Awesome sugar cookie bars

I wanted to share this recipe with you already a while ago. I did not forget. I just did not get to do it. But here it is. 

If you like cookies that are quick to make and make a big batch - check out this recipe from 

Munchkin Munchies!

There you can also find really pretty pictures of the bars! Not such a lame one as mine. :-) And a recipe for some forsting. I did not use frosting simply because I do not want little man to eat so much sugar. Feel bad enough about giving him cookies .... But when he is older I will definitely try these cookies with frosting, too.

They might not look totally exciting. 

But believe me - THEY ARE GOOD!!!

I made them twice already and they are awesome. The dough comes toegether really quickly!

And then all you need to do is slap the dough onto a baking sheet! That is it! 

No dropping spoonfuls of dough ... no rolling and cutting ... just put it all on the sheet. And then sprinkle whatever you like on it. I love the chocolate sprinkles - of course. :-)

Little bear loves colorful sprinkles. The more colors the better!

I try to give little man pieces with almost no sprinkles. Btw, he goes totally crazy when hes sees the cookie bars. He LOVES them. Okay, he pretty much loves everything edible. But still ... he seems to REALLY like these.

The bars are best when they are still a bit chewy - so be careful not to overbake them. 

The only drawback - even though the recipe makes a very generous batch - they do not last any longer than the usual recipes ... :-(

PROJECT 48: And More Cute Teacup Cupcakes

So far we have seen 

cupcakes baked in teacups

and

cupcakes that look like (tea)cups.

If you want to make some teacup cupcakes but the above was not the right thing for you
maybe this way will be for you:

Photo from Cupcake Goddess

Just make some wrappers that have handles!
 And - voila - you have cute cupcake teacups!

I love the ones that Cupcake Goddess made. 

 So so cute!

I bet you could make this a kids project, too ....

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PROJECT 35: Amazing Teapot Cake (with tutorial)

Photo from Cake Space

Do you love this cake?

I definitely would not mind getting such a beauty for my birthday! *hint*

Well, guess if I want one I would have to make one myself ... *sigh*

But guess what - you can make this one yourself. 

There is a 

great step-by-step tutorial 

on Cake Space. 

Go and check it out!

If I do end up having a proper tea party one day THIS is going to be THE cake!

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PROJECT 29 : Cutest Cupcake Cups

The other day when I made muffins I thought to myself that muffins or cupcakes have a pretty nice shape to make teacups out of them. Instead of trying it myself ... I googled ... and guess what?! 

I found the cutest cupcake cups:

Photo from DIARY OF A LADYBIRD

Okay, they are not actually teacups but hot chocolate cups.
But leave off the marshmallows and call it a teacup - and that's it! :-D

So go on over to the Diary OF A LADYBIRD to get the
instructions (and recipes)
on how to make these. 

Photo from DIARY OF A LADYBIRD

Don't they look yummy! I love this photo!

Now I just gotta figure out for what occasion I could make them ...

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PROJECT 27: Cute Tea Cookies

Photo from Cake Journal

Teapot and teacup cookies!
They are so cute!

All to be found on Cake Journal - to go to the post just click the picture.

Photo from Cake Journal

Those flowery teapots are so fun!

And as a bonus - cute cookies in a teacup:

Photo from Cake Journal

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Sunday Blueberry Muffins (with Recipe)

Last Sunday I wanted to make muffins. Pear muffins. Actually - my husband wanted me to make pear muffins. And when I asked him whether we have canned pears - which you need for that recipe - he said yes. So off I went to the kitchen and wanted to start baking ... when I went through the whole cupboard but could not find one single can of pears! 

GRUMBLE!

I so hate when that happens. 

So there I was standing in the kitchen. No pear muffins were going to happen. But I hate to give up on a plan and I really wanted to eat some muffins. Here in Germany the stores are closed on Sundays so buying canned pears was not an option. So what do you do?

Well, I don't know what YOU would do - but I improvised!

Basically I made a combination out of cinnamon muffins and raspberry oatmeal muffins ... without raspberries and without oatmeal ... but with blueberries, wholemeal, and some other stuff that I found in our kitchen.

Oh, and I topped them off with some crumbles "Streusel" - everything is better with them! :-)

So basically you could say I invented a new recipe. 

