Maple Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting

To celebrate my officemate's birthday, and her love of my baked goodness, I made these little beauties. Maple cake is how syrup should be done. Not overly sweet, it is a perfect backdrop for my favorite thing ever - cream cheese frosting.

Magic

A little of this, a little of that....and voila, magic.

*again, I know this picture is bad news. I promise to get a real camera soon. xoxo sprinkles

VDay Cupcakes (booze included)

To celebrate vday, frosting, and dinner with my family, I decided to make yummy heart-shaped cupcakes this past weekend. To celebrate vday, drinking, and dinner with my family, I made them with Guinness. Chocolate and Guinness are soul mates. (NOTE: I am aware that these pictures are horrible. Sorry. I couldn't manage a good shot, and really just wanted to eat a cupcake....so I did.)

Funfetti!

I firmly believe that everyone should have a homemade cake (or cupcake!) to celebrate a birthday. This holds true starting in kindergarten when moms bake late night treats for entire classrooms, and should continue through grown up responsibilities. These funfetti cupcakes were made in honor of my boss's birthday and to celebrate my love of sprinkles!

Cute Blond(ies)

So I'm eating my last little blondie as I write...yum. This was a special order for the recent Mexicana Monday extravaganza - so much fun! The recipe I used is amazingly easy - and you can experiment with different additions as the mood strikes. I highly recommend using almond extract and white chocolate chips...holy hell yeah.

Mini Oreo Cheesecakes

I decided on peanut butter Oreos after an agonizing 15 minutes in the cookie aisle. It was one of the best decisions I have ever made. These are: 1) super duper easy, 2) so amazingly good I am actually proud of myself, and 3) gone.

Cornflake Macaroons

I know, I know. Coconut and cornflakes? Really? Yes, really. These macaroons are extremely easy and have a satisfyingly sweet crunch.

Sugar! (oh, and lavender bread...)

So the handsome lavender holder above is my new kitten Sugar....he's the sweetest thing around. Sugar spends his days jumping on every surface in my apartment, carrying around a green fuzzy mouse, and trying to nurse my 3 year old male cat. Sugar is cute, but oh so dumb.

Anyway, my dried lavender was making eyes at me the other night, so I decided to make a little lavender bread for my co-workers. I found a super easy recipe, and followed it pretty much word for word. You really can't mess up a basic tea bread. It was a little on the dry side, but a thin layer of yogurt butter fixed it up nicely.

Cookie Swap!

For the annual cookie swap at work, I really wanted to make gingerbread cookies. I found a yummy butterscotch gingerbread recipe and gave it a whirl.The flavors worked really well together and put me in the christmas spirit big time. My cookies were stars - both in shape and in the swap. :)

Orange Cranberry Cookies

This is my new favorite cookie recipe...and it doesn't even call for chocolate! It is super easy and will forever remind me of the first snow of 2009 (shout out v!). I meant to add walnuts to the yummy sweetness of the fruit, but completely forgot. I plan on making these over and over again so it'll happen. Orange cranberry cookies might turn out to be a common holiday gift from me to you (and you, and you, and you).

Sweet Potato Pie

For my second of three Thanksgiving dinners, I wanted to make a yummy, familiar pie. I had a bunch of sweet potatoes that needed to be used ASAP, so my fate was sealed. I looked at a few recipes and mixed and matched the slight variations of spices. I’ve never made a sweet potato pie and I have to say it was delicious. What made this pie even better, though, was sharing it with my fantastic family. They rock my world and remind me what I’m really thankful for this holiday season.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Sandwiches

What's better than eating a yum cookie? Eating two yum cookies. What's better than that? Eating two yum cookies stuck together with chocolate. This is the best invention ever. Enough said.

Lavender Birthday Cookies

I recently celebrated my birthday and received a gift of dried lavender from one of my lovely ladies. I’ve wanted to get my hands on this beautifully delicious flower for a while now and spent hours searching for my first lavender recipe. I decided on a basic sugar cookie recipe that called for lemon juice – yum. Several things were learned during this process: 1) baking with lavender makes your apartment smell like heaven (like, an expansive field of wildflowers heaven with weeping willows and puppies), 2) you don’t need a rolling pin to make sugar cookies, and 3) I LOVE LAVENDER.

Pie!

This past weekend I had a fun fall day full of apple picking and farm animal ogling with friends at Honey Pot Hill Orchards in Stow. While there were no cows or sheep, we still had a great day and came home with a ton of apples. I had way more apples that one human should have in a 150 sq. ft. apartment, so I decided to make a pie for our weekly dinner date. I used a basic crust recipe and improvised for the filling. One of my goals this season is to perfect my crust making skills… not wholly accomplished in this instance, but I think I’m close. I wasn’t too adventurous with this one. I want to experiment by using butter in addition to shortening in the crust, adding a bit of sugar, crystallizing the top of the pie, taking over the world, etc.

Sprinkles Does Florida

Even on a family vacation in Florida I cannot give up baking. Luckily, it was my kick-ass sister-in-law’s birthday while we were there so I had a valid excuse to turn on the oven. I told her to pick the cake and I would bake it – she sent me a recipe that (gasp!) called for a box of cake mix. I was hesitant, but decided birthday girls should get whatever they want. (HINT – my birthday is next weekend.) The recipe included eggnog, and I could not for the life of me find any. So I improvised – I am not proud, but it worked and was completely yum. I made a brown butter frosting to round out the flavors.

Pumpkin & Chocolate Chip Whoopie Pies

As a baker I get over the top excited with the change of seasons…especially fall. So when v suggested a night of pumpkin cooking, I was a happy girl. To accompany her delicious pumpkin enchiladas (also known as the pumpkin naco), I decided to make pumpkin chocolate chip whoopie pies. Making these adorable little treats was a blast – for both me and Lucy (my shiny, pretty standing mixer). Any time I open a can of pumpkin (One Pie brand - represent) I am immediately in a fantastic mood. The combination of the cream cheese, chocolate chips and pumpkin in this recipe is perfection. I will repeat: perfection. WARNING: Do not make these unless you have plans to share them immediately. Being home alone with the finished product can lead to consuming all of these cuties in one sitting.