Tag: featured

The Loyal Union Sampler Quilt – AKA Another Project That’s Too Big For My Britches

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Sometime in the early spring of 2022, I purchased a sewing machine. It was something that I wanted to do for a while since I’ve always been fascinated with the idea of quilting. I’ve touched on this topic before in earlier blog posts. However, as luck would have it, less than a week after making the quasi-impulse purchase, I was asked to stage manage a production at a theater that I had been dying to get involved with.

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Sometimes, You Just NEED to Have a Brownie – Barefoot Contessa Recipe 60

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Hello, readers! It’s been quite a while since I posted a recipe-related post, hasn’t it? Well, I’m back this week with an Ina Garten dessert recipe that is sure to knock your socks off! I couldn’t believe how tasty and flavorful these brownies were. The Barefoot Contessa is known for combining simple ingredients and flavors to make something even stellar and this recipe is no exception.

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Sometimes Life Gets Busy

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Sometimes life gets a little busy. And sometimes you find yourself saying, “Where did the time go?” I can’t believe it’s been nearly two weeks since my last post. Frankly, I haven’t had much to post. With the holiday last weekend and poor planning on my part, I haven’t had a chance to spend some time in the kitchen working on recipes. However, with multiple days off this week (thanks to some vacation time) and a pretty much empty weekend, I should have plenty of opportunity to whip something up.

I’m currently thinking of making Ina Garten’s recipe for brioche loaves this weekend. Who says bread baking is only for the winter?! But, I’m also itching to get my hands back into the Magnolia Bakery Handbook. Perhaps a tasty muffin or scone recipe is on tap, too.

Zoe Bakes’ Lemon Curd Pound Cake

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For regular readers of this blog, you may remember that over the weekend I made an angel food cake. This meant I was left with over a dozen (yes, over a dozen!!) egg yolks. In baking, egg whites have a little more uses than just the yolks do, so I was a little sad about this. However, then I remembered I could make lemon curd. What’s even better is I found a recipe that made one the best lemon curds I’ve ever had and it even gets folded into a lovely pound cake.

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A Cake That’s As Light As a Cloud

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March is a busy month in my family. My father’s birthday was a couple weeks ago and this past week, it was my mother’s turn to advance past go once again. Wouldn’t it be great if we could collect $200 just for having a birthday? Anyway, as per usual, I offered to bake her cake. And this year, she requested something that I’ve never made before.

Angel food cake.

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The baked Irish Soda Bread resting on a piece of parchment paper. The point of view is directly looking down on the finished loaf of bread.

Irish Soda Bread, The Ina Garten Way – Barefoot Contessa 59

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Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

This week I was lucky enough to have a mid-week day off from work. So, in typical Ryan’s Kitchen Journal fashion, I decided to bake something. Being that St. Patrick’s Day is at the end of the week, I figured Irish Soda Bread was a great choice. I’ve also never made soda bread before but had been wanting to. I couldn’t let the opportunity pass me up.

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Improving My Magnolia Bakery Chocolate Cake

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Picture it: 2021.

I had been blogging for about six months. I was enjoying it, but I was feeling constrained by my self-imposed limitations. At the time, I was working my way (slowly–ever so slowly) through Ina Garten’s recipes. Then, I had an idea that rekindled by interest in blogging and baking. This idea led to the main focus of the blog for the following 18 months.

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A small blue and red bird is resting on a thin tree branch with pink flowers. The bird looks directly at the viewer.

A Look Towards Berry Season

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Looking back at some of my older blog posts from the last two years, I noticed that I usually wrote about the long, cold winters I would experience in New England. This year, has been the exception. Our winter has been incredibly mild. In fact, we only received one snowstorm so far that amounted to measurable snow. And, honestly, it wasn’t all that bad and less than a week later the evidence of it happening have almost disappeared completely.

Talk about my kind of winter!

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A large, baked chocolate chip and peanut butter cookie. There is flaky sea salt on top. The viewer is looking directly over the cookie. It sits on a red and white silicone mat.

Christmas Gift Cookbook For the Win!

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I can’t believe it’s almost March! I’m a little ashamed to write this post since it’s dealing with some Christmas gifts I received from a very good friend of mine. Who would have thought it would have taken me almost two full months to have an opportunity to bake something with them. One of the very few baking-related gifts I got this year was an excellent cookbook entitled Snackable Bakes by Jessie Sheehan. It was one of New York Times best cookbooks of 2022, and after making a recipe from it, I can see why.

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The Carrot Cake Recipe That Everyone Needs

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In September of 2022, I made a Hummingbird Cake out of the Magnolia Bakery Handbook. For the blog post about making that recipe, I titled it “Move Over Carrot Cake, I’m Coming For You!” At the time, I thought that the Hummingbird Cake was the superior of the two cakes. This assumption was made before I tasted the Carrot Cake out of the Handbook. Let me tell you: I think I was wrong about the Hummingbird Cake being superior. Until I tasted this cake, I was only “meh” about carrot cake. This recipe is a must-have and I even included it below!

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