Beyond the Box: Baking from Scratch

Fall is really, truly here. At least, around here anyway. It's cold and gray and often damp, and there are more leaves the ground than on the trees. But you know what fall is like, so I won't bore you with descriptions of it. Instead, I'm going to jump right into this blog like it's a pile of freshly raked autumn leaves -- except this scrumptious dish won't leave you smelling slightly mildewy and damp. If it does, I recommend you see your doctor right away. Today I bring you a recipe straight from my sweet little grandma: her specialty Apple Fritters.

Ah, autumn.  The leaves are turning, the air is crisp, and everything is available in pumpkin spice flavor.  I'm not head-over-heels crazy about pumpkin spice everything. It's good, but I think it's a little overdone, and frankly, I think everyone has lost sight of what pumpkin spice is supposed to be. Most of the pumpkin spice goodies you see don't even have any pumpkin flavoring, let alone actual pumpkin.  But not my cupcakes! These have plenty of real pumpkin and warm cinnamon to make you feel cozy and happy this fall. Yum!

Good afternoon, citizens of the Internet! It has been a while since I have shared any tasty treats with you and for my excuses, please look out the nearest window where you will certainly see excessive amounts of sunshine.  Step outside and notice that the excessive sunshine brings with it copious amounts of heat, intensified by the microscopic water particles suspended in the air.  In short:  it's hot.  And this is why it has taken me so long to bring you a new and delightful from-scratch recipe.  I couldn't take the heat, so I got out of the kitchen.  But I'm back! And at the request of my cousin Jenny, I present homemade granola bars! Guaranteed not to heat up your kitchen too  much, and also to fill you up with plenty of protein and fiber and all that stuff that's good for you, but also taste good enough that you want to eat it. 

I'm back to baking treats for people today! But this one is healthy , because it's chock full o' veggies! Okay, so healthy might be a stretch, but there are lots of veggies in this one.  Don't let that scare you,  though, because this Spiced Carrot Cake is moist, sweet, dense, and just a little bit spicy.  Cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg give a little bit of a kick and the tangy cream cheese frosting smoothes it all back down.  And you can decorate it with cute little frosting carrots!

Buckle up, everybody, I'm mixing things up today. I had a dream the other night that I gained so much weight I was hardly recognizable.  It was terrible. I was so mad at myself. So today I baked up something that I won't eat any  of. I could, if I wanted to, but I tried one, and I don't need any more.  They're (drumroll, please)..... homemade dog treats! Make these for your four legged friends and they will love you even more (if that's even possible).

There are so many things I love about summertime.  All the green, the heat, swimming pools, fishing, baseball games, and bountiful, fresh produce!  I love getting fruits and vegetables from farmers' markets, and this year I'm even trying my hand at growing some of my own.  I have tomatoes forming and a bell pepper plant and plans for a zucchini plant (I'd better get on that....).  One thing I haven't been brave enough to try growing myself, but undoubtedly will before too many summers pass by, is strawberries.  

This is perfection. It is refreshingly cool on a hot afternoon, bright and cheerful on a rainy day, and you already know how much I love cream cheese. Introducing the Key Lime Cheesecake!  Guaranteed to make your day a little bit better. (I can't actually back that guarantee with anything except maybe a befuddled apology, but I'm pretty confident that this can't make your day worse.) 

Summer is here! And that means camping! And campfires! And campfires mean s'mores!   I'm so excited about honest-to-goodness s'mores!  I know that for just about everything I share here, I gush how much I love it, but it's true.  Why would I share recipes with you that I don't love?  I can't trick you like that, it's just too mean!  And I know you don't need a recipe for s'mores, but my love of s'mores has led me to develop and sample several s'mores spinoffs that can be made sans campfire.  Of course, the original is the best, with the marshmallow toasted over glowing coals of an outdoor fire slowly burning out in the night.  But I crave gooey marshmallow and chocolatey goodness far more often than I have time to find a fire pit, gather wood, start a fire, and let it burn down to prime 'mallow roasting temps.   This is a fancy alternative nearly as delicious as the real thing, and you can serve it to guests without them feeling like they...

Ah, Banana Bread...  It's one of those recipes that everyone seems to have, and yet they're all just a little different.  One thing they seem to have in common is, thankfully, bananas.  (If your banana bread recipe has no bananas, throw it out.  But first show it to me, because I don't believe you.)  This recipe has bananas and is lovely.  Try it!

I'm baaaaaack!  And today I'm bringing something a little more unusual but just as fun and delicious as ever!  In honor of Earth Day today, these cookies are a little bit greener than usual and a little bit healthier than they look.   Healthy cookies?!  Well, I won't go so far as to say that they're actually healthy  but by replacing the butter in the frosting with avocados, they're far healthier than they could have been.  And the green won't stain your teeth, making people wonder if you're a swamp creature in disguise!