That does sound so much better than saying I threw together everything I found in the kitchen. ;-)

And you know what - it turned out quite tasty! 

Actually REALLY good. 

And little man went totally frantic when he saw them. 

He started LITERALLY dancing until I finally sat down and let him have one. 

(All in all he had two. I did not give him more as I was scared. Please do not tell anyone that I give blueberry muffins to my 10months old baby!)

So if you dare try the recipe. A 10months old approved it! :-)

But to be honest - he eats everything that is remotely edible.

Ingredients:

50g wholewheat flour

200g regular flour
2 tea spoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda
140 g brown sugar
¼ teaspoon salt
1 ½ teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon ginger 
120 g softened butter
2 eggs 
240 g joghurt

about 200g frozen blueberries

for crumbles
butter
flour
brown sugar
cinnamon

If anyone would be interested in the measurements using cups instead of grams I could work that out. Just let me know.

Just throw together all dry ingredients and stir. In another bowl goes the butter, eggs, and yoghurt. Mix this. Then add the dry ingredients stirring - do not overstir, as this will make the muffins dry!
Add the blueberries at last.
Add together ingredients for the crumbles - sorry, I have no measurements for those as I usually just throw everyting together until it seems "fine". If you want to I can find a proper recipe for you though! Top the muffins with the crumbles.
Bake for about 20 minutes at 180 degrees celsius/ 350 F - don't take my word for this. CHECK them often with a wooden toothpick or caketester. When it comes out clean they are done!

YUMMY!

PROJECT 11: Cutest Teabag Cookies

Photo by Frost me

Oh, these are DEFINITELY on my to-make list. Lately for some strange reason I have had a craving for shortbread. I did not make any yet ... but NOW I will! Look at these. 

They are cute! 

Perfect! 

Different! 

I love different! 

And they seem pretty easy to make. I mean no strange shapes to cut or anything. And the fact that it is shortbread WITH chocolate makes it even better! 

Chocolate makes everything better, doesn't it?!

So go on over to Frost me to see more photos of these yummy treats.

And if you like teaparties you should check out her other posts as well. I found so many other cute ideas and pretty pictures ...

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PROJECT 1: Cute Cupcakes in Teacups

I love this so much - I think it's the perfect first post for the roundup.
On my search for tea-related ideas I have seen many teacups filled with different things - of course also cupcakes. Easy, just put a cute looking cupcake into a cute looking teacup and you have yourself an even cuter table decoration.

But how about actually BAKING your cupcakes in your tea cups? 

That gives CUPcakes a literal meaning ... and looks awesome.  

Check it out on Sweet Paul's blog (he even gives you the recipe):

Photo from Sweet Paul by Frances Janisch

He uses coffee cups - but I guessed you can use teacups just as well. However, I would not necessarily choose the really vintage ones ... they might not survive the ride in the oven too well ...

I so love the idea.

Maybe instead of making myself a birthday cake I should be making cupcakes in teacups?

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Yummy yummy choc-chip cookies

Yesterday was a bit rough. So in the afternoon I really felt like having some really good cookies. You know the ones that are a bit crispy on the outside edge but gooey in the middle! The only place where you get those cookies here in Germany is SUBWAY. And while I was thinking about that I remembered that a while ago I had searched the internet for copy-cat recipes of subway cookies ... and saved the links. So when my husband took little man for a walk so he could nap I hurriedly made a batch of cookies with little bear.

When I was done with the dough, the oven was preheated and everything I checked the recipe again ... and relized that it said "Chill the dough for 1 hour."

DARN!

It was already snack time so we needed the cookies now. If I would have chilled them as it said they would be ready for dinner. I was mad at myself for not reading the whole recipe before starting. (Which you should always do!) On the other hand I was mad at the recipe. Why would a recipe state as the first thing to do "Preheat oven." if you have to chill the dough for an hour? What oven takes more than one hour to preheat???

As the dough still seemed firm enough to form it into balls I simply decided to skip the chilling. And you know what? I still ended up with the loveliest cookies!!! They were simply AMAZING!

I mean look at this:

They turned out so perfectly round.

And they were still slightly warm when we had them so the chocolate was still melted .... oh heaven ...

