All Blog Posts (141)

Time goes so quickly! In just a few days we’ll be ushering in a new year. While every holiday has its traditions, I can’t think of another holiday that equals New Year’s Eve (and Day) for the number of superstitions surrounding the celebration. After wrapping up the old year, we look to the future and try to ensure that it holds health, wealth, and happiness for ourselves and our loved ones. Some of the…

Whether they’re baked into bread, cooked in sauce, or strung with popcorn and hung on the Christmas tree, cranberries are…

When you want to make a gingerbread house but don’t want to undertake any major construction, try baking up some gingerbread…

The combination of cake and cookies as a holiday dessert centerpiece is so appealing, I think it deserves to become a tradition. So in that spirit, I offer this year’s Christmas cookie cake, a rich golden cake with a snowy coat of…

Did you put your rolling pin away after you finished that pie?

Time to take it out again, because with Thanksgiving behind us, it’s officially holiday…

Several weeks back, I showed you some cookies that I stenciled using colored sugar. I spooned the sugar onto the unbaked cookies using a…

When you think of Hanukkah cookies, you may picture filled and rolled rugelach or light, crunchy mandelbrot. While these traditional favorites are delicious, many people also include …

With the holidays on the (admittedly far) horizon, you may be looking for gifts that are inexpensive, yet thoughtful and personal. Cookie mix, paired with a cookie cutter, fills the bill.  Several weeks back, I offered an idea for…

I love baking with all kinds of nuts all year round, but the holidays call for something special and hazelnuts, or filberts, fit the bill. Though they’re grown in Oregon, hazelnuts are not perhaps as widely appreciated in the States as…

What would Thanksgiving be without…

Hard as it may be to believe, it is not too early to start planning holiday parties. For those of us who love to bake, love to try new recipes, and love to get together with friends, a cookie swap is the perfect party: You bring a batch…

Snickerdoodles are a perfect example of the classic…

I don’t know when it happened, but at some point Halloween started sneaking up on the other major holidays in terms of the amount of time and effort people put into celebrating. Driving around, I see orange lights strung on porches and…

Cookie cutters make a thoughtful gift for just about any occasion—with so many shapes to choose from, you can tailor the gift to the recipient’s interests and hobbies, or to the gift-giving occasion. It’s fun to put together a small selection of cutters that have a…

Nothing says “autumn” like apple pie and by making individual pies, you can take this quintessential fall dessert anywhere.  Little apple pies are just the thing to tuck into a lunchbox or picnic basket, and they’re perfection when…

Cookie “pops”—cookies on a stick—make fun party favors that can be customized to the theme and color scheme of your party. Shapes that work best for cookie pops are those that have a good amount of vertical area to hold the stick, and no long, thin parts. (A horse’s head is a better shape than a…

Here’s a way to provide a nutritious snack or light lunch and put a smile on someone’s face at the same time: make cookie-cutter pizzas. These mini pizzas use ingredients that are easy to keep on hand, and they can be quickly assembled and baked (particularly if you have a toaster oven). For an…

You see them everywhere in late summer, in fields, yards, and along roadsides—Black-Eyed Susans. These bright, daisylike flowers (also called Brown-Eyed Susans) are members of the Rudbeckia, or coneflower, family. Outdoors, they attract bees, butterflies, and children; indoors, they make an attractive and economical bouquet.…

If you use honey in your kitchen, at one time or another you’ve probably had the experience of a jar of it going cloudy or even turning white and granular. Honey tends to crystallize because it’s a “supersaturated solution” which really just means that it’s a lot of sugar suspended in a small amount of water. Over time, all honey will crystallize; how fast that happens depends on the type of honey (some kinds…

Although I adore cookies, my favorite dessert has to be pie. I love just about any kind, as long as the filling is fresh and flavorful and the crust is buttery-rich and supremely flaky. Of course, the season is ripe right now for fruit pies, and one irresistible way to serve them is to scale them down to a small size—what could be better than having a miniature pie all to yourself; no need for sharing?…