These are a nice, soft cupcake. Many who taste them say they are the “best” cupcakes they have ever had. She has also had a few people who do not like cupcakes compliment them and eat more than one.
Andrea’s Cupcakes with Buttercream Frosting
Gingerbread Chai Biscotti
These are a drier biscotti, but are wonderful with hot chocolate or tea.
Pistachio, Cranberry, White Chocolate Biscotti
Andrea decided we needed some biscotti for our tea. Instead of using plain white chocolate, she caramelized some. She found many different recipes for caramelizing white chocolate online. It made the biscotti extra good, but the cookie was a little sweeter than we liked. Next time we make this, we plan to reduce the sugar some.
Chunky Apple Muffins
I am not exactly sure when I was given this recipe, but I know it is from my mom. These muffins are a great when you went apple picking and picked a lot more apples than you thought.
Muffins
Carol Ragsdale gave me this favorite muffin recipe in South Africa around 23 years ago. It is a great, basic recipe that can be changed in so many ways. Leave plain, add chocolate chips or blueberries, or reduce the milk slightly and make banana muffins. Experiment and see how many combinations you can come up with, but to get you started, check out the options at the end of the recipe.
Red River Date Muffins
Mom really likes Red River Cereal and wanted me to try it. I agree. It is very good! However, it takes awhile to cook, so we decided to look for muffin recipes that use it. After cooling the muffins, we freeze them for an easy breakfast. Just remember to pull early so they can thaw out.
“Frantic Mother Cookies”
I have no idea where Mom found this recipe years ago. I am pretty sure it was in a “how to Mom” type book. We rarely made chocolate chip cookies growing up, but we made these often. Usually we made them drop cookies, but bar style gets them done a lot faster! They are a dryer, crispier cookie, so add a little extra water if desired.
While you can use any type of cereal, corn flakes or rice cereal is the best. One day I made them for the family I was babysitting and used Cheerios. Dom informed me that I could put most anything I wanted into the cookies I made for them, but NEVER use Cheerios again 🙂
Use 1 cup of your favorite “fillings”. Growing up we usually used half unsweetened coconut flakes and chocolate chips. But mix and match with walnuts, pecans or other favorite nuts, raisins, craisins or dried cherries (or other dried fruit sliced in small pieces) and your favorite chocolate chips.
Cowboy Cookies
Allan and I discovered this recipe in Grandma Reble’s collection when I went to Colorado with the McGuire’s for the first time. Since getting married, we go to Colorado every few years and usually make at least one recipe from Grandma’s collection.
As you can see from the notes, Grandma thought they were “very good”. We still make them often because they have always been one of our favorite cookies. Years later, Oma gave Andrea a very similar recipe.
In our family, we do not use butterscotch chips. If we use chocolate chips, they are “Cowboy Cookies”, but if we use M&M’s they are “Cowgirl Cookies”. I can not remember who insisted on that name change, but it was probably Andrea.
MCCC Scones
These scones were a favorite treat at Allan’s coffee shop. They are super easy to make, but also super easy to mess up.
Be sure to start with cold butter and cold whipping cream. The less the dough is handled, the better the scones will be. Feel free to make the dough and place in the refrigerator a few hours or over night before baking. Remember that a cold dough and a warm preheated oven help these scones stay nice and flakey.
Funnel Cakes
We do not always go to the fair. We enjoy it, but sometimes, we enjoy other things instead. This year, we went camping!
When we first made these in July 2009, we also made elephant ears on the same day. We had spent the day at the fair and we told the kids we would buy them one treat and since Momma knew how to make these at home, they decided on a treat we could not make . After making these, Mark put this warning on the bottom of his blog,
WARNING! Do not make these and elephant ears at the same time. You might get sick.