March & April Wrap Up

March and April’s baking included a wide variety of cakes and bakes, including several batches of sugar cookies, my first cake since Christmas, and another new granola bar recipe.

Breads & Muffins

I had the opportunity to try out two new muffin recipes when I hosted a playgroup at our house in March. The banana chocolate chip muffins (recipe here) were such a hit that I made them again to take when it was our turn to contribute snack for Leighton’s soccer team the next week. I did make some successful changes to the recipe based on my favorite banana+ muffin recipe that I want to share. I cut the sugar to 1/2 a cup, cut the oil to 1/3 cup, and I added an extra banana. This was enough for 24 mini muffins and 4-5 large muffins. We all really loved the carrot coconut muffins (recipe here) as well, and I will definitely be making them again!

Brownies & Bars

I made 6 new varieties of brownies and bars; three were healthier granola bars, while three were more in the dessert/treat category!

The granola bars included soft oat and nut bars (recipe here), apple peanut butter oat bars (recipe here), and healthy strawberry oat bars (recipe here). I made some substitutions for the strawberry oat bars based on what I had (whole wheat four, regular egg, regular butter, regular milk, no sesame seeds, and no chia seeds in the jam) and really enjoyed how they turned out. The homemade strawberry jam was so amazing that I will be using it as a filling for a vanilla cake I am making next week!

These Thin Mint brownies (recipe here) were absolutely amazing. Everyone who tasted them loved them, and I think I’d be happy to eat them every day! I used my tried and true brownie recipe (lovingly shared with me by my sister back when she was doing some food blogging) and added some m&ms to make these for a contribution to the bake sale at Leighton’s school. The last of the three treat brownies/bars was this batch of 3 bite Nutella brownies.

Cakes & Cupcakes

I was so excited to get a chance to make and decorate something for my parents when they came to visit in March. I chose this collection of cupcake toppers to highlight lots of their hobbies and interests. The camera was definitely my favorite, although I loved many of them, including the baseball field! The strawberry cupcake and buttercream recipe (I always use more strawberries than it calls for) is very delicious, and I highly recommend trying it out. I also made cupcakes for Ava’s birthday party. I made some snowflake cupcake toppers to match her theme of the Disney movie Frozen. I had to alter my plan for the toppers because my originals didn’t cooperate, and I will be sharing some details and photos about that and other royal icing transfers in an upcoming blog post.

The last cakes I baked and decorated were at Christmas (this snowy trees cake and this Christmas colored petal cake), so I was happy to do another one after so long. I made this Kit Kat Easter basket cake when our friends came to visit on Easter weekend. I had made a beach themed Kit Kat cake last year on Leighton’s last day of school, and I had learned a lot to make it better this time around, including having the Kit Kats cold from the fridge before placing them on the cake.

Cookies

The first set of sugar cookies I made was the University of Maryland Terrapins for my friend Michelle’s husband. Then I worked on these butterfly and flower cookies to celebrate spring for a bake sale at Leighton’s school, and I used the same colors and inspiration from the bright invitation to create this collection for Maeve’s music-themed birthday party. Lastly, I made these Easter cookies.

I also made cookies that weren’t of the sugar cookie and royal icing variety: these Nutella oatmeal cookies and the wacky swirl cookies in celebration of Dr Seuss’ birthday.

Pies & Pastries

Our family LOVES this raspberry pastry cream tart, so everyone was excited that I was making it for the first time since last summer. Our friends who were visiting proclaimed it ‘Heaven on Earth’ and I couldn’t agree more.

Scones & Biscuits

I used to make scones more often, but it seems as thought I haven’t made any in a while. Roy was pretty thrilled I made another batch, and Leighton couldn’t have been more excited that they were coconut scones (recipe here). Riley and I loved them, too! I love anything with vanilla bean and coconut!