Don't you just want to bite into them?

You won't regret it! :-)

Oh, I almost forgot. Here is the recipe I used! If you love cookies you HAVE to try it! Yes, right now! Off to the kitchen ...

 They are best right after baking when they have just cooled down a bit. But if you eat them the next day just popp them in the microwave for REALLY SHORT. With my microwave 15 sec. was best. But you might have to experiment a bit.

Yum!

Banana-Caramel Cake

I actually planned to make a topsy turvy cake with Pippi Longstocking for celebrating my daughter's birthday with her grandparents and aunts. But since my son and I had been to the hospital and there was so much to catch up with I soon realized that I would never be able to make that cake in time and stay sane! 

(I do believe that everything is possible - but it comes with a prize!)

So in the end I decided I will save the Pippi cake for the kids' party and make an easier quicker cake for the family celebration. At first I was at a loss about what to make. I did not want to make another chocolate cake. But my daughter does not like coconut. Just vanilla sounded too boring to me, too. Luckily I had saved the link to a gallery of homemade cakes at Country Living. They have such a nice selection of cakes! Check them out! I ended up making the banana-caramel cake. 

And I was glad that I did! It was DIVINE! I am DEFINITITELY making this one again! The banana cake is put together quickly and it is rather easy to make it. The caramel icing is a bit more tricky. I have never made caramel before. I do recommend using a candy thermomether for this. I only had a meat thermometer - which I actually have never ever used before (and never ever will!). I figured it will work. My husband told me it will work. Well, it did work. Until the thermometer stopped when the temperature had ALMOST reached the necessary 238 degrees F. ALMOST! I tried a couple more times. There was no way to persuade the stupid thing to go higher than 230 degrees F. GRRRR. So I had to guess the rest ... Of course the icing ended up being too soft. It was kinda runny and I could not put all of it on the cake cause it simply ended up running off the cake ... Maybe in the end that was a good thing. The caramel icing is of course - as you would expect - rather sweet. It might have been too much if I would have put all of it on the cake. But I still would like to get it to the right consistency next time! Just added candy thermometer to my wish list! :-)

Okay, the cake does not really look very special! But believe me - it tastes ALOT better than it looks. ALOT!

Double chocolate cookies - second try

I could not wait. I had to make them again to see how good they would be. I actually started making them yesterday with my daughter ... just to realize while we were working that we did not have enough butter! GRRRR! So we had to stop (luckily we had not mixed in the eggs yet) and I promised my daughter that I would fnish them tomorrow morning while she is in kindergarten. So I did and we just had a nice picknick in our backyard ... and they were

YUM!

Seriously, if you love soft chocolate cookies with a crispy edge try this recipe. You will not be sorry!!!

(If you like all-crispy cookies, don't bother. Or overbake them and they are fine.)

Double chocolate cookies

I made cookies. Chocolate cookies. And I think they would have been perfect if I would not have left them a bit too long in the oven. :-(
I hate that! It really frustrates me when I overbake cookies. I am pretty good at judging doneness with cakes. But cookies and brownies ... well, I am just never sure. Cookies are tricky. They seem completely soft ... but when you take them out and they cool they harden so much. I KNOW that by now. But I just never know how much they will harden and how soft they should be when I take them out. I don't like overbaked cookies - but cookies that are not close to being done are not that much fun either ...
So I guess I will just have to make these bad boys again. If you want to try them this is the recipe I used.

Tea Party Cake

So I used these ....

and added this ...


and a whole lot of something called

Swiss Meringue Buttercream

(Luckily I had decided to make only half a batch of the buttercream to try it ... and make more if it works out. It turned out that even half a batch still was WAY too much for the cake.)

and ended up with this ...

