Irish Soda Bread

Last year, I decided to take on making traditional Irish soda bread. You can read it about it here on my baking blog. But this year I caved and chose a recipe closer to what most think of when they hear Irish soda bread. Good news is it turned out pretty tasty and I have a recipe to share with you!

Peanut Butter Stars for Pooches

I bake for everyone else, why not my puppy dog too? I have a retired racing greyhound named Odie. He's 5 years old now, and we adopted him from Pocono Greyhound Adoption a little over a year ago. To celebrate his birthday this past January and one year anniversary in his forever home, I made him homemade doggie treats with peanut butter and safflower oil. And here I have the recipe for you to make for your best friend as well!

Chocolate Dipped Green Tea Shortbread

Happy Chinese New Year's Eve and welcome to the year of the dragon! To celebrate, I have some green tea short bread for you!



For how to make leaf cookie shape without a leaf cookie cutter, hop on over to my all things crafty blog, Loops of Lavender! (Please follow! :o) )

Pumpkin Angel Food Cake with Salted Caramel Glaze

This is an absolutely divine dessert. And angel food is really so easy to make and the salted caramel glaze makes this seem really fancy, but I promise it's really easy!

Apple Pie Pops

Baked goods on a stick are super trendy right now it seems. I know that because Starbucks has cake pops now. Inspired by some finds on Etsy, I decided to try out some apple pie pops!

Mini Caramel Apple Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Filling

Been very quiet around here lately. That's my fault, shame on me! Some time in November I stopped everything else and spent every free minute crocheting Christmas gifts. I don't know what good it did me, since I wound up getting gift cards for most people anyway. :o( Next year I start in September.

So enough of the quiet, I need to catch up. I made these caramel apple cupcakes for my crochet group before the holidays. They were really good, but a lot of work, and would probably work better in standard sized cupcakes! I heart mini cupcakes so much, and these were so cute on the sticks, but with the filling they sort of start to fall apart once they get a little warm. So if you make minis, keep them in the fridge and once you take them out, eat them quick!



 

I also drizzled vanilla bean caramel sauce on these for added caramel-ness. The recipe is here, be careful with it. ;o) 

Caramel Apple Cookies

Well, these cookies were easy to make and tasty. But I'm not sure they captured the essence of caramel apple. Maybe I needed a better toffee mix in? The recipe called for toffee bits and I used chopped butterscotch morsels...hmm...



Caramel Apple Cookies
Adapted from Bakers Royale

1 3/4 cup unbleached all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 3/4 sticks butter
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup packed dark brown sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
1 cup diced apples (4 oz.)
3/4 cup chopped salted roasted almonds
1/2 cup toffee bits (chopped butterscotch chips?)

1. Preheat oven to 350 F and line cookie sheets with parchment paper (not essential, but it helps)
2. Whisk flour and baking soda together and set aside.
3. Heat 10 tablespoons of butter in a skillet over medium heat until melted about 2 minutes. Continue stirring for another 1-3 minutes until brown and there is a nutty aroma. Remove from heat. Pour heated butter through a sieve into a heat proof bowl. Stir in remaining butter until completely melted.
4. Add  both sugars, salt and vanilla to bowl with butter and whisk until fully combined. 
5. Add egg and egg yolk, whisk until mixture is smooth and no sugar lumps remains.
6. Let mixture stand for 3 minutes then whisk for another 30 seconds.
7. Repeat step four 2 more times until mixture is thick and shiny. The butter will start to firm up as it cools and come more to resemble cookie batter
8. Stir in flour mixture until combined. 
9. Stir in apples, roasted almonds and toffee bits combined.
10. Use an ice cream scoop to form cookies. Place dough 2 inches apart on cookie sheet.
11. Bake cookies one tray at a time, rotating cookie sheet halfway through baking. Bake until cookies are golden brown and still puffy. Approximately 10-14 minutes.
12. Cool on cookie sheets set on wire rack before removing to wire rack to cool completely