lemon zest – Papas Cutting Board

Peach Cake

This book has delicious recipes based on orchard goodies. I have made a variety of recipes from this book, and each one has been delicious and prepared many times over the years. Today, my husband brought home peaches from a local produce stand that smelled amazing as soon as he brought them in to the house.

This recipe called for adding the peaches to the top of the cake, but I mixed them into the recipe and baked them inside the cake. I made up the glaze by adding a couple of Tbsp of melted butter to confectioners’ sugar, 1/4 tsp of maple extract, 1/4 tsp of caramel extract, and 1/2 tsp vanilla extract. I toasted 1/4 cup of pecans, chopped them, and added them to the top of the cake after glazing it, along with chopped peaches.

This cake is delicious without a glaze. My husband was curious what it would taste like with glaze. He loves it. I prefer the cake in the morning with my coffee without glaze, as I try to stay away from sugar as much as possible.

Lemony Snowball Cookies

Now and then, I will browse a vintage cookbook, find a treat to bake to ‘test’ for the holiday trays. This recipe mentioned a variety of different flavors to try with the main recipe. I decided the lemon sounded like a fun add on to the trays of cookies. I like to add a variety of flavors, and using lemon drops caught my eye. These are yummy, and now have a couple notes next to the recipe for my holiday baking.

If you decide to make these, the dough is deceiving. You will think there is no way you can make cookie balls out of these grains of dough. You can. The heat of your hands causes these cookies to shape the way you need them to. I froze a batch of these, because I like to pull them out of the freezer during Easter and see how they taste. That gives me an idea of when to start baking, and freezing these before Christmas.

This recipe is from the Betty Crocker’s best Christmas Cookbook, published in 1999.

I have added a note page to the front inside of this book listing all the recipes I want to create. There are many.

Blueberry Buttermilk Muffins

I finally found a keeper recipe! I have been trying a variety of blueberry muffin recipes over the years, because I was on a search for a better one. I found it! This is the show stopper. The muffins smell delicious while they are baking. I baked them for 25 minutes here in Indiana. This is the one – I’m finished looking. The streusel is perfect, and made enough to bag it and keep for the next batch.

inside of a blueberry deliciousness muffin

2007 Great Coffee Cakes, Sticky Buns, Muffins & More by Carole Walter