At the end of every month, it feels like the month passed by in a whirlwind, and October was no exception.
Here are the notable recipes I made, with thoughts and reflections at the end.
White Chocolate-Topped Cinnamon Chip Cinnamon Bars
Creamy Vegan Corn and Red Pepper Blender Soup (GF)
Candy Corn and White Chocolate Softbatch Cookies – Pinned over 40,000 times in 3 weeks from what I know and can see but there’s more pins I can’t track
Chocolate Peanut Butter Kit at Crunch Bars
Classic Yellow Cupcakes with Chocolate Buttercream Frosting
No-Bake Honey Nut Cheerios Snacks Bars
Lofthouse Soft Sugar Sprinkles Cookies
Salted Caramel Apple Cheesecake Bars
Candy Corn White Chocolate Chip M&M Blondies
Caramel Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookie Cups
Soft Vegan Pumpkin Cake with Pumpkin Spice Buttercream Frosting
Chewy Chocolate Peanut Butter Butterfinger Bars (GF)
Soft Baked Mini Cream Cheese Puffs
20 Recipes to Use Leftover Halloween Candy
No-Bake Deep-Dish Peanut Butter Snickers Pie with Salted Caramel
Chewy Oatmeal Coconut Brown Sugar Cookies {Anzac Biscuits}
Caramel Corn Marshmallow Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars
Flourless Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Mini Blender Muffins – gluten-free, grain-free, soy-free, dairy-free, oil-free, refined sugar-free, Paleo-friendly, under 100 calories each
Reflections
I crossed 3 bucket list recipes off my list. Beer Bread, Classic Yellow Cupcakes, and Chewy Oatmeal Coconut Brown Sugar Cookies {Anzac Biscuits}. I’ve wanted to try my hand at beer bread to see if it’s worth the hype and it definitely is. and so easy. I wanted a classic, from-scratch yellow cupcake recipe on my site for ages. The Anzac cookies were meant to be after trying some at a potluck, and it was the nudge I needed to create my own.
It was the month of the muffin pan with 4 recipes using one – Yellow Cupcakes, Caramel Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookie Cups, Mini Cream Cheese Puffs, and Flourless Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Mini Blender Muffins. I can go months without using one and then I use it nonstop. Maybe next month I’ll move onto dusting off my donut pans; however, I hesitate with donuts because so many people still have not spent 8.99 to buy a donut pan, and I get tons of “Can I use a muffin pan” emails.
There was lots of candy (6 new recipes + 20 previous favorites in a roundup post), but it’s to be expected in the very candy-centric month of Halloween. Candy Corn Cookies, Candy Corn M&M Blondies, Kit Kat Bars, Butterfinger Bars, Snickers Pie, Caramel-Stuffed Cookie Cups, and a 20-Recipe Roundup of What to Do with your Leftover Halloween Candy. Clearly, I always have plenty on hand.
I tried to be mindful of pumpkin overload and only posted 1 pumpkin recipe; for a vegan pumpkin cake, adapted from vegan pumpkin muffins and vegan pumpkin bread. The recipe is super solid and has gotten rave views. If you need a pumpkin cake/muffin/bread, that recipe is a keeper.
I posted 1 apple recipe for Caramel Apple Cheesecake Bars. It seems that apple recipes have taken a backseat to pumpkin recipes in terms of popularity and reader requests. Pumpkin recipes have a cult-like prowess, whereas apple recipes can’t quite compete in the court of public opinion.
Three supremely easy bread recipes – Beer Bread, Mini Cream Cheese Puffs, Blender Muffins (not quite bread but close). They’re all excellent, fast, and nearly work-free. I like providing my readers with fast and easy recipes for breads and rolls because while I love yeasted breads, they require planning; whereas the aforementioned recipes require almost none. Try the beer bread or cream cheese puffs in place of dinner rolls and you won’t be disappointed.
One token savory recipe via the Corn and Red Pepper Blender Soup. If you need soup in under 5 minutes, that’s an excellent one.
I made a pie this month, the Snickers Pie. In 4.5 years of blogging, that was only the fourth pie I’ve ever posted. I just am not a traditional pie-maker. I don’t love the taste of pie crust (boring, dry), and definitely don’t relish making it (but I can always get down with an Oreo crust). Coupled with the fact that I find pies hard to photograph and they make a boatload, I just don’t make pies. Maybe I should make more because that pie has already been doing really well on Pinterest. But anything dripping in candy and caramel sauce will.
I hosted 8 giveaways and gave away over $2000 worth of products and appliances to my readers. A grill, an artisan pizza oven, a luxury toaster, a margarita maker, a high-speed blender, handmade artisan chocolates, two Le Creuset items, and more. I try very hard to give back to my readers because I am grateful for you. I couldn’t do what I do without my readers – new and old – and I want to pay it forward as much as I possibly can. I don’t want to host so many that it becomes annoying, like oh she’s got another giveaway going on, but I free is free, and if someone complains about free (and yes, they do), that’s their problem.
I went to Vegas for 12 hours last month. My friend flew in from LA, and me from San Diego (love those 45 minute flights every hour, on the hour). We got there at 7pm and by 7am we were on our flights back home. Work hard, play hard. We had a really wonderful time, and it reminded me that there’s more to life than standing around the kitchen, making cookies, taking pictures of them, and writing about them. Every once in awhile, mama’s gotta get out.
Previous Recaps
What did you do or make in the month that was memorable?
October was a delectable month, yum! You make the best dishes :)
So many delicious recipes!! Again, you amaze me!!
How do you keep track of how many times your recipes have been pinned? I have no idea who or even how many any of my recipes I been pinned!
