Sprinkles

CELEBRATION PANCAKES

March 28, 2019 by Sarah Baade 3 Comments

When I was a kid, my dad would get up early and make a hot breakfast for us every day. I didn’t realize how lucky I was until I talked to a friend at school who said her mom just had a variety of cereal to choose from each morning. Here’s the thing though, I rarely ate it. It was always delicious but I’ve never been much of an early morning breakfast person. I just didn’t wake up hungry; I needed to be up for a couple of hours before I was ready to eat. Now that I’m a mom myself, I have an extra appreciation for Dad’s cooking. He could whip up biscuits and sausage gravy, scrambled eggs, pancakes… all the traditional breakfast items. He also taught me that pancakes freeze really well. He would make a huge batch all at once and freeze half of them for us to eat later on. I still do this every time I make pancakes. I love being able to heat up homemade pancakes from the freezer whenever I’m craving breakfast or just don’t have the energy to cook.

Let me start by saying there is a special place in my culinary heart for pancake mixes – “just add water”. However, there are days when I have run out of pancake mix and don’t want to run to the store for that one single item. The beauty of homemade pancakes is that you probably already have all of the ingredients in your kitchen. We only need the basics here and you can still end up with super fluffy pancakes. On an extra special day such as a birthday or your kid aced a test or maybe your spouse got a promotion, take things up a notch and add sprinkles. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, sprinkles bring joy! And yes, in my house, sprinkles are just as much a pantry staple as flour or sugar. You never know when you’ll want to spark a little extra joy so just keep those rainbow sprinkles stocked at all times!

Tips:

Definitely melt the butter before you start mixing any ingredients. This will allow it to cool before you add the eggs so that you don’t end up with a scrambled egg batter.
Keep the heat on medium to medium low. I know it is tempting to crank it up to get things cooking faster but you’ll just end up with pancakes that are burnt on the outside and raw on the inside.

Print Recipe

CELEBRATION PANCAKES

Homemade pancakes with a little extra joy.

Servings: 12 pancakes

Ingredients

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 Tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 Tablespoons sugar
4 Tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled
2 cups milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 egg, beaten
1/4 cup rainbow jimmies/sprinkles
Optional toppings: butter, maple syrup, whipped cream, more sprinkles

Instructions

Heat a lightly oiled griddle over medium heat.
In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and sugar. Stir in the melted butter, milk and vanilla. Stir in the egg and then the sprinkles.
Scoop about a ¼ cup of batter onto the heated griddle. Depending on the size of your griddle, you can make more than one pancake at a time. Cook until batter starts to bubble on top and bottom is golden brown. Flip and continue cooking until the second side is also golden brown (about 1 minute). Remove from griddle and continue this process until all batter is used.

PEANUT BUTTER CUT-OUT COOKIES

February 9, 2019 by Sarah Baade 3 Comments

In high school I was known for being the girl who was nice to everyone. Not a bad thing to be known for but that doesn’t necessarily make a girl particularly popular. Most people knew who I was and which activities I was involved in. I had a solid couple of groups of friends but I certainly wasn’t getting invited to any big parties on the weekends. In fact, the one time did attend a party with the popular kids, I found the scene to be boring and didn’t understand what the draw was. The get-togethers that stand out in my mind are actually almost juvenile. One of my friends would invite a few of us over at Easter and Valentine’s Day for cookie decorating. Her mom was the one who actually wanted her to host these decorating parties, my friend might have even been embarrassed to have us over for cookies and hot chocolate. I hope she looks back at it as fondly as I do though. I remember there being tons of cookies, tons of frosting, tons of sprinkles, and tons of laughter. There was no pressure to impress boys or to do something that might get us into trouble. It was just pure fun. I’m hoping my daughter will want to host similar parties as she grows up.

As I’ve gotten older, I still occasionally spend days decorating cookies but I’ve expanded beyond sugar cookies. Over the past few years I’ve favored gingerbread but February doesn’t exactly feel like gingerbread season. The cooler temperatures still have me thinking deep flavors – I’m just not quite ready for light floral/spring flavors. With Valentine’s Day coming up I still wanted to incorporate chocolate without making it the main event. What could pair better with chocolate than peanut butter?! So, I’ve created peanut butter cut-out cookies. The flavor is traditional but they are just as fun to decorate as a sugar cookie.

Tips:

While you don’t have to refrigerate this dough before rolling and cutting it, you can if you want to. Feel free to make the dough a day ahead, wrap it in plastic wrap and then chill in the fridge. Just be sure to pull it out and get it back to room temperature before rolling it.
I know it can be tempting to dunk the entire cookie in chocolate but try to show some restraint. Honestly, if you cover more than about half of the cookie, the chocolate will overwhelm the peanut butter flavor.

Print Recipe

Peanut butter cookies dipped in dark chocolate - the perfect cut-out cookie for Valentine's Day.

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: American

Servings: 36 Cookies

Ingredients

3 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups creamy style peanut butter
1 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
10 oz dark chocolate melting wafers
variety of sprinkles for decorating (optional)

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350F.
In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt then set aside.
In a large mixing bowl, beat peanut butter, butter, white sugar and brown sugar until smooth.
Beat in eggs and vanilla.
Gradually stir in flour mixture.
Once flour is fully incorporated, place 1/3 of the dough between two sheets of plastic wrap and roll to ¼” thick.
Remove top layer of plastic wrap and cut dough with cookie cutters.
Bake on a parchment lined sheet pan for 11-13 minutes or until edges start to brown.
Cool cookies completely before decorating.
Melt chocolate wafers according to package.
Dip cookies in chocolate then add sprinkles as desired. Alternatively, drizzle chocolate over cookies.

