Runs on Coffee and Cream

Do you ever wake up and want homemade cookies? Or get a craving for something sweet in the evening when you child has finally gone to bed? Then you look in the pantry and refrigerator and come up empty-handed? Well, if you have a box of cake mix in the back of the pantry, you can probably whip up some homemade cookies in about 20 minutes.

Have you ever had banana pancakes? A few friends kept making them and posting them on their Instagram so I finally asked for the recipe and it seems everyone makes them slightly different. Most people try to avoid adding too many grains to them or they try to make them Keto-friendly. But I wasn't necessarily interested in these pancakes to avoid too many carbs, but for something different for breakfast. Especially because at this point Emma was eating finger foods and I thought she'd like these.

Last fall and winter I was pregnant which meant I avoided a lot of treats that could be bad for a pregnant lady (deli meats, unpasteurized treats, highly caffeinated drinks). I avoided apple cider for the most part because typically fresh apple cider is unpasteurized. Now, not all apple cider is unpasteurized; a lot sold in grocery stores actually have the word 'pasteurized' on their jugs. But I just avoided buying it out of the convenience of not having to look for that word on the packaging when grocery shopping.

Happy fall! Well, it was yesterday but still, it's officially fall!

Want to make a delicious, chewy pumpkin cookie for fall? Check out this easy recipe!


As usual, I used a recipe from Sally's Baking Addiction. Seriously, her recipes are amazing and I know I can trust that they'll work out.


Pumpkin Oatmeal Cookies

Ingredients:
2 cups + 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1 heaping teaspoon pumpkin pie spice (see my previous post for the breakdown of pumpkin pie spice)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
1 cup butter - melted (I used 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce, 1/2 cup butter)
1/4 cup dark molasses
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 egg yolk
3/4 cup pumpkin puree
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups add-ins (chocolate chips, dried cranberries, nuts, etc.)

Instructions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease baking sheets.
2. In a large bowl, mix flour, baking soda, cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice, and salt together. Fold in oats.
3. Melt butter in medium size bowl and mix in molasses, brown sugar, and granulated sugar. Once combined, mix in egg. Add pumpkin and vanilla and mix until just combined.
4. Pour wet mix into dry ingredients and mix. The dough will be quite thick. Once combined, fold in your add-ins. I used mini chocolate chips.
5. Scoop cookie dough onto baking sheets. I used a heaping tablespoon for each cookie.
6. Bake for 13-15 minutes. Let cool on baking sheet or you will end up ripping the cookies apart when trying to move them to a wire rack.


These cookies are super yummy! Very pumpkin-y and the bit of chocolate just adds to it. It's a nice combination.

I'm lucky because Adam's not a huge fan of pumpkin. He eats it and he'll pretty much eat any cookie in front of him. But he doesn't LOVE pumpkin. So he's been leaving these cookies for me and just having the odd one. That's definitely a sign of love! So all the pumpkin for me... or at least most of it!


Definitely give this recipe a try! I love that you can change up the mix-ins too. Dried cranberries and white chocolate chips would be a nice add-in.

I'm now off to enjoy this cool, rainy fall day!

xo Jen

It's bake all the pumpkin things season! The cans of pumpkin puree sold here are gigantic so I always have to be prepared to make a bunch of different recipes once I open a can.

The can I opened made:
- 4 pumpkin flavoured overnight oats
- 3 pumpkin greek yogurts
- batch of pumpkin spice muffins
- batch of pumpkin cookies
- approx. 1/2 cup leftover to make my own pumpkin spice lattes

I bought another can of pumpkin puree the other day so I'll be making more pumpkin recipes over the next couple of weeks including pumpkin biscotti.


Today I'm sharing the pumpkin spice muffins recipe I made. I found it on Pinterest via Princess Pinky Girl. They turned out amazing! Needless to say I froze half the batch and the other half disappeared in a few days between Adam and myself. They were perfect to pair with a coffee in the morning.

Pumpkin Spice Muffins

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup vegetable oil (I used unsweetened applesauce)
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup canned pumpkin puree

Topping:
1/4 cup white sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 cup unsalted butter - melted


Instructions:
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Line a muffin pan with paper liners.
2. In a medium bowl whisk together flour, pumpkin pie spice, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
3. In a large bowl mix together applesauce (or oil), sugars, eggs, vanilla extract, and pumpkin puree.
4. Mix the flour mixture into pumpkin mixture until there's no lumps.
5. Spoon the batter into the muffin liners. The batter made 12 muffins.
6. Bake in oven for 17-22 minutes (mine took 20 minutes) or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean. Let cool.
7. For the topping, mix sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl.
8. Dip the top of each muffin into melted butter and then dip into the cinnamon sugar bowl. Shake off excess.
9. Place on plate. Enjoy while butter is still warm and sticky or let them cool and dry.


So pumpkin pie spice... I know it's not available everywhere. I don't always have it on hand. I tend to run out so I make my own.

