Apple Cinnamon Rolls

**In preparation for the arrival of our little one, I have prepped some posts in advance.  As soon as our lives have some semblance of order (hah!) I will get back to my regular posting and be able to respond to any questions/comments you may have :)

'Tis the season for company!  And what company doesn't love some warm Apple Cinnamon Rolls coming out of the oven as they wake up or walk in the door?

I make these Cinnamon Rolls very often around here.  I am pretty sure they are the main requirement in my husband's diet.  Not too long ago I had a pile of Granny Smith apples staring at me on the counter so I figured I would add some variety to our favourite baked item.  

Maple-Pecan Shortbread Cookies

In preparation for the (hopefully soon) arrival of our little one, I have been cooking and baking things to store in our freezer to (ideally) make hosting all of the visitors and feeding ourselves a bit easier after we return home.

First I made a few lasagna's to put in our freezer, then I whipped up 8 freezer meals that can be tossed into the crock pot anytime for easy, healthy suppers.  Thank you Pinterest for the crock pot recipes! After all of that cooking, my freezer looked like it needed some treats.

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Here are some mini cupcakes I whipped up a couple of weeks ago for our neighbour's annual Christmas party.  There were both vanilla and chocolate cupcakes and I topped them with some classic vanilla buttercream. Yum!

The beautiful lights at the Alberta Legislature Grounds

I hope everyone is having a fabulous Christmas season! Ours has been busy as busy can be, but a total blast at the same time.

My Aunt/Godmother and I at her Christmas party

At John's work Christmas party

From Christmas parties to Christmas baking to shopping and everything in between, this Christmas is gearing up to be a fabulous one!

Decorating can be so tiring!

From our family to yours, I hope you have an absolutely wonderful Christmas this year! Thank you to each and every one of you for making this year so amazing :)

Peanut Butter M&M Cookies

You know how sometimes you are walking through the grocery store, grabbing healthy options for your week and doing your best to resist the temptation of the candy aisle, and then when you look at your basket at the till you find that it has a bag of candy in it? And you have no idea how it even got there?

No? um, me neither

But these randomly showed up in my shopping bag the other day and I figured it would be best for all parties if they were consumed as soon as possible. You know, to remove the temptation and all that.

I figured the colourful candy shell would be ridiculously cute in cookie form, and pairing chocolate and peanut butter is always a winner. I used my favourite chocolate chip cookie recipe as a base, and added some chopped up peanut butter M&Ms and semi-sweet chocolate chips.

I had some when they were still warm from the oven and they were unreal! I ate 6 in one sitting. SIX cookies, in one sitting. And that doesn’t even count the rest of the day! oops. Good thing it is sweater season. Puffy sweaters are in fashion, right? please?

I made my cookies a bit smaller than usual, so I was able to get about 4 dozen from this recipe.

Peanut Butter M&M Cookies

• 2 1/2 cups flour
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1 cup butter, room temperature
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup chopped peanut butter M&Ms
• 1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chipes

1. Line the baking sheet with parchment paper (or spray it with cooking spray) and preheat your oven to 350F
2. Whisk together the flour and baking soda
3. Mix butter and the two sugars together until light and fluffy
4. Add the eggs, vanilla, and salt to the sugar mixture and mix until completely incorporated
5. Add the flour mixture, followed by the chocolate chips and mix until the chocolate chips are evenly distributed
6. Using a tablespoon, drop the cookie dough onto the baking sheets.  Each baking sheet can hold about 1 dozen cookies 
7. Bake for 10 - 12 minutes and remove when the edges are golden brown and the middle of the cookie is still soft.  The cookies will finish setting after they are removed from the oven
8. Enjoy!

I seem to be on a bit of a cookie kick lately! Must be the holiday dessert platters calling me :)

Lemon Cornmeal Cookie Sandwiches

With this chilly weather upon us, sometimes it is night to have a treat that reminds us of the summer and how warm things can be.  I made these lemon cornmeal cookies awhile back, but somehow they got lost in my disorganized mix of pictures. I came across them again recently, whipped up a new batch, and fell in love all over again!

The cookies are amazing on their own, but I love to whip up a small batch of cream cheese icing and make sandwiches out of them.  Delicious!

One thing to note about these cookies is they don’t really rise, so whatever size you make them when you put them on the pan, that’s pretty much what size they will be when they come out of the oven. I didn’t realize this the first time so I ended up with these super small and cute sandwiches, perfect for popping in your mouth every time you walk through the kitchen. Every. Time.  My tummy thanked me, my hips didn’t.

