Homemade Cinnamon Rolls

Here's the last of my new recipes from the holidays. I had such a fun time trying out new things! I had never made homemade cinnamon rolls before. I enjoy stuff like this!

I found the recipe here. They're called Maple Pecan Cinnamon Rolls. I just recently came across Bakingdom so I don't know a lot about it, but it sure does seem like it's full of delicious recipes! This is probably just the first of many recipes I'll try from there!

Umm, have I ever mentioned I'm lazy? I am. Point is, I'm not going to type out the whole recipe. It's kinda long. But it's all ok because I've put the link to the recipe, so no big deal, right? Good. Now, pictures:
(Ha, speaking of lazy, I didn't get any "in the process" pictures. But it wasn't because I was lazy. It was because I was trying to hurry)

 I didn't use nuts. I didn't have any. But they're still good!

 Ok, obviously I have some improving to do, but they baked up fine :)

 Here are more pictures by my brother.

 My mom and I went for a run while they baked. 

Fortunately my brother took pictures before they dug in.

 This is what we came back to. At least they saved us some!

yum yum yum

They aren't quite like traditional cinnamon rolls because they are maple cinnamon rolls. Not that there is anything wrong with maple. But I don't think I'd ever tried a cinnamon roll with syrup in it. You could definitely taste the syrup and brown sugar more than the cinnamon. Who knows, that could've been my fault. I did accidentally put a few extra tablespoons of butter in the icing because I looked at the wrong spot on the recipe. hehe! Well they couldn't have been that bad. They didn't last long. 

They were fun to make!

Sticky Bun Breakfast Ring

I've gotten sucked into the Pinterest thing. I don't regret it really. It's pretty cool. Took me a while to get the hang of it, but it's so cool what you can find there! Such as an incredibly delicious, easy as can be, breakfast recipe!! yum!

I was able to throw this together Thanksgiving morning. So delicious.

This is where I got the recipe (via Pinterest) All Things Delicious. 

As you will see when you go to the link above, here's what you need:

• 2 small tubes of refrigerated buttermilk biscuits or 1 tube of Pillsbury Grands buttermilk biscuits
• 3 tbsp butter, melted
• 1/2 cup syrup
• 1/3 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 cup chopped pecans, optional
• 1/4 cup chopped almonds, optional

Spray your bundt pan.

Mix the butter and syrup in one bowl.

Mix the sugar, cinnamon, and nuts in another.

(I didn't use nuts)

Pour about half of the syrup mixture evenly on the bottom of the pan.

Sprinkle about half of the sugar mixture evenly on top of the syrup mixture.

Place the biscuits in a circle around the bundt pan.

(I used Grands)

Sprinkle the rest of the sugar mixture and pour the rest of the syrup mixture on top of the biscuits.

Bake for 20 minutes at 375 degrees or until golden brown.

(I baked for 18 minutes... yummmmm)

 Once done, let sit for a minute, then flip out of the pan.

It's so easy, there is no reason for you to not try this. Just writing this I want to go make another....

Thanksgiving Dinner

My husband and I have been married just shy of 3 years. In that time, I have learned that holidays without family aren't very exciting. I wanted our first Thanksgiving/Christmas as a married couple to be just the 2 of us. It ends up being like any other day of the year; which isn't a bad thing, but it's so nice having family around for holidays! So my mom, dad, and brother came to visit and we had a real Thanksgiving dinner.

 Green Bean Casserole. Turns out that's all the onion topping I had, haha.

 Cinnamon Apples (First time to make)

 Sweet Tea

 Fried Okra (hubs did that)

The okra didn't even make it to the table. We ate it all first :)

Deep Fried Turkey

My husband did this on his own for the first time this year.

Nothing burned down!! :)

Deep Fried Turkey is delicious!!

Sweet Potato Casserole (First time recipe)

 Homemade Cornbread (first time also)

yum yum

Everything actually turned out pretty well! I'm especially happy with the sweet potatoes and cornbread.

By the way, my brother is (again) the one who took the awesome pictures. Man, I wish he was around more!

Of course, there's dessert. I got a Southern Living magazine and it had a big article about 3 cakes. I thought one of those would be perfect! I decided on Layered Peppermint Cheesecake.

 Pictures from the magazine

Here's the recipe. You can read that right?

 Mixing the cream cheese and sugar

Adding the eggs...

All of the peppermints

Crushing the peppermints

Preparing the pans for the cheesecake

Putting the cheesecake pan in a larger pan, filled with water

Cheesecake cooling

Sorry I didn't take pictures of the icing or cake. The cake is just a basic white cake. No big thing. But, following the recipe from the magazine, I did not get three layers out of it. I barely got 2. Also, I would bake the cake before making the cheesecake, unless you have five 8" cake pans. The cheesecakes stay in the pans for around 6 hours. Fortunately I had 2 other 8" pans to use for the cakes. 

 There's my bro taking the good pictures.

 The finished product. Looks just like the magazine, right? ha

Here are some good pictures:

I didn't love the cake... it got eaten, but I really wanted some chocolate pie once I finally got to try the cake. Maybe it's that I don't feel like peppermint and cheesecake should go together (now that I've tried it). Or the fact that it was my first time to ever make cheesecake and I might need more practice. Or that I don't think I quite got the icing just right or that I don't like white chocolate. Ha, who knows. But I tried it.

It was a fantastic Thanksgiving and I can't wait for Christmas! I'll be headed to my hometown and look forward to seeing lots of family and friends! 

Baby Shower Cookies

I hope everyone had a fantastic Thanksgiving! I did! My husband and I managed to get Friday off so we had a long weekend and my mom, dad, and brother came to visit! I also got to make several new recipes :)

First off, I made some cookies almost a week ago, but could not share them yet. They were for my cousin's baby shower... 400 miles away. I made them early so I could ship them off and had to wait for after the shower to post them. They were a surprise for my cousin and family.

I tried a new recipe from Sweet Sugarbelle. Loved it!! I like the other recipe I have, but (like most sugar recipes) you have to chill the dough overnight. You don't have to with this one! And the last time I did my recipe, I had some trouble with it (probably my fault, not the cookie dough's). This new recipe worked so well!!

 Aren't they pretty?? I love making baby shower cookies. And just making cookies... Anyway, I tried this new royal icing mix I got at a cake supply store back in April. It's about time I used it. It worked very well but I don't have direct access to it so making it from scratch works just as well.

Ready for pictures? I took tons. Not surprised? You shouldn't be because I always take alot :)

Here's the invitation. I used colors from this.

 Here are some of my favorite

 baby carriages

 onesies

Gotta have some baby bottles

 All wrapped with matching ribbon :)

That was the easy part. Then I went to FedEx to ship them. Whew. I was there an hour and in that time just about every customer that came in ended up not shipping there package because it was so expensive. One guy's package cost over $300! To ship the cookies overnight would've been over $100. (I didn't choose that one, haha) And I had planned on packing the box myself, but the fedex guy said he could do it better (pretty much verbatim. he said that). Whatever, I wanted them to show up in one piece. So many lessons learned. No big deal. I had to wait 4 days to find out if they successfully made it, but they did and it all turned out great!! The next best thing would actually get to attend the shower! Maybe one day I'll make it to someone's...