Pumpkin Pie Spice:
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves


These muffins are the perfect amount of sweetness. The muffin part itself isn't overly sweet, just a nice blend of pumpkin spice so the sugar-cinnamon topping is a perfect bit of sweetness to the muffin.

I'll share my pumpkin cookies recipe next and then I'll be trying out pumpkin biscotti for the first time!

xo Jen

Just looking at these photos make me want cake again.... too bad it's all gone now.

Carrot Cake Cookies

I wanted to make some homemade cookies but I was also short on time so I pulled out a box of carrot cake mix and made some easy cake mix cookies. I've made them numerous times before and I follow this recipe. The only difference was I rolled the cookie dough in different sprinkles and coloured sugars. This is the easiest cookie to make and they taste really good! They're always soft and full of flavour. These carrot cake cookies turned out spicy which pairs well with a cup of coffee. I love them!


I have some fun baking plans for May after spotting some new ingredients at Michael's last week... fingers crossed the recipes turn out!

xo Jen

One of my favourite Easter treats is the Cadbury Creme Egg. They're a favourite for a lot of people since they're incredibly sweet and will satisfy any sweet tooth. Every year we head to McDonald's for a Cadbury Creme Egg McFlurry which is so yummy.


This year I decided to try making a Cadbury Creme Egg brownie for dessert. I looked at multiple recipes online that people used for Creme Egg cakes, cheesecakes and other treats. I ended up mixing and matching different things.

So my bottom layer was a boxed brownie mix. I let it cool completely before adding the next layer; homemade vanilla buttercream. From here I put the pan in the freezer.


I made up the yellow 'yolk' mixture next. This was made with a combination of icing sugar, corn syrup, yellow food colouring, and a bit of water. It honestly looked like egg yolk once I found the consistency I was looking for.


I poured the yellow yolk right on top of the buttercream and put it back in the freezer to harden up.

So far I'm loving the look.

This next step is where I'm not happy with how I did things. Initially I thought about melting chocolate chips to pour on top of the yellow layer. But I was lazy and decided on chocolate frosting. Well, the frosting and yellow mixed. It wasn't pretty. However, it still tasted amazing.


Once we cut into it later that night, it definitely came out the way I hoped. The 'yolk' oozed out and it was incredibly sweet.


I'd definitely try making these again, but more than likely with a hard chocolate shell on top to hopefully avoid mixing the chocolate with the yellow layer.

I hope you had a great Easter weekend!
xo Jen

My phone camera made the pink much darker... but it looks so pretty against the sprinkles.

I'm sure you'll see these sprinkles again since I have so much spring inspiration right now and want to bake everything I can!

I hope your week is treating you well!
xo Jen

Leading up to Valentine's Day I made a couple of Valentine treats for Adam. First up was his request, butter spritz cookies. They always turn out adorable and the recipe I use makes a ton of them (close to 100 little cookies) but it's incredibly time consuming and a bit of a pain to load the cookie press. So I had Adam help me with them. We ended up using the last bit of dough to make some heart cookie cutter cookies too.



Next up was a recipe I wanted to make. After having so much success with the donut recipe I used recently, I wanted to make some glazed donuts with sprinkles. On Sally's Baking Addiction she recommends double dipping the donuts into the glaze which gave a good thick coating to the donuts. I followed her recipe here.

Glaze Ingredients

1/4 cup milk
2 cups icing sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
sprinkles

Directions:

1. Combine glaze ingredients in a small pot over low heat.

2. Whisk until the glaze is smooth.

3. Drop each donut into glaze and place on wire rack. Once you've dipped all the donuts, dip them again starting from the first one.

4. Add sprinkles!

I absolutely love how they turned out. And they didn't last too long either since donuts for breakfast or dessert are hard to pass up.



With Valentine's Day over, I have my mind set on spring baking which definitely includes some Easter ideas. So get ready for Mini Eggs treats!

xo Jen

I bought myself a large donut pan last year but never got around to using it. I guess I was lacking inspiration? Well, I found a new recipe recently and got around to making a batch of homemade baked donuts. And now I'm hooked.

I'm a huge fan of Sally's Baking Addiction for recipes. I've loved every recipe I've tried through her site. So when I came across her recipe for Baked Cinnamon Sugar Donuts I knew I had to try it. The ingredient list isn't scary, the process sounded easy, and the recipe only makes 7-8 donuts which is the perfect amount for us.


Now let me tell you, this recipe is amazing! It was super easy, the donuts were incredibly good, and I now want to manipulate this recipe to make different variations. Be warned, donut pictures and recipes are going to be happening this year.

Ingredients

1 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 large egg
1/3 cup packed light brown sugar
1/4 cup milk
1/4 cup yogurt (I used vanilla flavoured yogurt)
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

Topping Ingredients

1 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted

Donuts fresh out of the oven.

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Spray your donut pan with a non-stick spray.

2. Whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg in a medium bowl. Set aside. Whisk egg, brown sugar, milk, and yogurt together until smooth. Add the melted butter and vanilla and whisk until combined. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix until just combined.

3. Spoon the batter into the donut cavities or spoon the batter into a large ziploc bag. Then cut a corner of the bag and pipe the batter into the donut pan. This is so much easier and less messy! Fill each donut spot 3/4 of the way full.

4. Bake for 9-10 minutes or until the edges are lightly browned. Allow to cool completely on a wire rack.

Cinnamon Sugar coating added.

5. Combine the sugar and cinnamon in a medium bowl for the topping. Melt the butter in a separate bowl. Dip the donuts in the melted butter and then dunk into the cinnamon sugar mixture, coating all sides. Place on wire rack to dry.

I ate a donut with fresh topping and then hours later when the topping had dried a bit. I preferred them after a few hours. But you might like them better with the slightly sticky fresh coating.

Finished donuts!

I love how they look! And I promise they taste as good as they look too, I swear! Definitely try out the recipe if you've been wanting to make baked donuts at home.

xo Jen

It's the time of year where I bake all the cookies! I started my holiday baking a couple of weeks ago. I had picked up some cinnamon chips at the Bulk Barn and decided to bake them in an oatmeal cookie.


After scouring my recipe books I found a recipe to use:

I replaced the semisweet chocolate chips with the cinnamon chips but I changed nothing else.

The cookies turned out incredible! They're soft and chewy and the coconut adds a nice flavor and texture to the cookies. And the cinnamon-oatmeal combo is perfect. I have to eat one of these cookies with every cup of tea I have.

Seymore thinks they smell pretty good too.

What holiday baking have you done?
xo Jen

Happy Halloween!

Instead of spacing out my Halloween baking this month I ended up cramming it all in last week. My carpal tunnel has flared up horribly over the last month and it's become depressing. I have things I want to bake and decorate but the idea of waking up every hour at night because of my throbbing hand discourages me. I try to baby it at home since I know work and sewing takes a toll on my wrist and hand.

So I did all my baking last week when I had Adam around. He became my muscle to help me mix dough and break apart candy bark. This means I now have a refrigerator and freezer full of goodies. It's a good thing we had company up this past weekend and a party to attend to share some of our treats.

Every year Adam requests these molded sugar cookies. The recipe calls for almond extract and it makes the cookies really good.

We made cake mix cookies and rolled them in coloured sugar for a Halloween party we were going to. It gave me a reason to pull out my edible eyeball decorations to make them Monster Cookies.

Of course I had to make a chocolate candy bark. I needed a reason to buy a mix of Halloween candies at Bulk Barn.

Did you make any fun Halloween treats this year? I plan on loading up my lunch box with some of these today since I will be spending Halloween evening at work.

xo Jen

• candy melts in any flavour
• silicone mold

Pumpkin Spice and English Toffee Candy Melts

Silicone Mold

Directions:
1. Place mold on a baking sheet that will fit inside your refrigerator.
2. Pour approximately half of the bag of candy melts in a microwave safe bowl and follow the directions on the package to melt. I melted them in 20 second intervals on the defrost setting, stirring in between each interval.
3. Once melted, spoon into the mold. This proved to be messier than expected.
4. Using a toothpick make sure the melted candy is in all the crevices of the mold and to somewhat flatten out the candy melts.
5. Put tray in the refrigerator to let the candy harden. I left it overnight.
6. Pop out chocolates and enjoy!

I ended up with a few air bubbles but overall they turned out great.

I loved how these turned out, though I didn't expect them to be so messy. I'll definitely make more in other colours and flavours for upcoming baking projects.

Have you used silicone molds before?
xo Jen

It's the season for pumpkin and I bought two cans of pumpkin puree for all my baking needs this fall! I opened up my first can last week to make pumpkin bars. I've made them once before a few years ago and I remember them being really good. Well, my memory wasn't wrong in remembering how tasty they were but I forgot that they turn out more cake-y and not very chewy.


Pumpkin Bars with Cream Cheese Frosting

• 2/3 cup all purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
• 2 eggs
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup oil
• 1 cup pumpkin puree
• 6 oz cream cheese
• 1 cup icing sugar
• 2-3 tablespoons lemon juice

As usual I added some coloured sugar to the frosting because sprinkles make everything better!

Fall officially starts next week but it's already arrived here. Our weather has gotten significantly cooler and our front lawn is covered in leaves.

I can already feel myself getting the urge to bake everything, just like I do every year when the temperature outside drops. This week I've already baked zucchini muffins, Pillsbury cookies, and banana bread.

I rounded up some recipes I'm itching to try over the next couple of months.


Clockwise from the top left corner:
1. Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies
2. Chewy Molasses Cookies
3. White Chocolate Dipped Cranberry Oatmeal Cookies
4. Carrot Cake Cookie Cups
5. Pumpkin Bread

What are your favourite recipes for fall?
xo Jen