Lemon Bar

What a fun holiday season! As you can see, I’m a bit behind on my holiday baking post. But better late than never yes?! I can’t believe I’m sitting on the doorstep of 2014. Part of me is really ready for the new year with new goals and new projects, but part of me is like WAIT! SLOW DOWN!! If the new year is here that means I actually have to start DOING those goals and projects. And I don’t quite feel ready. But I’ll get there.

Now, without further ado, here are the recipes (and photos) of my holiday baking gifts.

First up, Peanut Butter Blossoms. I whipped up a (huge) batch of these for friends and a couple events we went to in the weeks leading up to Christmas. I only ever have these at Christmas time, so even though they could be an any-time cookie, I always think of them as a holiday cookie!

Get the recipe here!

This peanut butter cookie recipe spreads out quite a bit, so don’t smush your rolled dough balls too much with a fork. I love this recipe however as it makes wonderfully soft chewy cookies (my favorite!).

Next I made two batches of Peanut Butter Buckeyes. Apparently I was in a chocolate peanut butter mood for my treats this year!

Get the recipe here!

These are a little messy when it comes to the chocolate dipping part (either that or it’s just ME who is a ~~little~~ lot messy) but they are so tasty. I have a lot of little candy boxes left over from doing the farmers market years ago and these tucked perfectly in there to give as gifts.

Every year I make a Chocolate Mousse Pie for my best friends mother. She adores it. I also made one for Thanksgiving this year and it was a hit.

Get the recipe here!

I love this pie. It is the most decadent, rich, smooth, chocolatey thing I eat all year. Just heavenly.

I tried out a new bread recipe and whipped up some Honey Spice Bread to go with the Apple Butter I canned earlier this year. This was the only recipe I tried this year that wasn’t my own!

Get the recipe here.

If I’m being 100% honest, I wasn’t over the moon for this bread recipe. I found it REALLY dry. It had great flavor, but the texture was too dry and crumbly for my taste. But with some apple butter and a cup of tea it was just perfect!

And lastly, I whipped up two batches of the Lemon Bar Brownies (from my previous baking post). One batch for my mum, and one for my mother in law.

Get the recipe here.

Compared to last year, this was a relatively small holiday baking session for me. But I loved it. It was so nice not to feel swamped with baking and be able to enjoy each treat I made for people. See you in 2014!

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The first week of December’s baking was for my husband’s birthday. We didn’t have a huge party, just some friends over to play games. My husband is a big Magic the Gathering enthusiast – he goes every Friday for Friday Night Magic at our local comic shop, competes in some tournaments throughout the year, and is currently studying to become an official judge!

This year he requested a carrot cake – my first time ever making one! I consider myself a good baker; I can make a mean cupcake, and frost it prettily, but I haven’t actually made a layer cake since I was in high school. Which is almost 10 years ago. . .so I was a bit intimidated.

But overall, I’m really happy with how it turned out! The cakes themselves seemed a little flatter than I was expecting, but once they were frosted it made for quite a decent sized cake. As for the decorating job. . .well, let’s just say it was made with more love than skill! The writing is legible (first time piping lettering!) so that’s a bonus!

Best of all, this cake was DELICIOUS. I got some recipe advice from friends, and had a couple people tell me that the Betty Crocker cake and frosting recipes were excellent. They were right! I’m not even a huge cream cheese frosting fan but this one was fantastic! I highly recommend it.

Click here for the recipe!

I also made a batch of Lemon Bar Brownies. Back when I was doing the farmer’s market, these were a best seller. I sold out of them every week. I think it’s the combo of fresh squeezed lemon juice and fresh lemon zest that knocks these out of the park. It gives them such a great balance of sweet and tang. And their consistency is really good – so dense and moist.

Click here for the recipe!

And finally, I baked my hubs a birthday surprise – Magic the Gathering cookies!! For those who don’t know much about MTG, these are the symbols of different types of cards in the game. My hubby loves iced sugar cookies so when I was browsing Pinterest ages ago and saw these, I immediately pinned them to make for his birthday! Go check out the original cookie post via Not Your Momma’s Cookie, which most certainly puts my cookies to shame. She has so many awesome cookies ideas; I’m sure I’ll use more in the future.

The cookies weren’t actually that hard to make, just time consuming. And let me tell you, piping on designs with icing is NOT the same as drawing with a pencil! But they came out decently (other than two bloopers that I very unfortunately forgot to take pictures of before eating) so I will definitely make these again in the future!

Click here for the sugar cookie recipe, and here for the icing recipe!

Our gaming get together was good fun as always. I sat out on the Magic playing and got some drawing done, but definitely joined in for some Acension and Lords of Waterdeep (my current favorite board game).

Phew! Week 1 of baking accomplished. . .just in time to start Week 2 of baking! Stay tuned for Vanilla Cupcakes, Chocolate Cupcakes, Vanilla Buttercream Frosting, and Dinosaur Cookies.

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