Kenzie Blogs Life: Baking

Funfetti Cookies

8:30:00 AM

It's holiday season, which means it's time to give in to all those sweets. I hardly baked anything this past summer, and being away at school means I have no access to a proper kitchen Recently, I went home and had the perfect excuse to try out a new cookie recipe! I only hope you'll love it as much as I did!

You may remember that a few months ago, I made this batch of cookies. And similarly I had found a box of funfetti cake mix and wanted to whip it up into a batch of cookies. So, here's what you'll need!

1. Baking Sheet

2.Funfetti Cake Mix

3.Veggie Oil

4.Vegan frosting (I used dollop)

5. White Vinegar

6. Baking Soda

7.Cup

First, you can totally un-veganise this recipe by using 2 eggs instead of White Vinegar and Baking soda. The steps are simple to follow and they go like this:

1. Heat oven to 375 F.

2. In large bowl combine cake mix, oil, 2 tablespoons white vinegar and 2 teaspoons baking soda, stir with spoon until thoroughly moistened. If it's a bit crumbly, just add a little bit of water (about 1 tablespoon).

3. Shape dough into 1-inch balls and place 2 inches apart on ungreased pan or parchment paper

4. Flatten cookies with bottom of cup about 1/4 inch thick

5.Bake about 6-8 minutes (or until golden brown edges)

For the frosting, I used this madagascar vanilla flavor from the Dollop company (which has many more flavors and you should check them out). Being a white cookie, I wanted to spruce up the frosting a bit and added red food coloring!

I hope you enjoyed this recipe, and have fun making it! It's nearly Thanksgiving here in the states, which means I am almost done with this semester of school then I will be heading off across the sea for four months! That's crazy!

Have you tried any new recipes lately? Tell me about yours in the comments! :) x

Baking

Cauliflower Pizza

12:00:00 PM

While winter break seems like ages ago, I still have recipes that I haven't shared while adventuring in clean eating. Pizza, is always a favorite, but the thing about it is..it's not 100% good for you. Though I'm not sure it will ever be just that, I've started thinking about what I put into my body and if my body doesn't benefit from it in some way..I won't eat it. So with a cauliflower crust, and a bright topping, I made a pizza that I can enjoy without feeling like the bread crust is becoming a dough mess inside my stomach.

Benefits of this Recipe: It's quick, it's easy, and delish! If you're worried about whether or not you're going to taste a lot of cauliflower, you shouldn't...because you really don't taste it at all!

Here's What you'll need:

-1 head of cauliflower

-preffered toppings

-pizza pan

Ingredients:

2 cups grated cauliflower

1/2 cup plain yogurt

1 egg

1 tsp Italian seasoning

Sea salt

Directions:

Grate 2 cups of cauliflower (about 1/2 the head) and put into bowl with yogurt, egg, seasoing and sea salt.

Mix until combined

Spread dough onto pizza pan, try to make it an even crust

Bake for about 30-40 minutes, until the crust is lightly browned

To top your pizza, you really can use whatever you'd like! If you're looking for healthy solutions, make sure you pick a can of lightly salted marinara with no added sugars, for me I decided to dab a bit of olive oil on it and top it off with fresh mozerella, peppers, and a dash of bacon bits!

This is probably one of my favorite recipes so far, it really is quite easy and tasty, we've already replicated this one and I hope you do too!

Have you ever had this kind of pizza? How are your resolutions coming along?

I feel like since it's February it's easy to just be worn out, but I'm really pushing myself with not eating processed sugar and other processed foods!

Hope you're all having a great week!

Baking

No pasta-Spaghetti and meatballs

9:00:00 AM

If you've been a reader for awhile, then you already know that I love to bake. I also enjoy eating healthy and I've started my clean eating challenge just a few weeks ago. While my entire family seems to be a bit "Christmas-cookied-out", I've luckily still gotten the chance to bake quite a few times while being home!

