Giant Halloween Oreos

Tablespoon sized balls of cookie dough spread out to become 4 inch cookies. They were super puffy in the oven but when I took them out, they deflated and became chewy. There is a vanilla icing sandwiched in the middle with orange and black sprinkles.

Pumpkin Muffins

The little pastry chefs helped to make pumpkin muffins for breakfast. They turned out light and fluffy.

Lemon Bundt Cake and Mini Bundts

I was so excited to try out my new mini bundt pans. These worked perfectly with my 6 inch bundt pan to make a full recipe. This recipe used lemon zest, lemon extract and lemon juice along with a little bit of rum. It also has a lemon icing. The cakes were sweet, moist and zingy, a ray of sunshine in the gray windy days of fall.

Lemon Madeleines

It was fun to use my madeleine pan again. The last time I made orange blossom ones and this time I chose lemon. These little cakes turned out light and full of sunny citrus flavor. I combined lemon juice, lemon zest and lemon extract. When I mixed in the butter, it was not room temperature and the batter had a slightly curdled look. But when I baked them, they turned out fine. I had a hard time figuring out what to do with the tops of them. I considered glazing them with lemon icing, dipping them in white chocolate, and dusting with powdered sugar. In the end, I just went with the classic powdered sugar which still showed off the shell shape and was not sticky or hard to stack.

Pavlova

In our homeschool, we studied New Zealand last month. One of their famous desserts is pavlova. It is made by whipping egg whites and sugar until it is light and fluffy and then baking it in the oven. The result is a marshmallow like center with a crispy outside. It is rather sweet but tasty when combined with whipped cream and fresh berries. The little pastry chefs and I had fun combining ingredients, using the stand mixer, spreading it into the pan and watching it bake. They also made the whipped cream, and assembled their own parfaits.

While cracking our eggs on the first attempt, a little bit of yolk got in. It didn't whip up nicely but rather stayed flat and soupy. We tried again with fresh clean egg whites and the meringue did whip up fluffy.