Your Advent ~ Calendar – Day 23

Hello my lovely friends 😍

Behind today’s door I have a delicious surprise waiting for you!

Chocolate Crinkle Cookies 😋 I think Santa will be very happy tonight!

You can find the recipe for these yummy treats here .

A few tips:

– If you use a Standmixer, use the dough hook for the last step (mixing the wet and dry ingredients). Just trust me on this 😉

– The dough gets very sticky after a few minutes out of the fridge. So you have to work fast or hire a few helpers. I didn’t do neither, so I had to scrape dough from my hands with a knife 😅

– I bakes the cookies for about 13 minutes. The texture is more on the crunchy side…but not quite. I hope that makes sense 🙃

– I rolled them in granulated sugar, since I didn’t have powdered sugar…and didn’t want to join the crowds at the grocery store today 😏 But the author mentions that her Mom rolls them in granulated sugar. And what’s good enough for Mom, is good enough for me. 😊

Thank you for stopping by and I hope that you’ll be back for the opening of the last door! 🎄

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Your Advent~Calendar – Day 9 🎅🏼

Hello my lovely friends 😍

No, we didn’t travel back in time 🙃 I’m just super-late in opening the doors on our calendar. I was a bit under the weather the last few days. Nothing serious, just some food-related stomach issues 🤢

But now I’m all better, and ready to peek behind Door #9 😊

Oh, look…a delicious and easy dessert idea* 👩🏻‍🍳

That’s definitely something that will go into my recipe book 😊

Thanks for stopping by! I hope you come back for the opening of the remaining doors 🥰

*I have no affiliation with Entenmann’s

Your Advent ~ Calendar – Day 6 🎅🏼

Hello my lovely friends 😍

Thanks for stopping by to open Door #6 😊 Ready? Okay, here we go. Push…

It’s a delicious bread recipe 😃

This bread is so easy to bake, yet so amazing that I make sure I never run out!

You only need 4 ingredients (flour, yeast, salt and water).

Well, and patience 😉 You do need patience. After you mix everything together, the dough needs to rest for 18 – 24 hours. So you do need to plan ahead.

For the recipe please click here (Recipe will open in a new window)

And I sift the flour. The recipe doesn’t call for sifting, but I do it anyway (it won’t affect the end result). I do that for everything. Ever since I found some brown, wiggley things in my (fresh!!!) bag of flour! 🙈 Ewwwww!

I hope you try this recipe, and enjoy your fresh loaf of bread 😊 Don’t forget to let me know!

Happy baking! 🤓

The Recipe Folder: No-Knead Bread

Hello my lovely friends 💕

I love European bread! 😍The crunchy outside – not the slightly darker, ‘same-taste-as-the-bread’ outside, that the sandwich bread makers like to call “crust” 😅 No, the real crust, where bits of it fly everywhere when you cut into it. And the soft, non sticky(!!!) crumb! With some airholes, and a taste that makes you swoon! 😊

And now, after all these years here in the States, I found a recipe that not only promises all that, but also delivers. 😃

And all you need is 4 simple ingredients. We all have them at home…and they’re actually pronounceable 😉

Just gather ✨Flour ✨Yeast ✨Water ✨Salt…that really is it!

For the recipe please visit Olga in the Kitchen 👩🏻‍🍳

A little tip from me – for the last 20 minutes (after you take the lid off), place an oven safe dish with ice cubes on a lower rack. The steam will make the crust extra crunchy.

And this is what you can look forward to…

Please let me know how much you enjoyed making and eating this wonderful bread. 😊

Happy baking! 💕

Your Advent Calendar 🎄 Day 13

Hello my lovely friends 💕

Today’s Door #13….

…holds a delicious secret! 🤩

A recipe from my Cookie ~ Kitchen

Gingerbread Cutouts 

In the spirit of creating new traditions, hubby and I teamed up in the kitchen to bake some Gingerbread cookies. 😊

If you wanna bake along, here’s what you need, and need to do…

1/2 c Sugar
1/2 c Molasses
2 tsp. ground Ginger
1-1/2 tsp. ground Cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ground Cloves
1/2 tsp. ground Nutmeg
1/4 tsp. ground Pepper
2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 c (1 stick) Butter, cut into pieces
1 large Egg, beaten
3-1/2 c all-purpose Flour
Frosting

1. In 3-quart saucepan, heat sugar, molasses, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and pepper to boiling over medium heat, stirring occasionally. Remove saucepan from heat; stir in baking soda (mixture will foam in the pan). Stir in butter until melted. With fork, stir in egg, the flour.

