Lemon Angel Food Cake

It's been forever, I know. It' s not that I forgot; I just don't bake as much as I used to. Plus, a majority of the people who read this blog are the same ones who I bake for so that motivation to write a post is also gone. I don't know if I'm even going to announce this post on social media - especially since the recipe was for Easter and I'm writing this on Father's Day weekend 🤦 (which I admit was partially because I forgot about the blog).

As I've mentioned before, I don't like to be wasteful so I save the egg whites that are leftover from the Pepperoni Pinwheels and freeze them. Once I had 12, I held onto them to use in an angel food cake. This year, I decided to make it a lemon one since (for once) I had asked my mom for some lemons from the lemon tree outside their Arizona house. After some searching, I finally landed on a recipe from Two Cups Flour (which ended up backfiring - more in the notes).

S'mores Bars

Back in August*, our relatives the Krigbaums had the family over for a BBQ (they're the ones who gave me the popular Pepperoni Pinwheels recipe) and told us to bring a dish to share. Naturally, I decided to make a dessert. Since it was a BBQ and summer, I figured I'd search for yet another s'mores recipe to make, specifically one with mini marshmallows so I could use up leftovers from the last time I made a s'mores recipe (how old they are ended up being a good thing). After searching through my S'mores Pinterest board, I finally settled on a recipe form Glorious Eats.

*I know, I know - 6 weeks! My main excuse is that I kept forgetting to put the picture collages together. Better late than never, I guess?

Lemon-Raspberry Cake with Meringue Topping

Mother's Day was a little different this year. My parents were home from Arizona before the day instead of on it like previous years. Since Auntie Vicki and Uncle Rob weren't going to be home (Carly graduated from Gonzaga that day), Mom and Dad hosted Mother's Day with me, Nonni, Anthony, Kati, and the boys. Because I once again had 8 egg whites in the freezer, I started looking for recipes that use them when Mom asked me to make dessert. She requested no cookies so I was a bit limited. I eventually found a food tip that suggests replacing frosting with meringue, complete with measurements for a 9x13 cake. For the cake itself, I looked through my Berries/Mixed Fruit board on Pinterest for a lemon raspberry cake (a popular flavor combo in my family). I eventually found a simple recipe from Betty Crocker's website.

Chocolate Mint Oreo Cookies

For my family's Christmas presents, I made choosing a bit easy. Anthony and Kati (Oatmeal Scotchies) and Dad (peanut butter chocolate chip cookies) were essentially the same as before. I decided to make Helen the Pinipig cookies that I made a few years ago since Mom had heard her say they "taste like home" (and she's returning to the Philippines soon). Since I didn't know what non-food gifts to get Mom and Nonni, I decided to make them coconut macaroons (I had a lot of egg whites) and split the recipe between the two of them.

Kevin seems to be the one whose gift changes every year. One thing that doesn't seem to change, though, is that lately I've been more likely to choose a chocolate mint recipe (or chocolate peanut butter - both combos seem to be his favorites). Including this year: after the success of last year's Mint Chip Brookies, I decided to stick with finding a chocolate mint recipe. At first I tried to find the mint Oreo bars that I made for Father's Day in 2020 (the year I wasn't doing blog posts) but since I couldn't remember what they looked like, I wasn't successful. I eventually landed on the Chocolate Mint Oreo Cookies recipe from Two Peas and Their Pod.

Peppermint Bark Meringue Cookies

I've never really had a job where everyone gave Christmas gifts to everyone else (granted, I've only had about 3 jobs that lasted to Christmas and beyond. But still: giving something to everyone was never a thing). So when my co-workers at SHAG started handing out gifts last year, I was a bit unprepared. I decided to change that this year.

Since I had leftover egg whites from my pinwheels, I started to look for meringue recipes (meringues are easier and quicker to make than macarons). At first I wasn't sure what to focus on. Then I had an idea: one of my favorite flavors of the Christmas/holiday season is peppermint, specifically peppermint bark. So I decided to make peppermint bark meringues. I started to specifically look for peppermint bark meringue recipes but I didn't like what I found. Eventually, I realized I'd have to make my own so I switched to searching for chocolate meringue recipes with the goal of dipping them in white chocolate and crushed candy canes. Eventually, I settled on a recipe from Beyond the Chicken Coop.

