Blueberry Cornbread Muffins

These perfect little cornbread muffins are sweetened with maple and each bite has a burst of juicy blueberry!

I've only made homemade cornbread a handful of times but I do enjoy it quite a bit. I wanted to make these because they were cornbread with blueberry and I had never had that. Not necessarily what you might think of having with a chili, but we did and it was great! I wasn't sure if I'd like them with the maple but it wasn't a very strong flavor in it.

Butterfinger Maple Bars

Quick and easy homemade maple bars topped with a drizzle of chocolate and chopped Butterfingers for an out of this world breakfast treat!

The last donut recipe I posted was the Maple Bars recipe that this one uses. The original recipe creator used leftover maple bars and just warmed them in the microwave and added the chocolate and Butterfingers. I don't like maple bars typically, but I enjoy this homemade version with refrigerated buttermilk biscuits. I knew the addition of Butterfingers and chocolate would be insanely good and, of course, it was and the whole family loved them!

Blueberry Pancake Muffins

Pancakes on the go! These blueberry pancake muffins are the portable breakfast of your dreams - they even have maple syrup without the mess!

I'm going to be super upfront with y'all and tell you that I did not anticipate liking these. I'm weird when it comes to maple syrup. I like the fake kind and I like very very little of it. I'm not 100% sure why I don't love it, but I will tell you that I will only eat it on pancakes, waffles, and french toast in just enough amount to taste but not enough to where I will have any excess on the plate. I despise the smell of maple. But some breakfast foods are not the same without it! I kept my mind slightly open and figured if I didn't care for these muffins, someone in my family would eat them. But I was pleasantly surprised when they were the perfect amount of maple flavor and tasted like a delicious blueberry pancake all in one. It was great!

Blueberry Nut Bread

This beautiful blueberry nut bread is the perfect spring breakfast or snack.

I used to make banana bread all the time years ago and fell out of that habit. I saved lots of fruit bread recipes back then because I adore banana bread so much and felt that other fruits had to be pretty dang good too. I was really excited about this blueberry nut bread and a little intrigued by the maple syrup aspect of it. It wasn't strongly maple flavored, which I did like, but it did have a hint of maple enough to remind me of blueberry pancakes and that made me so happy.

PB&J Overnight Oats #FantasticalFoodFight

Welcome to another Food Fight! Fantastical Food Fight is a group of food bloggers who will get a theme or ingredient each month and make some sort of variation for it. It could be traditional or nontraditional and can be found in a cookbook, on a blog, or be a blogger's own creation! For more details, check out this page.

This month's Fantastical Food Fight theme is OVERNIGHT OATS. January is National Oatmeal Month and I thought that overnight oats would be a wonderful theme for the first Food Fight of 2019. Many folks are trying to eat a little healthier or start healthy habits in the new year, so I thought sharing these great breakfast recipes that are make ahead would be perfect for January!

The recipe I decided to go with is one that was on my to-make list for such a long time. I knew that I wanted to do the peanut butter and jelly flavor combination (it was one out of seven or eight recipes, I believe). I've been eating pb&js for snack a lot lately and I wasn't really feeling a bunch of fresh fruit or anything super sweet, like the chocolate chip cookie dough overnight oats I had made years ago. I did substitute out maple syrup for honey because I don't care for maple flavor. These are so incredibly easy to make and the payoff is unbelievable the next day. It tastes like the perfect pb&j sandwich but in oats form. You can choose any fruit jam or preserves you would like. I went with blackberry jam which is my absolute favorite.

Maple Walnut Blondies

The perfect fall treat with oatmeal, walnuts, and loads of maple flavor!

Confession time: I don't really like maple flavored anything. I prefer the fake maple syrup for breakfast foods. The smell of maple, to me, is gross and I hate how sticky it is. However, I am married to someone who loves maple entirely too much. He made a homebrew with maple (it was an oatmeal porter) and enjoys literally all the maple things. I made this recipe for him (and the kids). I did try one to see if maybe it would be yummy because I love blondies and I like all the elements of these blondies except the maple. Unfortunately, these were not for me. I couldn't finish one bite. So why on earth would I post a recipe I didn't like? My family devoured them. I have talked briefly about how Nick is doing a keto diet. He is fairly strict about carbs and he decided to have a cheat day and ate three of them. So if that is any indication, from someone who loves maple, that these maple walnut blondies are amazing, I don't know what is!

Maple Bars

Who knew making this classic breakfast donut at home was so easy?

It's the most wonderful time of the year: AUTUMN! It's still 90 degrees in Tennessee, but I can still daydream of cooler weather that usually comes in October. Fall makes me think of pumpkin everything, caramel apples, and maple foods. I appreciate anything pumpkin. I am not a fan of maple really. I'm a weirdo who will eat a small amount of the fake sugary maple syrup (just enough to give it flavor, no extra on my plate), so I didn't expect to like these. On the other hand, Nick loves maple. LOVES it. The real stuff, not the fake stuff. He loves maple candies, maple beer, maple vape juice, maple bacon...just all the maple. These were more for him because they are his favorite donut. In the end, I actually really enjoyed them too. The flavor to the icing isn't overwhelming to me and made for an absolutely delicious topping to the fried biscuit portion of the donut.

Puffins

Pancakes meet muffins in this wonderful breakfast that you can customize in so many ways!

This is one of the most genius recipes I've ever found and made. It literally can be turned into whatever flavor combinations you want it to have. It could be savory or sweet. For our puffins, I made mini chocolate chip, cranberry and white chocolate, and bacon and caramel. All three combinations were fantastic, but my favorite was the chocolate chip for sure. The possibilities are endless and if you do make these with your own combination, please leave me a comment. We make these often and keep making the same three flavors because we love them so much, but I would love to try new combinations too!