2.  On lightly floured surface, knead dough until thoroughly mixed. Divide dough in half; wrap half of dough and set aside.

3. Preheat oven to 325°F. With floured rolling pin, roll half of dough slightly thinner than 1/4″.

Hubby hard at work 😅

 

4. With floured 3 to 4 inch cookie cuters, cut dough into as many cookies as possible; reserve trimmings.

The fun continues 😉

 

5. Place cookies, 1/2″ apart, on ungreased large cookie sheet. Bake cookies until edges begin to brown, about 12 minutes. Transfer cookies to wire racks to cool. Repeat with remaining dough and reserved trimmings.

6. When cookies are cool, decorate cookies as desired (we used vanilla frosting, colored with food dye).
Allow frosting to dry completely, about 1 hour. Store in tightly covered container up to 2 weeks.
Makes about 3 dozen cookies.

While ours don’t look very professional 🙈 they are definitely very colorful, and delicious 😁

 

Now go, and strap on that apron. Let me know how it went! 🤩

I wish you a wonderful, fabulous, sparkly Holiday season 💕🎄🎅🏼

 

Fantastic Bake – Along: Scones

Hello my lovely friends 💕

Laaaast weekend was the ‘Fantastic Bake Along’ – and I missed it. 😕

It’s so terribly hot and humid here that the stove/oven is merely decoration right now.

We’re eating take out or sandwiches, the Birthday cake was store bought, and the delicious Maple Scones have to wait till later.

But…just because I didn’t bake them shouldn’t mean that you can’t! 😁

Don’t they look mouth-watering?

All you have to do is hop over to Tracy’s amazing blog It’s A T-Sweets Day

There you find more scrumptious pictures, the link to the recipe, and a list of bakers that didn’t let the heat bother them and made these fabulous treats nonetheless. 😊

I hope you enjoy this deliciousness! I’m looking forward to hearing about your results!

Happy Baking! 💕

The Fantastic ~ Bake ~ Along

Hello my lovely friends 💕

Last week/weekend it was time for our monthly fun and delicious Bake-Along. 😃

So here’s the post that falls in the category ‘She also ran baked’ 🏆

I have been reading a lot of the wonderful baking posts…so, yes, I do believe I’m the last one!

The lovely Tracy, quilter, baker, author of It’s a T-Sweets Day hosted another Bake-Along.

This month’s star-baker was Tami over at Tanglewood Knots 😊Tami baked her devine looking ‘Chocolate covered Peppermint Patties’, and asked everyone for their favorite Chocolate recipe.

Well…Hello….Say ‘Chocolate’ and I’m there! 😜
Since most of you have already seen/baked my favorite chocolate recipe (Chili/Chocolate Bread ) I decided to follow Tracy’s Brownie delight!

Now, honestly, I had sworn to never make Brownies from scratch again. I was convinced that the only good Brownie is the one out of a box. But Tracy was very convincing, so I gave this one more try.
What can I say? By golly she is right! 😎Never again will I bake brownies using a mix!
These devilish things are sooooooo good! I can’t even begin to describe it!

Don’t believe me? Here’s the recipe…go ahead! Try it!

Ingredients:

• • 1c salted butter –not margarine

• • 5 Tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder

• • 2c sugar

• • 3 eggs

• • 2 tsp vanilla

• • 1 1/2c flour

• • *optional 1c chopped nuts

Combine butter, sugar, cocoa, and eggs.  Mix until smooth. Add flour, vanilla, and nuts.  The batter will be thick and light brown.   Spoon into a greased 8×8 pan . They will be thick. Cook on the middle rack of  a 350* oven for 40-45 min.  Start checking at 35 min.  They are done when a knife comes out clean but just barely clean.  Do not over cook.
I baked them for 42 minutes (convection oven).

They’re ready for the oven….

