Penguins and Cocoa

The holidays are upon us, and we are usually so busy that we don’t have time to enjoy them. After baking and decorating these cute cookies I want you to sit down by the fireplace, and enjoy your hard work with a nice cup of hot cocoa. Stop and take in the season. Look at the beautifully decorated Christmas tree that you worked so hard on decorating. Love it! Enjoy it!

I found a pretty easy recipe to make these penguin cookies. Bonus, you can make snowmen the same way! Use two different size round cookie cutters. Size will depend on how big or small you want your cookies to be. After baking decorate with royal icing. The cookies and cocoa shown here are What Next – Wintertime Cocoa & Cookies.

Sweetopia has a great recipe for The Perfect Peanut Butter Cut Out Cookie. If you don’t want to make peanut butter cookies you can do any type. Her article has great tips on how to keep the shape of the cookie. Definitely go take a look for step by step instructions.

Recipe after the break!

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Great Homemade Gift Ideas

Do you want to give a gift that shows care and thoughtfulness? Baking is one way to a person’s heart and stomach! With the help of Dust Bunny, Vespertine, 22769, and Tentacio we can make some pretty good looking personalized gifts! Here are a few ideas:

1. Buy cute mugs and fill with Hot Chocolate, Marshmallows, and Candy Canes.
2. Peppermint themed gift basket. Fill with Popcorn, Loose Candies, Lollipops, Kisses, and Cookies. All peppermint flavored.
3. Macarons and Flowers for the one you really love.
4. Assortment of homemade cookies.

Let’s share recipes! The peppermint chocolate cookies look delicious. This recipe is from Cooking Classy. Please go to her site to read more about these cookies and more.

Keep reading for the recipe and more.

S’mores for me!

I missed a month or two due to being busy with life. We have all been there. I have seen some great looking food that I wanted to blog, and I could still. Today we are making s’mores because What Next has their s’mores set on sale for half off. And the fact that I could not get into The Arcade to blog some Halloween delights.

Back to the topic, S’mores. Where does the word come from? It is just what you think. S’mores is a contraction of the phrase “some more.” I have put together a little s’mores table with graham crackers, milk chocolate, and marshmallows. These are some of the easiest and most fun treats to make.

The cooler weather is perfect for bon fires and s’mores. Here is how we made ours.  Place some of the chocolate bar pieces onto a graham cracker and set to the side. Then put a marshmallow on the end of a stick and hold that over the fire. Cook it as light or dark as you like. I prefer mine burnt.  Top with another graham cracker and enjoy!

read more for credits and slurls

Making a Kawaii Bear Burger

MishMish recently created this adorable hamburger that has a cute bear face. I looked into how we could create our own. My first stop was Pinterest. Just look at all of the cuteness overload on that page when searching bear burgers! As you can see, a few people make the ears with a meat such as sausage or pepperoni and a little bit of cheese.

I found a recipe that shows you how to make your own buns with ears. Look at this blog post on Edible Bears. They show us how to make your own bear buns. There are more than just cute bear buns on that blog. If you would rather make your hamburger with store bought buns then watch this video on youtube by Ochikeron. She makes a Rilakkuma Avocado Cheeseburger that might be to darling to eat. Her channel is loaded with bento and kawaii dishes that she prepares.

MishMish – The Cute Bear Burger
Cae :: Flamingo :: Collection
Cae :: Audrey :: Ring
Blueberry – Mimi – Top Tied Dress – Maitreya *Group Gift
TRUTH / Gwen *Group Gift
Glam Affair – Willow – Catwa Mesh Head Applier – America
an lar [poses] The Laura Series

Mandarin Orange Cake (with a little help from baby)

Look at this little baby boy helping me to bake a cake. So adorable! I am not usually one that plays the Black Bantam gachas for babies, but this time I did. We are going to be making a Mandarin Orange Cake today. If I can stop him from eating all of the oranges.

Most of the recipes that I found were made using a box of cake mix. Since Black Bantam went through the trouble to make the flour, we are going to make it from scratch. I am going to share this recipe from Just a Pinch Mandarin Orange Cake from Scratch

Ingredients

2 1/2 c flour
2 1/4 tsp baking powder
3/4 c butter, room temperature
2 1/2 c sugar, divided
4 eggs
11oz can mandarin oranges, undrained

Frosting

2 c whipping cream
1 box 3.4 oz instant vanilla pudding
1 can crushed pineapple, undrained 8 oz.

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Farenheit.
Grease and Flour two 8 inch cake pans.
In a small bowl, whisk flour and baking powder. Set aside.
Cream Butter and 2 cups Sugar. Add Eggs one at a time until all combined.
Add entire can of Mandarin Oranges. Beat into batter, slightly crushing up oranges.
Slowly add flour mixture until well mixed.
Divide batter between the 2 cake pans. Bake 30-35 minutes, or until toothpick comes out clean. Allow to cool on wire racks.

Make Frosting while cake is baking:

Whip cream with remaining 1/2 cup of Sugar and Pudding Mix until stiff peaks form. Refrigerate until ready to use. Spread on cooled cakes. Enjoy!

This cake was super easy to make. I simply placed oranges on top of the Tres Blah Bon Appetit Cake for decoration.

[Black Bantam] Let’s Make Mandarin Cake Set Extras @ Epiphany
[Black Bantam] Baby Boy Bowl Decor 02 @ Epiphany

I wanted to share this recipe that also had a tiny helper in making their cake. https://julieblanner.com/mandarin-orange-cake/

Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookies

Can’t you just smell the warm chocolate chip cookies coming right out of the oven? Cookies are always a special treat. It does not matter if it is wintertime or summertime.  They are great with a cup of hot cocoa or to take for a snack on a picnic.

To make chocolate chip cookies Ultimate you will want to make an ice cream sandwich with them. Just add a scoop of ice cream in between two cookies. I think most any flavor ice cream would do just fine. Below is a recipe for a batch of Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookies that comes from Gold Medal Flour’s website. I added that including nuts in your recipe is optional.  Dust Bunny’s Homemade Summer Treats

Gold Medal Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookies Recipe

INGREDIENTS

• 3/4cup granulated sugar
• 3/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 1cup butter or margarine, softened
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1egg
• 2 1/4 cups Gold Medal™ all-purpose flour
• 1teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup coarsely chopped nuts (optional)
• 1 package (12 ounces) semisweet chocolate chips (2 cups)

DIRECTIONS

• Heat oven to 375ºF.

• Mix sugars, butter, vanilla and egg in large bowl. Stir in flour, baking soda and salt (dough will be stiff). Stir in nuts and chocolate chips.

• Drop dough by rounded tablespoonfuls about 2 inches apart onto ungreased cookie sheet.

• Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until light brown (centers will be soft). Cool slightly; remove from cookie sheet. Cool on wire rack.

Baking Cherry Pie from Scratch

Cherry Pie makes me think of summer. Honestly, if you can find cherries then you can have it anytime. I found several recipes to help us bake a cherry pie today. The one I used was easy to follow and everything was made from scratch. Sally doesn’t cook her cherry pie filling before placing it in the pie crust and that saves time. Anybody can go to the store and buy a ready made pie crust. We are doing this by scratch. Please follow the recipe from Sally’s Baking Addiction, or look up a different recipe to suit your tastes.