Gingerbread Cookies

I meant to post this like a week ago, but better late than never. I don't regret it either. I enjoyed a fantastic week-long stay with my family. We got to visit my family, my husband's family (including his grandfather that I hadn't seen in 3 years), and old friends.

For this visit, I made (for the first time) gingerbread cookies for my mom. She really likes gingerbread cookies so it was a no-brainer. Even better, Bakerella recently posted a recipe! Her decorations were adorable!! I would've loved to do that but (1) I don't have her large selection of sprinkles and (2) I didn't have that kind of time. I was surprised I managed to get them decorated. "Fortunately," I couldn't sleep the night before we left, so I stayed up and decorated them.

I just got these sprinkles and since I didn't have the time to color icing and swap back and forth, I piped in white and then sprinkled with sprinkles! I think they were perfect for snowflakes.  

I had to make gingerbread men/women! C'mon, it's gingerbread! I should've thought ahead and made one for each member of my family.

I really liked this recipe. It was really easy to work with.

Appealing???

 Ready to bake

Turned out quite nicely. The only challenge with baking gingerbread cookies is that it's hard to tell when they're done. I wanted them soft. I don't like crunchy gingerbread. I managed to not burn any and most were soft! Pretty successful for the first time.

So it's 2012... goodness things in 2012 seemed so far away. Now everything is going to be here before we know it!! Such as the annual cake competition in February! I've done it the past 2 years. I really look forward to it. I've got to figure out what kind of cake I'm going to do. So if you guys could give me some ideas, that'd be fantastic!! The theme is "Grandma's Attic." I need to come up with an idea soon. Any suggestions?? What's in your Grandma's attic?? There are raccoons in my grandma's attic! But I'll keep thinking... :)

Houndstooth & Zebra

Whew!! There is so much going on!! And there are a few things I've wanted to share but haven't really had the time. I'll try to at least mention them here....

Here are two cakes I did this week. Two cakes on a Wednesday... how random. It's funny how it works out that way. I don't have any cakes for a while and then 2 people ask me for one mid-week. Whatever. I can work with that.

First was for a young girl who is, apparently and not surprisingly, an Alabama fan. Last year I got some houndstooth edible image to do a groom's cake for a friend of mine.

I had a lot left over and had the chance to do several Alabama cakes last year. Here are a couple.

Anyway, this year I didn't get asked to do any Alabama cakes (hopefully that's not a bad sign). But I had just a few strips of the edible images left. Just enough for this cake!

I should've thrown some more color in there. And I think I got the red/maroon color a little wrong. Looks more like MSU colors. Oops. And the piping wasn't supposed to be that dark either. If I'd gotten it the redish color, it wouldn't been prettier. But they seemed to like it so that's good! I do like how I put the A on the front. Something I hadn't done before!

The second was for a girl turning 18. 

This is the second zebra cake I've done recently, and I really like how they turn out :) It might be a common look, but maybe because it looks good! I like it :) This is a 12" (which means large!) It's a pretty big cake. 

Alright so really quickly, here are some recipes I've tried recently and I recommend:

• Chubby Hubby Bars - recipe from Cookies and Cups. She has fantastic recipes!! Try this out!
• Chocolate Chip Cookies - from Bakerella. I used Reeses' Pieces instead of chocolate chips. Yum.
• well, there's another, but it'll be on another post... so come back!! :)

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!