Baking Giveaway

There is still time to hop over to my guest post at Good Morning Girls where I give oodles of 30 minute clutter-busting ideas and where they are offering a book giveaway. Click here to see it. Don’t forget to come back for my weekend giveaway. :-)

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When my daughter Kenna was little, she and I loved to bake.

Michigan dried-cherry-cashew bars, lavender shortbread, whole wheat bread from fresh-ground wheat.

My baking buddy has been gone for nearly three years now. I’m left with only sons at home.

Two sons AND their many guy friends who mysteriously appear out of nowhere—especially when I’m cooking. I went to bed last night as the 14-year-old son was hanging out down at the creek with several neighborhood boys. This morning when I awoke, here is what I found:

When I went down to our finished basement/man cave, here is what else I found:

And this was only half of the boys who crashed here!

Wanting to be the home where teens hang out means having food around. Sure they love pizza rolls and chips and cheese. However, I find so many of the dozens of teens who have frequented our home over the years love homemade treats.

Now, be sure to leave a comment on this post with your favorite baked goody or something you have always wanted to make but were afraid to try. You could win this:

It includes:

~ A kitchen towel

~ A whisk

~ Two cookie cutters

~ A baking book with 100 winning recipes

~ Two bags of Tazo passion tea—great over ice and sweetened with Stevia. (Sipping it will help keep you from snitching the dough!)

Winner announced Monday. :-)

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141 Comments

  1. I LOVE to bake and have many recipes that are favorites :-) For me, it’s probably a fresh pumpkin pie with whipped cream on top. Or pumpkin bread with pecans and butter :-) Something I’ve always wanted to try but just never have is a homemade angel food cake.

  2. My favorite thing to bake for a quick treat is “Cherry Dump Cake”. The other thing I love to bake only comes once a year, that is my sons birthday cake! I love seeing the look on his face when he sees my latest creation.

  3. Now that my husband is gone, I enjoy baking for the grandkids when they come over. The favorite seems to be chocolate chip cookies, but today they enjoyed a non-bake Butterfinger Dessert, which they all love. I so enjoy your blog and your ideas.

  4. I was scared to death of breads – cinnamon rolls, especially. Then I found the courage to try them and my fears were overtaken by how much fun cinnamon rolls are to make… and eat!

  5. I LOVE to bake cookies, cakes, cobblers, pies and share with neighbors or my friends and of course my family whom likes to sample the goods. Everyone enjoys a fresh baked goodie! The smile on their face is worth every moment baking!

  6. Trying cute 4th of July cookies today. Sugar cookies, frosted and with fireworks frosted on top then sprinkled with pop rocks. What could be better than an explosion in your mouth on the 4th?

  7. Your extra peaches remind me of a pampered chef recipe for a peach coffee cake that I haven’t made it in years! I’ll have to try it again the next time peaches are on sale. If I had a basement full of man cubs – i have a 15 yr old and 17 yr old still at home – they would probably request a big batch of crepes with strawberries and blueberries. Peaches would be yummy, too! Have a blessed day!

  8. My family loves it when I make homemade caramel rolls and breakfast coffee cake. I love it that there are other households who wake up to unexpected teens, sleeping wherever they crashed!! Some mornings, I find myself shaking my head in amazement… :)

  9. Piecrust and making bread scare me a bit. So I buy already made crust. I do make quick breads, my grand kids love banan bread, so I try to make it whenever we have over ripe bananas!

  10. Karen,
    Our home is open to kiddos at all times as well! I want to have a welcome place for our childen’s friends, I’d much rather have them close to home with godly influences. I bake muffins and biscuits, cookies and cakes, casseroles and such. However, when we have unexpected or impromptu gatherings, I always fall back on my tried and true favorites! Rice krispy treats. Plain and some with peanut butter mixed in. Also brownies and oatmeal no bake drop cookies are a never fail option. I always have the ingredients for those! I enjoy your blog! Audrey

  11. i would really like to know how to make a pie! my mom makes pies, my grandma made wonderful pies,…and i even went to a woman’s church get-together that had one session covering how to make a pie. i guess i need to:
    1. grab the instructions from the get-together speaker
    2. grab the ingredients
    3. grab some guts (and find a time) and try it!

