wanna come with? - Page 3 of 16 - I'm gonna go bake something…

watermelon popsicles

August 27, 2016 No comments

Earlier today, someone mentioned that they were really looking forward to pumpkin spice season starting up soon. I thought “What are you talking about? It’s still summer! It’s only… waitaminute, next week is September!?” I feel like the summer has flown by. But when I look back at the blog, I’ve made a lot of popsicles, so it’s not like I didn’t get the chance to enjoy it or anything. We’ve had a lot of beautiful weather, and a lot of omg-it’s-way-too-hot weather. And I’m honestly looking forward to things cooling off again. And I’m definitely looking forward to being able to bake again on the weekends. I have so many recipes tagged and plans for what I want to make. But the summer’s not quite over yet. The stores are still full of fresh summer fruit – right now there’s lots of peaches and nectarines, and cherries are starting to show up. And watermelons. Beautiful fat juicy watermelons. What’s more refreshing on a hot day? (more…)

strawberry rhubarb popsicles

August 20, 2016 Comments: 4

It’s another scorcher in Vancouver, so instead of going to the farmer’s market, I’m dipping into my supply of frozen fruit again for this week’s popsicle. As I mentioned last week, I like to make fruit smoothies to take to work with me for breakfast, so I keep my freezer stocked with the basics – bananas, blueberries, cranberries, and strawberries. Plus whatever looks good at the market each week. Right now I’ve also got a lot of blackberries, raspberries, and rhubarb. I have no plans to add rhubarb to my smoothies (I’m sure it would be stringy and unpleasant…), but I do use it occasionally in baking, like these amazing rhubarb almond muffins I made last year. I’ve also added it to apple crisp, along with cranberries. And sometimes I’ll add it to my oatmeal while it’s cooking. Man, I can’t wait for the weather to cool down a bit so I can get baking again. I really miss it, and I don’t even have any more of my stash of frozen muffins in the freezer. Sadness. (more…)

cranberry orange popsicles

August 13, 2016 1 comment

We’re taking a little break from the farmer’s market this weekend, but we’re still making popsicles because it’s crazy hot here (don’t even ask me about my sunburn). In fact, it was too hot to go to the farmer’s market (why yes, that is why we’re taking a break). All I wanted to do was keep cool in front of my fan. So this week we’re working with ingredients you can get any time of year, and it’s one of my favourite flavour combinations – which is why I happened to have all the ingredients on-hand. Orange juice and cranberries (plus a bit of Cointreau). It’s a combination that works well in so many things. I haven’t posted it yet, but I have a recipe for cranberry orange muffins that I make all the time, and they’re fantastic. (more…)

blackberry honey popsicles

August 6, 2016 No comments

I hope you’re not all sick of popsicle recipes yet, because it’s just too hot to be making much else right now. And I hope you’re not sick of hearing about our amazing farmer’s market, because I’m still going every weekend. And every weekend it’s the inspiration for what I end up making. Right now it’s all about the berries – every stall has tables loaded full of baskets of blueberries, strawberries, raspberries and blackberries. I’ve been buying lots of all of them, eating a few fresh (they’re great added to salads!), and freezing most of them to use in my morning smoothies and muffins. And of course making lots and lots of popsicles. This weekend we’re taking advantage of the beautiful plump blackberries. (more…)

raspberry popsicles

July 30, 2016 No comments

It’s another raspberry popsicle week! A couple weeks ago when I made those fantastic raspberry sherbet popsicles, I also made some plain raspberry popsicles. Because I had so many raspberries. All the raspberries. And I had some plans for the plain raspberry. If you read that last post, you may have seen that I also made some coconut-lime popsicles and layered them together with the raspberry sherbet. With this recipe I went one step further and made some triple-layered ones – plain raspberry, creamy raspberry, and creamy coconut. And omg, they were SO good. Trust me, the plain ones are delicious as-is, but the combo ones were really something special. If you’re feeling ambitious and have more raspberries than you know what to do with, you should give that a try. (more…)

tropical biscotti

July 23, 2016 1 comment

I saw this recipe in one of my cookbooks awhile ago and knew it would be a perfect summer cookie. Lovely crispy biscotti with tropical flavours, including pineapple? Yum! So I’ve been holding off on making it, waiting for sunny days. As we head into summer proper, though, my kitchen gets hotter and hotter, and less and less a place I want to be spending a lot of time. And turning on the oven? Forget about it. So this may be one of the last baking recipes I post for awhile. Unless we have a nice cool rainy weekend – then I’ll break out the baking sheets again. Instead, be prepared for a lot of popsicles and no-bake recipes. Everyone loves those, right? Right. But this week was still not too bad temperature-wise, so this week we still get proper cookies. (more…)

