Hello everyone! Today, I’m sharing the baked goods I made last month but hadn’t been able to post yet. I’m sharing my experience baking peanut butter banana oatmeal cups, lemon cookies, and coffee cake.

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I’d previously been doing one post per baked goods, but I’ve been baking so much lately that I just wanted to catch up! Will I regret it if I run out of baking posts later? Probably. But I just wanted to share them already! So here’s three items for you to read about!

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Peanut Butter Banana Oatmeal Cups

This recipe came from a website called “Ambitious Kitchen” which I found through Pinterest. The cups are gluten free and oatmeal based, so I was excited to try it out as my parents have requested healthier items. They’re also dairy free and the recipe says they can be frozen so they’ll keep longer, but we ate them all pretty quickly.

Recipe Pros & Cons

I normally hate that the actual recipe is always buried at the end of the post on the site, with mountains of text above it that you have to scroll through. However this one was pretty good as it gave specifics on how many bananas depending on size, how brown the bananas should be, alternatives to peanut butter or other ingredients, and even why certain items were used. I found that all super helpful, which is rare. I didn’t have anything that I thought was negative about it honestly. That said, the recipe did say it made 12 muffins, and I did manage to get 18, although I think 16 were fully filled and the rest were a little low. I would prefer is the recipe did make a tiny bit more mixture so I could get 18 full muffins without overflowing the cup.

Results

Here’s the results! I think they turned out quite beautiful! I did use the (optional) chocolate chips but no walnuts (also optional), as well as creamy peanut butter. I made these a while ago so I don’t quite remember if I used maple syrup or honey (both are listed as options) but I’m pretty sure I used honey. I did use almond milk as the recipe called for, although it does say you can use any milk. It really is a very easy recipe and gives so many options for substitutions!

Thoughts

I do think I need to practice filling the muffins, as they do tend to vary at how full they are. However, if I fully filled them to only be 12 muffins, I think it would have been a mess because it would have overflowed. If I make these again I might add a bit more of everything so that I can get a total of 18 full ones.

Overall these muffins were amazing though and I do want to make them again! I think I’ll try them with crunchy peanut butter next time though. I don’t usually like crunchy peanut butter but I do think these would be good with a bit more crunch.

Lemon Cookies

I found this recipe through Pinterest as well, through a site called “The First Year”. I’d really wanted to try something with lemon, as well as sugar cookies, which this recipe got both!

Recipe Pros & Cons

The post started off with a lot of text, which was annoying. It wasn’t particularly helpful from what I remember, it was mostly a story of the baker coming up with the recipe or something. Once you get to the recipe, it’s very straightforward and an easy bake, although a few steps are unnecessary, such as flouring the area to roll the dough into balls and using a cookie scoop to get the dough. I just used my hands and it was fine. I did refrigerate the dough, which I think did make the cookies better (this was listed as optional). It’s a good recipe, but the recipe writer isn’t that great.

Results

Here they are! I think they look delicious and that they also tasted amazing! I did want a softer cookie, so I did take them out on the earlier side but some of the smaller cookies did get more crunchy and were also great. I would love to make them again even though it’s sooooo much sugar!

Thoughts

I would love to make them again even though it’s sooooo much sugar! However, they are mostly sugar so that’s why. The lemon came through really great on these too, which was impressive.

Coffee Cake

This was another Pinterest find, on a website called “Simply Recipes” under “classic coffee cake”. The description stated it was “better than Starbucks” and as a huge Starbucks classic coffee cake fan, I had to try it out!

Recipe Pros & Cons

This recipe reminded me a lot of the camo brownies I made before, with multiple mixtures of stuff! I had to make the mixture for the cinnamon layer, the crumble topping, and then the actual cake as well. There was a video but I didn’t watch it, and I didn’t struggle with the recipe at all so I don’t think it was super necessary but still a nice addition. The recipe also had optional additions or substitutions such as making it into a pumpkin spice coffee cake or adding nuts, but I took none of those ideas.

The mixtures were all very easy to create though, even if there were three. The cinnamon layer is just three ingredients and the streusel crumble topping was five but super simple too. The cake batter had a lot more ingredients but still easy to follow along. I did substitute the whole milk for almond milk, which I thought was fine.

Results

Here’s the cake! I struggled getting it out of the pan, even though I’d sprayed it with plenty of oil, so that was strange. But I did have to cut it to get it out, so I decided to just use the precut photo even though the pan is a hot mess (my mom doesn’t take care of the pans too well so they all look a little weird). However, the cake itself I think looks amazing! And it tasted great too! My parents both loved it and stated it was the most delicious bake I’d done yet. Honestly, I’d agree with them!

Thoughts

I did like the cake but I left it a tad too long so the cake was a bit drier than I expected. The edges were also a bit more well done too. However, it was still really good! The reason I’d over done it a bit was because the topping is pure crumbles and the recipe stated a toothpick inserted in the middle needed to come out clean. I didn’t realize until it was too late that the crumbs were literally from the topping, not the cake itself! So now I know for next time.

I do think the cake is as good as Starbucks’ version honestly, if I don’t leave it in too long! It’s also quite filling so it lasted longer than other cakes and baked goods that I’ve made. I can’t wait to make it again, although it is something that I think does need a bit of a break before I make it again.

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So those are my baked goods for May that didn’t get their own post before BirthMay ended! I do like sharing multiple recipes at once though, so I think I’ll keep that up!

Thanks for reading!

Pamela

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