- Blueberry muffins are always an option when you have fresh blueberries in the kitchen, but Vanilla Sugar‘s decadent Blueberry Cream Cheese Fritters might be an alternative when you’re in the mood for something a little different. The batter for these homemade donuts is similar to a muffin batter, made with cinnamon, vanilla and blueberries. The fritters are fried in a heavy duty pan until they’re golden brown, then quickly dipped into a sweet glaze made with cream cheese and confectioners’ sugar. Serve these right away while they’re still warm, as eating warm donuts is the best part of making them yourself.
- Sugar Hero was inspired to make a batch of Kettle Corn Cookies after seeing them at a local Trader Joe’s. The cookies combine two much-loved snack foods: cookies and sweet-salty kettle corn. The store-bought rendition of this cookie is crisp and crunchy, but the homemade version it inspired is softer and chewier. The cookies use three whole cups of kettle corn, where other cookie recipes might use mix-ins like chocolate chips, to add in the kettle corn flavor. Browned butter enhances the popcorn’s buttery flavor, too.
- The Twisted Cookies from Cook & Be Merry are very unique, and are guaranteed to be very tasty. The beautiful bow tie-shaped cookies are made with a buttery, yeasted dough that is folded up to create flaky layers. The dough is then cut into strips and twisted, so that when those layers separate during baking, they are showcased in all their crisp, buttery deliciousness. Each of the cookies is generously topped with vanilla sugar before baking, but it would be easy to make variations on the vanilla version by using cinnamon sugar, lemon sugar or adding another spice to the mix, though you cannot go wrong with the classic vanilla version.
- There are all kinds of banana bread variations out there, adding things like chocolate chips and coconut to a basic quickbread recipe. Lemon Drop‘s Spelt Banana Bread is a variation that switches regular wheat flour for spelt flour. Spelt flour is not gluten free, but it has a lower gluten content than wheat flour. The flour is high in protein and calcium, too. Because of its lower gluten content, spelt tends to make for a more tender baked good (especially in quick breads) than wheat flour alone, so you are going to get a softer and more banana-y banana bread with this version.
- Tahini is sesame seed oil, and while it can be used in all kinds of recipes, many of us have only used it to make hummus (if you’ve used it at home at all!). Heart-healthy tahini is actually very versatile and can be used in all kinds of baked goods, including cookies and cakes. The Caramel Cookie baked some Tahini Lemon Cookies that use the sesame oil to infuse a nutty flavor and to give the cookies a soft, chewy texture. The combination of tahini and lemon makes these flavorful, and a nice change of pace from your typical sugar cookie. This cookie recipe is vegan, so it is egg and dairy free, too.
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