One Bowl Dark Chocolate Cake

March 28, 2018 by Sarah Baade 2 Comments

Sometimes the timing is so bad it is actually perfect. One year ago I was taking my daughter to daycare for the first time and preparing myself to go back to work after having been home with her for the first few months of her life. Those crazy postpartum hormones were still raging and I needed a distraction so I wouldn’t cry all day while being away from her. I had thought about blogging for quite a while and had been encouraged to do so by friends (some of them hadn’t even known it was on my mind). So I did it. I took an old recipe out of my grandmother’s recipe box and I started my food blog. It was a bit scary and I wasn’t sure how I would find time to continue with it once I went back to work, but I did it. I took that first step, made that first post. Here I am, one year later, still going and going stronger than I thought I could. Aren’t friends amazing?! They knew I had it in me and encouraged me to go for it. I huge thank you to those ladies as well as my husband for supporting me on this journey.

Now let’s get to today’s recipe. What is a birthday without cake?! I love it when you can toss all ingredients into one bowl and come out with something delicious so that’s what I did here. One bowl, guys! Fewer dishes to wash when you’re cleaning up. This is a two layer cake that I made a little bit fancier by spreading ganache between the layers and covering the frosting with sprinkles. To me, sprinkles just scream “LET’S CELEBRATE!” I hope you’ll join me in celebrating one year of blogging with a slice of this chocolate cake!

Tips:

1)There is no need to do a crumb coat of frosting here since the sprinkles will hide the few crumbs you might otherwise see in the frosting.

2)If you’d like to simplify the layering a bit, make a little extra of the cream cheese frosting and use that instead of the ganache in between layers of cake.

3)When applying the jimmies (sprinkles), put cake dish on a baking sheet to help catch any that fall off as you go.

One Bowl Dark Chocolate Cake

Cake Ingredients:

2 cups flour

2 cups sugar

1 cup dark cocoa powder

1 ½ teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon salt

1 cup milk

¾ cup mayonnaise

3 eggs

1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract

¼ cup water, lukewarm

Ganache Ingredients:

3oz dark chocolate chips

3oz heavy cream

Frosting Ingredients:

8oz cream cheese, softened

1/2 cup unsalted butter

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

3 cups powdered sugar

10oz rainbow jimmies

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350°F. Line two 9″ round cake pans with parchment paper.

In a large mixing bowl, stir together flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Slowly add in milk. Mix in mayonnaise, eggs and vanilla until well combined. Pour in water and mix until fully incorporated.

Pour equal amounts of cake mixture into cake pans. Bake for 30 minutes or until a test stick can be inserted and removed clean. Once cakes are baked, let cool 20 minutes before removing from pans. Let cakes finish cooling on a wire rack.

Once cakes are fully cooled, you can make the ganache. place chocolate ships in a medium bowl. In a small sauce pan, heat cream to a simmer. Pour cream over chocolate ships and let sit for 5 minutes. Whisk mixture until fully combined and smooth. Let cool another 5 minutes. Cut domed tops off of each cake. Place first layer of cake on a serving platter of your choice. Pour ganache over bottom layer of cake and spread until it is evenly coated. Place top layer of cake on ganache.

For the frosting, mix cream cheese and butter on medium speed in a mixing bowl. Stir in vanilla and add powdered sugar one cup at a time. Once all ingredients are fully combined and smooth, cover cake in frosting. Using your hands, gently press jimmies onto sides and top of cake. Remove any unwanted jimmies that fell onto the dish as you decorated the cake.

Stir-n-Drop Sugar Cookies

July 4, 2017 by Sarah Baade Leave a Comment

I used to spend hours baking and decorating cut out sugar cookies. It was like therapy for me, a way to tune out the rest of the world for a while. I still enjoy making sugar cookies but I just don’t have time for the detailed work that goes into decorating those cut out cookies. As I was sifting through my grandmother’s recipe box I came across this great recipe. As with most of her recipes, the original source is unknown. However, the internet is a great tool and I did find the modernized version of this recipe on the Betty Crocker website. Following the recipe directly left me with slightly burned cookies so I altered the baking time a bit and the second batch turned out slightly soft – just the way I like them! The original recipe also makes some pretty small cookies so I also changed the amount of dough used for each serving.

Tips

If you aren’t a fan of lemon flavor, feel free to leave the zest out or swap it for another citrus flavor (lime, orange or maybe even grapefruit).
It is really easy to customize these cookies for holidays by changing up the color of your decorative sugar.

Makes 2 dozen cookies

2 eggs

2/3 cup vegetable oil

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Zest of 1 lemon

¾ cup sugar

2 cups all purpous flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

Additional colored sugars for decorating

Heat oven to 400*F. In a large bowl, beat eggs with oil, vanilla, zest and sugar. In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking powder and salt. Stir flour mixture into egg mixture. Drop dough by the tablespoon full onto parchment paper covered cookie sheet. Grease the bottom of a glass with butter or cooking spray. Dip glass into colored sugar then gently press on ball of dough until dough is ¼-inch thick. Repeat on each ball of dough. Bake 5-6 minutes or until edges of cookies start to turn golden brown. Transfer cookies from cookie sheet to cooling rack and let cool completely before eating.