Happy Holidays!

I hope everyone is having a wonderful holiday season! My Christmas was great. I was a bit exhausted the days leading up to Christmas Eve and Christmas. It was baking nonstop for me. I wanted to take pictures and post them on here, but I forgot to with all the craziness going on. I made Magic Bars, cranberry bliss bars, red velvet cupcakes, peppermint truffles, and persimmon bread - loaves and loaves of persimmon bread). Everyone in my extended family loves loves loves persimmons. They all have trees growing in their yards and even go persimmon picking somewhere in Escondido I think. My mom had asked me to make persimmon bread for her one day so I made one. My aunts had some and they all enjoyed it so they all gave me their bags and bags of persimmons they had which were starting to get over-ripe and there was no way they'd eat them all before they went rotten. I probably ended up baking about 30 loaves of persimmon bread. I was wiped out after that and now I don't want to bake for awhile.

I got some pretty great gifts this year. I got lots of make-up, some perfume, a couple of jackets, lots of gift cards and some money. I love that my aunts still think of me as a "kid" and still give me Christmas money. Makes me feel young! I hope everyone else got some good stuff. I spent Christmas Eve at my parents house with all of our extended family and The Boy. I love my family. Now that we are all getting older, we see each other less and less so it's great to see everyone together on the holidays. It's a night filled with lots of food, laughter, and love. We carried on the festivities the next day at my aunt's house. The Boy left Christmas morning to be with him family and I went up there Christmas Day night after the Laker game. I kinda didn't want to go though. It was raining and I didn't want to leave my family. :(

Tomorrow we are going out in LA! I'm very excited. I haven't been out dancing with the girls for awhile now. Happy New Year's everyone! Have fun and stay safe!

It's picture time

My lazy butt finally found my camera and its cords and stuff. Here's some pictures of what I cooked over the weekend.

Lemon blossoms

I would highly recommend the lemon blossoms. They are probably one of my favorite things to bake. Plus, they are super simple to make. Anybody can do it. No special baking skills necessary. They are lemony, sweet, and just a bit tart. I could eat the whole batch in one sitting. They aren't the prettiest mini-muffin, but they are soooo good.

Here's the recipe (from Paula Deen):

18 1/2-ounce package yellow cake mix
3 1/2-ounce package instant lemon pudding mix
4 large eggs
3/4 cup vegetable oil
Glaze:
4 cups confectioners' sugar
1/3 cup fresh lemon juice
1 lemon, zested
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
3 tablespoons water


Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
Spray miniature muffin tins with vegetable oil cooking spray. Combine the cake mix, pudding mix, eggs and oil and blend well with an electric mixer until smooth, about 2 minutes. Pour a small amount of batter, filling each muffin tin half way. Bake for 12 minutes. Turn out onto a tea towel
To make the glaze, sift the sugar into a mixing bowl. Add the lemon juice, zest, oil, and 3 tablespoons water. Mix with a spoon until smooth.

With fingers, dip the cupcakes into the glaze while they're still warm, covering as much of the cake as possible, or spoon the glaze over the warm cupcakes, turning them to completely coat. Place on wire racks with waxed paper underneath to catch any drips. Let the glaze set thoroughly, about 1 hour, before storing in containers with tight-fitting lids.



BBQ chicken pizza

I like making this because it requires very little prep and effort on my part. Just cover with toppings and put it in the oven. Done. The hardest part is chopping all the ingredients.

Snickerdoodle what?

I've been cooking and baking a lot lately. I've been meaning to take pictures of my results to post here, but I always forget and/or am too lazy to get my camera stuff out. I moved over the summer and during the move I seem to have put my electronic/camera stuff in different boxes. Since then, I've been too lazy to gather it all together and I just rely on other people (aka the boy) to take pictures. I'll just have to post links to what they should look like.

The other night I made a batch of snickerdoodle muffins. I got the recipe here.Here is a picture of what it should look like, courtesy of Peabody.



Mine didn't come out looking quite as pretty as those. They were mighty tasty if I do say so myself.

Over the weekend I baked chocolate espresso cookies. I woke up with a craving for freshly baked chocolate chip cookies. I wanted to bake something a little bit different though. Something with a twist. I searched on the Food Network website and allrecipes.com. On both sites I found a recipe for the "Neiman Marcus" cookie. I must live under a rock because I've never heard of this cookie before. I decided to try it out. I went to the store and I couldn't find espresso powder. I decided to substitute some instant coffee crystals since I have some in the pantry. Since I've never tried the Neiman Marcus cookie, I can't compare to how it tastes to the original, but they turned out pretty good I think. Now I just need to get me to Neiman Marcus and try out the real thing.

Holiday Baking

This year, I've been so busy. I had hoped to get a lot of baking done for the holidays, but sadly I did not. Christmas kinda snuck up on me this year. I did some baking though. On Christmas Day my sister and I made Cranberry Bliss Bars a la Starbucks (even though I'm not a big fan of Starbucks, but that's another post). They are SOOOO good. They were quick and easy to make too. Gotta love it. Here's a picture. Please excuse the poor quality. It's from my camera phone.



Here's the recipe I found from Recipezaar:

1½ hours 40 min prep
Cake
1 cup butter, softened
1 1/4 cups light brown sugar, packed
3 eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla or orange extract
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup diced dried cranberries
6 ounces white chocolate, cut into chunks
Frosting
4 ounces cream cheese, softened
3 cups powdered sugar
4 teaspoons lemon juice or 2 teaspoons orange extract
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/4 cup diced dried cranberries
Drizzled Icing
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 tablespoon milk
2 teaspoons vegetable shortening
orange zest, garnish (optional)
Not the one? See other Cranberry Bliss Bars Recipes
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Beat butter and brown sugar with an electric mixer until smooth. Add eggs, vanilla, ginger, and salt; beat well.
Gradually mix in flour until smooth.
Mix 3/4 cup diced dried cranberries and white chocolate into the batter by hand.
Pour batter into a well-greased 9x13-inch baking pan and spread evenly.
Bake for 30 to 35 minutes or until cake is light brown on the edges.
Let cool.
Frosting: combine cream cheese, powdered sugar, lemon juice and vanilla with an electric mixer until smooth.
When the cake has cooled, spread frosting over the top of cake.
Sprinkle top with diced cranberries.
Icing: Whisk powdered sugar, milk, and shortening.
Drizzle icing over cranberries in a sweeping motion or use a pastry bag with a fine tip.
Allow cake to sit for several hours, then slice the cake lengthwise (the long way) through the middle.
Slice the cake across the width three times making a total of eight rectangular slices.
Slice each of those rectangles diagonally creating 16 triangular slices.