One Can Make a Lot Over a Month

Well...I've been extremely busy these last few weeks. Some of it baking! So exciting. Looking back, I think I have spent every free hour-plus chunk of time I have had free baking. Maybe this is why I haven't had any time to sleep or rest. Hmm...probably, but baking is just so much fun! So what have I made since the last I posted? The first important thing to know to answer that question would be "when was the last time I posted?" I'm going to go look that up right now...September 8th! Wow, that was over a month ago; so much has happened. For instance, if became fall! Pumpkin and apple recipes have been popping up all over the place, so naturally, I have made a ton of pumpkin and apple recipes. So here is what I have made (and can remember):

• Mini Oreo & Peanut Butter Pies
• Chocolate Marshmallow Fluff -- probably the best made up invention ever. If you thought that marshmallow fluff was good, this is ten times better.
• French Toast (GFDF)
• Sticky Rice -- made with my dad: an experiment as it was our first time making it (GFDF)
• Baked Cinnamon Roll Oatmeal w/Icing (GFDF)
• Pumpkin Donuts (adapted - GFDF)
• Pumpkin Apple Bread (adapted - GFDF)
• Apple Cider Pancakes (GFDF) -- took me less than 5 minutes: made with oats and a blender
• Apple Cider Caramel Sauce (Vegan)
• Pumpkin Oatmeal Cookies (w/cinnamon, chocolate chips, peanut butter chips, or marshmallows)
• Pumpkin Spiced Latte Muffins (experiment: didn't have espresso powder)
• Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookie Pie (adapted - GFDF)
• Pumpkin Spice Syrup (ignored measurements past the water & sugar) -- which I used to make Pumpkin Spiced Hot Chocolate, sooo good! I'd even say better than Starbuck's Pumpkin Spice Latte (which I love!)

Creating Less Time by Cooking

Lately, I have been very much in love with cooking. I have taken every opportunity to cook, every bit of free time I have. While these bits of free time probably should be spent catching up on homework or studying for upcoming tests, I have used them to cook. It has been so enjoyable though, so I don't regret it at all!

Here are some things I have made recently:

• Cinnamon Peanut Butter Banana Oats
• This single serving of oatmeal is so good! It is quick and easy, ideal before I run off in the mornings and makes me feel great! I have been obsessed with peanut butter lately so it is a perfect fix.

• Peanut Butter & Chocolate Chip Cookies
• These were absolutely fantastic! I loved making them: I had a persistent itch to make cookies and this satisfied it. The recipe was just Better Homes & Garden's Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe (butter replaced the shortening) and instead of just chocolate chips, I added peanut butter chips as well. I brought them into school and they were gone in a flash, everyone loved them.
• I also made chocolate chocolate chip cookies for those in my family that can't have gluten or diary, they love those too!

•  Crepes
• This recipes is one my mom and I have tweaked and created over the years. At the moment, it is resting in my homemade cookbook. =) Though the ingredients were slightly different, I had to make these gluten & diary free because of my family's allergies, it turned out pretty good. Cooking with the substitute flour made them thicker and denser, but they were still a hit. The table is set with the array of topping I choose: butter (vegan & non-vegan), peanut butter, honey, lemon curd, and cherry preserves.

• I am also planning to make 2 things very soon:
• Tonight: Shepard's Pie
• Tomorrow: Mini Oreo & Peanut Butter Pies

End of Summer

Since I have already started school and Nate should sometime around now I believe, the summer challenge game is coming to an end. I know it's sad isn't it? But that doesn't mean the blog has to stop! Oh no, of course not! I think it is great, well when I actually post. Anyways, back to the point. I have decided to stop the challenges--it is difficult for me to get ingredients and time--but the posting and cooking will not stop!
Whenever either of us cooks, we will post and hopefully I'll get pictures up... Maybe this time too we can comment on each others posts and have a sort of conversation between the two blog authors.
Nate, what do you think of this idea? =)

Late, Late, Late...Butterbeer Cupcakes!

Alright guys, I am so sorry that I keep being so late! I will actually try to be on time this time. If I don't have a recipe completed or pictures, I will try my best to write at least something. It will be a lot easier now too because I have gotten my fixed computer back! Yay! My memory was wiped, but other than that it is fantastic!

