The most delicious danish in the world....

....and it only takes a few minutes to make.  Once your puff pastry sheet is defrosted (my first time using this!), you cut it, spread cream cheese filling on, and a bit of cherry pie filling.  Pinch together and bake!  Yum, more please!  I wasn't sure if I was going to make the drizzle icing or not, and then I ended up forgetting about it anyway.  But it's not needed.  Recipe here.  
I had extra cream cheese filling, and I didn't use anywhere near the whole can of cherry filling, so I made a little tart using up both of those.

Newly acquired/tasty eats

Starting on the top left: 
-My brown wallet was causing me difficulties.  I found a vintage yellow one with three zipper pockets for $8!
-Two new plates and one bowl from Impact.
-Three books from a used book store.  I love the blue and orange one...the flower flap opens up and has the title underneath it.  I really want to go back to this bookstore, it was so cozy and the books are so cheap!  I bought three books for less than the average price of a new book.
-Blood orange & honey infused drink and chocolate parfait from Whole Foods.  The drink had no sweeteners, only honey, and the parfait was delicious.  I also had coconut breaded chicken pieces from the same store.
-Framed bird embroidery done with yarn, from Impact.  Pretty.  I think this is the most expensive item I've bought at Impact....and it was $3!

Pumpkin!

Pumpkin Coconut Bread, baked last night!  This bread is good.  As in, "oh my, I can't stop eating you" kind of good.  It's moist and pumpkiny, with coconut and coconut cream pudding mix in it!  Super quick and easy, too.
Recipe from Taste and Tell.

I baked, but forgot to post.

So.  Catching up....I made Breakfast Cake for the millionth time to use up some sour cream.  It's a recipe we've been making since forever and ever, originally called Coffee Cake.  When I was little I thought that meant there was actually coffee (gross!) in the cake, not that you ate the cake with coffee.  So from then on we referred to it as Breakfast Cake, because we eat it for breakfast.  I didn't realize how strange eating cake for breakfast sounded until I made the cake again last week.  It's tradition, I guess!


And the other day I made a pear pie flavored with ginger and maple syrup, with a delicious streusel topping!  We were given a huge bag of pears that sat around waiting to ripen, and then all of a sudden they were overripe and needed to be used.  Pies use up lots of fruit...so this was a perfect solution, and also bursting with DELICIOUS.
Recipe: Pear Ginger Maple Pie

First successful fudge!

I made this marshmallow chocolate fudge today to use up the rest of the condensed milk from the last post.  It's pretty good and was super easy.  Just plop marshmallows and the milk into a bowl and microwave, and then stir in the chocolate!  I cut it into way smaller pieces after the picture, but I thought it was pretty this way.  Recipe: Easy Creamy Fudge.

I was hungry for cake.

In making this cake today, I encountered my first apple with a worm in it.  Ewww.  (Needless to say, I did not use that apple.....)
Anyway, this recipe is from Veggie Foodist and is called Dosha Cake.  It's a simple little cake made with condensed milk to substitute for eggs.  And, prepare to be shocked....there is no sugar in this cake, except for 1 tablespoon sprinkled on the top!  The condensed milk is sweet enough that sugar is not needed.
So vanilla cake + apples and cinnamon sugar + easy = pretty good.  But I've had better.

Chirp chirp.

Back in December, I told you I would post pictures of my birds after Christmas.  Now, posting them almost a year later isn't what I had in mind, but it is still after Christmas.  They were shoved into the attic and I dug them out, just for you!  Time to make more.... 

Why I love Fall.

Pumpkin craving alert!  Luckily I had a huge can of it in the pantry yesterday.  I used the recipe my mom has been making since who knows when, but this time I tried out a streusel topping.  It makes it extra delicious! 

Crust (Makes 2)
2  1/2 cups flour
3/4 teas salt
1/2 teas sugar
1/2 c + 2 tables oil
3 tables + 2 teas cold water 


Combine flour, salt, sugar, and oil in a food processor.  Add the cold water and pulse until dough is moistened and sticks together.  Separate the dough into two equal pieces and set one aside.  Flatten the other a bit on a piece of wax paper, and placing another piece of wax paper on top, roll with a rolling pin.  Roll out from all sides to create a thin circle large enough to fill a 9" pie pan.  Lift into the pan, patching up any rips and trimming off any excess over the sides.  Repeat for the second pie crust.


Pumpkin Pie
3  1/2 cups pumpkin (one 29 oz can)
3 cups evaporated milk (two 12 oz cans)
1  1/4 cups sugar
1 teas salt
2 teas cinnamon
1 teas ginger
1/2 teas cloves
4 eggs


Preheat oven to 425F.  Combine all with electric mixer, mixing until smooth.  Divide evenly between the two prepared crusts and bake for 15 minutes at 425F. * Then lower the temperature to 350F and bake for 40-50 minutes, or until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean.  Also, if the pies are done they won't giggle when moved.
*The streusel should be sprinkled on at this point.


Streusel  (Original here)
2 tables flour
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 teas cinnamon
2 tables chilled butter, chopped
1/2 cup chopped walnuts


Combine flour, brown sugar and cinnamon.  Cut in the butter until crumbly.  Mix in walnuts and sprinkle evenly onto pies.  Bake for remaining time.  

'E' for Emerson!

My niece turned two today, and here is the deliciousness I made for her!  A yellow layer cake with fluffy peanut butter frosting in the middle, and covered in fudge-like chocolate frosting.  I really could not make up my mind about what cake to make.  In about a two week time frame, I switched from a tri-color swirled cake (each color swirl with a different flavor!), to Elmo cupcakes, and to about ten different variations of layer cakes.  

Everyone at the party loved my cake!  And to think that my mom and sister advised against me using the peanut butter frosting because "it might not taste right" and "it's a party for a two-year-old, just make a regular cake".

Pfffh.  Ok, for the first quote, that just reinforces my belief that you should always go with your instinct, and for the second quote, you could say that about any birthday:

"Oh, she's just turning 7, we've done this for the past six years.  Just make a boring cake."

"Oh, he's just turning 45, it's just another birthday.  It doesn't matter."

Well with that attitude, then what does matter?  

I'm just teaching myself to stray away from the negative energy and attitude that is expressed from my immediate family.

And my cake was a regular cake, just with a little surprise when it's cut open.  Who doesn't want a little BANG like that?  You only turn two once.  Sheesh. 

Recipes: Cake.  Chocolate frosting.  Peanut butter frosting.

The offspring of Clarence.

The mini peacock is done!!  As you can see, I gave him beaded legs because the original leg pieces were too small to sew.

Father and son portrait!  Poor mini peacock, he doesn't have a mother!  Maybe she ran off with a lover and deserted them.  Perhaps she died from a bad case of peacock flu.  Or I just never made her.
Well, mini is going to be adopted anyway!