Bake or Break

Cream Cheese Chocolate Chip Cookies

I don’t deal well with failure. Quinn likes to say that I would have made a terrible scientist. I like things to work well the first time.

When working on a recipe, sometimes you have to accept failure, learn from it, and try to make changes to make it work. Then there are the other times. The times when everything goes just as it should and the outcome is just as you’d hoped. This is one of those times.

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Sand Tarts

With Mother’s Day approaching, I want to share one of my favorite recipes I used to bake with my mother and let you get to know her a little bit. For more Mother’s Day baking ideas, click here.

My mother was not what most would consider an exceptional baker. While we did often have baked goods in the kitchen, they were never anything elaborate. She took the “less is more” mentality and applied it to baking.

Slice and bake was not uncommon. Shortcut ingredients were frequently used. Our cakes were almost always made from a mix and in a 9”x13” pan. Topped with store-bought frosting, of course. I never had any reason to question that, because to me they were as good as anything I’d ever had. In fact, I would still maintain that they were that good.

She did have a few “from scratch” recipes stuffed in her recipe box. Still, those were simple recipes. Quick and easy with a short list of ingredients seemed to be the basic requirements for making it into her recipe collection.

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Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies

As I stared at the bag of mini peanut butter cups on my counter, my brain was churning with different ideas for what I could bake with them. Having previously used them in cheesecakes, brownies, and blondies, I ruled those out in favor of something different. After a good bit of consideration, I decided to go with this cookie recipe from the source of those peanut butter cups, King Arthur Flour.

Let me tell you, that was a great decision. These aren’t just chocolate cookies with peanut butter cups. No, they’re chocolate-peanut butter cookies with peanut butter cups. For my fellow fans of that combination, this is the time to get excited. And, to start gathering ingredients. You’re gonna want to make these.

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Brown Sugar Crinkles

No one should be surprised to read that I love baking. But, more specifically, I love baking cookies. The uniformity of them appeals greatly to my inner organizer. It makes me endlessly happy to see a few dozen perfectly-sized cookies cooling side by side on my kitchen counter.

These particular cookies manage to be simple and interesting at the same time. While there aren’t many ingredients, the ones present really take center stage. In the end, you have a brown sugar laden treat packed with toasted pecans and covered in sweet confectioners’ sugar.

Continue reading and find out how to enter to win a fabulous baking essentials package from King Arthur Flour.

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Hummingbird Bundt Cake

Hummingbird Cake is one of my favorite cakes. I don’t make it often because it’s just too dangerous to have around. There’s something magical about that combination of bananas, pineapple, cinnamon, and cream cheese that is hard to resist.

In a recent issue of Southern Living, this slight twist on the traditional Hummingbird caught my eye. I immediately saved the recipe, putting it near the top of my to-bake list.

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Pecan Layer Cake with Banana Icing

I have a green metal box full of my grandmother’s hand-written recipes. When I need some baking inspiration, I love to look through it and see what jumps out at me.

Recently, I came across one of her recipes for a banana icing. No cake, just the icing. As I started thinking of what kind of cake would go well with the icing, my mind kept returning to the idea of a pecan cake.

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