bothered, just pick up a tun from the grocery store and you're already ahead of the game! It is pretty easy though. (read).
I don't know if this even qualifies as a recipe, and if I posted step by step pictures of all of it, it'd be a seriously epic post. You may have heard about a bakery in Philadelphia that baked up a two layer cake with two pies in it. Then of course other bakers made it, and most added a third layer. Depending on what cakes and pies used, the name differs. Made from cherry, pumpkin and apple pies, this one is called the Cherpumple. I first saw it on Outrageous Food about a year and a half ago and naturally, I had to make it. (read).
I mentioned a few months ago about my ever mounting paranoiageneral concern thoughts on how processed somemost all of the garbage touted as 'healthy' and marketed to kids has become. Though to be fair, I don't know if it's right to say 'has become', it's probably always been pretty negative and unhealthy but I didn't know better as a kid and my hippie father did a pretty good job of sheltering me from stuff like that. I however? Do not do such a great job with the sheltering of my wee ones. They can ask for store those chewy granola bars all they want, I'm not caving, and this is why. (read).
This is one of those recipes that's hardly even a recipe. If you use chocolate chips instead of making your own chocolate sauce, it's even less of a recipe! Like most kids, mine will eat ice cream anytime - when it's snowing, in the middle of a heat wave, when it's raining, whenever. So this after school treat in March in Canada should not be surprising. (read).
I love how no matter the time of year, no matter the holiday - there is a candy corn for it. Of course I was aware of the original orange, yellow and white candy corn of Halloween, though honestly, I never really liked it. Two years ago I needed some for a recipe and my husband, the saint that he is, came home with like three times the amount I asked for so the kids snacked on it for weeks till it was gone. Then a couple of months later he was back at the bulk store buying some rando ingredient like arrowroot flour or chia seeds or something and he texts me that there is red, white and green Christmasy candy corn. I was way too excited about this discovery but had a lot of purposeful Christmas baking to do and none of it included candy corn, so I totally forgot about it. (read).
There are times when you want to come out of the kitchen with a decadent several-layer cake to a room full of friends. Or when you want to serve homemade ice cream on the back deck to your family after a barbecue. Then there are times when you want to make something so simple and yet addicting and amazing that it borderlines on ‘trashy’. I mean, maybe any recipe that includes mini marshmallows can be classified as trashy. I’m not smack talking, I’m a serious fan of trashy food. (read).
These treats were made for the brother of one of my best friends. Her brother and my husband have also become friends over the years and those are the connections that make me happiest to see happen. They're totally random and stuff like that can't be forced so when it happens on it's own, I just love to witness it. He has always been a fan of my cooking, baking, and slightly odder kitchen experiments - so this year I'm sending him a random treat in the mail once a month. January's treat was Homemade Twix Bites. (read).
When I first read this recipe, courtesy of non other than the most delicious Bakerella, I sat stunned. I was in awe of the amazingness of the overall concept, I was totally paralyzed by the urge to get up and make it right now and I was also a little concerned for my waistline. She even put a warning on the most decadent picture of this extremely sinful treat that says MAY COMPLICATE WEIGHT LOSS. Indeed, Bakerella. Indeed. (read).
Apparently stuffing an apple with raisins or something else like it is a popular treat for kids – kids of a different generation obviously! Not my generation either because I had never heard of it before but when I mentioned it to a handful of people they tell me their grandmothers used to make similar treats for them. As usual, Linda Collister takes the idea one step further and slathers the outside of the apple in meringue and uses almond slivers to give it a hedgehog feeling! So so so cute and the kids had a great time making them. I confess we made these forever ago, if these were recent photos there’d be three of them because Wee One #3 is way more active in the kitchen than she used to be. (read).
The first time I wrote about this recipe it was in it's original form here. I mentioned that because the recipe is so basic there are about a zillion ways to jazz it up. Add nuts, candied fruit or even candy and it's totally different. One way to make it festive no matter the occasion is to use candy melts or tinted white chocolate. Here, I used exactly the same recipe as I did the first time, but I used a combo of pink and purple candy melts and no nuts for Valentine's Day. (read).
Yes. Homemade Nutella. That's what I said. We are a Nutella loving household and, as you probably know by now, I've developed a (possibly beyond) healthy fear of chemicals in food. Especially food we give to the kids, so aside from banning everything they love, I've just started making everything they love from scratch. (read).
The search for this recipe was inspired by a pecan pie craving I had one day early on in my self-proclaimed 'Cookie Year', knowing I wanted to focus on cookies, I went looking for a pecan pie cookie. There are a lot more recipes out there for these cookies than I thought there'd be! (read).
Yet another recipe our 5 year old wanted to try out. You'd think that cooking and baking her way through the Baking with Kids cookbook would be enough for her but no, she also wants to pick (and then make) the cookie of the week most of the time. This time, I reasoned with her that while these peanut butter balls are technically from a cookie cookbook, they're not a cookie so will not be counted towards our cookie count for 2011. These taste a lot like peanut butter cups, especially if you don't roll them in anything at all though the recipe calls for them to be rolled in chopped peanuts and Wee One #2 wanted to roll them in sprinkles. (read).
My dad has always, always loved 3 Musketeer Bars, so I thought it'd be fun to make a homemade version for my next visit to see him. Now only did he eat most of them minutes after opening the package, but he polished off the rest of them the next day and requested the recipe! That's always great news! What I really like about this version is the chocolate to filling ratio can be as much as you like, just make then bites bigger or smaller. (read).
There are a few different ways to make fudge and there are a few different ways to play with the same recipe to make your fudge look and even taste totally different. This is my go-to fudge recipe. All you really need is chocolate, marshmallows, and condensed milk and you're ready to roll. This is the plainest version of this fudge - and my kids would argue it's the best. (read).
Eclairs are one of those deserts that pretty much everyone has had and most people think they're really hard so they don't try. Really, an eclair is made from just three elements (dough, cream and chocolate glaze), all with small and simple recipes themselves. I took about half a million photos for you when I made these for my elcair-obsessed husband recently. So here we go! (read).
So what's a cupshake? Why, it's a cross betweeen a cupcake and a milkshake of course. Inspired by Bake it Pretty's Paper Straws and these clear silicone baking cups from Crate and Barrel, Bakerella made old school milkshaks in mini cupcake form! (read).