Pumpkin Spice Magic Bars

Pumpkin Spice Magic Bars

Do any of you feel like a trip to the grocery store is a vacation? Especially if you have kids and they’re not there?

You can wander up and down aisles, picking things up at leisure and putting them down. You can try free samples. You can hunt for new products. And if there’s a Starbucks in the store, you can do it all with a lovely hot cup of beverage.

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Yo-Yo Honey Cookies

Yo-Yo Honey Cookies

My grandmothers were both bakers. Really amazing ones. But they would look at the stuff I bake and raise an eyebrow because treats have changed over time. I don’t think they were making peanut butter Oreo bars back in the day.

In fact, my eastern European grandmother (or Baba, as I called her) only made chocolate chip cookies for us as a concession to her grandchildren’s tastes. The rest of her baked goods were much more in line with her own upbringing.

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Best-Ever Honey Cake

Best-Ever Honey Cake

This one is for all you Rosh Hashanah people out there. You know, the Jewish New Year? It’s going on as we speak. And what better to celebrate than a traditional honey cake?

Except, well, they’re often not so great. Honey cakes can be dry, sort of like pumpkin cake’s less sexy counterpart. Why make a honey cake when there’s pumpkin around?

I’ll tell you why. This cake. This amazing, tricked-out, not dry but super moist honey cake!

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Samoa Cookie Cake

Samoa Cookie Cake

No, you didn’t read that wrong. I realize it’s not that time of year. You know, the magical days when little girls (or more likely, their parents) start collecting cookie orders for Girl Scouts. Nope, if it were that time of year, the weather would be getting warmer instead of colder and I’d be a lot happier.

So what do you do when your buddy has a birthday in September and her favorite cookies are Samoas? And there are no Samoas to be had?

Well, make one, of course. A giant one. In a cookie cake!

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Soft-Baked Caramel Cookies

Soft-Baked Caramel Cookies

This past week was Back to School Night. Not for my kids: for me. I’m a teacher, and once a year I do my best to impress the parents as they figure out who the crazy lady at the front is.

As much as I love meeting everyone, it’s an exhausting day. Most teachers go to work, teach all day, and then just stay for the event. We can be there for way too long, and it’s tiring. So this year, I brought these cookies in to boost morale among my colleagues!

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Teddy Bear Cookies

Teddy Bear Cookies

It’s hard to make kids happy sometimes. The more effort I put into cooking, the less they tend to appreciate it. If I make really good homemade crispy chicken tenders, for instance, they’ll leave them on their plates. But if I buy the frozen processed ones and throw them on a baking sheet, my son will very nicely thank me for such a delicious dinner.

No, I’m not a lousy cook. But I don’t speak kid palate. Their likes and dislikes remain elusive to me.

That’s why I had to try these cookies. They are just so adorable. And I needed to know if their looks would trump everything else. Does a teddy bear-shaped cookie get eaten no matter what it tastes like? There’s your philosophical question of the day.

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Bakery-Style Fudge Frosting

Bakery-Style Fudge Frosting

When I was in college, our dining hall would bring in brownies every Friday night. These were no ordinary brownies. They were covered in a layer of ultra thick, fudgy frosting. The brownies themselves were nothing special, but man, that frosting? Worth every bite.

And boy, did I eat a lot of them. I’d hover near the kitchen, waiting for them to bring out the brownies. And in later years, I experienced that same frosting on cakes because I tracked down the bakery and bought a lot from them. Until they shut down. Cue dramatic sad music!

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Caramel Apple Oreo Fudge

Caramel Apple Oreo Fudge

Those evil geniuses over at Nabisco just won’t quit. What is up with that? Every five seconds they’re releasing a new flavor. Pumpkin Spice is debuting September 24th. I never knew a cookie could have a debut. Heck, I never had one.

But with strange marketing savvy born of years creating a totally addictive product, Nabisco is constantly entrapping me. Latest example: Caramel Apple Oreos. I had to give them a shot. How could I not? Caramel apples are one of my favorite fall treats!

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Pumpkin Snack Cake

Pumpkin Snack Cake

I love the idea of a cookie jar. Growing up, that wasn’t something we had in our house. We had plenty of dessert options, mind you. Just not an actual jar with cookies inside. As a result, it’s always been sort of a dream for me to have a cookie jar.

Except, well, they’re often ugly. And breakable. And most aren’t airtight, so the cookies go bad faster. And when kids get home from school (or their exhausted teacher mom), a cookie isn’t necessarily the answer. Sometimes you want cake. Amazing snack cake. No, not Little Debbie’s (though I do miss those hydrogenated suckers). Healthy, delicious, homemade pumpkin snack cake.

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Brownie Pie

Brownie Pie

Whenever I’m feeling kind of meh, I have a few options. A nap isn’t usually possible (there are small children about), so I can either try to sneak episodes of whatever TLC show is new on Netflix without the li’l ones noticing, or I can make a pie. It’s hard to hide what my iPad is doing, so I think the pie wins this one.

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