Autumn Baking Has Begun!

It seems like everyone around me has been anticipating the arrival of Fall for months now. I've never gotten that excited about decorating for the season, but perhaps that because orange and yellow are two of my least favorite colors and I couldn't care less about Halloween decorations. Now, my perspective has changed and I'm excited to make some Fall decorations for my house and have even enjoyed wearing Fall colors (usually I'm big into Spring and Summer colors). My favorite thing about Fall is making different foods. I'm branching out and trying new soup recipes and can't wait for holiday baking. I got my last issue of Taste of Home magazine in the mail the other day and found a few yummy cookie recipes that I'd love to try. One was a cross between a cinnamon roll and a snickerdoodle, both of which I absolutely adore! Oh I can feel the extra pounds around my waistline now! Ugh!

Alex had asked me to bake a carrot cake the other day, so I bought carrots and cream cheese and then ended up using the latter to make a cheese ball. Oops! A week later, I did bake him a cake from scratch. Thank you, Betty Crocker! I told Alex that I was Betty Crocker and he thought I'd said "Betty Crockett" as in "Davy Crockett". Hilarious! Anyway, for my first from-scratch cake, it turned out delish! I followed the recipe but instead of using 1 cup of oil, I used 1/2 a cup of sour cream and 1/2 a cup of oil to make it moist. I could have used a whole cup of sour cream, but then I wouldn't have had any for my taco salad later that night!



I probably added a little too much milk to the icing because it was ooey-gooey, but still oh so yummy! Making carrot cake wasn't as hard as some people make it out to be. I mean, they complain about shredding carrots, but that's what a food processor is for! We live in the 21st century and don't have to do everything by hand anymore! My mother-in-law bought me a big Black and Decker food processor for Christmas a few years ago and I've only used it a handful of times, but it's worth it. What kinds of things do you bake during the holidays?