And if you don't know what I was aiming for it actually looked pretty good! ;-)

I used a recipe by Martha Stewart that is called Tea Party Cake. I had fallen in love with this cake quite some time ago. I had it saved and wanted to try it but there never was a good occasion. So when I was asked to make a cake for my granddad's 90th birthday I figured that a 90th birthday is a pretty good reason to make such a cake! :-)

I would have really liked to make a square cake like in the picture of the Martha Stewart homepage. There is something I like about it's squareness. (Is that a word?) But square cakes - and therefore square cake pans - are rather unusual in Germany. Around here cakes are round! Therefore the usual cake pans you get are round - of course. You can get square ones nowadays - but they usually have rounded edges (Do the cake pans in the US also have rounded edges?) which I do not like and they are rather pricey! :-( So, to make it short - I do not have a square cake pan (except for a brownie pan which would not work) and did not want to pay money, that would buy me several round pans for just one square cake ... so I made a round one.

But if anyone out there happens to have a spare square one and does not know what to do with it ... well, send it my way! ;-) I will trade for felt finger puppets, crocheted pigs or whatever else I could make for you. :-) I would also happily send you a baked square cake but I guess that would violate customs regulations ...

Anyway, so I made the round. And I used just the white Swiss meringue buttercream - without added strawberry puree. I wanted a completely white cake with silver pearls. I think it looks good. I actually wanted to decorate it with a round tip. But my round tip was too small - so I had to use the star-shaped tip. I am pretty sure that I would have liked the look of the round one better but it still turned out alright I guess. I have never done piped decorations before so I am quite happy with the result! It does come quite close to what I had envisioned.
I did try to make a piped rose to add at the edge - but failed at several attempts and decided that I like the cake better without a rose ! ;-)



And the best thing: my family DID like it!!! Oh my - what happened!? I had prepared myself for the usual - "Too sweet.", "Too many calories.", "Too big." ... Told myself beforehand a million times that it did not matter whether they liked it or not ... I finally got to make it and if I like it that's fine. But almost everyone requested a piece! Wow! And they liked it! I got quite a few compliments and people asked whether they could take left-overs home. (It was a pretty HUGE cake.) I gotta tell you THAT felt really good!


So, how was the taste! I loved the chocolate cake!!! You can use the recipe to make cupcakes or "big" cakes. I had already tested it and made chocoalte cupcakes for Easter. And it tasted really well together with the strawberry cream cheese filling! I personally did not like the Swiss meringue buttercream too much. For my taste there was too much butter in it and - of course - it hardens when cooled. I am very intrigued to trying the frosting without adding butter though. I guess it will be harder to decorate ... but I think I would like the taste much better. It's supposed to taste kinda like marshmallows ... mmh ...

So, would you like a piece?

Anytime chocolate cake

What is the best cure of frustration? Chocolate of course! And what's even better than chocolate? Chocolate cake! But who wants to stand in the kitchen for ages and wait until a cake is done when he or she feels frustrated and has a craving for chocolate cake? Well, okay - sometimes I don't mind ... baking can be a stress reliever in itself ... but sometimes I just want that cake right now right here!!!! No waiting, no baking, no going to the store!!! You think nice dream, but not possible? Well, I thought so, too. Until Saturday! But now I know better! Check this out

Microwave chocolate cake in a cup


I tried it and I LOVE it! I mean you can not compare it to a really really great oven baked chocolate cake ... but I would say compared to a regular oven baked one it stands a chance. And considering that all you have to do is throw some things together, stirr, put in the microwave ... AWESOME!!! And if you add a little icecream - WOW!!!
I am so excited about this! This means I could have freshly made chocolate cake EVERY SINGLE DAY!!!! :-) Okay, I won't do that. But still, who would have thought that this is possible. Certainly not me! Maybe I should keep an emergency jar with already mixed together ingredients in my kitchen ...

So, if you like chocolate cake go and try it! Yes, RIGHT NOW! Believe me, you won't be sorry! :-)

P.S. Sorry, that there is no photo. But I was so excited about this that by the time I thought that I should share this it was ... ehem ... all gone ... There is a photo however, on the blog where I gor the recipe from so check it out!

Easter cake

Any idea what this is? ....

My daughter made them and I loved how they turned out! Even though I do not like to eat marzipan. :-)
They are really easy to make ... and here is an easy way on how to make the green bits of the carrots. But you could also use some greenery like here.

And what did we do with them? Of course decorate carrot cake!


This was a small one which I gave as a present to my granddad. Well, at least it was supposed to be a small one .... I used the smallest pan I had. But it turned out so high that it still was way too much just for one person. But I did not have the heart to just cut it up ... it looked so pretty.


