Wow! Can you believe it’s almost time for the new year?? Wasn’t January just last week?
Anyway, I decided to take some time this December and reflect on how things went on the blog this year. Here is my 2022 Year in Review!
Continue reading “Looking Back on the Year 2022”
Wow! What a few whirlwind weeks I’ve been in!
I can’t believe that we are already in the first full week of December. The Holidays are in full swing and Christmas is only two and a half weeks away.
I’ll be honest, I haven’t been baking as much as I thought I would be over the last couple of weeks. But this week I am working on developing a recipe for Peppermint Brownies that I hope to share with you all sometime next week, just in time for the holidays.
So far, the brownies have been well received, but I just want to keep tweaking them a little bit. I am planning to debut them at a holiday party this Saturday. That will be the ultimate taste test.
Ina Garten’s new book, Go-to Dinners came out towards the end of October. Being the Ina fan that I am, I was able to get my hands on a copy a couple days after its release (Thanks, bf!), but because of…life… I haven’t had the chance to really look through it, let alone bake anything from the book.
Continue reading “A Pound Cake with an Ina Twist – Barefoot Contessa 56”
Over the weekend, I felt the desire to bake. It had been quite a long time since the baking bug hit me. Since it was a last-minute, I had to find a recipe where I had all of the ingredients already on hand. For the most part this meant that I was limited to cookies and/or bars. While combing through the Cookies chapter of the Magnolia Bakery Handbook I came across Snickerdoodles. Thankfully, I had everything in the ingredients, except for one, but I was able to make a substitution.
Continue reading “A Simple Cookie with a Fall Twist – MB Recipe 37”
As summer comes to a close, I though it would be a good idea to take one last advantage of all the delicious berries available. Strawberry season is long gone and the drop in flavor is almost immediate. So I stayed clear of strawberries this time. For this recipe the star was blueberries.
Continue reading “One Final Summer Bake – MB Recipe 36”
As we enter the middle of August, I often find myself reflecting on how quickly summer always seems to pass. Unofficially, summer begins on Memorial Day. Officially, it begins between June 20th and 22nd. But, for me, summer begins on my birthday which is in the first week of June. And even though it has no baring, I always associate the Fourth of July with the halfway point of summer.
Continue reading “The End of Summer is Near”
Last week I finally treated myself to cake. Yes, cake! I have been avoiding the Cakes chapter of the Magnolia Bakery cookbook for a couple months. But I finally decided to make the cake that most intrigued me: the Hummingbird Cake.
Continue reading “Move Over Carrot Cake, I’m Coming For You! MB Recipe 34”
This month, I made a huge dent in the Magnolia Bakery Cookbook project. (I’m kidding, of course. I only made one recipe!) But, July also saw the return to a time when this blog was just beginning. I made an Ina Garten recipe.
Continue reading “July 2022 Baking Round-Up”
For the last few months, prices have been increasing on many goods and services. Gas prices were nearly $5 a gallon in my state (even with a tax holiday). Grocery prices went up. Even yarn and other crafty materials became more expensive. So you may be wondering how I continue to blog regularly when the majority of the content is about food that I make and crafts that I’m working on.
This week, I thought I write a post about I was able to cut some costs and actively maintain the blog. While I’m sure none of these tips are earth shattering, I thought they may help someone feel “seen” or like “It’s not just me.”
Continue reading “Tips for Budget-Friendly Grocery Shopping and Crafting”
For many people, the month of June is a sign that there are months of warmer weather ahead. For kids, school ends and summer begins, parents are at their busiest. But for me, it’s all that and more because June is also my birth month. This year, we celebrated a little early and I, once again, made my own cake.
For those of you that are curious, you can read this post about the cake I baked myself last year. It wasn’t a Magnolia Bakery recipe. I decided to make a decadent-looking cake from Sally’s Baking Addiction. This year, however, I did make a recipe out the MBC, and let me tell you: it was everything I needed in life at that moment.
Continue reading “An Early Birthday Celebration (and Cake!) – MB Recipe 30”