After 20 minutes the house filled with a wonderful chocolate-y fragrance. I could hardly wait to pull them out of the oven. After checking a few times, the knife finally came out (almost) clean.

Hubby and I nibbled on them all evening…until we agreed that we have to move them out of sight. Good thing we did or there wouldn’t have been enough left for a nice picture! 😁

If you’re looking for more chocolate goodness, please check out what all the other bakers posted for ya

Lucia @ Crochet, Knit, and more

AJ @ A Petite Slice of Life

Marcia @ Una Regiaen Bicicleta

Rebecca @ Twinklehook

Abbey @ Three Cats and a Girl

Susan @ Granny Smith’s Quilting

Kathy @ Sewing etc.

Brenna @ Crochet539

Emma @ Emma’s Crafts Design

Kate @ Life, Tea, and everything

I hope I can add your name to this list next month! Happy baking!

Thanks for stopping by! I hope you will do so often!

Until then 

Fantastic ~ Bake ~ Along – Apples!

Hello my lovely friends  💕 It’s that time again…Time for the ‘Fantastic Bake Along’ hosted by our lovely friend Tracy over at It’s a T-Sweets Day Every month Tracy inspires a long list of friends to do some baking. Usually we all bake one thing….but this month she just gave us a theme: Apples   😃  ~ inspired by Connie’s @ Connie’s Creations Applesauce Cake. I decided to follow Connie’s recipe for the Applesauce cake…and I strongly advise you to do the same. That cake is absolutely fabulous! We had some for dessert last night, and right after hubby was already planning the size of the slice for breakfast! 😂

Doesn’t it look amazing?

Oh…btw…I didn’t put icing on…I was a little too generous with the flour when I prepared the pan. 😝

Throughout the weekend I saw a lot of mouthwatering Apple Recipes…Tracy’s Award winning Apple Pie, Apple Waffles, Apple Scones, Apple/Prosciutto/Parmesan Wraps…just to name a few.

Take a look…

Brenna’s Apple/Proscuitto/Parmesan Wraps Kathy’s Apple Waffles Kate’s Apple Scones AJ’s Gluten- and Dairy Free Applesauce Cake Abbey’s Apple Coffee Cake *There are more wonderful bakers – but thanks to the Shenanigans of either WordPress or my Laptop – or maybe it’s a combined effort –  the links show up as weird letter combos and hieroglyphs. Pfft…
y and Brenna have the full list posted if you wanna check out and enjoy the whole Apple deliciousness of this month.

Everything looks so delicious that I will definitely bake my way down the list. Meanwhile, this cake will definitely be a staple in this house, and once you make it (just follow the ‘Applesauce Cake’ link up there  ⬆️ ) you will feel the same. I promise!

Now I’m off to the kitchen…got some more baking to do. See – it’s Lorelai’s Birthday – and every year I spoil  her with her favorite peanutbuttery Doggy-licious cookies😍

Happy Birthday, Lorelai!

She keeps looking at me – I think she knows what’s coming! 😁

Thank you for stopping by today! 💕

I wish all of my US friends a happy, joyful, peaceful Thanksgiving Celebration! 😍

Sending Smiles 🙂 Hugs  🤗 and Love 💜 your way! 😘

Fantastic Bake-Along – Chili/Chocolate Bread 😍

Hello my lovely friends 💕

It’s that time of the month again 😁 Time for our ‘Fantastic Bake-Along’

The lovely Tracy, host of the baking weekends and the fabulous quilter/writer of the awesome It’s a T-Sweets Day blog, picked one of my bread recipes to be the 🌟Star🌟 of this month’s event. 😊
If you missed my post on Tuesday…you can find it and the recipe here 😊

Tracy already posted her baking result…and even her recipe for hand-mixing/oven baking 😍Thank you for that, Tracy! 🤗

I just saw that Emma from Emma Crafts Design is already done baking 😊 and it looks like she loves it! 😍

Hold on….Lucia is done too 😃 You have to see what her little helper did when Mom wasn’t watching 😅

If you like to join the fun next month….just visit Tracy’s blog, and let her know. Go ahead – you know you want to. 😁

Let me know if you baked/liked this bread  🙂 

I’ll be back later with the ‘Weekend Chuckle’ 🙃

Until then 💕