Categories
Let's Get Cooking

Let’s Get Cooking: Apple Cinnamon Swirl Bread

Hey guys! Happy Wednesday! I don’t know about you, but there is something so sweet about baking in the fall and trying new recipes after a nice long walk!

Happy Fall!

After doing some apple picking, I couldn’t wait to search Pinterest for some new recipes to try. I made this Apple Cinnamon Swirl Bread a few weeks ago and it was a hit. Although it is a bread, it’s so sweet and flavorful, you can serve it as a dessert with a scoop of ice cream or on its own.

Without further ado, here’s a look at this tasty apple recipe.

Ingredients

1/3 cup of brown sugar

2  teaspoons of cinnamon

2 medium apples

2/3 cup of sugar and 2 tablespoons

1 stick of butter

2 large eggs

1 ½ teaspoons of vanilla

1 ½ cup of flour

1 ¾ teaspoons of baking power

1 teaspoon of salt

½ cup of milk and 3 tablespoons

1 cup of powered sugar

Directions

1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray a 9×5 pan with cooking spray, place parchment paper and then spray.

2) Mix brown sugar and one teaspoon of cinnamon in a bowl and set aside.

A look at your dry ingredients

3) Toss chopped apples with 2 tablespoons of sugar and one teaspoon of cinnamon and set aside.

Apple mixture

4) Beat butter and 2/3 cup of sugar with mixer until light and fluffy. Add eggs one and a time and vanilla.

5) Whisk flour, baking powder and salt in another bowl, add to cream mixture and blend. Mix ½ cup of milk until smooth.

6) Pour batter into loaf pan, add half of the apple mixture, sprinkle brown sugar and cinnamon mixture on top.

7) Continue to layer and swirl the mixture once complete.

8) Bake for 1 hour and 10 minutes and check with a tooth pick.

9) To make glaze: mix powered sugar with milk and pour on top of bread once cooled.

10) Serve!

This recipe was so easy to make and so tasty! I know I will be making it more this fall season. You can eat it for breakfast, lunch, a snack or dessert.

Tell me: What are some of your apple recipes?

Categories
Let's Get Cooking

Fall Recipe: Cake Balls

I always like to make a new treat/ snack/ meal every season. At the start of the year I was on a roll with cooking one meal a week, I have to admit, I have been slipping these past few months. I’m hoping to do more cooking these next few months as fall and winter settle in. I did manage to make a new fall dessert a few weeks back with my mom. Here’s a tasty recipe for cold days inside. This is a super simple, three ingredient dessert that’s perfect for any get together.

Cake Balls

Ingredients:

  • Cake mix (baked or pre-made)
  • Icing
  • Melting chocolate
  • Garnishes (sprinkles, chocolate chips, etc.)

Directions:

  1. Make cake (I used chocolate for this recipe, but any flavor works. I just made a cake from the box with eggs, water and oil. )
  2. Once cake is baked, let it cool.
Cake is done!

3. Break apart cake until it’s all broken up.

Cake broken apart

4. Combine icing (I used chocolate) and cake and mix together.

The new mixture

5. Roll cake mix into balls and then place in freezer for 30 minutes.

The cake balls ready to go in the freezer

6. Once they were done in the freezer, I melted chocolate and dipped the cake balls in to completely cover them. It can get messy, so I would reccommend using a spoon to dip them.

The cake balls all dipped in chocolate

7. The chocolate dries fast, so make sure you dip them fast and add garnishes, whether it’s sprinkles or chocolate chips or nuts.

The finished product. I had some leftover melting chocolate so I made some dip pretzels. Yum!

Enjoy your dessert! You can freeze leftovers and enjoy at a later date.

Up close of the dessert

This is just a fun and easy dessert that I saw on Pinterest and wanted to try for myself. It was easy to make and tasty and was a great crowd pleaser. What fall recipes have you been making?

Categories
Fabulous living

DIY Dorm Decor

Hi friends!

I’ve got something fun planned for today. Like any college student, money is tight for me and Pinterest always tempts me to try new things.

I have two fun DIY crafts for your dorm room, apartment or home. I’m also collaborating on these crafts with my good friend, Olivia. We met through our job and classes and I’m so glad I got close to her this year. Give her blog Liv Simple a read for all things from fashion to college living. After you are done reading my blog, head over to hers to see how she put her own creative spin on these DIY crafts.

Now, onto the DIY part. The worst thing that can happen to any college student (or adult) is to lose their keys. Now, we can always say we are going to put our keys on our desk or in our purse, or even buy a plastic command hook to stick them on. But, let’s be honest, dorm rooms are kinda sterile if you don’t have decorations. So why not kill two birds with one stone and make a place to hold you keys and have it decorative. I made this cute key hook for $11!!! And here’s how you can too.

First, I got all these supplies from Michael’s Craft Store, but I’m sure you can find them or similar ones at your local craft store. I got paint, a hook, and wooden decorative pieces to make my key hook more fashionable. I spent a while on Pinterest finding what I wanted to do, but once I did I was happy with it.

Here’s your materials: a hook with a plaque (already assembled), paint, a wooden letter, and some other decorations,

Plan out how you want your key hook to look, play around with it before you paint it.

Now, comes the fun part. Paint it. Choose colors that will go nice in your room. My room is turquoise with black and white so the colors were easy to choose. Having a hard time deciding colors? You can never go wrong with neutrals.

After I let them dry over night, I assembled them the next day using a hot glue gun, wood glue would also work.

The finished product

Now onto DIY craft number 2. I am a huge fan of candles, I love how they can change to mood of a room but unfortunately, they are not allowed in my dorm building. This is a great alternative to making it feel you have a candle burning with worrying about the fire. Also, not a fan of the smells but love the look of a candle, this is another great idea. Olivia found these mason jars at Pat Catans and they were on sale for $1!!! Buy some tealights from any craft or home goods store and pop them in to the mason jar. Another inexpensive way to decorate a room. When you turn the tealight on, it will make you feel like you are burning a candle when you aren’t at all. These could go in your bedroom, kitchen, bathroom, even living room, where ever  you like to put your candles. This is another inexpensive way to make your dorm, apartment, or house a bit more cozy.

You can style it on your desk

Here it is all lit up at night

These are two inexpensive and DIY ways to make your dwelling more cozy and functional. Overall, a Pinterest success. Have you had any Pinterest successes or fails!?