Sweet Treats!

There's nothing I love more than trying out new recipes.

The other day I stumbled upon a recipe for orange scones with chocolate chips! I just loooove the orange/chocolate combination so I HAD to try these!

Scones have quickly become one of my faaaavourite treats to whip up! They are super easy to make and super yummy to eat! Also they freeze perfectly and when you're ready to gobble them up, you just pop em right into the oven and Bob's your uncle! (Bob IS my uncle!)

Here are my dry ingredients plus my butter allllllll measured out!

My orangey wet ingredients:

Ready to bake...



Ready to eat...

If this doesn't say "eat me" then I don't know what does!

Next on my recipe list was salted caramel brownies! It was just something I NEEDED to try. Especially on a day like today, all snowy and what not. Perf.Ect.

All my ingredients measured out nicely! :)

My caramel cooking...

My brownie batter in the making...

All mixed together...

The leftover salted caramel...

Oh baby is that stuff good!

And the final product:

Yum.

Gluten Free Chocolate Garden Cupcakes!

I'm a little late in posting but I've been so busy decorating and baking up a storm!

Last week I was asked last minute to whip up some gluten free cupcakes, decorated with a fresh food theme for a Jamie Oliver Food Revolution meeting! What fresher food is there than fruits and veg from a garden?!

I made little sugar eggplants, carrots, peaches, bananas, peas, potatoes, apples, grapes, radishes and pears! And of course some gardening essentials, a watering can and a spade (I think that's what it's called?? I have bad seasonal allergies so I try to stay away from gardening situations....)

Here are my chocolate gluten free cuppies, straight outta the oven!

They were QUITE delish for gluten free!! You couldn't even tell!

My little cupcake garden! Green white chocolate grass frosting for the fruit, and chocolate sprinkle dirt for the veggies! :)

I was so happy with the way they turned out! ESPECIALLY since they were a last minute request! And ESPECIALLY ESPECIALLY since they were gluten free - my first time ever making anything sans gluten!

A success! :)

Yummies!!

A few weeks ago, a co-worker mentioned that she had tried white chocolate brownies... I was intrigued right away!

She said they were amaaaaazing, and really, even if she had said they were horrible, those three words put together in that order captured me and I knew I MUST try this!

She was right...

Oh baby were they delicious! Definitely a keeper that I added right into my recipe binder!

Next, as per usual, I had bananas that were on the brink of being no bueno so instead of doing the usual banana chocolate chip muffins or something similar, I decided to whip up something I haven't had in aaaaaaages but have always loved - banana pudding!!

It kinda looks like a hot mess in the bowl but trust me, it was one deeeeelicious hot mess!!

So that's where my recent weight gain has been coming from! But stay tuned for more actual decorated creations coming soon! :)

Pretty Purple Flower Red Velvet Cupcakes!

It was my boyfriend's sisters birthday and now that I'm the designated dessert maker, I just had to make something delicious and beautiful!

The birthday girl specifically requested red velvet cupcakes and I couldn't have been more excited to bust out some of these red beauties! It's been a while since I made them, and I was also looking forward to making my deeeeeelicious white chocolate cream cheese frosting to compliment the cuppies. Yum.

Here's a picture of my red velvies about to go into the oven!

So. Pretty. !!!

And baked to perfection:

I wish I looked that  good!

I just love this next picture that I took on Instagram!

The filter makes the cuppies look SUPER red and the frosting looks so white and fluffy. Just heavenly!

Here is a picture of my little tinfoil garden bed!

And finally, my creation in its completion:

And since everyone came over to enjoy these yumyums, I decided to bust out part of my cupcake stand. Points for presentation!

Needless to say, everyone loved the cupcakes, especially the birthday girl! Not only were they pretty but they were sooooooo sooo tasty!

Time to go dig into some leftovers! :)

Yummy Muffins!

I've gone a little muffin crazy this week!

I have a batch of red velvet cupcakes planned for tomorrow and not wanting an entire carton of buttermilk to go to waste after one red velvet recipe, I decided to whip up some of my famous buttermilk & olive oil muffins! YUM!

I normally add in a variety of delicious ingredients to these savoury muffins such as feta, brie, goat cheese (not all together!) and onion, tomato, green apple, roasted pepper, etc... but I decided to go back to basics this time.... also I had none of those yummy things to add in!

Baked to golden perfection these savoury muffins were just as delicious sans all the fancy ingredients! Delightfully simple, they'd be a perfect addition to any dinner table or entertaining spread!

Next, I was a little over ambitious with my desire to make and freeze different hearty soups this week. Out of the three that I had planned to make, I made one - sweet potato and butternut squash! It was very tasty but the time it took to chop, saute, cook, puree and flavour the soup made me not so enthusiastic to get started on the next one - carrot ginger. With 4 lbs of carrots sitting in the fridge, I knew I had to get cracking and do SOMETHING!

