TWD: Pecan Powder Puffs

We have all had these, I promise. Surely on a plate of Christmas goodies from a neighbor, a church function, or even a wedding. There is a reason we have all had them, they are delicious!



This was my first time making them and I was pleased at the ease I had throwing them together. What an easy make for such a delicious treat. My mother in law makes these, but in a crescent shape. They are beautiful. I am sure we established long ago that I am not a baker that easily makes the end result beautiful, but I can make it delicious. Since we knew what to expect with the taste I did change things up a bit just for fun. I covered half the cookies in powdered sugar per the recipe and then of course I can't make a treat without throwing some chocolate into the mix. I dipped the other half in chocolate. After tasting them my husbands comment was, "Why didn't you cover the whole thing in chocolate, this is good." So we were fans of the chocolate. Surprisingly so my kids liked the powdered sugar version better and I think I did too, but they were both delicious and I found myself popping one into my whenever I walked by. Yum!


My little gal always likes to make her presence in my pictures. Funny girl!

I think what makes these cookies so amazing is the amount of butter as well as the ground pecans mixed in as part of the base of the cookie. Pecans are such a sweet and soft nut packed full of flavor. You just can't go wrong.

If you want to give these beauties a try you can visit Buttercream Barbie for the recipe.

Buttermilk Oat Pancakes & Buttermilk Syrup

These are our most favorite pancakes. I serve breakfast for dinner at least every other week around here and sometimes I even serve breakfast for breakfast. I know I am kind of a lazy mom and do cereal most mornings in order to get kids off to school and such. But sometimes I will make a double batch of these one morning and put them in the fridge and my kids have pancakes everyday (score!).



Two of my biggest issues with pancakes and well most breakfast food is 1 there are not enough good whole grains and 2 sugar. I don't like to start my kids and myself off with a big heaping amount of sugar. So this recipe certainly solves problem number one. It uses oats and wheat flour and very little oil and buttermilk as actually pretty good for you. It doesn't solve problem number 2 with the sugar intake. Every kid/adult loves syrup, right? Well we started about 4 years ago serving yogurt on our pancakes. Some do call us weird (uhum...Liz), but it makes me feel a little better about what is going in their mouths (let's get this straight, I am not perfect, we still have honey nut cheerios and frosted mini wheat's on the off days). I am not such a horrible mom that my kids never experience syrup on pancakes, they can have syrup on their last one if they want and lucky me sometimes they don't.

I found this recipe in our a church cookbook that was made last year on using oats.
Enjoy!!

Buttermilk Oat Pancakes

1 c rolled oats
1 c buttermilk
1 c wheat flour *see note at bottom
2 Tablespoons sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 c water
1 egg, lightly beaten
2 Tablespoons maple syrup
2 Tablespoons oil

Combine oats and buttermilk, let stand 15 min. Add flour, sugar, baking
powder, baking soda, and salt to oat buttermilk mixture. Mix together the water, egg, maple syrup, and oil. Add wet ingredients to flour/Oat mixture. Stir until blended. You can add more milk or water for consistency Pour on hot
griddle. (I use a 1/3 c batter to pour on griddle).

I 1 1/2 x or 2x this recipe for a family of 2 adults and 3 kids.

*note - with the flour, if I have wheat flour that has been ground from white wheat kernels I do the whole amount with wheat flour. If I only have wheat flour ground from red kernels I add either half or 3/4 wheat flour and half or 1/4 white flour. The taste and texture are just a little more doable for kids this way.

And after my spiel about sugary syrup if you are looking for an amazing syrup for your pancakes try this. Liz sent me the recipe and here is what she said about it.

Here's one more reason to buy buttermilk! I've been out of regular syrup and so I whipped this up this morning and I don't know if Mike will go back to Mrs. Butterworth!

Buttermilk Syrup
1 1/2 cups white sugar
3/4 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup butter
2 tablespoons corn syrup
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Directions
In a saucepan, stir together the sugar, buttermilk, butter, corn syrup, and baking soda. Bring to a boil, and cook for 7 minutes. Remove from the heat, and stir in the vanilla.

TWD-Citrus Sunshine Muffins

Citrus Sunshine Muffins...sounds like Summer in a muffin to me! Winter has been LONG and COLD here in Utah and I am ready for some sunshine and warmer weather. Spring is definitely on the horizon but it doesn't seem like we've had very many days that make me believe it!

I made these goodies last night so my family could have them for breakfast this morning. I always have good intentions not to do the cold cereal thing for breakfast, but when you are trying to get 5 kids out the door to get kids to school it just isn't doable for me right now. I didn't have any currants but I did have some fresh blackberries so I added those to the batter. (You can see a little bit of blackberry in the front muffin.) The citrus smell was so fresh. I loved it! They smelled wonderful as they baked.

This morning I warmed them up and served them with a little butter. They were a huge hit. A big enough hit that my kids asked for more when they came home from school. I think we have a winner!

Check out the recipe on Bella Baker.

Until next week! Happy Baking!

TWD: Corniest Corn Muffins

I loved these corn muffins! They came together quickly and were so delicious! I always love when muffins have buttermilk in them, you just can't go wrong. They're moist and flavorful and I can't wait to make them when corn is in season and I can use fresh corn.

My boys each at two and my big boy ate three at dinner tonight. Check out Jill's blog for the recipe!

TWD: Chocolate Pots de Creme

In my mind, I have this dream that I'm like Ina Garten in the Barefoot Contessa and my dear friends come to my home to see what my next ingenius culinary creation will be. Then, we all sit around the table and enjoy the delights that emerged from my brilliant kitchen while we laugh and engage in extremely intelligent conversation. Then somebody spills the milk and one of the kids announces their extreme protest to the meal placed before them and I'm snapped instantly back to reality.

But last night, I got to live a little part of that dream. We had our sweet friends over and we had an actual conversation and minimal complaints from the kids as they were strategically placed in the other room at the "kids table".



The Chocolate Pots de Creme were the perfect finish to such a fun night!! They are so rich and creamy and amazingly delicious, better than most restaurant desserts!! Its definitely a new favorite at our house! Great pick Black Cat Cooking!! For the recipe, click here.