Highlights from 2024

It seems like each year gets busier and busier, but I hope that everyone had an excellent holiday season! While I don’t necessarily bake as much as I used to, I love the time that I do have in this create process. Life is hard sometimes and too busy, and these are distractions to look forward to. No recipe this week; I am looking back at some of my favorites from 2024.

Reese's Pieces Oat Cookies
This gluten-free cookie is a wonderful combination of peanut butter and oats. You would never know it was gluten-free, and it’s a great cookie to add to your repertoire.

Snickerdoodle Cheesecake Bars
I love snickerdoodles, as it was the first cookie I remember making with my Dad. This bar cookie, with an added cheesecake layer, is absolutely wonderful.

Bee Sting Bars
This cookie is based on the Bee Sting Cake, which I would love to make but looks tricky. These are much easier to bake and still contain the flavors of honey and almonds.

Cookie Dough Brownie Cookies
These are a substantial cookie, and they were the perfect choice for my friend’s birthday. Cookie, topped with cookie dough, covered in chocolate. What could be bad? 

Almond Frangipane Cookies
I made a couple of almond cookies this year, all of them have been so good. This one uses almond flour, some others use almond paste. Either have delightful flavor that can’t be beaten.

Paradise Slice
This is a Scottish Christmas cookie, and it is so different. It combines currants, almond flour, and glacé cherries. They were so good I ended up making two batches!

I hope you have a great 2025!

Blog Highlights from 2023

I hope that everyone had an excellent holiday season; it has been a strange year for me in several ways, but I am looking forward to next year. I enjoy the time I spend baking and I have discovered the joy of making fudge now that my dad is no longer with us. These are good distractions to the complexities of life. Since many folks are sugared out right now, I am looking back at some of my favorites from 2023.

Pop Tart Inspired Shortbread Bars
While I love the idea of pop tarts, they are often so dry! This cookie version takes those great flavors and makes a great bar cookie!

Black Forest Cookies
How can you go wrong with chocolate and cherries in the classic Black Forest Cake approach? You can’t and these are rich but truly excellent!

Vegan Apple Cider Cookies
During the month of September, I made a couple of different apple cider cookies, and they were all so wonderful. I liked this vegan one, which was nice and thin.

Browned Butter, Cranberry, and Oat Cookies with Cream Cheese Chips
In cleaning out my baking supplies, I discovered my cream cheese chips that I hadn’t used. I found some recipes that called for white chocolate chips and adapted them to these cookies that have a bit more of a tang.

Brown Sugar Biscoff Bars
One of the simplest cookies ever, but the Biscoff (or Cookie Butter) in these is unparalleled. Just a simple cookie with a pecan pie-like filling that tastes like Biscoff. Yum!

Irish Cream Fudge
With my dad passing this year, I wanted to carry on the tradition of making fudge. I didn’t make nearly the number of varieties he did, but I am proud of what I made. It’s honestly hard to pick a favorite, but this Irish Cream Fudge was wonderful and the texture was superb!

Sticky Toffee Pudding Cookies
Sticky Toffee Pudding is a class British dessert, with spices and dates as the strongest flavors. These are just perfect for the holidays, and they stay fresh for a long time. I used chopped fruitcake fruits and chose what spices I liked, and they were so good.

Highlights from 2022

I hope that everyone had an excellent holiday season and look forward to new things in the new year. It’s been a year of some things getting back to normal, and other things not really having a normal anymore. I enjoy the time I spend baking, and it is a good distraction to all of the other complexities that life brings. For this post I decided to look back at my posts for 2022 and bring you a selection of my favorites, as your home is likely filled with sweets already!

Date Nut Bars
Do you bake much with dates? They are certainly not commonly used in recipes but I don’t know why as they are so good! I used chopped dates, as seeding and chopping dates is about the stickiest thing in the world. Life is too short to be spent chopping dates!

 

Ginger Layer Shortbread
If you read this blog with any regularity, you know that I love ginger. This is just about the simplest recipe that you can make, I just hope that you can find some ginger curd or some other interesting flavor of curd/preserves to give this recipe a try.

 

Ginger Oatmeal Crisps
Another ginger recipe? I can’t say I am too shocked! Instead of citrus zest I added candied ginger, which is always an excellent addition to any ginger creation. These thin, crispy, buttery cookies can’t be beat.
 

Fluffernutter Cookies
This year I did an entire month of peanut butter creations, and this was one of my peanut butter/marshmallow creations. I won’t kid you, sandwiching marshmallow fluff between sticky peanut butter cookie dough isn’t easy, but it’s worth it to give it a try.
 