So if you need a burst of sunshine on your Christmas cookie platter this year, whip these up!  The cookies were one of Martha Stewart’s cookies of the day, and the cream cheese filling is totally optional.  The original recipe makes 24 individual cookies, but since I make mine on the smaller size I get about 16 cookie sandwiches (32 individual cookies).

Lemon Cornmeal Cookie Sandwiches

• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1 cup yellow cornmeal
• 1 tbsp grated lemon zest 
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 3/4 cup butter, room temperature
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 egg
• Cream cheese filling (optional)
• 4 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
• 1/4 cup butter, room temperature
• 1 cup icing sugar

1. Preheat the oven to 350 F and line your cookie sheets with parchment paper
2. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, cornmeal, lemon zest, and salt
3. In a large bowl mix together the warm butter, sugar, and egg 
4. Add the dry ingredients to the wet and mix well
5. Roll the dough into small balls (about 1 1/2" in diameter) and place on the cookie sheets
6. Lightly flatten the cookies with the palm of your hand
7. Bake for 16 - 25 minutes (depending on the thickness of the cookies) until the edges are lightly browned
8. Let cool completely
9. While cooling, beat together the cream cheese, butter, and icing sugar
10. When the cookies are cool, spoon some filling onto the bottom of one cookie, and than add another cookie to make a cute sandwich
11. Continue with remaining cookies, and Enjoy!

Virtual Cookie Swap! Candy Cane Shortbread Cookies

This year the beautiful Rachel from theavidappetite.com had a fabulous idea, a virtual cookie swap for Christmas! How fun!

She organized a bunch of us bloggers (that girl has mad organizational skills!) to share our favourite cookie that we were going to bake up for the holidays so that everyone can get a fabulous start for the Christmas season.  I am so excited for all of the amazing recipes that everyone has shared!

If you want to see what other delectable cookies have been contributed, you can check out her round-up here, and I strongly recommend that you do. Except that it will give you the urge to rush into your kitchen and fire up that oven.  Consider yourself warned.

I decided to do a twist on the traditional shortbread cookie. I absolutely love the buttery taste and texture of shortbread cookies, and how you can always depend on them showing up on the dessert table at Christmas every year.  I thought it would be cute to incorporate some crushed candy canes for a pop of both colour and a yummy peppermint flavour.

These were so easy to make! And so festive looking as well.  I’m super happy with how they turned out.

I used the traditional shortbread cookie recipe that my family has always made, and mixed 2 crushed candy canes into the dough. I then baked them up as usual and out came cute candy cane shortbread cookies! These don’t even need sprinkles (and that is saying a lot, I love sprinkles!).

When it comes to crushing the candy canes, if you have a food processor please use it. I figured “hey, I’m only going to need, like, 2 candy canes. Totally not worth having to wash my entire food processor!”. I was wrong, just use the darn food processor. I made such a mess cutting these candy canes up with a knife I think the cleanup was even longer! Eh, you live, you learn. These cookies were worth every minute of the cleanup!

I made just over two dozen cookies with this recipe. And then I ate half a dozen before I could control myself. So maybe double this recipe, just in case.

Candy Cane Shortbread Cookies

• 1/2 cup corn starch
• 1/2 cup icing sugar
• 1 cup flour
• 3/4 cup butter (room temperature)
• 2 candy canes, chopped

1. Preheat the oven to 300 F and line two cookie sheets with parchment paper
2. In a large bowl whisk together the corn starch, icing sugar, and flour
3. Blend in the butter until a soft dough forms
4. Add the chopped/crushed candy canes and mix until distributed throughout the dough
5. Roll into 1" round balls and place on the cookies sheets
6. Flatten each ball with your hand or a lightly floured fork
7. Bake for 15 - 20 minutes, or until the edges are a light golden brown
8. Let cool on cookie sheet for 5 minutes before moving to a cookie rack
9. Enjoy!

Christmas Confetti Cupcakes

You know what is a fun dessert? Funfetti cake! You know what else is fun? You can make your own funfetti cake at home and customize it for whatever you need!

For the baby shower the soon-to-be-momma asked for lemon funfetti mini cupcakes. To make these I used the vegan lemon cupcake recipe, and added about a ¼ cup of rainbow sprinkles right before piping the batter into the cupcake liners.  It worked out fantastic!

One thing I will warn you about is to not mix the batter too much after the sprinkles are added.  The sprinkles (I have used both jimmies and non pareils and they each work awesome) will start to dissolve in the batter and mixing will greatly increase the rate that they dissolve.  I just threw the sprinkles in after the batter was ready and give it a few quick folds to distribute the colours.

