The Art Of Baking

Its already New Years Eve!Wow! This year has gone by so fast that I really feel I didn't post that much this year.Well, to end the last day of 2011 gracefully I will fit in one last blog post. This week,I was actually struggling with writers blocks the whole time and I guess the holidays were keeping me distracted from writing.Now with all that time wasted It ended up being a good thing because now I have lots to share for this New years eve post. Anyways, Doesn't anyone feel that Christmas sure went by fast this year? I sure think so because after Christmas I thought I had lots of time to share with all of you about it.Distracted I guess, because now I'm here on December 31st writing about it.Well I guess to sum it up, my Christmas was full of great gifts, great food and yummy baked good.For gifts, I received some cute handmade items, baking equipment,a new outfit and some chocolates/candies.I hope everyone else had a great Christmas/Holiday. Also, for the

M E R R Y C H R I S T M A S !! Wow! This exciting day is already here. I hope its full of joy and great food for everyone. I just got all my Christmas baking done on Christmas eve. I ended up making my favourites from last year. Speculass Cookies   and Butter Tarts . Enjoy the pictures and happy holidays. 

 Happy Holidays Everyone! Wow! Only four more sleeps till Christmas and I still have to do some Holiday baking for this week.I'm always that last minute person to get everything done. However if you think about, my baked treats will end up being fresher for Christmas day! Anyways, what is every body's holiday baking plans for this week? Maybe your making a traditional gingerbread house or something simpler like sugar cookies.Whatever it need be, be sure to share about it in the comments. I love to hear all the delicious treats your making for the holidays. If your someone that's still stuck in what to make.I highly recommend trying out this delicious recipe for a Blueberry Coffee Cake . Now your probably thinking "this really doesn't fit the holidays and blueberries aren't in season.Well don't worry because this is a super adaptable coffee cake where you can easily change the topping to whatever you w

These applesauce raisin cookies remind me so much of hermit cookies.They have a similar texture and use the same basic spice mixture.The only difference with this recipe is it contains applesauce.The apples give a small flavor of fruit,but mostly works its magic in keeping them moist.Because of this ingredient you don't want to put these cookies in a jar.If done they will stick to each other.Other then that these cookies are the best! These are a basic spice cookie,which are very popular during the Christmas season. I assume spice cookies are quite liked around this time because their quick to make and you can basically throw any ingredient you like in with them.They are aromatic as well and a great milk cookie.Also, they are a great last minute cookie to make to serve Santa when he arrives at your home on Christmas eve! Easy for the children to make as well. They have great spice flavor and have the texture combination of soft,chewy,fluffy and just a little crispness

I just recently tried the new Kraft Dinner Smart Vegetables Macaroni And Cheese . I haven't had Kraft dinner for a long time and since I had a 75 cent coupon off for the product.I thought I should try this out and review my findings. Now, what is specifically new about this New Kraft Dinner ? Well right from the get go you can see they have a brand new look. I actually really like what they have created here in the background because they use bright colors and nature to bring positivity.You can see the blue sky and clouds hovering a big field.The picture really connects with the product and is eye catching to the consumer.Image is extremely important in a product and sometimes we don't even notice we buy based on look. Its also quite easy to find in stores since it looks so different from the original KD . Kraft has also introduced three other macaroni and cheese products, which include Flax omega-3 high fiber and vegetables three cheese . They also hav

This is the first time I have ever made chocolate peppermint slices and this treat seems to fit well for the holiday month.The treat came very close to being my favorite, but it still needs a little more experimentation to the layers to create a favorite.It has great qualities while other attributes need work. These treats had a filling and bottom layer that were very simple to create.The filling seemed to be a basic smooth flavored icing and the crust was a heavy,stable cookie dough that reminded me a lot of graham crackers in flavor.The top chocolate layer deemed to be more difficult to create because I had to experiment with the top layer recipe because I was missing an ingredient from the list.So I improvised by using margarine,unsweetened cocoa and sugar. I would learn soon after that melting all these ingredients in a sauce pan would create a grainy chocolate sauce.With no other chocolate insight to use and to not waste ingredient I used the chocolate sauce for the

President Choice Blue Menu: Twice the Fruit Strawberry Jam has been a favorite around here for a long time. I've always used it for my toast,bagels,oatmeal,sandwiches and baking.I've actually used this jam for many recipes I've reviewed on here.Its definitely a favorite of mine because its not overly sweet and has real chunks of strawberries.Most jams I've tried are always to smooth, but with PC twice the fruit jam you get the best of both worlds,smooth and chunky. It has a rich strawberry flavor, while not being overpowering.I definitely think its a big contender to other brands because its a flavorful, affordable and healthier jam.Also,with the blue menu factor you get 50% less calories than jam with pectin and only 25 calories for each tbsp.I definitely recommend President Choice jams for others to try out for themselves and I think this jam is great for using in baked good.The only negative thing about these jams are they get eaten up so fast because

Now that were in December, I can officially start doing some holiday baking.Its so exciting because I can now use some of my festive items I got last Christmas and try out new holiday recipes. What are you excited about for this seasonal month?Maybe its decorating the tree or home,planning a party,gift shopping ,going on a trip or like me creating some delicious treats. Whatever it may be, we should try to make this month as stress free as possible and make it fun. So to start off this month,I'm going to share with all of you a new recipe I tired out from all recipes website.It's simple and a well loved baked item.If you randomly guessed brownie with out me giving any hint.Well good for you because your right. For this brownie recipe I actually tested it out at the end of November;but I thought to share my review to open up December. It just seemed like a treat that would better suit this holiday month.Its simple,stress-free and fancy.Those are three el

Ats Janimies world, she is having a great giveaway to win a beautiful 1 inch large adjustable round antique brass nickel free turquoise glitter ring.Click the highlighted link to enter Janimies world: Winter GiveAway . Everybody can enter and you have till December 28th to get your entries in! So check it out!

