Hello everyone! Today I’m sharing all of my fun bakes from last month!

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So, in case you’re new, I have always loved the idea of baking but usually just stuck with box mixes. Then, at the end of 2019 I watched The Great British Baking Show and got a ton of second hand confidence, which launched my newfound hobby! Since the quarantine I’ve started baking a ton more, so I’m sharing everything I’ve been baking.

Pretty much every recipe was found via Pinterest unless I state otherwise! I do have a new subfolder under my “Yummy!” category called “Tried it!” which is where I move the pins after I’ve tried that particular recipe in case you wanted to find it. Otherwise I do state what the website is for each one so I’m sure that would help with a quick Google search!

Here’s what I made!

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Peanut Butter, Banana, and Oatmeal Dog Treats

About the recipe

Since my puppy niece, Arya, was visiting for Camp Cuddles, I wanted to make sure she had some yummy treats! We did have a bag of store bought treats from a past visit, but I think they were stale because she didn’t seem to enjoy them much. I had planned to make her homemade treats anyway, and wanted to make extra to send home with her so she could have a little bit of Camp Cuddles at home. I found the recipe through on site called “Garlic Head”, sent it to my sister for approval, and made some dog treats!

The recipe was super easy as it was only three ingredients. I really liked that to make oat flour you literally just blend the oats until they’re flour. Amazing! Anyway, this recipe was a breeze to do although the mixture was pretty sticky so it was hard to cut them out nicely though.

The results

Here they are! I looked around a few stores to try to find a dog treat cookie cutter but I couldn’t so I made hearts instead. I made sure to label the bag as “dog treats” and another with the next recipe as “human treats” so my sister didn’t get confused. I didn’t try one (although I guess I could have) so I’m not sure how good they are but Arya seemed to like them! I found it weird that the recipe said it would make 50 treats as I found that it only made about 20, but I think she used a much smaller cookie cutter for dog treats and I generally had to break up the hearts into about 3 little sections because my sister’s dog is a tiny 9 pound chihuahua. So maybe if I had a smaller dog treat cutter it would have made a lot more!

M&M Cookies

About the recipe

There are the human treats I made! I really was craving some M&M cookies and found the recipe through a site called “Kleinworth & Co.” which boasted that they were no chill but still soft and chewy.

The recipe was super easy and super yummy!

The results

Here they are! Again, they were super easy but super sugary. Also, since they had a cup of M&M’s on top of a cup of chocolate chips, they were super chocolaty! Don’t get me wrong, I loved the chocolate but I think if I hadn’t given half of them away (the recipe made sooooo many) to my sister and her roomies, it would have been way too much for us. I’m pretty sure all the chocolate made me break out though so I don’t know if I’ll make this again soon unless I have someone I can give half of them to again LOL.

Blueberry Muffins

About the recipe

My mom requested muffins and since I saw we had a ton of blueberries then I figured this would be a great idea! I’d forgotten my mom doesn’t like blueberries though so that was probably the downside for her but she did get muffins. I found this recipe on a site called “Sweet C’s”.

This recipe was also super easy and fast to make!

The results

Here they are! I think they were one of the better bakes I’ve done. Unfortunately I did forget to tell my dad these were my plan so he ate some of the blueberries and instead of 2 cups I had a little under 1 cup. However, since my mom doesn’t really like blueberries, as I mentioned earlier, she didn’t really mind and they were still yummy! I think 2 cups might even be too much for these actually! I really liked them though and topping them with sugar was delicious!

Spiced Oatmeal Cookies

About the recipe

After a few not-so-healthy options, I wanted to try another oatmeal based bake. I found these spiced oatmeal cookies through a site called “Bake or Break”.

The recipe was pretty easy but there was a lot of measurements so it took a bit longer due to all of that. But it was straightforward and the icing was super easy to make too!

The results

Even though I wanted something healthier, they still needed quite a bit of flour unfortunately. Also, I didn’t have allspice or cardamom so I substituted with more cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg. I think it was fine as they still tasted really good! Also, I actually liked them a lot more without the icing. I still put icing on half because I didn’t want to waste it as I’d already made it but next time I’m skipping the icing.

Coconut Loaf Cake & Coconut Macaroons

About the recipe

These are actually two recipes! I made these for my dad’s birthday as he loves coconut. The cake came from a site called “Sugar and Charm” and the macaroons from “Dinner, then Dessert”.

Both were super easy to make. The cookies did need to chill for an hour in the fridge so I mixed those up first to leave them to chill while I made the cake and put it into the oven. It worked out perfectly!

The results

Here they are! Now, I have to admit, the cookies took way more coconut flakes than I expected. I thought I’d have enough for both the cookies and the cake plus some left over but nope! The cookies actually would have used the entire bag but I took about 3/4ths of a cup for the cake. I also found it a bit hard to tell when the macaroons were done, so the bottom and edges are way crispier but the rest was super light. Even so, they were a hit! The cake was a completely different story though. It called for 3 larges eggs but I just had 2 jumbo eggs and didn’t realize until after I was already mixing everything (my mom has a bad habit of leaving almost empty cartons so I grabbed 2 from the carton we were already using and thought the one under it was a full carton until I opened it… the only egg in it was cracked!). So I just went ahead with the 2, hoping it’d be enough because they were really large eggs, but the cake didn’t turn out well at all! Well, it wasn’t terrible but definitely not my best work. It ended up super dense and didn’t rise as much so it looks very small. It still tastes okay, but just not the best! I think the next time we want coconut though, I’ll make the macaroons again as they’re delicious.

Blueberry Pie Bars with Oatmeal Crumble

About the recipe

I found this recipe on a site called “Ambitious Kitchen” which I have used before! It was a recipe for oatmeal cups, back in my May Baking post. This site seems to be quite the fan of oatmeal!

Anyway, the recipe was easy to follow along but I don’t think the crust was nearly enough. I used what they recommended for the crust at the bottom, which was barely enough to cover the bottom in the first place. Then the rest was meant to be the crumble on the top and it wasn’t enough at all. Due to the lack of crust the pie bars didn’t have to be in the oven anywhere near the full amount of recommended time. I think it would have been fine except for the small amount of crust.

The page for the recipe though is great, even telling you how to make your own oat flour (literally just blend some oats for a bit), so if you’re a newer baker, it’s super helpful!

The results

I think they were really good! Even though they didn’t have a lot of crust on the top, they were delicious and the lemon zest came through beautifully! I would absolutely make them again with more crust on the top as they are quite gooey without it. But I don’t think they’re overly sweet at all and they’re pretty good as is!

Almond Butter Brownies

About the recipe

I found this recipe on a site called “Paleo Grubs”, as I’m trying to bake healthier recipes. I’m not sure how much healthier it is since it’s super chocolatey but it looked too good not to try!

The recipe was super easy for this one and the ingredients aren’t too crazy! I find that the healthier options seem to always have really strange ingredients that aren’t too common at all or are very expensive, so this was a welcome easy, but healthier, option.

The results

Here they are! I think they came out a tad dry but super fluffy and delicious. I don’t think I left them in too long though because I did the toothpick test often towards the end of baking it, so I think this recipe is just drier than I’m used to. It is supposed to be healthier and I believe it follows the paleo diet or something fancy like that so maybe that’s just how those ingredients are? Not sure but either way it’s really good and I really like these.

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So those are all the bakes for last month! Do you think I’m ready for The Great British Baking Show yet? Besides the fact that I’m not British of course!

Thanks for reading!

Pamela

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