I LOVE cream cheese icing!!!!


And above thise was the carrot cake we had for Easter. Usually I just lay the carrots on top. But I had seen this version and just LOVED it. So I scooped on a BIG layer of cream cheese icing and stuck the carrots in the cake. I think it looks so cute! And my daughter had so much fun pulling them out! :-)
I also put some chocolate cookie crumbles on top of the icing so it looks kinda like earth/ dirt.


And even better than carrot cake ... chocolate cupcakes!!!! YUMMY! I used Martha Stewart's recipe and was totally pleased how they turned out. In the past I had not much luck to make great plain chocolate cupcakes or muffins. The really good ones always had either chocolate bits or coffee or fruit in them (or a combination of these). But with this recipe they turned out pretty nice. I actually made them to test the recipe because I will need it later this month! Already very excited about it ... but not telling you yet ... ;-)
I actually was planning on frosting them ... but simply ran out of time. Turned out that it was not too bad since the cupcakes are already very sweet and rich all by themselves. I would still love to have them WITH frosting - there is no such thing as too sweet for me ;-) - but my family probably was happy that there was not extra icing on top. They are weird people that often complain my bakery would be too sweet! I really don't get that!

Cheese stuffed bread

If you want to bake anything with yeast you HAVE to try this recipe for cheese stuffed bread. I actually found it via the blog Bupbilla. When I saw the photo I thought I HAVE to try this. It just looks so yummy. Well, and I did try it and it was YUMMY!!! I have to say though I LOVE cheese. So this was just my kind of thing. But the loaves were just great. Definitely will be making them again! Maybe experiment with different cheeses. They are also great to use for a packed lunch. Even my daughter took some to kindergarten for snack time. :-)

Pizza crust

Pizza crust was my next try at making yeast dough. I used this recipe - and I am definitely making it again. It was not perfect but I think with a bit of practice and trying ... I can definitely improve it! And for a first try it wasn't too bad. It is rather time consuming but there are several options for dividing the work (you can even prepare it up to a certain point and freeze it) ... and I just LOVE the idea of being able to make great pizza crust. I use the bought one (the one that you just roll onto your baking pan) mainly because that's quick but have never been totally pleased with the taste. So I think this will really be worth the effort! :-)

(Sorry for the weird photo - but I had to be quick otherwise there would not have been anything left to take a picture of.)

Honey oat buns

In February I decided that until Easter I am not baking any cookies or cakes. (Well, rather my husband kinda decided that for me ... but I thought it is a good idea.) Since I felt like I could not give up baking completely I challenged myself to do savoury baking only. I actually have quite many savoury recipes which are on my "I have to try this"-list ... but they never get tried since there are too many cakes and cookies to try. ;-)
So this was the perfect opportunity. When I decided to do this there were 7 weeks till Easter so I figured I should be able to try 6 savoury recipes. Since I especially love yeast products I thought I would try a couple recipes that involve yeast. I usually do not like to bake with yeast too much. I am always feeling insecure ... will it work out? And all that "having to let the dough rise" makes planning so much harder. Anyway, I figured since I do love buns and breads and stuff all it probably takes is a bit more practise to get over my fear of yeast. So I started right away with a recipe for Honey oat buns.


I actually wanted to make a "Subway-style" bread. I love the Honey oat bread you get at Subway. The one I made did turn out not too bad - but in my opinion it was nothing like the Subway bread. For starters it is white bread, not wheat. (I should have known from just reading the recipe ... well, I was simply too excited to get started.) And the honey is put in the dough. I think the Subway bread is brushed with honey (or something like that). So the bread itself is rather sweet tasting. It is nice for jam. I did not like it too much with cheese. So I am looking now for a good wheat bun recipe ...

Fondant covered cookies

I have wanted to make fondant decorated cookies for so long .... So couple days ago I finally made a batch of dough and cut out some cookies. I used the recipe by Meaghan Mountford which she posted on her blog The decorated cookie. Really loved the cookies and I was surprised how well they really DO stay in shape!
I decorated the cookies with a thin layer of fondant (light green one). My favourite ones are the hearts and the tea pots. But there even was a dinosaur (for my daughter) with an umbrella! :-)