Spring is here, and the weather is warming up! I got pretty toasty yesterday working in the yard, so I decided to make something cold to enjoy on a warm afternoon.  I'm really excited to share today's post with you because it's something I've been wanting to do for a long time, and it really goes with my "Beyond the Box" theme, replacing pre-made ingredients with a little DIY.   This is one of those recipes that when I saw the picture on Pinterest, I said, "Oh, that looks awesome!" but when I clicked through to actually read the recipe I thought, "Seriously? I can do better."

Oh gosh, it's been almost two weeks since I last posted! My deepest apologies!  Spring has sprung and things have been busy around here, cleaning out flower beds, trimming back some plants and planting others.  So that's my excuse for being absent. That, and I got sucked into The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt  on Netflix, which I thought was hilariously fantastic.  I've still been in the kitchen whipping up some tasty treats, though, and thinking what to make next to share with you. Today's recipe was a test (that is, I hadn't made it before trying it here to share with all of you), but let me tell you, it was also a wild success.  One of my friends had a request for me to find and try a cheesecake recipe that she could eat.  She has some dietary restrictions and needed a gluten-free cheesecake.  And, even keeping in mind my mini gluten rant from the french bread recipe  a couple weeks ago, most cheesecake is already mostly gluten-free:  j...

Happy Pi Day, everyone!  For those unaware, today is Pi Day (March 14, or 3.14), and this year is a very special Pi day, as we get two more digits:  3.1415.  In honor of Pi Day and at the risk of being slightly cliche, we are making Blueberry Hand Pies.  Yum!  And, like the number pi going on and on and on, this recipe is a doozy!

Look at us, rolling right along into spring!  Because the weather is finally getting pretty and you'll want to be outside enjoying it instead of inside slaving over a hot oven,  I have something super easy and extra tasty today.  In fact, it's technically not even baking.  Also, this is the fifth entry!  Hooray! Celebrating a tiny milestone!

Hello again, friends!  I hope you're doing well.  I am ready for spring.  We just keep getting snow.  Yesterday it got up to 48 degrees and almost all our snow melted, and then this morning it was snowing again, and the ground is once again covered.  Pippin is excited about it though, which makes it a little more tolerable.  The snow is a little less wearisome when you can watch your puppy try to snap the flakes out of the air. But it's still cold and damp.  So I'm making some French bread today to warm up the house.  It's my wonderful mother's recipe with a few minor adjustments.   Shout out to my mom:  she always let me help her in the kitchen when I was growing up, and I credit my love of baking (and any talents related to such) to her.   Hi, Mom!

More cupcakes!  And today's is non-chocolate (you were starting to think that all my work was in cocoa, weren't you?).  Guys, this recipe is one of my absolute all-time favorites.  It's a little more work than the other recipes I've posted, but it is so  worth it.  The first time I made these and took them to work they disappeared like hotcakes (but, they're cupcakes, not hotcakes, so, even better, and probably faster).   One of my bosses at the time, a very classy, gentlemanly-type attorney, told me it was "the best cupcake he had ever eaten," and another attorney asked whether they actually had coconut in them, because he hates  coconut, but these were excellent.  They raved.  It was quite the ego boost.

It's Engineers' Week! Did you know? I didn't know either until my husband's work put a sign in their break room.  So I whipped up a little something for him to take in and share, as he is an engineer and that was the gist of the sign. Not knowing a TON of engineers, I'm going to explain a little bit of my reasoning for choosing this delicious treat.  The first reason I decided to make it was simply that I wanted to. I found it on Pinterest a long time ago (one of the first things I ever pinned) and finally had a chance to try my hand at it.

Hello, World!  Welcome to the inaugural post of Beyond the Box:  Baking from Scratch! I'm very glad you're here! (See?! Exclamation points!) Sorry, I've never been good with ice breakers, so I'll just get right into it.  As you've probably guessed from the title and description of this blog and my profile, I'm going to be sharing recipes for sweet treats that are made from scratch.  This isn't to say we will never use anything pre-made.  For example, graham cracker crusts will start with graham crackers in a box.  If you are feeling fancy and want to make your own graham crackers and the pulverize them so as to turn them into a crust, be my guest. I just want to share the joy that is making something sweet to share (or to guiltily eat way too much of all on your own, I won't judge) that didn't come from a box with its picture on the front.  Baking is fun, and when you use a box, all the fun part is already done for you.  Why are we letting Bet...