With clean eating I've discovered quite a few new foods as well as new recipes, mostly dinners as of right now. I've been trying really hard to eat things that are beneficial for my body. Whether it be having water instead of soda,having fruit instead of chips for an afternoon snack. Like many of you, I enjoy eating spaghetti, and I was really excited to learn how to make a new kind of spaghetti and meatballs that would help my body be the best it can be this new year!

Here's what you'll need!

1-3 pound spaghetti squash
2 Tablespoons water
2 tablespoons olive oil, divided
1/2 cup chopped parsley, divided
1/2 cup shredded Parmesan cheese, divided
1.25 teaspoons italian seasoning, divided
1/2 teaspoon chopped onion
1/2 teaspoon salt, divided
1/2 teaspoon ground pepper
1 pound lean ground turkey
4 cloves garlic (minced)
dash of crushed red pepper

Here's what you'll have to do!

Cut the spaghetti squash in half and scoop out the seeds (you can save the seeds if you want to roast some for a snack later). Place facedown in a microwave-safe dish, add 2 tablespoons water and microwave uncovered about 10-15 minutes (I did 14 minutes)
Heat 1 tablespoon oil in large skillet over medium-high heat.
Scrape squash flesh with fork into skillet and cook, stir occasionally until moisture is evaporated and squash has begun to brown.
Stir in 1/4 cup parsley, remove from heat, cover and let stand
Combine 1/4 cup parsley, 1/4 cup parmesan, 1/2 teaspoon italian seasoning, onion, 1/4 teaspoon salt and pepper into medium bowl. Mix together.
Create meatballs by using about 2 tablespoons meat and roll in mixture, setting in skillet. I put in 3 before turning down the heat until I had added the rest, then brought the heat back up again.
Once meatballs are browned: push to side of pan add garlic and cook about 1 minute, add tomatos, crushed red pepper and 3/4 teaspoon italian seasoning and 1/4 teaspoon salt. Stir to coat over the meatballs.
Serve over squash, sprinkling with parmesan or whatever cheese or topping you'd like!

I made this dish for my mom and I one night, and we both really enjoyed it! I had never made anything with spaghetti squash before, and it turned out delicious! You can always play around with what you put into your seasoning if you'd like! I hope you get a chance to try this dish, and if you do make sure to comment below! I would love to hear from you!

xx Kenzie

Baking

The Legend of the Berlin Pretzel Cookies

9:00:00 AM

If you haven't noticed, my second semester away from home has come to an end, giving me more time to help bake which is something I love to do. These cookies, that I've titled this post after, have been passed down through generations and this season it was my turn to learn it. Along with traditions, there are usually stories told with them. For these cookies, the legend is...there has to be sun or they just will not work!

This year, my mom had previously made a batch and the days forecast for our baking day? Rain.

Here's What You'll Need:

2 hard boiled egg yolks-mashed

3 raw egg yolks

2 sticks butter (unsalted, room temp)

1 and 1/2 cups powder sugar

2 and 1/2 cups flour

Sprinkles

3 bowls (one large and two small)

(Christmas cheer and a sunny personality!)

Here's What you Need to Do:

To prep:

Have two small bowls, one with the egg whites, and one with the sugar and sprinkle mixture ready to go!

1. Combine flour and powdered sugar with egg yolks and butter in large bowl.

2. Add raw egg yolks and mix with hands until ball forms. This gets messy!

3. Roll small chunks into balls (about the size of a walnut and roll into strips.

4. Criss-cross one side over the other. (this is called a pretzel but it looks more like an awareness ribbon if that helps your forming.)

5. Brush egg-white glaze over pretzel cookie and dip into sugar. (repeat as you bake)

It's easier to bake each set one by one, instead of two pans at a time. You're also meant to wait until the pan cools off as they're very finicky (it's not only the sun that has to be right about them).

Luckily for us, the legend didn't hold out to be true for this batch and they turned out great! Maybe it really was our sunny personalities and just the feeling of Christmas cheer that made them turn out so well!

