i'd rather be baking

We’re on an English muffin kick. I’d call it a rut, except that I don’t want it to end (ever). I don’t even know when I started to like English muffins, but here I am buying one of those little sleeves of six every week (sometimes twice a week!) without fail. One night I sent Ryan to the store for something and he came home with a giant sleeve of TWELVE English muffins. Did you know they make such a thing? Glorious. Clearly we are not afraid of carbs.

I made these little beauties on Sunday afternoon and I’ll be honest — they took awhile! But for a day when I had lots of chores to do around the house and could stop sporadically, they worked out perfectly. And I couldn’t believe how well they turned out! Oh man.

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I bought these candy cane kisses before we even got our Christmas tree. Have you seen these things? They taste like Christmas-flavored rainbows and unicorns! Magical.

I’ve had these little beauties stashed in the freezer since Thanksgiving, and have been slowly sneaking them one at a time for a little bite of Christmas. I am obsessed. I didn’t love white chocolate…until now. It just needed a pepperminty best friend.

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This time last year, I was spending many hours a week decorating cupcakes. I miss the frosting! I’ve had a hankering for cupcakes for awhile now, and at this point piping frosting is such a familiar task that it’s kind of therapeutic. So yesterday I put on my apron and made some cupcakes.

Foodbuzz recently provided me with some cake mix coupons and I finally put one of them to good use. Although I usually bake from scratch, a good cake mix is always handy and comes together so quickly. And this one looked so fancy — I was excited to try it!

They basically had me at caramel. I decided to add some fresh apple and cream cheese frosting because, well, it just seemed like a good idea. I stirred up the cupcakes, unloaded the dishwasher while they baked, and went for a quick run while they cooled. There’s nothing quite so fun as coming home from a run to fresh cupcakes. I’m just saying.

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We’ve been a little slow to get back into the swing of things post-Thanksgiving. Ryan had two four-day weekends in a row and we were sad to see them end! But our holiday was lovely and we ate lots of good food.

I was so excited to make these crescent rolls! They were a bit time-consuming but insanely delicious. I may have created an every-holiday-monster here.

I’ve been about 99.9% vegetarian for over a year but made this turkey breast for Ryan — and ended up loving it! This recipe is a winner and I’ll definitely be making it again.

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I can’t resist brownies straight out of the fridge. I mean, hot fudge is good and all, but there’s something about cold chocolate that’s just perfect…and dangerous. I’ll grab a bite before and after breakfast, and don’t even get me started on the late afternoon sleepies.

And okay, I like non-traditional desserts at Thanksgiving! I’m a huge fan of this pumpkin bread pudding — usually I make that and this apple pie. But this year I’m making a plain-Jane pumpkin pie for my dear husband. Sacrifices! So first I made these bars, naturally. Just to get the crazies out of my system.

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