raspberry sherbet popsicles

July 16, 2016 Comments: 2

We’re just starting to ease into summer here in Vancouver, and the weather is still wildly fluctuating between hot sunny days, and cool rainy nights. This is totally normal for us – usually our summer doesn’t start in earnest until August, but then we have beautiful weather well into October. Often I’m still wearing sandals even in November! But it’s definitely warm and sunny enough to enjoy a popsicle or two, and with the farmers market in full swing, I’m loading up on fresh fruit every weekend. And popsicles are the perfect way to take advantage of all that bounty. (more…)

strawberry-swirl vanilla yogurt popsicles

July 9, 2016 No comments

Strawberries are at their peak right now. Every time I walk into a grocery store, there are baskets of beautiful, plump, juicy strawberries everywhere. They’re one of the few fruits that I actually enjoy eating as-is (I know, weird, right? who doesn’t like fruit? me apparently), so my biggest problem was not eating them all before I had a chance to make popsicles! Trust me, more than once, I’ve bought strawberries specifically for making popsicles, and then had to go buy more because I suddenly didn’t have enough for the recipe anymore. Oops. (more…)

honey-nut oatmeal cookies

July 2, 2016 No comments

This recipe really caught my eye – chewy oatmeal, honey roasted peanuts, and honey. Doesn’t that sound delicious? Oatmeal cookies are always a big hit at my office, and so are peanut butter cookies. Combine the two, and we’re already bound to have a winner. But the addition of all that honey flavour, and the twist of using honey roasted peanuts instead of just plain peanuts, boosted this already good cookie to another level. (more…)

coconut, cranberry, chocolate chip oatmeal cookies

June 25, 2016 No comments

You guys, let me say right off the bat: this cookie is absolutely the most popular cookie I’ve made to date! There were so many people declaring it their new favourite (seriously, several people), not to mention I kept hearing people telling their friends how awesome they are and to come try one. I usually see the same faces at the cookie jar, but this week I was seeing people who usually don’t partake. This is a fantastic cookie. (more…)

butterscotch chocolate chip cookies

June 18, 2016 Comments: 2

Making those butterscotch lollipops a few weeks ago reminded me how much I love butterscotch (so much!), so when I saw this recipe? I knew this was what I’d be making this week. Butterscotch alone is good, but combined with chocolate it’s even better (it works amazingly with peanut butter too – seriously, you should try these peanut butter butterscotch cookies!). This little cookie was hugely popular among my coworkers. I saw one person walking away with a whole handful of them, and another person told me very seriously that this may be his new favourite cookie. And you’ll note that I’ve tagged this as a personal favourite too. Yup, this is a good cookie. (more…)

white chocolate chip fudge cookies

June 11, 2016 No comments

There’s a lot of chocolate in these cookies – two kinds of melted chocolate, plus lots of cocoa powder. And as if that’s not enough, then we add lots and lots of white chocolate chips. Normally I’m not a fan of white chocolate, but here it’s a really nice counterbalance to all the dark chocolate in the cookie itself. The resulting cookie is dense and chewy, and the combination of all that chocolate plus brown sugar and molasses (did I mention there’s molasses in here too?) really tastes like old-fashioned fudge. This cookie is definitely a winner. (more…)

orange chocolate chip biscotti

June 4, 2016 1 comment

The last time I brought in biscotti, no one seemed very excited by it. It all got eaten, but no one went “oooooh biscotti!!!” (for the record? that would totally be my reaction). This time? Lots of excited noises. I don’t know if they learned how good biscotti can be after the last ones I brought in, or if it’s just a different group of people I’m hearing from this time. But I’m definitely hearing a lot of “ooooh biscotti!!!” and lots of happy yummy noises. And I’m seeing a pretty empty cookie jar. (more…)

cranberry-cherry coconut oatmeal cookies

May 28, 2016 1 comment

I’m a big fan of the combination of coconut and oatmeal, so that alone drew me in to this recipe. The addition of a mix of dried fruit made it even more appealing. I thought some tart dried cranberries sounded like a fantastic contrast to the sweet coconut. Unfortunately I didn’t have quite enough cranberries for the recipe, so I did half cranberries and half tart cherries, and I think that made them even better than I was hoping! And yes, I was right – it is a fantastic contrast. This is a really good cookie. The combination of dried fruit and coconut gives this cookie an almost tropical feel, and the tartness of the cherries and cranberries helps to offset the sweetness of the cookie. (more…)

old-fashioned butterscotch lollipops

May 21, 2016 Comments: 7

I’m a fan of butterscotch, and every time I bring butterscotch cookies to work, or anything with butterscotch chips in it, I realize that a lot of my coworkers are fans too. But when I think of butterscotch – true butterscotch – I think of butterscotch pudding my mom made when I was a kid, or those old hard candies that your grandma maybe had in a bowl on her coffee table – it’s an old-fashioned flavour, right? But it’s delicious! It should be more popular! I’ve mentioned it before, but I’m making it my mission – I’m seeking out and making every butterscotch cookie recipe I can find. And apparently candy, too. We’re bringing butterscotch back. (more…)