  12. My kids’ (now older teenagers) favorite baked good has long been banana chocolate chip muffins. When I buy a bunch of bananas I think they purposely don’t eat them so they “need” to be used up for the muffins!

  13. I LOVE TO BAKE!!!! Anything sweet with lots of butter is sure to be a favorite at our house although I do like to make bread too … it would happen a lot more frequently if only I could figure out how to keep it from getting so crumbly (sigh). Currently, my favorite sweet is a Heath Bar Cookie – the recipe was given to me by a wonderful college friend. In case you love toffee too, here’s the recipe:

    Heath Bar Cookies

    1 cup butter 3 cups flour
    3/4 cup brown sugar 1 tsp. baking soda
    3/4 cup white sugar 1 tsp. salt
    2 eggs
    2 tsp. vanilla 2 cups chopped Heath Bars (one package of Heath chips)

    Cream butter, sugar, egg and vanilla. Mix until smooth and creamy. Combine flour, baking soda and salt; add to butter mixture. Stir in candy (and 1/3 cup pecans if desired). Drop by tablespoonfuls 2” apart onto greased baking sheets. Bake at 350° F. for 12 – 15 minutes; cool on wire rack.

  14. I’d rather bake than cook since I’m better at baking. My favorite and winner of a prize at the fair are my Revel Bars. They are a chocolately center sandwiched in between oatmeal-cookie-like layers. They are requested for every event I seem to go to by my church friends. Wouldn’t it be fun to have a baking cookbook featuring all our favorites! Thanks for your blog, Karen!!

  15. My favorite food to make is Cheerio Christmas Trees. They are similar to rice crispie treats but have mint flavor, green food color, are shaped like Christmas trees, and decorated with gumdrops :) These are my favorite because every Christmas the whole family would go to the kitchen and make them. I remember the laughter, the smiles, and the amazing togetherness time. Now I do the same thing with my own four children :)

  16. My daughter and I love to make peanut butter cookies together. A new favorite is blueberry coffee cake. I found it on a blog and it has been wonderful to make with the fresh blueberries at this time of year. My kids love it for breakfast!!

  17. I love making these chocolate chip cheesecake bars. It’s a super easy recipe – you can even use those chubs of cookie dough from the store! But they are so rich and delicious and people at my office go crazy for them!

    I got nostalgic the other week and made no-bake oatmeal cookies and I watched as people left the break room with four or more at a time. Lol

    I love being able to bake what I want and not feel like my daughter and I have to eat it all. :-)

  18. Hi Karen! It’s my first time to post, but I love your blog. I try to bake often,but I seem to always go back to chocolate-chip cookies. I love to make cakes and cool treats, but those cookies always disappear the quickest! Thank You so much for all your practical advice!
    I saw there’s another Karen Anderson that posted. I’m Karen from Texas. :)

  19. A pumpkin roll, always intimidated to try that, with the tea cloth and everything. People say it is easy, but I don’t see how you do it with out it breaking.

  20. One of my favorite baked goods is Kuchen! All kinds – apricot, peach, blueberry, cherry. Yummy!

  21. Well first of all i absolutely love this cool font you have for your site. It is great! I think the peach cobbler sounds fantabulous!! I have always struggled with cut-out cookies (although i love them) because i can’t seem to make them consistent, they are either too thin and crispy or too thick i just can’t seem to get the rolling out part even. This would be fun to win though as i do keep trying to get it right! I love your page and encouragements so very much!

  22. Oooh – this resonated with me on SO many levels. Many of them pleasurable ‘ouchies’ – not least because my children are grown and gone…. big ‘ouchie’.

    Loved the idea of lavender shortbread – I make lavender cake often which is always very popular – so different – and lemon and lavender scones. Lavender shortbread next!

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