I hope you're brave enough to try these cookies, after all sometimes it works and sometimes it just doesn't! I think it's fun just to say "it has to be sunny". It makes them even more special, and I'm glad I got to learn how to make them! ( I posted this photo on instagram if you missed it!)

Did you try any new recipes this holiday season? Or even this year? Did you have any major flops or really great ones? Let me know in the comments!

See you next time! (Tomorrow is Officially the real Christmas! I hope you all have a GREAT holiday!! :) )

xx Kenzie

Baking

Sweet Holiday Treats

10:00:00 AM

Every holiday season seems to be centered around some main elements, and having sweet treats around is one of them. While the official title of this recipe in the cookbook is "Christmas Toffee Bars", and traditionally made in my household during the holiday season, you can really choose to make these at anytime of the year. My great-aunt gave us this recipe, and there's something special about reading a recipe in the handwriting of someone so loved years after they've passed on.

Here's What You'll Need:

1 cup butter

1 cup brown sugar

1 egg yolk

2 cups flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon vanilla

Chocolates (I used Dove milk chocolate)

Christmas themed sprinkles or nuts (optional)

Jellyroll pan or cookie sheet (10x15)

Here's What you do:

1. Cream together the butter and brown sugar; beat in egg yolk

2. Add the flour, salt, vanilla and mix together.

3. Spread the mixture into the sheet

4. Make sure mixture is evenly spread, otherwise it doesn't bake through well.

5. Bake at 350*F, for about 13-15 minutes until very lightly browned.

6. While the bars have about 1-2 minutes left, melt the chocolates and spread over immediately or else it won't melt

7. Sprinkle on sprinkles and nuts

8. Cut squares when warm

9. Enjoy!

I hope you're all in the holiday spirit now and it's also essential to listen to holiday music in the background or have a cheesy Christmas film!
What are your favorite holiday treats? Do you make anything similar to these?

Make sure to leave comments, I love reading them!

Thanks for reading, see you next time!

x Kenzie

Baking

Christmas Baking

8:00:00 AM

It's December, and that means many things. Firstly it means that exams are coming up and I have been busy rustling around in my pile of homework and keeping up with due dates. All while munching on some Christmas cookies. Recently, you read about how I spent Thanksgiving day, but I had five days off. So what else did I do? I'll give you one guess.

Figured it out?

I was baking. A lot.

My grandma and I have our traditional baking time where we usually make truffles. I wrote a blog post about those last year and you can read them here. This year, we went all out on Christmas baking.

This year we started off with sugar cookie cut-outs. Even though I won't be home to decorate the cookies like I have in the past, I was still able to help cut the cookies into different shapes.

The dough was in a constant rotation of the photo on the left to the photo on the right side. There may have been a few stray sugar cookie dough bits that popped into my mouth as well. Whoops! What can you do?

After baking the sugar cookies, my grandmother helped me make these delicious turtle cookies that I was going to give to my mom (turtle is her favorite). The dough tasted amazing and I was so excited to try these cookies out and see what my moms reaction would be to the "secret" cookies! If you'd like the recipe for these, it's over on Sally's Blog. They're amazing and you should really try them!

While waiting for the turtle cookie dough to chill in the fridge, we quickly whipped up a double batch of my favorite cookies. Molasses. I made them awhile ago, though never blogged any photos of them. But here they are!

They taste amazing as well.

My mom stopped over to help us with the truffles. It went a lot faster with three people, which was really fun and actually even better since we got to enjoy them even sooner!

After making a batch of sugar cookies, truffles, and molasses, it was time to drizzle the caramel onto the turtle cookies for the final touch.

This feels like Christmas. I am even more excited to bake even more goodies after exams when I come home for a little over a month and can relax.

I hope you all are getting excited for Christmas as well!!
What is your favorite thing to bake?

