fruit | I Wanna Bake!

King Cake

Posted on February 10, 2016 by Katie Gaffen

Mardi Gras came and went already! I know it’s a little late to be sharing a holiday-specific bakeventure, but this one is just too much fun not to. King cake is a dessert traditionally served between Epiphany and Mardi Gras. In execution and taste, it’s similar to a giant cinnamon roll with purple, green, and gold decorations on top and a suspicious plastic baby hidden inside (more on that later). This recipe might seem daunting due to the number of ingredients (and steps), but fear not! While it is time-consuming and at times labor-intensive, none of the steps are particularly hard, and none of the ingredients are particularly expensive unless you decide to go crazy with the decorations and filling.

Grapefruit Oatnut Muffins

Posted on January 6, 2016 by Katie Gaffen

Happy New Year! I hope everyone’s off to a great start to 2016 so far (and adjusting faster to writing 2016 in dates than I am)! I don’t know about you, but even I have just about hit my limit on sweets throughout the holiday season. Because of this sugar overload, I decided to try something that tastes a bit healthier for the first bakeventure of the year (note: I only said tastes healthier. Let’s not go crazy just yet.). What tastes healthier than oatmeal and grapefruit? Grapefruit, oatmeal, walnut muffins, of course!

Cranberry Wassail Thumbprint Cookies

Posted on December 16, 2015 by Katie Gaffen

It’s Christmas cookie season!!!! If you’re looking for more cookie ideas, check out my cookie archive. I’ll also post a few new ideas throughout the month of December, so be sure to check back on Wednesdays to see what’s new.

These cookies are the product of the endless deluge of Christmas music running through my head. You can only hear “Here We Come A-Wassailing” in your head so many times before you go mad. Thankfully for me, madness waited until after the idea for this cookie was born (at least that’s what I tell myself…).

Vegan Apple Spice Cake

Posted on November 11, 2015 by Katie Gaffen

A couple months ago, my dad asked me if I knew any recipes for “vegan cake or cornbread” because he has a vegan guest coming over for Thanksgiving. This was a simple enough request on the surface, but these days any request for a recipe has a strong potential to become a challenge. I couldn’t just google vegan cake recipes; I had to make my own.

Apple Walnut Danish

Posted on October 21, 2015 by Katie Gaffen

Last weekend, Josh and I went apple picking and came home with more apples than I care to admit (ok, I’ll admit it: approximately 25 pounds). In my defense, Jonagolds are my favorite cultivar apples and they seem to only ever be available for about 2 weeks a year. Since we were too late to pick any last year, I might have overcompensated juuuuust a bit this year. Three gallons of home-canned apple pie filling later, I still had more apples left than any normal person should eat in a week.

Banana Nut Muffins

Posted on October 14, 2015 by Katie Gaffen

I have an on-again, off-again relationship with bananas. I’ll go months without having any desire to even look at a banana, followed by a period where I buy them every week for a month until I get tired of them again. Part of the reason for my coolness toward the fruit is their propensity to turn brown at a moment’s notice. I’ve tried various different tricks to keep them from ripening too fast, but it usually seems that bananas do what they want with no regard for my potassium needs.

Caramel Apple Whoopie Pies

Posted on September 23, 2015 by Katie Gaffen

You may get sick of all my apple posts soon enough, but I never will! This bakeventure started out with a well-intentioned attempt to make caramel apples my husband can actually eat. He likes apples, particularly when they’re covered in caramel and peanuts, but has a strange allergy which makes his throat itch when he eats them raw. Cooked apples aren’t a problem, so I figured there must be a way to give him that tart-sweet-crunchy sensation that embodies fall without any of the itchy throat.

Spiced Apple Pie

Posted on September 9, 2015 by Katie Gaffen

Apple season is upon is, so naturally that means it is the season of pie. Josh and I went apple picking on the last weekend of August and came home with a paltry 18 pounds of Earligold and Jonamac apples.

Chocolate Cherry Cake with Molasses Cream Cheese Frosting

Posted on September 2, 2015 by Katie Gaffen

We’re finally at the end of the summer birthday season, with Josh’s birthday being last week. Naturally, I wanted to go all out for his birthday cake. Chocolate was a given since it’s his favorite, and I’ve had cherries on my mind since the start of cherry season, so it made sense to me to put them together. Josh had also mentioned that he liked cream cheese frosting better than traditional buttercream last time I made it, so I figured I might as well put them all together for one super-decadent cake.

Pomegranate Lime Tart

Posted on August 19, 2015 by Katie Gaffen

Back in July, my husband and I went to a barbecue at his research advisor’s house. Naturally, I had to bake something. His advisor and his wife had thoughtfully given us a PieBox with a pie plate and a tart pan as a wedding gift, so something delivered in that box was the natural choice (it really is a useful and fun thing, you should get one if you transport baked goods frequently). Since I’d never made a tart before, I decided to take the new tart pan for a spin for this particular bakeventure.

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