So I decided to whip up some carrot muffins! Believe it or not I don't have a food processor so I had to grate the carrots by hand which took longer than I had hoped....should have just made the soup! But not actually...



They were very yummy but I still have about 3 lbs of carrots sitting in the fridge!

Monday might be the day I complete my soup challenge... if not, more muffins are on the way! :)

Candy Cane Sugar Cookies!

My boyfriend and I were invited to his cousins' holiday party just before Christmas so of course I seized the opportunity to make something yummy, fun and holiday oriented!

My choice of sweet? The sugar cookie

My blank canvas!

I had sooooo many ideas and options, but upon trying this one out, I just had to continue with the design!

Red & white candy cane backgrounds with festive green bows! I just loved the way it looked!

Being packaged to go!

I must admit, I'm in love with sugar cookies. Not only are they yummy but the possibilities are truly endless. So.Much.FUN!!

Happy belated holidays to all! :)

Festive Chocolate Chip Banana Muffins!

I'm a bit late in posting and I do apologize! I was terribly busy baking, cooking, cleaning and entertaining for the holidays!

Christmas Eve was a quiet night. I had 2 bananas that were on the verge of garbagedom. Not wanting to spoon feed myself brown mushy bananas, and also not wanting to waste them, I decided to bake some yummy chocolate chip banana muffins instead! FESTIVE ones!

I could have eaten the whole bowl of batter.... but I didn't...

Ready to bake!



Seeing as it was Christmas Eve, I decided to use these festive cupcake liners to add some pizazz! Not that these bad boys needed any fancying up! They were DELICIOUS! Chocolate goes well with just about anything, what could be bad?!

Yum.

Fred Flintstone Cake!

In addition to it being his grandmother's Birthday last weekend, it was also my boyfriend's Birthday - it was a very busy weekend for me!

Nothing slips by him so I didn't even try to hide the fact that I was going to make him a cake! Especially since he requested one... a 4 tiered one.... featuring the Ninja Turtles, Transformers, G.I. Joe and The Flintstones! Reliving his childhood memories as he was about to turn another year older I presume : P

Anyway, with 2 Birthday celebrations in one weekend and only small gatherings planned for both, that 4 tiered monster would have gone to major waste. So I picked ONE theme and sent my boyfriend out for the day and I got to work!

I kept the cake on the dining room table in a closed cake box until we went to his parents' house for dinner.... I can't be sure he didn't peek, but I don't THINK he did!

So, with all of my options, I went with The Flintstones. Fred Flintstone. THEMED! I'm not crazy into character cakes so I figured this was a good compromise!

I covered the cake in the orange and black print of Fred's "dress" (excuse my ignorance, but I'm not sure what that article of clothing is called!),  topped it off with his raggedy jaggedy blue tie, and finished it off with a boney border - it IS the stone age after all!

Everybody, especially the Birthday boy, loved the cake! Even his dog enjoyed some birthday cake crumbs - it was vanilla! :)

Yummies!

As I mentioned before, it is currently gain-a-little-weight season!

Last year I stumbled upon a killer peppermint bark recipe. I'm generally a chocolate purist. I never had the taste for chocolate & (pepper)mint. Give me a bar of plain old milk or dark chocolate, and that's all I need to be in my own personal heaven!

I somehow got into the smell of chocolate & peppermint and decided I LOVED peppermint bark and NEEDED to make it. Tons of it. Without ever having really tasted it.

So last year I bought out aaaaallllll the candy canes I could find and I recruited my Grandmother to help me unwrap them and I went forth with my peppermint bark mission. Boy was it a success. Months after the holiday season I was dreaaaaaaming of that bark and waiting for the right time to bust out that recipe yet again!

Here it is, in all it's addictive delight

Pretty & packaged with a bow!

After the peppermint bark, I had a brilliant (or horrible) idea that I wanted to try out. I have, and I can say with 100000000% assurance, the BEST and most famously sought after cookie base recipe. I have addicts banging on my door. Not actually. But I do get MANY requests when I'm having people over or going to someone's house to bring my cookies. I decided I'd make some changes and turn those devine devils into Skor cookies.

Oy.

Good thing there aren't cameras in the kitchen. I told my boyfriend I only ate 3. But that's just actually when I lost count.

New favourite thing in the world.

Good idea gone horribly wrong!

Guess who'll be avoiding the scale for a while? This girl.

Pretty Flower Cake!

My boyfriend's grandmother's birthday was this past weekend and of course I was designated to make the birthday cake!

Given carte blanche I immediately took to the drawing board! Having creative control over a cake is the best and worst thing -the world is your oyster but then narrowing down an idea can be tough...

Here is what I came up with:

The cake came out perfectly, just as I had imagined it! Everyone loved it, especially the Birthday Girl!

Another success in the bank! :)