For my baking challenge, I decided to make cupcakes! I know, I know, it's not really that much of a surprise considering how much I love cupcakes, but it was still exciting to make. This time, I had lots of help, or lots of teaching whichever you'd like to call it. I had my two friends over for a little get together, my one friend was going away for a bit so we wanted to see her before she left. Her name was Amanda and my other friend was Robbie. Firstly, I need to say that they are both amazingly awesome and I love them and I had a great time hanging out. Secondly, it was a sort of get together for my birthday because it was around my birthday...so Amanda brought all the ingredients to my house! It was so nice of her since I don't have much at my house right now. We decided to make, well I kinda decided to make and asked if it was ok, Butterbeer Cupcakes!
They turned out delicious, but so sugary! I might've eaten some of the frosting and the ganache while I was making it, oh and maybe a couple mini cupcakes too...but besides that I only had 1 cupcake. That 1 little simple cupcake made me so hot it was ridiculous! (I get very overheated when I have too much sugar) It was so good though! I wish I hadn't dropped them the next day...

Cinnamon Pull Aparts

For this weeks baking challenge I wanted to make something sugary and delicious so I decided to make a recipe that sounded pretty good and been thinking about for a while, some cinnamon pull aparts.

They're quite easy, all you really need is butter, sugar, cinnamon, and dough.

I started by mixing together 1/2 cup sugar and 2 1/2 teaspoon c
innamon in one bowl and melted 1
third cup of butter in a separate bowl. Next I got a Pillsbur
y biscuit dough (mostly because they are easier to handle and pop up just right) and cut each biscuit into 4 individual slices. After that I put each biscuit into the butter, rolled it aroundand flopped it over to the cinnamon sugar until it was covered in sugar and then placed it on the pan. I did this with each one and stacked them on top of each other.

I set the oven to 400 degrees and put it on for about

20 mins. I had a large pan and you're really supposed to use a loaf pan for this so mine expanded and stuck to the pan quite viciously.

I think I needed to spray the pan alot better because it was hell trying to neatly get them off the pan. But once I succeeded I spread them on a plate and served. The recipe was easy and it didnt take very long to make. I highly recommend this fun desert :D

Birthday Challenge

I so need to get back on the ball with this blog! I am so sorry, but hopefully this will be the last time that I will get off track...I've been having problems with my computer so at the moment I do not have one =( I have still yet to decide whether or not to get it fixed or to buy a new one, so until then I am going to be using my iPod so no pictures sorry!
This week's challenge is, besides a little late, going to be a simple challenge (or challenging if you want). Tomorrow is my birthday (yay!) so the challenge will be to bake something, anything you'd like. Simply because I love baking and it should be fun. And yes, the baking is meant to be baking, not cooking. Have fun! That's the goal afterall =)

Ah, the Memories...

First of all, I am so sorry that this is so late, but I've been a little busy lately. Saturday was my birthday party and it was really great. It really brought back memories of old birthday parties with the same (or slightly same at least) family. This is what I choose as my childhood memories post, my birthday party because of my birthday cake. While we had to get two cakes because they were so many people, the first was a traditional (at least for my family) Chinese birthday cake. I doubt it really is traditional elsewhere, but that's ok with me. My Yeh-Yeh (grandpa) and I went to the Chonese bakery to get it and it was called a "Fruit Basket Cake." It was a sponge-cake like cake that wasn't so cakey because I don't really like straight cake with whipped cream (nit your normal type, it's hard to explain) and fruit pieces in the whipped cream which was a layer in the middle of the cake. On the top, there was all sorts of gorgeous fruit, strawberries and peaches and kiwi. My aunt used to eat the fruit off the top of the cake years ago, we still tease her about it. The outside of the cake is wrapped with a sort of other cake, same taste as the normal cake, but it is red and white stripped. This is most likely for decoration. So that's the cake! I will add pictures sometime soon, I'm on the road so this is difficult to post. I'm on a cross country roadtrip! Yay! WIm traveling with my grandma (she's awesome).