Caramel Butterscotch Cake

This cake, this cake, oooh this cake. A family favorite. The Tucker’s have been making this cake for years. Specifically in the fall! It’s a classic 90’s cake made from a box cake mix and powdered pudding mix. The original recipe calls for mazola oil in the cake batter and margarine in the icing, I die.

It’s always been called Caramel Cake but there isn’t a lick of caramel in this recipe….I snuck butterscotch into the title to describe its ingredients a bit better. I love, I mean love a butterscotch chip. The best part of the recipe is that it only calls for 1 cup so then you have a leftover cup of chips to snack on. The best dessert is a handful of butterscotch chips.

Cake Ingredients:
1 box Duncan Hines Yellow Cake Mix
2-3.4oz butterscotch pudding mix
1 1/4 cup water
1/3 cup vegetable oil
4 eggs
1 cup butterscotch chips

Icing Ingredients:
4 tbsp. or 1/2 stick unsalted butter
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 - 1/2 cup powdered sugar
1-2 tsp. milk

Directions:
Preheat your oven to 350°F. Use Baker’s Joy to prep your bundt pan or generously grease and flour it and set it aside.

In a large bowl with a whisk or electric beaters, mix together all of the cake ingredients except the butterscotch chips. Once the batter is combined gently stir in the butterscotch chips. Pour into your prepped bundt pan. Bake for 50 minutes and a toothpick comes out clean. Let sit for at least 10 minutes before attempting to remove from pan.

While the cake is cooling mix together oil, brown sugar, and powdered sugar. Add milk 1 tsp at a time until it forms a thick but pourable icing. Run a nife around the outside and inside edges of your bundt pan. Invert your cooled cake onto a serving platter or cake stand. Pour the warm icing over the cake. Let the icing set before serving.

I hope you enjoy this old family recipe, it’s such a great one!

Annie

Healthyish Gluten-Free Pumpkin Muffins

Happy first day of fall! I’m really excited about these pumpkin muffins and fully expect I’ll be baking a few rounds of them during this new season. They took a few rounds of testing, but the end result came out just right.

I’m deeming them healthyish because they are just that. They are gluten-free, dairy-free and free of refined sugars. They are full of real whole ingredients. This doesn’t make them zero calories, but no one should be eating zero calories. Slather one up with some almond butter and serve with a side of fruit for a great balanced breakfast or snack.

Healthyish Gluten-Free Pumpkin Muffins
Yields 14-16 muffins

Ingredients:
3/4 cup coconut sugar
½ cup coconut oil, measured then melted and cooled 
2 eggs
1 cup pumpkin puree
¼ almond milk
2 tsp. vanilla extract
2 cups gluten-free oat flour (see notes)*
2 tsp. pumpkin pie spice
1 ½ tsp. baking soda
¼ tsp. salt

Directions:
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Line a standard muffin tin with paper liners or grease your tin and lightly flour with oat flour. If you don’t have muffin liners, I like to cut 3x3 inch squares of parchment paper and then press into each muffin space.

In a large bowl, whisk the melted and cooled coconut oil and 3/4 cup coconut sugar. Whisk in your eggs, one at a time. Add the pumpkin puree, almond milk, and vanilla extract, whisking to combine. 

With a spatula, stir the oat flour, pumpkin pie spice, baking soda, and salt into the wet ingredients. Using an ice cream scoop, scoop the batter into the muffin tin, filling to the top. Sprinkle a small amount of coconut sugar over the top of each.

Bake for 20-23 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Remove from the oven and let cool in the pan.

Notes:
Making oat flour at home is so easy and affordable. For 2 cups of oat flour, simply ground 2 1/2 cups of Gluten-Free Old Fashioned Rolled Oats in your blender. If you can’t find gluten-free that is totally fine your muffins will just not be free of gluten, but will turn out the same. I love this huge bag from Trader Joe’s which is only $3.99 in-store.

Annie

Bites of My Life

Thanksgiving week is hereeeeee! Mentally and physically preparing myself for all of the "bites" that are about to happen this week. Thanksgiving is hands down the best holiday, who else agrees? Spending my Thanksgiving a leetle different this year do to my growing family, but as the baby of the fam I've gotten pretty good at adapting to traditions. Except when it comes to real vs. fake Christmas trees. I won't even get into it because I've already exhausted my parents on the situation and to my dismay lost the battle. Anyway, I'm eager to get to Thursday to spend the day around a full table and end the day with a full belly. 

-Gingerbread protein shake on the go, but first a picture to prove it. P.S. mules are from Target, my best kept secret that now every single one of you know... 
-So if you haven't noticed I've been making protein shakes like crazy. Well my sweet friend Madison got me hooked on Arbonne's vanilla protein powder and I'm having so much fun coming up with creative shake recipes. I've always been on the lookout for a protein powder to add to my morning smoothies and this one is ittttttt! 
-Another day another shake. Peppermint mocha shake to be exact. 
-Showed up to bible study to see my cookie pizza there! Not made by me. SO COOL when people make your recipes, thanks Paige!
-Do yourself a favor and try the new maple rosemary matcha latte at The Jones. I can't get enough, and I loved getting to introduce Annie #2 to her first matcha with this one!
-Blogging tips and tricks workshop with a side of black coffee and pastries. 
-Behind the scenes of the most epic and easy holiday cheese board. One of my contributions to friendsgiving thanks to the help from Hickory Farms!
-When Friday goes from work, to a glass of wine, to a salmon board, to a basket of chips and salsa, to a margarita, to an early bedtime!
-If you know me, you know how happy this little drink makes me. 
-Making my food as festive as possible is a guilt pleasure of mine. Exhibit A. Pumpkin protein shake recipe here. 
-Perfect homemade pie crust was prepped yesterday and being stored in the freezer until it gets baked into pumpkin and pecan pie on Thursday. Recipe is here and here. 
-Loaves on loaves on loaves of pumpkin bread for our Jones Assembly staff Thanksgiving lunch today! P.S. pumpkin bread is the perfect t-giving breakfast w/ some AB spread on a slice and bananas layered on top. Perfect fuel for cooking all morning!  

