Adorable teddy bear toast from Minieco: buttered toast + cinnamon sugar + banana slices and raisins!
Auntie Anne’s At-Home Baking Kit…they exist! My mom gave me one for Christmas, and I made them up about a month ago. The kit included salt for the original pretzels and cinnamon sugar. They were surprisingly not as much of a pain to make as I was anticipating. Relatively easy, I suppose. They texture was exactly like Auntie Anne’s, if not even softer and fluffier! We gobbled them up so fast it was almost nauseating, but I would have gladly made up another batch the next day (okay, maybe two days later) if I had another kit.
I bought two of their pretzels the other day, and immediately thought that the homemade ones were better, but that might have been because the bought ones weren’t fresh.
VICTORY IS MINE! Oh chai tea, how I love you…
I’m a fan of Oregan Chai Tea Concentrate, but my homemade attempts over the last few years have been less than satisfactory, much less. Some recipes were too peppery, some had no taste, and some were just…bleh.
This winning recipe makes my tongue so happy. It’s nice and strong and has a nice orange taste to it from the orange zest! If I had Oregan Chai again it would probably taste really weak now, especially since I double up on some of the spices. I’ve been drinking this tea almost every morning since I first made it a month ago, so I also have the recipe memorized!
Spiced Chai Concentrate
My changes:
- 3 sticks cinnamon instead of one
- Ground ginger (not sure that I like the fresh)
- 2 cardamom pods
- A handful of anise seeds
- Double the cloves
- 2 peppercorns
And black tea is the way to go, not green.
It tasted great with (cooled) melted truffles on my graham crackers.
Because cake is obviously a perfect choice for breakfast, I present to you…Breakfast Cake, or the Cake Formerly Known as Coffee Cake. I’ve been eating this cake since I was a mere speck in the womb (maybe?) and later my mom started calling it breakfast cake to avoid disgust from my sister and I after saying “cake” right after the word “coffee”.
The only thing you really need to know about this cake is that it’s quick, easy, and you’re going to eat a whole lot of it in one sitting. Bake away, friends:
Breakfast Cake
2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter
1 1/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup applesauce
2 eggs
1 cup sour cream
1 teaspoon vanilla
Topping
1 1/2 cup walnuts, chopped (optional)
3/4 cup sugar
1 tablespoon cinnamon
1. Combine dry ingredients in bowl, set aside. Prepare topping in separate bowl, set aside. Grease a 9 x 13” pan and preheat oven to 350˚F.
2. Cream butter & sugar, add applesauce. Beat in eggs, sour cream & vanilla. Add dry.
3. Pour half of the batter into the pan and sprinkle with half of the topping. Pour on the rest of the batter, spread out, and sprinkle with the remaining topping.
4. Bake until toothpick comes out clean, about 30-35 minutes. (Original recipe says 35-40, but that’s too long in my oven.)
I prefer it without the walnuts in the topping, but as you can see, I sprinkled on some pecans after it was baked. I still like it better without any nuts.
Apple pancakes! They’re easy and super delicious:
- Make pancake batter, set aside.
- Chop up apples in small pieces.
- Mix up a spoonful of maple syrup with a bit of cinnamon (use more syrup as needed…it’s expensive. Unless you have the imitation stuff.)
- Stir apple pieces into maple syrup, just until coated. We want flavor, not excess syrup.
- Mix apples into batter. You want a lot of apple pieces, so keep going.
- Cook pancakes!
After trying so many unsatisfactory sticky bun and cinnamon bun recipes over the years, I’ve found one that is not only excellent, but better than bakery sticky buns! I’ve made them twice already (they’re made using a bread machine, which certainly helps…cinnamon buns usually take way too long to make).
Cinnamon Sticky Buns
Chai Spiced Blondies with pecans!
These were pretty good, though a bit more cinnamon wouldn’t hurt! The recipe calls for cinnamon chips but I used pecans instead (because I didn’t have the chips and they would probably make the blondies too sweet anyway).
Cinnamon buns! I was craving some, but all of the previous recipes I’ve tried turned out too gooey (the filling was too liquidy and made the bread part mushy). I came across a recipe which had very little butter in the filling (the previous culprit). They also don’t have yeast in them which means it doesn’t take practically the whole day to make them! They tasted fine without it (yeast gives bread flavor) except for the outer layer which wasn’t encased in cinnamon, and also were not as soft because of the lack of yeast. But for super quick and not too gooey buns, they’re pretty good, and I’d definitely make them again. Recipe
I was craving a graham cracker crust and decided to make experimental mini ice cream cakes. I made three basic flavors, a vanilla, a chocolate, and two strawberries. The other three were made my mixing other things into vanilla or chocolate ice cream. From top left to right: cinnamon honey, banana topped with a layer of peanut butter (also mixed into vanilla ice cream), and peanut butter chocolate.
My favorites? Probably the cinnamon honey and peanut butter chocolate!
Cinnamon raisin pancakes with honey butter. I had these at a diner and tried to copy them, and I daresay mine were better! I tried out some leftover honey butter on toast and sprinkled it with cinnamon sugar. It was excellent.
You can’t tell in the picture, so I thought I’d point out that these pancakes are pretty tiny. And cute.
Oldie picture! This is Amish Baked Oatmeal, though I added a few things to the original recipe which took the Amish (aka ‘plain’) right out of the recipe! It would have had zero flavor had I not added cinnamon, raisins, and apple slices.
Recipe (my version).
