Life, Family, and Home - Simplified & Sweetened
As Christmas time draws near, we’ll all be making our goodies to carry over the river and through the woods. I always like to have a few ideas that can be thrown together at the last minute. Here’s an extra simple one: Chocolate Dipped Oreos! And if you’ve got a little extra time on your hands, this is a great one to do with kids. [Read more…]
I’m excited to present another fun Christmas Treats guest post today! This one is from my sweet friend Kassi from Truly Lovely, and she is sharing a yummy holiday take on a campfire favorite: S’mores Bark! [Read more…]
No matter what time of year it is, I LOVE chocolate chip cookie dough! The only thing that could possibly be better is an EGGLESS version so you can eat as much as you want! Now take this eggless version, roll them in to balls, and dip them in chocolate, and what you have got? Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Truffles that will be the talk of any Christmas party! [Read more…]
This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Truvia® Natural Sweetener for SocialSpark. All opinions are 100% mine.
As you get ready to bake this holiday season, you may be wishing there was an alternative to the sugary snacks you usually make. Perhaps you’d like an alternative for yourself or maybe for someone in your family who is on a diet. Or perhaps someone in your family is diabetic and you’d like to create some treats that are a little more diabetic friendly for them. If you fall in to any of these categories, consider trying Truvia® Baking Blend in your holiday baking!
Truvia® Baking Blend is a blend of Truvia® natural sweetener and sugar. Unlike other products, Truvia® has a a sugar-like taste and texture, but it has 75% fewer calories and twice the amount of sweetness than sugar.
And unlike other sweeteners, you can use Truvia® Baking Blend in your cookies, pies, and cakes, and they will bake and brown like recipes that are made with sugar and have the sugar-like texture and moistness you are looking for.
Today I’m sharing a holiday recipe that has been recreated using Truvia® Baking Blend: Sugar Cookies!
Recipe for Sugar Cookies with Truvía®
Ingredients
1 cup unsalted butter
1 cup Truvía® Baking Blend
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 Tbsp skim milk
4 cups all-purpose flour
1⁄2 tsp baking soda
1⁄2 tsp salt
Directions: In a large bowl, cream together butter and Truvía® Baking Blend until smooth. Beat in eggs, vanilla and milk.
Combine flour, baking soda and salt in a separate bowl. Gradually add the flour to the creamed mixture, beating well after each addition.
Place dough on a lightly floured work surface. Divide dough in half; pat each into a circle and wrap with plastic wrap. Chill cookie dough for 30 minutes or until slightly firm.
Preheat oven to 350° F. Roll chilled dough to 1⁄4 to 1⁄8 inch thickness on a lightly floured surface.
Cut with a cookie cutter and place cookies 1 inch apart on lightly greased cookie sheets.
Bake for 10 to 12 minutes or until edges of cookies are lightly browned.
Allow to cool 5 minutes on pan, and then place cookies on wire rack to cool completely.
Visit the Truvia® website for more tips and information on Truvia® Baking Blend.
Do you havea favorite holiday recipe that you’d like to recreate using Truvia?
Hi Everyone, I’m Karyn from the Pint Sized Baker. I’m a wife to Mr. Quart and a mom to my Little Cup. The best part of writing a blog about baking treats, is that they enjoy eating them!Today, I wanted to share an easy Cake Pop tutorial that I know everyone can make!
These snow globes are very similar to the Gumball Machine Cake Pops I made during the summer.
These cake pops are very easy using some pre-made ingredients.
The base of the snow globe is a bell shaped caramel candy and the snowman is a Wilton cupcake topper.
You can go the extra step and make the base and decorate a centerpiece. It all depends on your time, creativity and willingness to go the extra step.
To make these, you will need to make your cake pop batter with 1/2 of a 9×11 cake and two tablespoons of frosting. Combine them with a paddle attachment until the batter is smooth.
I find that box cake and caned frosting work best. These pops were yellow cake and lemon frosting. YUM!
I took two of my standard pops and made one BIG pop. Make them round and then flatten them slightly. You should get a dozen larger pops from half the cake.
Place them into the fridge while you get the candies ready.
Take the bell candies and pierce them with a skewer. This skewer is smaller than a lollipop stick. Once the hole is made, then slide the lollipop stick through the candy. Because I used a caramel filled bell, I did not add anything to adhere the candy to the stick. It stayed in place just fine. Push the candy down so that an inch of lollipop stick is above it.
