I tried to make a pie for you guys this weekend. I really did. But, it didn’t work out. I could post it, but (A) it’s really ugly and (B) it’s just ok. I think it could be really good, but the recipe needs work and probably a whole different crust (I think it needs to be a tart instead of a pie), so I’ll wait to post it until I have it right. But unfortunately, that leaves me with nothing to post this week, so I decided a round up was in order. These are all great choices if you’re looking for some last minute cookies or sweets to make. You also may want to check out the Cookie archive as there are a few others I didn’t include here.

I have a really awesome dessert I’m planning for Christmas dinner, so I may go ahead and make it early and try to get it posted here, but if I don’t, I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

Christmas Tree Cookies

Peppermint Fudge Pinwheels

Glazed Lemon Cakes

Chocolate-Filled Mexican Wedding Cookies

Click here to get the recipe for Holiday Desserts Round Up »

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Okay, I’m cheating a little with this post. I’ve just gotten back from vacation so I haven’t had time to try out any new recipes in a few weeks, but I did bake a bunch of muffins and breads to take on our trip and that got me looking though my recipe archives. Plus, I’ve seen a big increase in search engine traffic looking for soups and other Fall comfort foods, so I thought I’d make a list of my favorites.

I’ll be back next week with something new, until then try out some of these great recipes:

Click here to get the recipe for Fall Recipe Round Up »

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I’m always up for a baking challenge so when Julie over at Willow Bird Baking challenged her readers to make croissants, I didn’t hesitate to sign up. I love croissants, but like donuts, I rarely eat them because of how bad they are for you. But there’s just something about making something from scratch that makes it seem less bad for you. I guess because you have to put actual time and effort into making it instead of just going into a store and buying it. Plus, it’s Brandon’s birthday this week and that is one of the 4 times of the year (along with my birthday, Thanksgiving and Christmas) that I let myself eat whatever I want without feeling guilty about it.

And these croissants? Are absolutely worthy of much guilt, but they’re just way too delicious and way too much work to feel guilty about. I mean, I made these croissants. From scratch. All by myself. That is an accomplishment, not something to feel bad about. These croissants taste better than any that I’ve had from a bakery or store. It could just be because I made them myself, but still, they practically ooze buttery goodness.

Click here to get the recipe for Homemade Buttery Croissants »

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Thanks so much to everyone who participated in my giveaway, it was really fun to read everyone’s comments and learn about some of your food preferences. I’ll definitely be thinking about your answers when I’m looking for new recipes to share in the future!

Anyway, let’s get to it, shall we? I wanted to make it as fair as possible, so I made a numbered list of each comment in the order they were posted and then I entered the number range in the random number generator and got it to pick 2 numbers.

Click here to get the recipe for Giveaway Winners! (and my favorite recipes) »

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I haven’t eaten enough bran muffins to say if these are the best ever but these muffins are pretty damn good. In fact, I thought they tasted a lot like these molasses cookies, which are a favorite of mine. Any muffin that tastes like a cookie is a win for me, so I liked these a lot.

Click here to get the recipe for Quickie: Best Bran Muffins ever? »

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My boyfriend skyped me from work on Friday with a link to the article on Whoopie Pies in the New York Times. “You need to learn how to make these”, he said. Not being one to pass up a baking challenge I made them later that night.

Apparently, whoopie pies are the new cupcake, but I don’t know…I’ll stick with cupcakes thanks very much. Not to say they aren’t good because they are, but my issue was with the filling. Personally, I HATE making frosting. It was a miles better experience with my new stand mixer (I completely gave up making frosting with my hand mixer as it was just disaster after disaster with that thing), but it was still a pain and in the end I wasn’t that impressed. I know it’s called Buttercream, but geez, it’s 2 whole sticks of butter! I thought it was butter overload.

Next time I’ll be cutting the amount of salt in the recipe by half as both the cakes and the filling were a bit too salty. Also, I’m going to skip the frosting and fill the cakes with low-fat ice cream instead because my boyfriend and I agreed these would make awesome homemade ice cream sandwiches (and I won’t have to feel as guilty since I won’t be eating a pound of butter).

I think this would be a great treat to make with/for your family if you have kids, though. To get the round shape, you scoop out the batter with an ice cream scoop, which I know I would have enjoyed helping my mom with. Now that I know how much of a pain it is to make frosting that kind of kills my enjoyment of it, but I would have loved the stuff when I was a kid. True story: I used to take those small tubs of butter at restaurants and mix in a packet of sugar and eat it. Are you surprised I had such bad eating habits that I started a whole blog to try to correct them? Yeah, me neither.

