SMiLes by Meg

Tag: baking

Peanut Brittle

Back to Christmas cookie boxes this week with one of the two non-cookie recipes I put in the boxes this year: peanut brittle. I think it’s fitting to still be sharing cookie box recipes because some of the cookie boxes I mailed out (3 day priority mail about 2 weeks before Christmas) just this week got to their destinations. USPS needs its funding restored. Anyways, peanut brittle went in the boxes this year as a compromise. I really wanted to try to recreate Williams-Sonoma peppermint bark, but then once I started looking at recipes realized it was a project in …

Devil’s Food Cake

Taking a break from cookie box recipes this week to share with you a very delicious cake that we had on New Year’s Eve. New Year’s has always been a quiet holiday for me, so for the first time this holiday season, it didn’t feel all that different. In college, I was always home at my parents’ for New Year’s. They would go out with another couple for dinner, and my brother would go out with his friends, and I’d have the house entirely to myself. This almost always meant opening some red wine and getting the most comfort-food-style baked …

Peppermint Oreos

Looking back over the years, I’ve tried to make Oreos a few times. When I first moved into my apartment in Boston after law school, I gave them a go with this recipe. Then, a couple months later, I tried to recreate the Trader Joe’s candy cane Oreos with this recipe for my Christmas cookie boxes. Both seem to have been successes at the time, but they also both pale in comparison to the ones I made for my cookie boxes this year, a much more impressive looking and subtly peppermint variety out of BraveTart’s cookbook, of course. Christmas for …

Checkerboards

Week 2 of cookies from my cookie boxes this year is checkerboards! When polling friends who got a box, this was a big favorite, which I think is probably more due to the fact that they look really impressive than anything else. Oh and also the butter. I first made checkerboards in my pre-blog life sometime in college. Cate was visiting my parents’ house with me, and I remember making them at the kitchen counter while she made wedding cookies. Or maybe I’m totally making up this memory but I think that’s when I first made them. I was surprised …

Nutmeg Teddy Bears

If you follow my Instagram (@smilesbymeg), you know that I made a LOT of cookies this weekend. If you don’t follow my Instagram, you really should start. I’ll post the recipes over the next couple of weeks, but first up (by vote of my Instagram followers): Nutmeg Teddy Bears! Every year in my cookie boxes, I like to make at least one with my cookie press. And every year when I do make a cookie press cookie, I remember that i have presses for every season of the year that isn’t Christmas, too, swear I’ll make more, and then don’t. …

Gingerbread House

Like everyone else on Instagram, I decided this was the right weekend for a gingerbread house. Next weekend is Cookie Weekend (if you live in DC and want a box of cookies, please let me know!) and the weekend after that is Ravioli Weekend and the weekend after that is Christmas, so there really was no other time to do this. I’ve had a set of gingerbread house cookie cutters for a couple of years now, but hadn’t yet successfully baked the components in a way that they would fit together to make a house. I decided I needed a …

Butternut Squash Pumpkin Pie

Thanksgiving was different this year, and I definitely missed the big family gathering, traditional holiday foods (mostly the secret stuffing) and post-meal nap/movie on the couch. But, if we couldn’t have that this year, our little Thanksgiving was the perfect Plan B. We made this pie the night before, and decided, since there was no one coming over, there was no reason we couldn’t eat it for breakfast on Thanksgiving day. This could very much turn into a new tradition. The rest of our meal came together throughout the course of the day, interspersed with video calls with family and …

Brookies

Continuing my small-batch kick this week with some brookies (brownie/cookie combo, for those not in the know) made in my cute little 1/8 sheet pan! We’ve been having a nice lazy stay around the house day, and these were a good little midday snack. And, even though it’s a small batch recipe, we’ve got lots of them to get us through to Thanksgiving! Speaking of, planning a Thanksgiving meal for two is strange. We’re not traveling (thanks, COVID), but will be doing virtual Thanksgiving with each of our families at various times during the day. That still leaves food for …

Pecan Sticky Buns

Sundays are a lot better when they start with brunch treats. And today started with some pretty awesome ones – Pecan Sticky Buns. I’ve had my eye on this recipe from Hummingbird High for awhile. She calls them small-batch, though, which is what drew me to them. The idea of being able to make just a few pastries for me and Erik was appealing, mostly so I didn’t end up eating sticky buns for breakfast all week. However, I think calling these small-batch is misleading. I thought I was going to get to use my cute little 1/8-size baking sheet, …

Danish Puff

Last week, my mom suggested I try a recipe of Grammy’s that I hadn’t tried yet – Danish Puff. My aunt sent me the recipe, confirming that it was always a treat when Grammy would make it on Sundays. I’d never heard of it, but decided to give it a go this Sunday, since we all deserve a treat to keep celebrating yesterday. I love getting recipes of Grammy’s, because they often come to me like this: No nonsense, easy to find ingredients, minimal instructions assuming you know what you’re doing in the kitchen. And at this point in my …