Cookie Platter

A platter full of Christmas cookies. Missing are some baked after Christmas, which include Snowballs and Almond Poppy Seed Cookies.

From clockwise from left: Gingerbread People, Coconut Thumbprints, Gramma Kookoo's Swedish Sugar Cookies, Chocolate Chip, Butterscotch Cookies and Kiefels in the center. Merry Christmas!

Thanks for Baking

I made the pumpkin pie for dinner all by myself! from the homemade crust to the filling to the whipped cream to top it! I used a different recipe from years past, and I think using condensed milk instead of evaporated milk and sugar gave it a smoother texture.


The whole spread. From left to right, pumpkin pie, whipped cream, red velvet cupcakes, pumpkin roll, chocolate roll, mini-pumpkin pie (graham cracker crust) and pumpkin cheesecake.

This picture is terrible but all of the ones I took were. I think we need a tablecloth for the dessert table. At least for the picture.

Third Birthday Party

Once again, I provided a second dessert for my godson's birthday party. This year the theme was trains so I made cookies instead of cupcakes. His mom and I decorated the cookies to match the party invitations of crossing signs and trains.

Bakery bought cake. I like the smokestack made of marshmallows and an ice cream cone.

Red Flags

This is one of my favorite songs released this year. I've liked Sondre Lerche for a while, and I thought this would be the year I saw him live. Unfortunately, he got a gig on The Late Show with David Letterman and cancelled his Cleveland show at the last minute. I hope Cleveland is a stop on his next tour!



The Letterman appearance:

Buttermilk Waffles

I finally used the mystery waffle iron that I mentioned a while ago. I think these waffles were made with this recipe, but I have since tried this one (omitting the cinnamon and using half whole wheat/half all-purpose flour) . I'm still getting the hang of the waffle iron, especially filling it correctly.

Golden brown!

I'm not a fan of syrup so I topped them with butter and powdered sugar. Although, my favorite way to eat waffles is with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

Wedding Cupcakes

This past fall, my friends had an open house wedding reception at their house. They wanted an informal and fun celebration and asked me to make cupcakes for the main dessert. Here's what we came up with:

Naked cupcakes in three varieties.


Frosted!


Chocolate with chocolate frosting.

Red velvet with cream cheese frosting and sprinkled with a little red sugar.

Pumpkin spice with white frosting. Topped with Mellowcreme pumpkins.

The most popular were the chocolate/chocolate. They actually ran out before the party ended. Overall, they were all well-received. Not bad for my first attempt at large-scale cupcaking.

Freegal

This might not be news to anyone else, but I just found out about Freegal. For those of you not in the know, Freegal is a music service website that lets you download up to three songs a week for $0. It's a small amount of free songs, but it's still something! Your local library has to subscribe to the service in order for you to use it and luckily, mine does.

I keep a running list of songs and artists on my iPod notepad, and Freegal has a good chunk of my list available. It's going to take me a few months to get through my picks, but I'm open to suggestions when my list runs out.