Santa and Reindeer Pancakes

Dagan's Reindeer

Sage's Reindeer

Rice Krispies Trees

The boys and I had fun making these. I would make them a darker shade of green next time. They are decorated with mini M&M's and the trunks are mini peanut butter cups.

Persimmon Spice Bundt Cake

I love persimmons. In fact, I bought too many persimmons and they ended up getting soft on the counter. I pureed them and made a persimmon spice cake. The recipe made one medium bundt and four baby bundts. I dusted them with powdered sugar and served them for breakfast.

Chocolate Chip Banana Muffins

One reason we don't like banana muffins are the small mushy bits of banana. To prevent this I pureed the bananas and then added them to the batter. Problem solved!

Homemade Christmas "Pocky"

We love Pocky and Pepero! I was going to make chocolate dipped pretzel sticks but I couldn't find pretzel batons in the stores. The closest thing were these Pringles honey butter sticks. I thought they smelled kind of funny but they tasted great. We dipped the ends in candy melts and added sprinkles. Easy and very festive!

Seven Layer Jello

Most adults cannot remember the last time they ate jello, unless it was jello shots in college. These were a favorite of my childhood. My mom spent hours making it and we would gleefully peel off the layers.

Christmas Sugar Cookies

I tried to make candy cane cookies like the kind my Aunty Lily makes every year. Unfortunately, the dough came out too dry and crumbly. We grabbed some cookie cutters instead and made these. I've never made red cookies before, though they are more like pink cookies. Our favorite part was decorating them.

Black Magic Cake

I wanted to make the deepest, darkest, chocolate cake. This recipe is actually a classic Hershey's recipe. It turned out super moist and rich. I added a layer of raspberry jam in between the layers of cake and poured dark chocolate ganache over the top and sides.

Lemon Custard Tartlets

I bought pre-made tartlet shells from Safeway's freezer section when they were on sale. They were really easy to use and saved me the trouble of making my own dough. To make the custard I cooked it on the stove top, poured it into the shells and then baked it. They turned out okay but the lemon flavor didn't shine through. I think i'ts because I only added zest. The next time I need to add some lemon juice or extract too.

Strawberry Cream Cake

We are studying Korea this month. In celebration we baked a strawberry cream cake. Like many Asian cakes, this recipe produced a very light and cottony sponge cake. We frosted it with whipped cream and covered it with fresh sliced strawberries. Sage did the decorating. He said he wanted the side to look like a face.

Caramel Apple Bread Pudding

Sage bought cinnamon raisin bagels, ate one and declared that he didn't like them. They stayed on the counter for a few days and then ended up in the fridge. Determined not to throw them away, I cut them up and made them into bread pudding. The apples and caramel for the topping were leftover from our caramel apple project. It made for a nice, warm Halloween breakfast. Great for a cold and rainy morning.

Skull Caramel Apples

Happy Halloween! Every year we wander by the chocolate shop and see candy and caramel apples in the window. This year we finally decided to make our own. We faced a few challenges including caramel sticking to the waxed paper ( don't forget to spray it!) , sticks falling out, bubbly caramel, caramel pooling at the bottom of the apples as it cooled and lumpy candy melts. It did make me realize how much work goes into making these. They are kind of like giant cake pops. And you need a lot of coating to be able to cover it smoothly. I think they will get easier to make the more we keep at it but I think next year we'll make something else.

Peanut Butter Spider Cookies

These spider cookies were so fun to make. They are a rift on the classic peanut blossoms. The cookie is a traditional peanut butter where the dough is rolled into balls and rolled in sugar. But instead of pressing a chocolate kiss on the top, we used malted milk balls and chocolate covered hazelnuts. For the heads we used Reece's Pieces. The kids ate all the yellow and orange ones earlier. The legs are piped with melted semisweet baker's chocolate.

Cinnamon Walnut Cake

German Apple Pancakes

Kulfi- Indian Ice Cream

This ice cream was well received. I think the boys were hesitant at first since they did not like the kheer. Vanilla beans, vanilla extract and cardamom gave it a bit of flavor while condensed milk and evaporated milk made it super creamy. I dipped mine in chopped pistachios. I can't wait to go to an Indian restaurant and try some other flavors of kulfi.

Kheer- Indian Rice Pudding

We are studying India this month. Kheer is a rice pudding often served in India. This recipe was made by boiling coconut milk, Basmati rice, milk, cardamom and sugar. We topped it with slivered almonds, pistachios and raisins. Sadly, no one in the family was a fan of this dessert.

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

Irish Cream Truffles

I saw some truffles in a patisserie last week and decided to make my own. These are made with Lindt 70% dark chocolate, heavy cream and Bailey's Irish Cream liquor. They were really easy to make. We rolled them in powdered sugar and cocoa powder.

Sticky Buns

Sticky buns are like upside- down cinnamon rolls. Brown sugar is sprinkled in the bottom of the muffin tins before the dough is placed on top. When they come out of the oven, they are flipped over revealing caramelized "sticky" top to the buns. Sometimes people add nuts to the top. I left mine plain. We used the second half of the pretzel dough to make these.

Brigadeiro

As we continued our studies of Brazil, we made brigadeiros. These chocolate candies are made from three simple ingredients- condensed milk, butter and cocoa powder. The condensed milk sold in Brazil is sweeter than the one sold in Canada so we opted for Quick chocolate powder instead. The flavor was good but the texture was really sticky. These are traditionally made on children's birthdays in Brazil.

Banana Frita

Our studies of Brazil led us to make Banana Frita. The bananas are dipped in egg and breadcrumbs, fried in butter and rolled in cinnamon and sugar.