• Read about the history of Whoopie Pies »
• Get the Whoopie Pie Recipe »

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As I mentioned in my last post, I have major sweet tooth. So donuts are one of my very favorite things. But since they are also one of the very worst things for you to eat, I try to stay away from them. It helps that my boyfriend HATES donuts (unless they are fresh from the oven Krispy Kreme donuts), so I never have a good enough excuse to buy them. Because of that, I probably only eat donuts a few times a year, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have cravings for them, well, all the time.

So a couple of weeks ago, when I stumbled upon this recipe for dead simple donuts I just could not pass it up. I had to see if they were any good! I bought a can of pizza dough the next time I went to grocery store and tried it out the next day. I have never fried anything before, so I was scared to death I was going to burn the house down, but frying is surprisingly easy. And the donuts turned out to be pretty good, not Krispy Kreme good, but I thought they tasted almost exactly like funnel cake, which is a win in my book.

So cut to this week, when I had another craving for donuts and I figured I’d use the rest of the dough I had left. But apparently that dough doesn’t keep very well, because it was discolored and moldy looking, so that was out. But I still wanted donuts! So I decided I’d just make my own. After searching around for a recipe, most of which involved yeast (which I don’t have), I found one called Super Easy Donuts. That’s the kind of title that I’m all about. After making this recipe though, I’m rethinking the title. It actually took me two tries because the first batch was basically batter, it was in no way dough, and that was after following people’s instructions to lessen the amount of milk. So the second batch I lessened the milk even more and added an ass-ton of flour and finally got it into a dough-like substance that I could roll out. From there it was smooth sailing. And they turned out pretty good, too.

They are definitely more cakey than the pizza dough versions. I made full size donuts and donuts holes and I thought this recipe really lends itself to the holes as the cakey-ness isn’t so overpowering when it’s bite-sized. Many of the commenters on the original recipe had even suggested forgoing dealing with trying to roll out the dough and just dropping them in the hot oil by spoonfuls. That would probably make them less cakey, too, since you wouldn’t need to add all the extra flour to get them to roll out.

But one thing I did like about the cakey donuts is that they kept really well. The recipe says to serve immediately, but honestly, I liked the donuts SO much better the next day than I did when they were warm. I wrapped them up in foil overnight and when I tried one the next day it was really moist and soft and a lot less dense than it had been when it was warm. I also thought the bread dough tasted a lot sweeter. I don’t think the pizza dough version would taste anywhere near as good the next day, in fact they might be pretty gross: imagine day old funnel cake.

The pizza dough version is really good if you are looking for a something fast but if you want to go with homemade (who knows what kind of chemicals are in those canned doughs) this is a good, pretty simple recipe. I’ve made further modifications to it that should help with the dough problem, based on my experience making it and all the other commenters on the original recipe. One day I’ll have to try to make the yeast version, but the word “yeast” scares me too much right now.

I did have a lot of fun adding the toppings to the donuts. I tried cinnamon-sugar, powdered sugar, melted chocolate and lemon glaze (same as my lemon cakes), you can make regular glaze by using milk instead of lemon juice.

Click here to get the recipe for Homemade Donuts – Two Ways »

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But that doesn’t mean I haven’t been cooking at all.  I’ve had a few failed recipes or at least recipes that I didn’t think were blog worthy.  I’ve made some VERY yummy things, too, but they were things that cooks much better than I have already posted about on their own blogs. So with that in mind, I will link to these wonderful dishes which you should go and make right this minute.  Also, I just wanted to mention my Food and Recipe Links on the sidebar over there.  I bookmark lots of yummy recipes from all the foodblogs I read, so I highly recommend taking a look if you are searching for something new to make.

Click here to get the recipe for Recipe Round-up »

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Have you ever seen two different recipes for the same thing and didn’t know which one to make? That happens to me all the time. Sometimes I don’t bother at all, thinking it’s too much pressure to pick the “right” recipe, but if it’s something that looks really good I might just make both and see what I like better. That is the case for these dueling snickerdoodle recipes that I found on two or my favorite sites: What Geeks Eat and Simply Recipes. The big difference between the recipes is the Shuna’s at Simply Recipes has cornstarch, while Vanessa’s has the more traditional cream of tartar. You can go read Shuna’s post about why cornstarch is special. Due to this different “secret” ingredient in the cookies, I found the outcome of both to be completely different tasting cookies.

If you are cookie dough connoisseur, the cornstarch recipe wins hands down. I LOVE cookie dough, but I could barely eat any of the other recipe because it was too flour-y. The problem comes after you bake them. The cornstarch cookies have a really nice light taste, again, not too flour-y, but you pretty much have to eat them immediately. Because once they sit there for more than about 20 or 30 minutes they turn really hard and crunchy. I overcooked mine by about 3 minutes, so that probably contributed to that, but still, I don’t think you’d want to eat these cookies the next day. So they are definitely not good if you are making ahead for a party or something. They also don’t need to be chilled the way the other recipe does. So if it’s movie night with the family or something like that, these are definitely the way to go.

