Try-It Everyday: Baking Edition

I've blogged about all of the savory recipes that I've been trying over the last couple of months. (P.S. I've decided that I would do that through the end of the year, then I'm going to go back and re-try some of the recipes that were hits. Just thought I'd let you know.) But on top of all of those recipes, you better believe I've been baking some new treats as well. I thought I'd give a quick shout out to the lovely baked goods that have graced my belly over the couple of months as well.

Red Velvet Cheescake Cookies (above) by Two Peas and Their Pod. I baked these last night and took them over to a friend's house. Delicious cookies and a great night...

Mocha Cupcakes with Espresso Buttercream by Brown Eyed Baker. I can't bake things like this in my house because I'm the only coffee drinker so I took these to work last week and they were a hit.

Pumpkin Cupcakes with Salted Caramel Buttercream by Made in Melissa's Kitchen. These were great... just plain wonderful. I made them a couple of times this fall and last time I switched the cupcake recipe out with Martha Stewart's Pumpkin Patch Cupcake recipe but kept the same frosting recipe and I think it took them to the next level of greatness.

Maple Butterscotch Cookies by Sugar Crafter. Man, these cookies have some heavenly ingredients but they turned out rock hard. If there is one thing you should know about Abby Thomason: she does not like hard cookies... so these won't be a do-over. (Ok, there are other things that you should probably know more than my distaste for hard cookies, but you get the point.)

Cheesecake Factory Pumpkin Cheesecake. My co-worker asked me to bake her a pumpkin cheesecake for Thanksgiving. I made one a few days early just in case it cracked because I have a history of making cracked cheesecakes. I used Annie's Eats pumpkin cheesecake recipe... and it cracked worse than I've ever had a cheesecake crack before. (Turns out in my fear of undercooking my cheesecakes, I've totally been overcooking them which causes them to crack. Who knew? I should have googled that a long time ago...) So I made another cheesecake, with a different recipe, and the goal of not overcooking it... and it was a success! (Well, it had a tiny bit of cracking but nothing like before...) Above is my picture rather than the bloggers because they didn't have a good picture either...

Baked Pumpkin Spice Donut Holes by The Craving Chronicles. These were delicious! I even replaced the majority of the flour with whole wheat flour to make it more healthy and they were still great! (Ok, actually, I was out of all-purpose flour and was too lazy to go to the store, so... the healthiness just happened to be a bonus.) For sure a do-over.

Idle Hand Bars (Sweet & Salty) by Guilty Kitchen. These have chocolate, peanut butter, sea salt, and pretzels. When seeing the recipe I thought, "Where could you go wrong?" They were good... but still not my favorite of all of the chocolate peanut butter concoctions out there. (These still take the cake.)

Pumpkin Snickerdoodles by Annie's Eats. These were good but not very pumpkin-y. I'd add more pumpkin next time.

Cherpumple by some crazy person. What in the heck is a Cherpumple? It's a cherry pie, a pumpkin pie, and an apple pie baked inside of three different kinds of cake and combined into one gigantic cake/pie thing. My friend from work talked about it for weeks and weeks and then asked me to bake it for his birthday. I finally said, "Ok, do you really want me to bake this? It looks pretty disgusting..." He said, "Well, at least a layer would be cool." So that's what I did: I baked the cherry pie with chocolate cake layer. It was actually a pretty major baking fail because the cake was underdone but there was no way of checking it considering there is a pie in the middle. The outside was done though so I just frosted a slice, cut it out of the gooey mess, and took it to my friend. He said it was good and ate the whole thing... but I think he's crazy.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Brownies by Recipe Girl. I took these to work and everyone loved them. For sure a hit.

Pumpkin Cookies with Brown Butter Icing by Brown Eyed Baker. These were good, but pumpkin cookies always seem to have a funny texture to me. I also brought them to work (can you tell that I love baking for my co-workers? Because I do...) and my co-workers said they liked them. But let's be honest, are they really going to say, "You know Abby, I think this recipe was a bit of a miss. Better luck next time." I don't think so.

Well, I guess that's it for now. Let the baking continue...