Make sure to leave a comment!

kenzie

Almonds

Going Bananas for Bread

9:43:00 AM

I've written this time and time again. I love being home. I love being able to sleep in my own room not having to wait until my roommate leaves. I love the fact that I can just bake something homemade, with ingredients that I love. The last time I was home, I decided to whip up a batch of homemade whole wheat banana bread. I usually eat breakfast in my dorm room, gotta make use of that sleeping time you know. Banana bread is just something that is so easy to pop into the microwave to warm with some almond butter or regular butter

and eat before class! I thought I would share the recipe with you!

Here's What You Need:

1/2 banana

1/4 cup honey

1/4 cup brown sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla

1/4 cup skim milk

2 tablespoons milled flax seeds and 6 tablespoons water

3 mashed bananas

1 and 3/4 cups whole wheat flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoons alt

2/3 cup chopped pecans

Sliced Almonds

Semi-sweet or dark chocolate chips

Here's What You'll Need to Do:

Adjust the oven rack to the lower third position and preheat the oven to 350*F or 176*C

Spray 9x5 loaf pan with non-stick spray; though I used a bit of coconut oil all over the pan instead!

In a medium bowl, whisk 1/2 banana, honey, brown sugar, vanilla and milk together until combined.

Whisk in flax seeds, water and bananas until combined, this should be a smooth mixture.

In a large bowl, combine flour, baking soda, cinnamon, salt and pecans

Pour wet ingredients into dry

Pour batter into loaf pan and bake for 30 minutes

Add the almonds and chocolate chips to the top at this point!

After 30 minutes cover with aluminum foil and bake again for 30 more minutes.

The bread is done when toothpick is inserted and comes out clean

I love baking, and I love this bread! You can enjoy it anytime for a healthy snack, just pair it with a little bit of butter or almond butter or even just eat it on its own! I hope you try this one out! Again, my parents are always the best taste testers (don't really think they mind it at all). I'm really loving their new oven! I cannot wait to see what I'll be baking for the holidays that are coming up!

Do you love a certain kind of bread? Any recipes that I should try next? I'm always looking!

Like always, thanks for reading!

Make sure to comment below!

Kenzie

Autumn

Cinnamon Spice and All things Nice

11:00:00 AM

That's the saying right? Or something along those lines I guess. I love the fall season, it's time for chai teas (with soy or almond milk thank you), everything tastes like pumpkin it seems, and the holiday countdown begins shortly after Halloween. This blog post comes a bit after Halloween, as I was home during the little holiday.

After finishing off mid-term week, I needed to get away from the confinement and slight frustration that comes along with living in close quarters with someone else. I went home. I really get into baking after one thing is done and find myself with three different timers and three different dishes. I love it.

I decided that my first thing to bake was going to be these Iced Snicker doodle cookies!

Though I had never done a hand in on making these before I was eager to try it out and put my own twist on the recipe as always!

Here's what you will need!

Cookies:

2 and 3/4 cups flour

2 teaspoons cream of tartar

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup melted, butter

1 cup granulated sugar

1/3 cup brown sugar

1 egg at room temp

2 teaspoons vanilla

Rolling:

1/2 cup sugar

1.5 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground ginger

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon and 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon ground allspice

Frosting:

3 spoon-fulls of Rich and Creamy Vanilla Frosting (I used Betty Crocker)

About 1.5 tablespoons of vanilla

Sprinkle of Nutmeg

1 tablespoon of cinnamon

Sprinkle of ginger

1 tablespoon pumpkin pie spice

Here's What You need to do!

Cookies:

Toss Flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, cinnamon and salt together in a large bowl

In a medium bowl, whisk melted butter, granulated sugar and brown sugar together until smooth

Whisk in egg and vanilla until combined

Pour wet ingredients into dry and mix together with spoon

Cover the dough tightly and chill in the fridge for about 45 minutes.

Preheat Oven to 350* F, or 176* C

Line two large cookie sheets with parchment paper

Remove dough from fridge and roll dough into balls. (the cookies don't roll so make sure you flatten a bit!)

Rolling:

Mix spices and sugar together in small bowl.

Roll each dough in mix to coat evenly.