The other snickerdoodle recipe (pictured above with the other cookies I talk about next) isn’t bad at all, though. (UPDATE – 1/26/11: The blog this was originally posted on doesn’t exist anymore, so I’m adding the recipe at the end of this post.) They keep much better and don’t get super hard.  I’m eating one now, hours after I baked it, and it’s still very chewy and soft, but crispy around the edges, which is the perfect cookie consistency in my opinion. (UPDATE – 8/8/08: These are even better tasting and softer the next day!) When I ate a cookie from the other recipe hours later it was a brick. I especially like how these cookies are coated completely in the cinnamon/sugar mixture instead of just having it on top like the other ones.

You’d think I had enough cookies, but no, I’ve been craving some special cookies that my dad used to make, so I whipped those up along with the snickerdoodles. I’ll be bringing most of the cookies into work tomorrow so they’re not just for me (thank god, as I would definitely eat them all). These cookies are from a very old cookbook that I stole from my dad. It a kid’s cookbook from the 1950′s so it has a bunch of easy to make recipes along with some really gross sounding stuff (Creamed Dried Beef!?!?) My dad would make these cookies with me when I was a kid and I still make them fairly regularly because I love the so much. They are similar to sugar cookies but are flavored with a little molasses and some spices like cinnamon and ginger. I love them because they have a very distinct taste. They are great warm, but are just as good later and they have that perfect, soft/chewy/crispy consistency I like so much.

Click here to get the recipe for Sugar and Spice Cookies »

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But the thing is I am trying to be a more adventurous eater, and I’ve actually been really lucky with all the new recipes I’ve tried since I started cooking.  Until now.  This week I’ve made two things that I just couldn’t finish eating.  And it’s not that I cooked them wrong, it’s that I didn’t like the taste.  Luckily, I think I can make some ingredient changes in both that would make them better.  I guess that’s part of the fun of cooking, though?  Trying new things, seeing what works and what doesn’t.  And hopefully that disappointed feeling doesn’t stay long because instead of dwelling, I’m thinking of ways to make it better next time.

The first problem dish was a risotto.  I’ve already mentioned that I’m not really a wine drinker.  I’ll drink it on special occasions, but there’s a never a time that I actually want a glass of wine.  I just don’t like the taste of wine or any alcohol really.  It’s makes me feel abnormal sometimes, but what can you do?  Anyway, I’ve used wine in other recipes and never had problems because those dishes never tasted like wine in the end, but this risotto?  It was basically wine flavored risotto.  It had parmesan and chicken broth in it, but the wine just completely overpowered everything.  If you like wine, you’d love this risotto, but both my boyfriend and I hated it.  I’m always looking for new (non-potato) side dishes, though, so I plan on making this again and substituting more chicken broth instead of the wine.  Chicken flavored rice isn’t as sophisticated, but at least it’s something I know will taste good.

The second dish was not nearly as bad as the risotto.  It was actaully edible, but the more I ate, the less I liked it.  It was meatloaf.  Meatloaf?!  I’ve always hated meatloaf, but I realized not long ago that I’ve never eaten any.  I remember my mom used to make it and I just refused to eat in on principle.  A loaf of meat?  Gross! So I came across a recipe in one of my cookbooks and decided that I should actually try meatload instead of just writing it off.  But I think the problem was the recipe because it was trying to be like “cool” meatloaf or something.  (Stupid Rachael Ray, all the recipes in this book are like that.)  It had weird stuff in it like ground almonds and scallions and bell peppers.  The gritty texture of the ground almonds is what really got to me after awhile, because it was combined with ground turkey which is much softer and mushier than ground beef, so it was like mushy and gritty at the same time, which is just not a very good combination.  But despite all that it wasn’t that bad. Brandon actually seemed to like it a lot and I can see how meatloaf could be good.  I just need to find a more traditional recipe, or at least substitute ground turkey for ground beef and maybe use bread crumbs instead of the ground almonds? Ground almonds are good in Pineapple upside down cake, not meatloaf. I did like the concept, which was these cute little individual sized loaves instead of one big menacing ball of meat, I probably wouldn’t have ever made the recipe if it hadn’t been for that.

Tonight is chicken because it’s really hard to screw up chicken.  Baby steps, right?  I can’t be expected to be adventurous all the time. Sometimes you just gotta make something because you know it’s gonna be good.

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