Italian Cream Cake Cookies
These were a different cookie for me, a petite and delicate cookie with the flavors of Italian Cream Cake. These cookies are extremely crumbly, and adding coconut and pecans as a coating doesn’t help. They take a little longer to bake, but that just makes them more special.

 

Glazed Spice Cookies
While these cookies didn’t turn out at all as expected, they have quickly become a favorite. A spiced cookie topped with brushed-on icing traditionally used for lebkuchen ended up being the hit of the holiday season. I’ve already made these cookies twice and I’m pretty sure they will become one of my Christmas classics.

Highlights from 2021

At the end of the year, it’s fun to look back and see what I have made during the previous year. When you have been blogging as long as I have, the recipes sometimes meld into each other. I have chosen five of my favorites from the past year.

While I hope that next year will be better, I also know that I don’t have control over that many things. We’re both happy and working, and hopefully that will continue! It has been nice working with students in person the past few months, and I look forward to more.

Peanut Butter and Jelly Cookies
Looking back, I have made my fair share of peanut butter and jelly cookies and bars. You can’t go wrong with such a classic flavor combination. This recipe only makes a small amount, but they can’t be beat!

Orange Creamsicle Cookies
I’ve come across other orange creamsicle cookies, but the flavor isn’t always great. When I made these, I was astounded by the fantastic flavors. The combination of orange zest and white chocolate chips made these a big winner.

Pineapple Coconut Tassies
Tassies are probably my favorite form of cookie. These are filled with a summery combination of pineapple and coconut. I left out the nuts, but they would work just as well with them. They crumble a little, but I can live with that.

Hermit Bars
Hermit cookies have been around forever, and this bar version turned out so well! I made mine dairy free by using vegan butter, which was very easy. Raisins, spices, and molasses make for a winning cookie.

Mince Pie Bakewell Squares
I love Bakewell Squares and I love mincemeat, so it should be no surprise that putting them together would be a hit. Honestly, these were so good that I was sad when the last one was eaten. I think these will likely become a holiday classic in our household.

Blog Highlights of 2020

I hope that everyone had an excellent holiday season and look forward to new things in the new year. I have to admit that 2020 has been a difficult year, but I am thankful that my husband and I are together, and we are working. The cats seem to be pretty happy that I’m home all of the time, so all is good.

As most folks still have too many sweets around, for this post I decided to look back at my posts for 2020 and bring you a selection of my favorites.

Lemon Gingersnap Sandwich Cookies
While I posted this as a Christmas cookie, it’s the perfect combination of lemon and ginger and would be perfect for any occasion.

Maple Oatmeal Cranberry Cookies
An oatmeal raisin cookie doesn’t have to be plain. This version, with dried cranberries and maple frosting, make these so very interesting. 

Cherry and Pecan Oaties
These British cookies, a take on a refrigerator cookie, don’t seem at all like a slice and bake cookie. I made some substitutions, but adding cherries fit perfectly with the cinnamon and pecans.

Candied Lemon Biscuits
Being home has challenged me to use ingredients that I have on hand. This recipe started as Cherry Bakewell Biscuits, but I had candied lemon peel and it was perfect.

Crispy Cookies with Chocolate and Butterscotch
A mix between a chocolate chip cookie and a ranger cookie, this cookie fits the bill when you are looking for something that pleases everyone.

Mocha Chip Bars
This recipe from Peabody of Sweet Recipeas, is unusual in its use of sweetened chocolate mix. This is a very different approach but makes for a wonderful bar cookie.

My Best of 2019

Since everyone is so full of sweets after the holidays, I decided for the last post of 2019 I would pick my favorites from the year and share them with you. I was hoping to choose a shaped cookie, a bar cookie, a no-bake cookie and a drop cookie. I couldn’t choose just one drop cookie, so I chose a total of five cookies. Enjoy!

Peanut Butter Chunker Cookies  
Can you go wrong with chocolate and peanut butter? I don’t think so!

No-Bake Date Coconut Bars

I love dates and these no-bake cookies pair with almond for great flavor.

Pecan Shortbread Teacakes

Perfectly simple little cookies with perfect pecans from Georgia.

Cinnamon Roll Blondies

Cakey bars with the flavors of a cinnamon roll.

Maple Brown Sugar Pecan Cookies

Flavored with Canadian maple syrup, these are even better with their maple glaze.