Place balls onto cookie sheets (about 10 per sheet)

Bake

For 10 minutes, though I only put mine in for 9 to get nice moist cookies

Frosting

Spoon out vanilla frosting into small bowl

Add in the Vanilla, and spices and mix with spoon.

With a knife, add a little bit to each cookie, or a lot depending on how much frosting you like!

The frosting is something I completely made up and went by taste for a lot of the spices

Baking is something that relives so much stress, and being away from home I really don't get to do that very often, so when I do come home I love to bake. These cookies were such a big hit for my house that my mom woke me up the next morning and we made a batch for my great-uncle and my grandparents. It's safe to say, this was another winning recipe for us all!

Do you have any favorite recipes that everyone loves? I hope you're weeks are all going great!

Hopefully the weather hasn't gotten to cold for you yet! I hope you try these out! Let me know in the comments what you think!

Thanks for reading!

Kenzie

(also if you follow me on twitter you will know that my fish Latte passed away, though it is sad, the semester was really stressful on him with having a roommate that doesn't have a set or even sane sleeping schedule and all.)

Baking

Spring Sweets

12:30:00 PM

I'm cutting back on eating so many sweets, I swear! While I've been away living at University, there are a few things that I've missed and that my sweet tooth misses as well. And that's homemade cookies. As soon as spring break rolled around, I knew I had to whip up a batch.

Still trying to eat healthy while being home can be a challenge, finding a few alternatives to certain ingredients in a recipe can actually be quite easy!
I've made oatmeal cookies before (you can read that post right here), this was a bit different.

These don't have flour or eggs!

For this recipe you will need:

2/3 Cup (58 g) old fashioned rolled oats

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 banana

1 cup peanut butter

6 Table spoons brown sugar

1/4 cup butterscotch chips

1/4 cup white chocolate chips

One thing that was special about this recipe that I tried, was that I actually made my own peanut butter using this recipe from Sallys Baking Addiction. It made it even healthier and it's very simple to make as well! Though it is a simple recipe, you certainly do not need to make these, and while Sally used honey roasted peanuts, I used just plain salted peanuts as I wanted to try it out for myself and did not have honey roasted in my cupboards!

To start making these, take a medium bowl and add in the oats, cinnamon, and baking soda. In a seperate bowl, mix in your peanut butter, banana, and brown sugar. It's okay if it's not creamy, as I didn't use an egg. While I was doing this I got quite nervous but it turns out well!

After mixing, add in the butterscotch and white chocolate chips!

Now chill the cookie dough for 30 minutes in your refrigerator and preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit! (176 Celsius).

You'll now need two baking sheets, and if you don't like cleaning them after I would suggest using parchment paper. It comes in quite handy. And after your cookie dough is done chilling, you can scoop small balls onto the sheet, pressing down lightly to make sure they flatten.

After this, my cookie dough balls were kind of greasy/oily looking and I blotted them with a napkin to take it off. I placed about 9 cookies on one try and 5 on the other. You can certainly spread these out more evenly than I did!

Bake for about 9 to 10 minutes. I think mine were in for about 9.

After baking, take them out and let them cool.
These cookies are delicious and I was pleasantly happy with the fact that I couldn't really tell I had even put banana into it. Thinking about it now, I don't think I can at all.

I think these are actually going quite fast at my house, which is always a good sign and I will probably make more! Especially if I can take them to my dorm room for a little snack at some point!

I hope you enjoyed this recipe! I love baking and the fact that I can when I'm home, is great!

Are you making any goodies lately? I feel like spring has brought the little baker inside of me!

Hope you all have had great weeks!

Thanks for reading!

Kenzie

Baking

Healthy(ish) Deviled Eggs

2:00:00 PM

After coming home on Spring Break and jumping right into work, I had a day off. Of course, since I can't seem to sit still and stare at the same thing for hours upon hours, I decided to bake. I also haven't baked anything since leaving for my university and therefore I was really excited to start trying new recipes.