I tried this technique a second time for some Christmas cupcakes that I made for my aunt this week.  I added a scant ¼ cup of Christmas jimmies (red and green mix) to the batter, gave it a quick stir, and then filled my muffin cups and baked it up.  And taaa-daaa, Christmas Confetti cupcakes!  I know that I am not the first person to figure this out, but man I am still excited about it.  The possibilities are endless! I think it’s time I stocked up on some more sprinkles…

So as a general guideline, I would recommend adding a scant ¼ up of sprinkles for every 12 regular cupcakes that the recipe makes.   Have a fabulous weekend!

Oh, and here are the other cupcakes I had made for my aunt :) Chocolate cupcakes with a vanilla buttercream frosting, topped with holly sprinkles and some silver draggees.  

Happy holidays to you!

Gingerbread Cupcakes with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting

Since I now have a beautiful cupcake stand to fill, I decided to make some gingerbread cupcakes for the Christmas season.  I have never had the gingerbread flavours in cupcake form, so I made two different recipes to compare.

The first type I made were chocolate gingerbread cupcakes with a classic cream cheese icing (in the silver cupcake liners).  These smelled wonderful as they were baking, but I wasn't very happy with the flavour. In fact, my fiance actually advised me against giving them to friends and family!  To be honest, I had to agree with him.  The molasses completely overpowered the cupcake's other flavours so you couldn't taste the chocolate or the other lovely spices in the cupcakes. So those were a scratch.  I still really like the concept of chocolate with gingerbread, so I think I will play with this recipe and see if I can produce a chocolate gingerbread cupcake worth sharing :)

The second batch of cupcakes were Gingerbread Cupcakes with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting.  I found these cupcakes on tastykitchen.com, and they renewed our faith in gingerbread cupcakes!  These were much lighter in flavour, but you could still taste the spices and the addition of molasses.  The cinnamon cream cheese frosting went so well with these, but they were delicious with classic cream cheese frosting too!  

I do apologize for the dark shots.  The good news is that the shortest day of the year was this past Tuesday, so they days are now slowly getting longer!  Hopefully I will be able to work with natural light again soon :)


This recipe makes 1 dozen cupcakes, and the cinnamon cream cheese icing makes enough to lightly frost 2 dozen cupcakes (as shown), or generously frost 1 dozen cupcakes.  As much as I love my cupcakes naked, these are amazing with the cinnamon cream cheese frosting!


Gingerbread Cupcakes

• 1/4 cup butter or margarine, room temperature
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1/2 cup water
• 1/3 cup molasses
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 3/4 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp ginger
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp cloves

1. Preheat the oven to 325 F and line a muffin pan with cupcake liners
2. In a small bowl, whisk together the baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and cloves. Set aside
3. Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy
4. Add the flour, water, and molasses and mix well
5. Add the egg, baking soda, and spices and continue to mix until combined
6. Fill the prepared muffin tin with the batter, and bake for 18 - 20 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean when inserted
7. Let cool before frosting

Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting

• 1/4 cup butter or margarine, room temperature
• 1 pkg (250 grams) cream cheese, room temperature
• 4 cups icing sugar
• 1/2 tbsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp vanilla

1. Cream together the butter and cream cheese
2. Add the icing sugar a cup at a time, mixing until smooth after each addition
3. If the icing seems to thin after the last cup of icing sugar, you can add 1/4 cup more at a time until you reach your desired consistency
4. Mix in the cinnamon and vanilla
5. Frost your delicious gingerbread cupcakes
6. Enjoy!

From my family to yours, we hope everyone has an absolutely amazing Christmas this year!

Nanaimo Bars

If there is one dessert that my mom makes that I absolutely salivate over, it is her Nanaimo Bars!  I believe that this is a predominately Canadian dessert, and it is ridiculously good.  

For me, these goes hand-in-hand with a Christmas celebration at my parent's house.  These bars consist of 3 layers, and each layer goes so well with the other two.  I will admit that I didn't make these, I took pictures this past weekend at our family Christmas brunch :)

If you need to bring a dessert to a party, these are amazing! They are also much much better than the store-bought kind.