Have a great weekend! :)
I have a pin counter at the top of my posts which helps but that doesn’t give the full story. That’s just how many times it’s been pinned from my site. After it leaves my site and starts getting repinned out there, that counter doesn’t register those pins. There are Pinterest analytics you can run, too. Generally I do not care and do not keep track unless I notice a large number of hits on a recipe, then I start poking around more :)
I love these recaps. It is so satisfying to do, for you, I’m sure to see everything that you’ve accomplished. If I have learned one thing in my crafty challenge this year, it is that reflecting on these things is just as satisfying as making them. I think that is why I love blogging so much. Not because I get pins or page views, but because I can look back and see, in picture form, everything I did. Makes me feel less lazy on truly lazy days.
:D
If I didnt do these, I swear to god I would NEVER REMEMBER what I made that month. I do remember everything I make, i.e. I will see a recipe similar to something I made 2 yrs ago and instantly know what mine was and what I titled it, but on a monthly basis, it’s all a blur…so it forces me to regroup and take stock for where I’m going the next month, too!
*many
Wow! So manu amazing recipes, Averie! You’re a work horse ;)
Amazing recipes, as always! I know you are more a fan of gooey recipes, but I wondered if you would ever try to recreate Brownie Brittle as a suggestion? I know you would be “the one!” I like soft and gooey too, but sometimes I (and many of my co-workers) like a little caramel-ly or chocolately crunch. (We are all fans!!)
Brownie brittle…gosh I’ve never heard of that before. Sounds fun! Do you have more info about it. Either describe it very detailed or a link to a photo you think looks like it. And I guess if you have a recipe link you may not need my help, but it sounds intriguing and I’d be happy to hear more!
I’ve got links!! I have been trying to compare a few, and that was when I had the thought, if anyone could do it, It would be you! These are basically the same, with different add-ins. https://www.cookiemadness.net/2012/10/brownie-bark/
https://www.yourhomebasedmom.com/peanut-butter-cookie-bark-2/. This one uses cake mix: https://www.college-cooking.com/tag/caramel-brownie-bark-recipe/. These are different but, omg:” https://blackjackbakehouse.com/home/2011/4/26/coconut-crunch-cookie-candy.html…https://blackjackbakehouse.com/home/2013/4/28/cookie-candy-contest.html I’ll stop now. Yes, I have those, but I TRUST you!
Ok thanks for the links. Now I know what it looks like! Something to ponder!
In the meantime, this stuff is amazing and is one of my highest viewed posts every year leading up to Xmas! Like a bark, of sorts.
So many delicious recipes! What a great month.
Ugh pies are the worst to photograph. I love making them but as pretty as they look in person, photos just don’t do them justice. And yes, so much more to life than blogging. Glad you had fun in Vegas!
Glad you can relate to both my pie and my more-to-life sentiments :) Pies…so stunning in person and then the aspect, size, scale ratio – never translates well. The only way I think they look good is overhead shots but then you can’t see what the interior looks like. And pieces of pie on a plate (or cake for that matter), always seem very blah and uninspired to me.
Wowza, Vegas in 12 hours sounds intense. Fun, but intense. Congrats on all the hard work this month, Averie. And those candy corn cookies! 40,000 pins?! I need to learn some of your tricks ;)
And I can’t keep my eyes off of that snickers pie.
If I knew what would get 40,000 pins and what would get 400, I’d be jumping for joy – sometimes I can’t figure out what/why things takeoff or tank. The irony is the lead image of the post that I liked, is not the pic that was pinned so much; it’s the one I included in this post, the top down shot, not the stacked-cookies shot.
What a great variety! And they’re ALL amazingly delicious looking :)
Several of your recipes were memorable this month!! The soup, cream cheese puffs and beer bread made tasty meals for us and the candy corn white choc blondies and fluffernutter bars satisfied everyone’s sugar cravings! I keep scrolling back and forth looking at all those bar recipes for tonight–kit kat, butterfinger–they are both looking so good. I also considered the muffins and Anzac biscuits but I think I’ll save those for another weekend. Glad you had fun in Vegas! I was there 6 years ago for about the same amount of time. Hubby and I flew to San Diego so I could finish my grad school requirements then went on to Vegas for dinner and a Cirque Du Soleil performance and came home the next morning.
You probably made more of my stuff this month (and most months!) than anyone! So glad you liked the soup, puffs, and beer bread – and the both bars. For your party – either the Kit Kat or the BF’s will be great. The bar itself isn’t ‘that’ much different b/c they both start off with the same PB-brown sugar-karo mixture and go from there. I would probably pick the KitKats over the BFs b/c I truly loved them beyond all – but seriously both are very good.
Your trip to SD and then to Vegas sounds great! We used to do our fair share of Vegas trips…love fancy dinners and Cirque shows. I am halfway tempted to bring my daughter with to see one. She’s 6.5 but a pretty worldly little traveler. I know she’s love Vegas. I haven’t seen a Cirque show in a few years – gosh, they are so beyond words, aren’t they! Have fun at your party & LMK what you make and what people say!
This is gorgeous!! congrats!
This month probably set records for how many of your recipes I bookmarked:)
As for my makings-soft pretzels were probably the highlight: https://scrumptiousgruel.wordpress.com/2013/10/17/the-sexy-beast-and-pretzels/
Congrats on your new mixer, too! Just read the post. Mine is red as well and I love it! Great job on the pretzels and thanks for all the bookmarks! :)
I love that you were able to cross off some recipes on your bucket list! That’s such a great feeling.
And dude, vegas in 12 hours?! I love that you were in and out of that city!
Yes it totally is a great feeling and in-and-out was a fun way to do it! Thanks for the pin tonight on my pina colada smoothie on the bhg board!