Pretzel Challah Rolls

Last May, Rowan Fae performed at a Spring Fairy Magic Market in Tacoma. After our performance, we walked around the market for a little bit, checking out the vendors. One of the vendors was a bakery called Forest Fairy Bakery. I ended up buying a cookie and a loaf of challah bread, the latter of which I stuck in the freezer and snacked on occasionally over the summer. I'd never had it before but I'd pinned a few challah bread recipes so when I saw it at the market, I thought "Why not?" Since I ended up liking it, I decided to make some challah rolls the next time I needed to make dinner rolls.

Because I hadn't had pretzel rolls in a while, I decided to add that extra step (it's pretty easy really - just give the rolls a baking soda bath). So I started searching through my bread pins. One of the pins was instructions from PopSugar, a lifestyle and pop culture website. It even included a link to a recipe for  challah bread on the YumSugar, PS's food section - until the link mysteriously became broken a few days after I saved the instructions. Couldn't even find the recipe by searching the website. So I quickly went through my pins until I found an easy challah bread recipe from Life as a Strawberry.

Pumpkin Snickerdoodles

When I do my weekly grocery shopping, I tend to be the type who goes up and down almost every aisle and department, even if I don't need what's there. One such department is Safeway's bakery. I usually head there to get my sandwich bread but on the weeks I don't need it, I still peruse the displays to see what's new. Every few months, this includes seasonal treats. For the most part, I use the excuse of "I can make that! I think I pinned a copycat recipe for that." for not buying them. Except I never really make those recipes. So last month when I saw pumpkin snickerdoodles out on display, I decided that the next time I needed to bake for me, I would find a recipe for pumpkin snickerdoodles. After combing through my pins on Pinterest, I settled on a recipe from CenterCutCook.

Chocolate Chip Clouds (Chocolate Chip Meringue Cookies)

After I learned the hard way that it's better to put egg whites in the freezer than in the fridge, I started freezing the whites after making Pepperoni Pinwheels. Fortunately the brief supply shortage of Pillsbury products (and I think also of pepperoni) helped buy me some time to finish the S'mores Cookie Bars. Once I got close, I started searching for recipes that use 8 egg whites (or at least could be adjusted to use 8 whites). I eventually decided on chocolate chip clouds (a.k.a. meringue cookies) from Skinnytaste. To defrost the egg whites, I put them in the fridge for a few days.

Velvety Cheesecake

This year for Easter, Auntie Vicki suggested something different than usual: a plain cheesecake that could be topped with fresh berries. For my search, I decided to stick with my books and magazines since I tend to go on autopilot to the internet. I considered choosing a fruit-flavored cheesecake but eventually decided to stick to finding a plain flavor. In the end, I chose a recipe from one of the pocket magazines I once grabbed from the register display, specifically by Gooseberry Patch.

S'mores Cookie Bars

Last summer, with a little coaxing from my mom, I once again offered to make dessert for anyone who wanted me to while in Chelan. Anne and Vicki both took me up on the offer, as did my immediate family. I decided to pick quick and easy recipes for the first two: since Anne and her family were making Mexican on their night, I decided on Sopapilla Cheesecake Bars while Vicki requested my recipe for pizza night - the golden Oreo fudge I'd made for Carly for her golden birthday.

For my immediate family, I decided on a more complicated recipe. The flavor was kinda easy to pick out: since it was the middle of summer, why not s'mores? I went through my s'mores board on Pinterest and eventually decided on S'mores Cookie Bars from Practically Homemade. The weekend before Chelan, I did some prep by crushing up the graham crackers and measuring out the rest of the ingredients. I divided them up into three storage containers: one for the graham cracker crumbs, one for the dry ingredients (flour, salt, baking powder), and one for the sugars. I also packed the remaining non-perishable ingredients (marshmallows, chocolate chips, etc.) with the ingredients for the other two recipes. Once we got there, I bought stuff like eggs and butter when buying my other food for the week.

I was all set ... until I got a text from Lisa the day I was going to make these. She said that Tristan was going to take us all out for ice cream that night (which he does every year one night during Chelan), just in case it affected my dessert plans. Obviously it did but I didn't want to make Tristan feel bad (plus I look forward to that night every year) so I didn't say anything and decided to make these bars when the white chocolate chip blondies were done.

Which took a while since there were many weekends when I wasn't home for lunch on Saturdays so it took until the end of January for me to finish them. I was more than ready to get those containers out of my pantry (and the recipe removed from my bookmark bar).