Nanaimo Bars

• For the bottom layer
• 1/2 cup butter or margarine
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 5 tbsp cocoa
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 3/4 cups graham wafer crumbs
• 1 cup fine coconut
• 1/2 cup finely chopped walnuts (optional)
• For the middle layer
• 1/2 cup butter or margarine
• 3 tbsp milk
• 2 tbsp vanilla custard powder
• 2 cups icing sugar
• For the top layer
• 2/3 cup semisweet chocolate chips or 4 squares of semisweet chocolate
• 2 tbsp butter or margarine

1. For the bottom layer
1. Grease a 9" x 9" pan
2. Melt the butter/margarine, sugar and cocoa together in a heavy saucepan
3. Add the egg and stir to cook & thicken
4. Remove from heat, and stir in the graham crumbs, coconut, and nuts
5. Press firmly into the prepared pan
2. For the middle layer
1. Cream together the butter/margarine, milk, custard powder, and icing sugar
2. Beat until light and fluffy
3. Spread over the bottom layer
3. For the top layer
1. Melt the chocolate and butter together over low heat, stirring until smooth
2. Remove from heat, and let it cool until it is comfortable to the touch but still spreadable
3. Spread over the middle layer
4. Place the Nanaimo bars in the refrigerator to chill
5. After the bars have chilled (for a couple hours or overnight), cut into 36 squares with a sharp knife
6. Enjoy!

Christmas Cupcakes 2

Another one of my girlfriends had also requested Christmas themed cupcakes this past weekend, but they were for an adult Christmas party so I went with a more classic look.


Her favourite cake/cupcake flavour is vanilla, so again I went with the delicious Vanilla Cupcake recipe that I love. These really are some wonderful vanilla cupcakes!

I baked these in solid red cupcake liners, and topped them with classic vanilla buttercream. I then decorated them with a mixture of these amazing little sliver balls, and red & green jimmies. 

After having a kitchen full of Christmas cupcakes, I am definitely in a wonderful Christmas mood!


Have a fabulous Christmas!

Ultimate Christmas Cupcakes

This past weekend I had 3 orders of cupcakes for friends, in addition to preparing my own treats for two Christmas parties! So it was a busy weekend for baking, and I loved every single minute of it.


One of my girlfriends requested some cupcakes that were 'everything Christmas!' for a kid's Christmas party.  This was so exciting, I couldn't wait to cram as much Christmas joy in a cupcake as I possibly could!

I started with my favourite Vanilla Cupcake recipe, and then split the batter between three bowls. One bowl was dyed red, the second bowl was dyed green, and then the third bowl was left white.  I then dropped the different colours of batter by small spoonfuls into each baking cup until they were full of the three colours.

After the cupcakes were done baking, I was so happy with the results! The colours were wonderfully vibrant, and screamed 'Christmas'!

To decorate the cupcakes, I stuck with a white vanilla buttercream so that I could use the awesome Christmas sprinkles that I have.  I topped each cupcake with both my mini gingerbread men sprinkles, and red & green jimmies.

When I was all done, I stepped back and couldn't stop smiling. These cupcakes definitely fit the requirements.


I hope the kids enjoyed eating the cupcakes as much as I enjoyed making them :)


Merry Christmas!

Peppermint Fudge

This fudge is absolutely amazing! I have been sneaking pieces of this every time I pass my fridge since I made it a couple of days ago.  

This recipe is really easy to make, and doesn't involve any complicated candy making (which is always a bonus!). The recipe originally said to strain the mixture to remove the remaining candy bits, but I loved the small pieces of crunch that the little candy bits produced in the fudge when I didn't strain mine.

This recipe is from marthastewart.com, and I strongly recommend that you make this for your next Christmas party.  I absolutely love this stuff!


Peppermint Fudge

• 2 1/4 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 10 candy canes, unwrapped
• 3/4 cup heavy/whipping cream
• 3 1/4 cups mini marshmallows
• 5 tbsp butter or margarine
• 1 1/4 cups sugar
• 1 tsp salt

1. Spray a 9" square baking pan with baking spray, then line the pan with parchment and spray the parchment paper as well
2. In a food processor, pulse the candy canes until they are very finely chopped
3. Place the chocolate chips in a large bowl
4. In a medium saucepan add the pulverized candy canes, cream, mini marshmallows, butter, sugar, and salt
5. Stir over medium heat until well melted, and whisk until smooth
6. Pour the peppermint mixture over the chocolate chips, and let stand for a minute
7. Stir the mixture until nice and smooth
8. Pour the fudge mixture into the prepared square pan, and smooth the top with a spatula
9. Lick spatula, and enjoy the pure bliss
10. Place the pan in the refrigerator to set for about 3 hours
11. Cut the fudge into 1 1/2" squares to serve
12. To store, place in airtight container in the fridge
13. Enjoy!