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The Best Vanilla Cake Recipe
I know what you’re thinking, that is a pretty brave title. Honestly, this is the best vanilla cake recipe you will ever make. I have been on the hunt for a great vanilla cake recipe for a long time. I find that vanilla cake is either too dry, dense or doesn’t have a lot of vanilla flavour. This recipe is light and fluffy and has the perfect amount of vanilla flavour in it! Some tips for making a great vanilla cake, bring all ingredients to room temperature, make sure you sift all of the dry ingredients, don’t over-mix the cake batter, and bake at a lower temperature. Some of these…
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Mini-Egg Cookies The Perfect Treat For Easter
I do tend to make these cookies every Easter just so I can have that special treat. This year I made them ahead of time and put some in the freezer so that they will last longer, or that is the plan, I will let you know if that plan works. These cookies are my weakness. Every time I make them I tend to eat the most of them. I also hide them so Kevin doesn’t find them just so I can eat more of them. This doesn’t happen very often with the baking I do, thankfully, but for some reason these cookies I can’t seem to control myself. Easter…
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Mini-Egg Brownies That Will Be An Easter Favorite
Somehow this year Easter has snuck up on me. I am finding that most of the holidays for 2021 have come pretty fast and out of nowhere. It might be that the days all seem to be blending into one another. Needless to say, since it’s Easter I need to make everything with mini eggs! Mini eggs are one of my favourite candies, that and M & M’s. This recipe can be made with chocolate chips instead of mini eggs if you are making these brownies and it’s not Easter. Some tips for making great brownies: For the butter make sure it is melted and cooled but not cold. Leave…
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This Blueberry Loaf is Perfect For Spring
In Calgary, the weather has been unreal. I don’t mean to brag but we have been having temperatures of 10°C and above, which is 50°F for my American friends, and it’s only the beginning of March! We have been able to sit outside and have drinks on the patio in the afternoon already. I honestly don’t remember this happening this early in the year before. With all the warm weather it feels like spring is here, which means that we should be making all those baked goods we love to eat in Spring. Like anything with citrus (which I just went through a lemon and lime phase), or all the…
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Irish Cream Cake, Great For St Patrick’s Day
It’s that time of year again when everyone bakes green items for St Patrick’s Day. I try to avoid green baking at all costs. I find that you need to add so much food colouring to make things a good shade of green and then when it bakes it doesn’t always look the most appealing. Sometimes it comes out looking mouldy and it should go in the trash instead of on a plate. This year I thought I would try to make something with Bailey’s Irish Cream. I don’t bake a lot with alcohol, I don’t like the taste of it in my baking, but with Baileys, I don’t mind…
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Fig & Black Pepper Bread For That Sweet & Savory Craving
For those that don’t know before COVID, I read a lot. We used to have a dog Kiki, that was all about routine. Her bedtime was 9 PM sharp, so I would go to bed with her and read for an hour or so. Since she passed away in June I hadn’t read as much, the routine was broken and I didn’t really have a reason to go to bed at 9 PM anymore. I did miss reading and obviously, I miss Kiki. Since January I started getting back into the routine of heading to bed earlier and reading instead of watching Netflix. I have reread a couple of older…
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Freezer Full of Bananas? Make These Banana Oatmeal Walnut Muffins
I wasn’t sure if it was just me, but I found that the bananas I was buying were ripening really fast. They would go from the green one day to brown the next. There are only so many bananas that you can eat. I also find this is the same with avocados, where they are rock hard and then you have 15 minutes to eat them before they are rotten. Needless to say, I had a freezer full of ripe bananas that I need to find something to make or I would just have to toss them out. I used walnuts in these muffins but you can swap those out…
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Lime Meltaway Cookies Have Me Dreaming of Spring
This week the temperatures here have been wonderful. We went from -31 C to 2 C which felt like we could be outside working on our tans. The warmer temperatures felt so nice, and I’m sure they will only be here for a short time, seeing as we are only in February. When I was on my citrus kick a few weeks ago I came across these Lime Meltaway Cookies, which are essentially lime shortbread cookies, and I knew I had to try them out. These cookies have such a great citrus taste from the fresh lime juice and zest in the cookie as well as the icing. These would…
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Nothing Say I Love You Like Red Velvet Cake
This is the recipe I get asked for the most, and it has probably been the one that has evolved the most. Every time I make it I think I can make it a little better the next time. This is the 2021 version and may be different the next time it gets posted. People tend to be scared of making red velvet cause they think it will be difficult, which couldn’t be farther from the truth. I find red velvet easier to make than vanilla cake. Red Velvet is my all-time favourite cake. I will always pick it over chocolate or vanilla any day. There is just something about…