Mint Chip Brookies

It really didn't take me long to at least decide on the flavor of Kevin's Christmas present. Kevin, our cousin Stefan, and I were talking at Thanksgiving and the topic eventually landed on my baking. One thing that Kevin gushed about was the Thin Mint Gooey Cake Bars I made YEARS ago (I'm still kinda surprised he didn't talk about the bars with mint Oreos that I made a couple years ago for Father's Day, considering within a week he asked me to make him [and Helen?] a second batch that he paid me to do). So I decided to search for a mint recipe. Eventually I decided on Mint Brookies from Crazy for Crust - like when I made Kati's peanut butter brookies a couple years ago, this recipe allowed me to use a box mix for the brownie layer so I would be able to make it semi-quick during the week.

I thought they baked great until I went to cut them: the brownie layer was a bit gooey, especially in the middle. But apparently they were a hit with Kevin because he brought a bunch to Auntie Vicki and Uncle Rob's house on Christmas Day. Stefan even commented that the gooiness of the brownies made them better.

Ube Sugar Cookies

When I worked at the passport office I had a few co-workers who were either from the Philippines or of Filipino heritage. One day while in the break room a couple of those co-workers were eating a bread that had a purple swirl in it. I asked them what the purple was. They told me it was ube, a purple yam that's really sweet. Which I found out when I tried a piece of the bread: it tasted more like berries. I've been a fan ever since (although ironically, I've only had it one other time in a cupcake). I didn't bake with it for Helen at first in part because I wasn't sure where to find the ingredients. So this year I decided would be the year that I made her an ube treat for Christmas.

During my search, I discovered that there's more than one way to add ube to a recipe. After trying the bread at work, I looked for ube bread recipes and they all said that the swirl is ube halaya (a.k.a. ube jam). But while looking for cookie recipes, the ingredients were different: powdered ube and ube extract/flavoring. According to the food blogs I looked at, both ingredients can be found at Asian grocery stores - like Seafood City, which is conveniently located at Southcenter Mall but I 'd always figured was strictly a seafood store based on the name. Turns out, they have a lot more than seafood. Like powdered ube and ube flavoring:

I had already picked out a recipe from The Little Epicurean that was exactly what I wanted to make for Helen. But also a bit different as many of the "ube cookie" search results were for ube crinkles (since I love chocolate crinkles I plan on making those for myself later 😋). She loved them and could really taste the ube flavor (which I was briefly worried about after a contestant on Food Network's Christmas Cookie Challenge made ube cookies with both powder and extract and the judges couldn't taste the ube flavor. He ended up going home).

Angel Food Cake

A couple of weeks ago we got together to celebrate my grandma's birthday. I volunteered to make an angel food cake, with the intent on using the egg whites I'd accumulated over the past 6 months (mainly when making Pepperoni Pinwheels for a snack). So I started searching for a recipe that used a lot of egg whites. I ended up choosing one from Serious Eats.

Except when I told my mom what I was going to use for egg whites, she asked if I had been freezing them. I said no, they'd been in the fridge. She informed me that they probably weren't good anymore. Meaning my efforts to not waste egg whites for once had failed. We found a solution though: boxed organic egg whites (more in the notes).

White Chocolate Blondies

I don't know why but I've always been a fan of blondie bars. They're definitely in my top 5 favorite desserts. I think it's the different taste that appeals to me (I do like butterscotch). So when it came time to choose a new recipe for weekend lunch dessert, I decided to make a pan of blondies. Rather than use the Betty Crocker Cooky Book recipe I usually make, I decided to look in the 50 Brownies insert that I got in an issue of Food Network Magazine. I made a fudgy brownie recipe from it and was IN LOVE (seriously, I think it was better than the box mix that even I prefer for brownies) so I figured the same would be the case for blondie bars.

Lemon Raspberry Sugar Cookie Bars

This year for Mother's Day we kept it small again: like last year, I went to Auntie Vicki and Uncle Rob's house. It was the three of us, Carly, and Nonni. This time, Uncle Rob's mom Ruth joined us as well. As always I offered to make dessert. Auntie Vicki suggested something fruity, specifically raspberry or lemon, and cookie bars. So after looking through my magazine cutouts, I started combing through Pinterest (it's actually a bit quick to go through when you're looking for something specific). I ended up finding a recipe that was both raspberry and lemon from the blog Butter with a Side of Bread.

Jell-O Cookies

While delicious, my chocolate caramel macarons unfortunately didn't last long. Apparently, while great in theory, adding caramel ice cream topping to the filling of sandwich cookies that aren't going in the fridge leads to white fuzzy mold after a couple months (especially when there are some warm days during that time). So I had to toss my hard work in the trash and find a new recipe. Fortunately for my indecisive brain, I had a starting point.