Annie 

Halloween Candy Compost Cookie

Whether you are reading this recipe pre-Halloween or post-Halloween, I'm sure you are drowning in some kind of fun size candy mayhem. I used all my will power to keep my house clean of candy during the month of October, but then I broke down and rushed to the store for a bag of Halloween candy after deciding on making these cookies. 

I came up with the idea for these cookies after polling you all on insta last week. My baking itch was scratching and needing to be healed. I polled ginger cookies vs. some kind of compost cookie situation. Compost cookies won in a landslide, so here we are (I made ginger cookies too, because why not, but they were ugly and don't deserve to be posted).

Compost cookies are what they sound like. Basically a dump of every ingredient you can get your hands on. This time, Halloween candy being the spotlight. You want to use chocolate based candies for this. Although after the fact I thought that a few candy corn would have been cute added to the mix. But no one really likes candy corn so sorry bout ya. 

A mix of Milky Way (OG and Midnight), 3 Musketeers, and Twix got chopped up and added in. Along with pretzels, chopped pecans, butterscotch chips (my fave) and coffee grounds. *Pro tip, make sure and reserve a few of each ingredient to dot the tops of the balls of dough with. This way you can see them on top of the cookie after they bake instead of hiding. As seen below: broken pieces of candy bars and pretzels atop dough balls. A sprinkle of Maldon salt on top is also necessary, as always. 

Halloween Candy Compost Cookie
yields 3 dozen cookies

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
1/2 sugar
1 cup unsalted butter, softened
2 eggs
1 Tbsp. vanilla extract
3 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup butterscotch chips
1/2 cup pecans, chopped
1/2 cup pretzels
1-2 Tbsp. coffee grounds (I went the full 2 b/c i'm all about the coffee flavor)
1 cup + 1/2 cup halloween candy, chopped ( i used a mix of Milk Way, Twix and 3 Musketeers)
Maldon Salt

Directions:
Preheat your oven to 375 degrees. 

In an electric mixer, cream your sugars and butter on medium for 2 minutes until light and fluffy.  Scrape the sides then add the eggs and vanilla and mix to combine.

In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Add the flour mixture into the electric mixer and mix on low until the dough has come together. Stir in 1 cup of the candy, the coffee grounds, butterscotch chips, pecans and pretzels. 

Roll 2 tablespoon size balls. Place on a cookie sheet about 2 inches apart (8 balls per sheet). Now take the reserved 1/2 cup of candy and dot the top of each ball of dough with a chopped piece of candy and a sprinkle of Maldon Salt. This ensures for a pretty cookie with a peek of what's inside! *Important step* Freeze the balls of dough for about 5 minutes prior to baking. This will help your cookie from spreading out too thin. 

Bake for 12 minutes then allow to cool. 

Halloween candy is already wonderful as is, but why not bake it inside butter and sugar to make it even better???

Happy Halloween!

Annie

Double Chocolate Pumpkin Seed Cookies

Forget September 22, the day after Labor Day marks the start of fall in mine and most people's minds. I was at Whole Foods the other night and pumpkins are already out, the PSL made it's seasonal debut, and I am unapologetically sharing my first pumpkin recipe of the fall!

This recipe doesn't scream pumpkin but it does scream fall. Pumpkin seeds, dark chocolate and the secret ingredient, paprika, makes for a kickin' cookie (I had to). I originally made these a few weeks ago and everyone who tried them deemed that they must be remade once cooler weather crept in. Hello cooler weather, hello double chocolate pumpkin seed cookies!

Double Chocolate Pumpkin Seed Cookies
yields about 32 medium cookies or 18 large cookies, adapted from Bon Appetit

Ingredients:
1 cup raw pumpkin seeds (pepitas)
2½ cups all-purpose flour
½ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 tsp. salt
½ tsp. baking soda
½ tsp. cinnamon
¼ tsp. paprika
1½ cups light brown sugar, packed
1⅓ cups granulated sugar
1 cup plus 2 Tbsp. unsalted butter, room temperature
2 large eggs
1 cup dark chocolate (you can use chips or buy a bar of dark chocolate and chop it up)
Maldon salt

Directions:
Place your pumpkin seeds on a baking sheet and place on the upper rack of the oven. Then heat your oven to 350°. This is the best trick my mom taught me. Nuts and seeds brown perfectly in the same amount it takes for your oven to preheat. (About  8–10 minutes). Toss occasionally until golden. Let cool.

Meanwhile, whisk flour, cocoa powder, salt, baking soda, cinnamon, and paprika in a large bowl. Using an electric mixer on medium-high speed, beat brown sugar, granulated sugar, and butter in a large bowl until pale and fluffy, about 4 minutes. Add eggs one at a time, beating to blend after each addition. Reduce speed to low; add dry ingredients a little at a time, mixing until well blended after each. Stir in chocolate and pumpkin seeds.

If you want medium cookies use a cookie scoop (about 2 Tbsp.) if you want large cookies use an ice cream scoop (about 1/4 cup). Large cookies will be more bakery style, but for portion control reasons I go medium size. You can see both sizes pictured below. Place large cookies 3" apart and medium cookies 2" apart. Sprinkle with flakey Maldon salt and bake, rotating pans halfway through. 17–20 minutes for large cookies, 9-11 minutes for medium cookies. 

Happy pumpkin baking!

Annie