Deviled Eggs are usually something that is brought to parties, they're quite simple to make and even more fun to eat! I always love going to a get together and having these set up on the snack table. I have never made a deviled egg before and I was excited to try it out! I mean how difficult could it be? I'm also trying to eat healthier and if I can find a way to make it healthy

The deviled eggs I made required:

6 Eggs

Greek Yogurt

Dijon Mustard

Pepper

Salt

Paprika

Steps:

The first step is to hard boil your eggs. I have an egg boiler, though mine looks a bit different, if you're wondering what one looks like I've posted the link to one here!
After waiting for the eggs to boil, let them cool. I didn't have the patience and therefore a few of the egg whites broke! Oops.
After cooling, cut the egg lengthwise.
Your next step is to then carefully spoon out the yolks and add them to the medium bowl, place the egg whites on a plate.

Now add in these few ingredients to the bowl you've put the yolks into:

1/4 cup Greek Yogurt

2 teaspoons dijon mustard

1/4 teaspoon pepper

1/8 teaspoon salt

Mash these together, until it looks a little creamy. You can also use a blender if you'd like the mixture to be more creamier than it appears.

After mixing and mashing, you can either spoon small portions into the egg whites, or just use your hands and fill them as much or as little as you would like!

After filling the eggs, sprinkle a bit of paprika on top! This will make them look nice and pretty!

I was very pleased with how these turned out! They taste delicious and actually make for a good snack! They're easy to make and I hope you give them a go!

I know I haven't written a recipe post in awhile, but I hope you all enjoyed this! Thanks for reading! Have you tried any new recipes recently?? Are there any new recipes that you want to try, or wish you could try?

I love reading your comments! See you next time!

Kenzie

Baking

Holiday Tradition: Truffles

12:00:00 PM

Some things never change when it comes to the holiday season. Whether it be waking up and getting to open your stockings stuffed with gifts for St Nick's Day, decorating your Christmas tree with your family, or baking certain foods, it's something that you've probably come to love when the lovely month of December rolls in.
Something that I've always liked to do is make truffles with my grandma. Chocolate truffles are probably one of my favorite, closely tied with the cookies that hold the Reese's cups inside them (already planned a post about those, stay tuned!) It's a fairly simple recipe and doesn't take that much time at all!
If you love chocolate, then you'll love this post! At least, I think you will!

The recipe my grandmother follows calls for:
45 Oreo cookies (regular or double stuffed), we use two of the packages.
1(8 ounce) package cream cheese softened
2(8 ounce) packages of semi-sweet chocolate chips, melted

First, you want to crush 9 or 10 of the Oreo cookies and set the crumbs aside. Make sure their small parcels, as they're going to be on top of the truffles!

Secondly, grab a large bowl, putting in the creme cheese and follow up by crushing the first box of cookies and a few of the other box. After you've done this, you can now mix the crumbs with the creme cheese.

This is when you bring out your baking sheet, setting some wax paper on top in order to keep the mess at bay. Roll the creme cheese-oreo combination into small balls, setting each on the pan. It doesn't matter in this case, how close you set the balls because you're not putting them into the oven so no need to worry about them spreading!

After you've rolled the mixture into the balls, drop them into the chocolate. To make it a little more runny, my grandmother added a bit of cooking wax. You roll the ball in the chocolate and drop it back onto the pan, sprinkling a bit of those extra oreo crumbs that you've set aside, on top!

Once you've done this, you can now put them into the fridge to cool for about 15 to 20 minutes.
Then you can enjoy this excellent treat!
Like I said, I love making (and eating) these during the holidays! And I hope you give them a try! Let me know how they turn out for you!

Christmas is getting closer!!

Pages

Funfetti Cookies

Cauliflower Pizza

No pasta-Spaghetti and meatballs

The Legend of the Berlin Pretzel Cookies

Sweet Holiday Treats

Christmas Baking

Going Bananas for Bread

Cinnamon Spice and All things Nice

Spring Sweets

Healthy(ish) Deviled Eggs

Holiday Tradition: Truffles

Don't miss a post!

About me

Blog Archive

Instagram