You see, a year ago while on Facebook during lockdown, I came across a sponsored post for an artisanal soft pretzel company called Eastern Standard Provisions. I was hooked from the start. There are two options for buying the various types they offer: individually or as a variety in a box. Almost everything comes with regular salt but one of the boxes, a collaboration with St. Jude's, comes with Raspberry Lime sugar. Since I like my soft pretzels plain I usually toss the salt but I decided to keep the sugar when I bought the St. Jude's box, figuring I'd bake with it.

Because it's sugar I decided to take the obvious route and find some cookies to roll in it (like with snickerdoodles). As always I wasn't sure where to start on Pinterest at first. Except with lemon, since that's a flavor that goes well with both raspberry and lime. After some searching I decided to look at the Jell-O cookie recipes I've saved and see if there was one that included rolling the cookie dough in sugar. Didn't find that so I just decided to pick one and roll as many cookies as I could. I finally settled on a recipe from 99 Easy Recipes.

Chocolate Caramel Macarons

Last fall when I thought I was going to be staying home for a while I decided to start baking what I wanted to go with my lunch. Yes, I shouldn't really have dessert with my meals but I honestly can't remember a time when I didn't have something sweet to finish my lunch (well, on a regular basis. And when I eat alone). So for the first time in a long time (if not ever), I made something for me.

Several of the recipes I made asked for only egg yolks. But rather than toss the whites like I usually do (i.e. my famous pepperoni pinwheels) I started saving them. My intention was to make a macaron recipe for someone for Christmas. When that plan changed, I decided to make that recipe for me.

As most of you know, my history with macarons has been hit and miss. One of the main things I've struggled with is size: as soon as the batter hits the cookie sheet, it starts to spread. No idea if this was because the batter wasn't mixed enough or I just made them too big to begin with. Which is why I bought some macaron mats at the Culinary Apple last summer while in Chelan. Didn't entirely help but the shells were better than before, so win?

The recipe itself was easy to find: a while ago I bought a book called Mad About Macarons! by Jill Colonna. She's a bit of an expert on these little French treats, having lived in Paris since the 90s. I followed her instructions, even using metric measurements instead of the usual measuring cup/spoon that I'm used to. It was a longer process than I was expecting (which is why I didn't get to making the filling until almost a week later) but totally worth it.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies

I had something different planned for Kevin. However, I can't remember what it was because about a week after Thanksgiving he sent me a picture of a recipe for some chocolate-covered peanut butter "cookies" and said I should make them sometime. I figured (and got confirmation) that he wanted these to be his Christmas present. They didn't seem too hard to make: about 4 ingredients for the main "cookie" and melted chocolate for dipping. So I switched gears. It didn't take me long to make them either (well, kinda - more on that in the notes). He loved them - as did everyone else who tried them. 

Also, I found out where he got the recipe: apparently the company he works for has a family business as one of their clients (or something along those lines) and they brought these in one day as a thank you with the recipe attached.

Puto Seco (Philippine Butter Cookies)

Over the summer Kevin and Helen got married. It was a much smaller celebration than originally planned (because 2020) but how can you go wrong with a backyard wedding in mid-July?

So of course for her Christmas present I wanted to make Helen something Filipino again. I did an internet search like last year and tried to not focus on just recipes from blogs by people of Filipino heritage. Which is how I landed on a recipe for butter cookies on All Recipes (a user-submitted recipe site). Helen seemed to like them (and know what they were, which was my fear - just because it's Filipino doesn't mean she's familiar with it).

Linzer Cookies

2020 was the weirdest year ever. For one thing, I had a lot more time to bake but ironically no one to bake for. You would think that would mean I wouldn't feel as stressed out when baking Christmas presents this year. But nope - I had three fewer recipes to find. Which was nice because as of Thanksgiving I was unemployed so I was able to focus on my job search. And also wash the bowls in the dishwasher instead of by hand 😆

For Nonni, I knew one flavor I didn't want to search for: coconut. Looking at my blog posts from previous years, I discovered that I'd made her a coconut-flavored present for the past THREE YEARS! Time to change things up. So I stuck with a flavor combo I've made her before: almond and raspberry. While searching magazine recipes, I came across one for linzer cookies. I've always wanted to make them so I figured why not now? I got the impression that she agreed.