I made this for christmas dinner this year instead of traditional pumpkin pie! We had a smaller dinner on christmas, and the larger italian seafood feast on christmas eve. I made tiramisu on christmas eve, and then it was all adults for christmas so I thought a more grown up version of the dessert would be good. It’s a really simple recipe and you can make it the day before, so it requires no day-of prep! (more…)

I saw these on another website and thought they would be perfect for a quick christmas cookie. They require no butter, and are super easy to make. At first as I made the first batch I thought they weren’t going to turn out at all. I had to convert the measurements and I thought I might have done it wrong, but when I went to get them from the oven 10 minutes later, I was pleasantly surprised to see how great they turned out! I made two batches.

These are super quick and a lighter christmas cookie alternative, crispy and chewy. Their inspired from the Starbucks cookies apparently, which I wouldn’t know as I don’t drink coffee, and rarely visit starbucks. But they are good!

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So I’ve been wanting to bake something more fruity ever since I made the carrot cake last week. I do love all the chocolatey things and cakes and all the good stuff. But lately i’ve been wanting to bake something with apples, that seems a little lighter and healthier. (ok, i know it’s not exactly healthy.. eating an apple on it’s own would be a lot better, which I have been doing also!) But I had wanted to use up some green apples that were sitting on the counter. Of course I searched for recipes on the web, and in Dorie’s Book to find an apple related recipe that was lighter and less dense than say, an apple pie.

So I stumbled upon this recipe, and decided to combine it with a recipe I found in Dorie’s book for Dimply Plum Cake. I really liked her’s but found It was a bit smaller than I wanted to make so I combined the two recipes to make something inbetween. Instead of chopping the apples up and incorporating them, I sliced them and layed them on top of the cake like Dorie’s plum cake. This recipe is worth trying for sure. 

Dimply Apple Spice Cake

Ingredients

• 2 cups plus 2 Tbsp all purpose flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/8 tsp nutmeg
• 1/8 tsp allspice
• 1/2 cup butter, melted
• 1 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 Tbsp vanilla extract
• 3-4 apples, cored and sliced
• cinnamon sugar for sprinkling

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and spay a 9×13 baking pan, dust with flour and tap excess off.
2. In medium bowl, combine flour, baking powder, all spice, cinnamon and nutmeg. Whisk to combine well and set aside.
3. In bowl of stand mixer, combine sugars and butter and beat on medium high until light and fluffy, about 1 minute. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well to combine. Add vanilla extract and beat to combine.
4. Turn mixer on slow and fold in flour mixture a little at a time until just combined.
5. Spread mixture evenly into prepared pan. Layer top with apple slices so they all face the same way, and sprinkle top generously with cinnamon sugar.
6. Place in oven and bake until cooked through, when top slightly bounces back to the touch, about 30 minutes, you may need an extra 5 minutes if it looks too soft, so just turn the oven off, and let them sit for another 5 minutes before you take them out.
7. Remove from oven and let cool completely before removing from pan, cutting and serving. These would also be good with whipped cream, cool whip or a dollop of ice cream.