Melt your candy low and slow in the microwave being careful not to overheat it. I used 90% white candy melts and 10% blue candy to get this pale blue color.
Dip your stick into the candy melt and then insert it into the cake ball. Allow it to dry upright as you adhere all the cake pops to the sticks.
Dip your cake pop in the candy coating it completely. Attach the snowman and sprinkle on the snow.
Dry upright and then store individually wrapped or in an airtight container.
Cake Pops freeze well, so you can make these now for your holiday gift giving and cookie exchange.
If you need any more tips on how to make cake pops, please come on over and check out my videos and other cake pop tutorials.
Thanks again to Karyn for posting here today!
I’m so excited to have some guest bloggers lined up for the holiday season. Today I’m happy to welcome Kristen from Frugal Antics of a Harried Homemaker. She’s sharing her Spice Cookies, a classic and perfect holiday treat, which I’m sure you’ll love. Here’s Kristen!
Hi Everyone! I am so pleased to be a guest here today. What fun it is to “meet” all of you! My name is Kristen and I blog over at Frugal Antics of a Harried Homemaker. (Yes, I don’t know what I was thinking when I chose that title…it’s too long, but it’s stuck to me like frosting on cake). My motto is “delicious doesn’t have to be expensive.” I make family friendly recipes using everyday ingredients.
By way of introduction, I am a mom to five kids ranging in age from 6 to 18. The oldest four are teenage boys, all of whom we adopted at birth. The youngest was a “surprise” little girl that I gave birth to myself. We live in the Jacksonville, FL area while my husband commutes to his job in San Fransisco two weeks out of every month. Life is rarely dull in my house. In fact, those blessed hours while the kids are in school are the only quiet ones of the whole day!
The recipe I am sharing with you today was given to me by a friend when we lived in the Seattle area. Susan and her husband were in a dinner group with us and we also shared a love of music, but what made her so special to me was her love for my young boys. She brought them these cookies whenever she visited and once even came over to my house with all of the ingredients and spent an afternoon baking with them. Those are priceless memories which make these cookies all the more tasty.
Spice Cookies:
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup molasses
1 egg
2 cups flour
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp each cloves, ginger and salt
Extra sugar
Combine the oil, sugar, molasses and egg in a mixing bowl.
Beat with a mixer until smooth.
Combine the dry ingredients in a smaller bowl and add to the sugar mixture.
Mix well.
Refrigerate dough for 1 hour.
Shape dough into small balls, roll in the extra sugar and place on an ungreased cookie sheet.
Bake at 350 degrees for 8-10 minutes or until top starts to crinkle.
Cool on a wire rack.
Thanks, Jerri for inviting me over. It’s been a pleasure. Happy Holidays to all of you, too!!
If you are looking for something rich and decadent to make this holiday season, then you will love this recipe! My mom makes Pecan Pralines all the time, especially around Christmas. Their consistency and taste is very similar to a brown sugar fudge, and they are perfect for carrying to parties, cookie/candy exchanges, or place in gift baskets. But I must warn you, like fudge, they are also very, VERY sweet! [Read more…]
One of my favorite things about the holiday season is the food, especially the Christmas treats and sweets! Over the next several weeks I’m excited to have some fantastic guest bloggers here to share their holiday recipes with us, as part of my Six Treats of Christmas Treats event! To kick things off, I’ve compiled a fun list of Christmas cookies, bars, and candies that I think you will love!
There’s also a linky at the end of this post, where I invite you to link up your own treats! All holiday sweets and treats and welcome, as well as drinks and appetizers. The linky will be open through New Year’s, and I’ll be featuring some of my favorites here, so link up as many as you’d like (old posts and new) and have fun!
But first take a gander at these yummies: [Read more…]
Today I’m sharing some of my fall recipes, previously posted here. Together they make up a delicious Fall Dessert Sampler! Hope you enjoy!
Today’s post is all about one of the quintessential flavors of fall: Pumpkin!
It’s amazing how many things you can make with it: cakes, bread, cookies, cupcakes, and even donuts! And when combined with things like cream cheese and chocolate, the possibilities are endless! Here are 13 Pumpkin recipes that I think you will love!