I wanted to make something savory earlier this week and I ended up finding one of my pretzel recipes I haven't reviewed yet. Its a pretzel recipe that is different from most because it kicks out the yeast and brings in the baking powder.Its a good choice when you don't have yeast in your kitchen and you want delicious pretzels.The powder does its job well as a raising agent in these pretzel;however it will not be able to give the overall flavor of yeast. To help these pretzels out with lack of yeast flavor you give it a great spice blend and topping.For my batch I threw in Italian spice into the dough and then added spice and garlic into the sauce.Its basically a preference on what you want, just like a pizza.I always recommend to taste test your sauce and play around with the flavors before adding them. After making your perfect sauce you always have to remember to re coat your pretzels throughout baking. I re coated these pretzels twice and it does make a d

I've been so lucky this pass year with my blog receiving such positive feedback and all the great giveaways I've won.I wanted to take a picture to cover the progress of 2011 so far in my giveaways and wow I was surprised. I love every item I've received and I have this new found respect for small online businesses that I never had before .Thank you everyone. For the ones that gave me these great gifts and the ones that set up the giveaways.I'm officially addicted to giveaways and its just fun to be surprised.Enjoy the picture and to let everyone know their are two items that were to big to get in the picture, which are the "Peace,Love And Cookie Dough Apron And The Namaste Food Package.Thank you and its finally the weekend!

 Kashi, The Seven Whole Grain Company was giving out free samples through the mail to whoever filled out the information on their site.The samples were snatched up fast online and after a while of waiting, we received our Blackberry Graham bar.It resembled much like a fig newton bar in texture and appearance,while being slightly dry.The company was even more generous by also sending a freebie coupon with it for one box of any choice Kashi Bar. The ones you see here are the one's we got free, which are called Peanut Peanut Butter Bars .Each Kashi box has 6 bars in total and these specific bars are 150 calories each.However don't let the calories scare you off because these bars are better for you then other granola bars.They include seven whole grains, which they let you know in the company name and they only use nature ingredients in their products. Kashi bars also include fiber,protein and zero trans fats.The bars also have a bonus.I can actually read,pronounce and

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I think these are the best peanut butter cookies so far and their actually completely different in texture and flavor compared to other recipes. They still have that great peanut butter flavor, but more of it.This is because the recipe ditches the butter and lets the peanut butter take the reins.Wonderfully, the peanut butter does really well all on its own.It gave this extra creaminess and moisture that you don't seem to get with butter recipes. I don't know how it does it,but it creates a better all around cookie.Its chewier,creates more moisture and the cookies seem to stay like that overtime. If it covers all those three elements I just have to give it two thumbs up. The only issues I seem to have with this recipe is you have to make sure to crisscross the cookies. I'm not going to give this recipe a bad rating for that because it was myself that created this issue.This is because in my first batch I ended up forgetting and ended up with cookies that didn&#

I just found out about this great giveaway at Gleeful Things .That's open worldwide. One person could win their very own custom made stylish Ferris wheel slouchy hat.It will be custom made by the very creative Julie and the winner gets to choose their color. So go on and check it out. She does great work and the hats are beautiful.

Well Halloween has passed and now its already jumped into November.Its a brand new month and I've already started the baking.This time I actually had to bake so that I wouldn't waste any leftover homemade icing.So I ended up making Martha Stewart's ideal sugar cookies again and made some cute flower shapes.They worked out so well that I had tons of creative fun making fancy designs.I even used my very own icing bottles to help out with piping and drizzling designs.I found the bottles were actually much easier to handle then any pipping bag I've used and I think I'm officially reformed to it. I still will keep my piping bags for back-up, but these little bottles are ten times better.I love that you can easily change around everything and I had less pain in my arm when I was done piping all 48 cookies.These little bottles helped create some really simple fancy designs and I'm excited to use them for Christmas Holiday treats. These are my favorite s

  H a p p y H a l l o w e e n E v e r y b o d y ! To celebrate all that is spooky and frightful.I'm showcasing Krysta's Halloween drawing of me and Dave. She made us a bride and groom,but killed us off and we somehow came back as zombies.I figured she never really wanted us to rest in peace and just wandering around eating brains all night. Watch your artistic brain there,were comming for it next. Thats all were thinking about now! Woooo! Look at these creepy silhouettes on my chocolate cupcakes.My spider's seem to really love these just as much as the bloody bones.That creepy crawly spider has strangely become my favorite of the bunch and I find it crazy that all of these are just simply made using Wilton stencils and icing sugar. This shows that you really don't need any frosting for cupcakes,especially chocolate ones. These spooky cakes are actually to good for frosting and I find it would only take something away from it.However can