Maple Bacon Crunch Ice Cream #FantasticalFoodFight

Welcome to another Food Fight! Fantastical Food Fight is a group of food bloggers who will get a theme or ingredient each month and make some sort of variation for it. It could be traditional or nontraditional and can be found in a cookbook, on a blog, or be a blogger's own creation! For more details, check out this page.

It's time again for another Food Fight and I'm so excited about this month's theme: ICE CREAM! The Food Fighters were not given any particular flavor...it just had to be ice cream. It could be an ice cream maker recipe or a no-churn. I love both and look forward to seeing what other recipes are shared today. Plus I'm really excited to see if there are any creative flavor combinations.

I went through my recipe binder to see what I had in my dessert section for ice cream. I found a clipping from Food Network Magazine for Maple-Bacon Crunch Ice Cream. Personally, I'm not a big fan of maple syrup at all. But Nick (my husband) loves it and I am no stranger to making foods that someone else may like that I don't. Nick about died when he heard I was making a maple ice cream with bacon brittle in it.

I had a time and a half with this recipe. The ice cream part....I cooked my egg mixture 30 seconds too long and it cooked the eggs. So I had to scrap it and redo it. It was perfect the second go around....then I had issues with the original bacon brittle recipe. It was just rough. So I looked up one on AllRecipes for peanut brittle. I subbed in some honey for corn syrup because I ran out and, of course, no peanuts. Just bacon! :)

From an objective standpoint, the ice cream was very creamy - the perfect consistency. The crunch of the brittle was wonderful. It does taste like maple, but I will say that it wasn't an overwhelming maple taste and I think that is really appealing. The aftertaste almost reminded me of one of my favorite flavors of ice cream: butter pecan. Nick loved the ice cream and that's what I was going for, so it was definitely a winner. If you love maple and you love bacon, you will LOVE this ice cream.

Pumpkin Cupcakes with Maple Rum Frosting

These delicious spiced cupcakes flavored with real pumpkin are topped with a decadent maple rum buttercream frosting!

When my husband was tasked to bring dessert in for a company holiday lunch last year, I immediately took to the kitchen to make a pumpkin recipe of some sort. I am bad for hoarding dessert recipes, but even worse with pumpkin recipes and I know they are more welcome in the fall than any other time of the year. I personally like them any day of the year, but some people look at you like you're crazy to give them a pumpkin cupcake in July. Same with if you offered someone a peppermint treat in April...even though peppermint is also good any time of the year.

I chose to make these cupcakes because of the maple rum frosting. That's not necessarily my go-to thought when I think of what to pair with pumpkin. I knew that Nick would love it and thought it would make for a great recipe for him because he loves maple anything and rum is his favorite liquor. While I was not necessarily the biggest fan of the frosting, I loved the spices in the cupcake. Nick loved the maple rum frosting. It was really fluffy and he said the maple and rum complimented each other perfectly. They were a huge hit at the office too!

Maple Glazed Oatmeal Cookies

These cookies are classic and so easy to make at home!

I feel like a normal child likes chocolate chip cookies...and while I did love chocolate chip cookies. I was also in love with molasses cookies, oatmeal raisin cookies, and iced oatmeal cookies as well. The latter is the funniest to me because I don't like crunchy cookies, but iced oatmeal cookies are the exception. These ones actually aren't super thin and crunchy like the ones from my childhood, but are still fantastic. They are such a hearty cookie and the glaze is divine even if it has maple in it - which I am not fond of. They are so wonderfully full of warm spices like cinnamon and nutmeg.

These were also a huge hit with the family. In fact, Nick stashed half a dozen in a plastic baggie in his secret hiding place for food. And he claims he is NOT a sweets eater. He doesn't really like desserts. Of course, this is such a joke...literally every time I make a dessert, he exclaims it is the best thing he's ever eaten. It cracks me up. These are the perfect little cookie for the cooler season approaching.

Maple Cream #HandCraftedEdibles

In an effort to make all of her holiday gifts this year, Camilla at Culinary Adventures with Camilla invited some of her favorite foodie bloggers to share recipes for hand-crafted edibles. Over the course of the next twelve weeks, we'll be sharing recipes from homemade spice blends (last week's theme) to charcuterie trays and everything in between. Hope you'll follow along for inspiration. You can find out more information, including the schedule: here.

This week, we're sharing our favorite special diets creations. They might be gluten-free, dairy-free, nut-free, or sugar-free.

Good morning, everyone! I'm back with Camilla and the gang for another installment of HandCrafted Edibles. Today's theme is SPECIAL DIET. My family doesn't necessarily go out of our way to eat anything that follows a special diet, but we are open to a variety of foods, so we do often have foods that could be eaten by someone who does have a special dietary lifestyle, like gluten free or nut free. The following recipe is Maple Cream and it is gluten free, nut free, and you can also make it dairy free as well. I didn't make it dairy free though.

So what exactly is Maple Cream? Sometimes it is referred to as Maple Butter and is lovely on toast, pancakes, stirred into coffee, etc. You take pure maple syrup and bring it to a boil. Then you cool it down and whip it until it's nice and creamy. Nick says it's tastes just like maple candies, just in spreadable form. He absolutely loves maple anything, so this treat was for him. If you want to make maple candies, you actually just heat it to a little higher temperature and cool and pour it into molds.

I poured ours into a little pint-sized jelly mason jar for safe keeping, but it's been gobbled up! I'm not even sure how it made it to the jar in the first place!! :) This would make a great gift for friends and family, especially those who love maple.

Spiced Maple Roasted Nuts

I made these nuts for New Year's Eve for a snack during the prep of the other foods - and for Nick, in particular. Nick snacks like crazy during the holiday food prep and if you want any food to make it to the table, there has to at least be a cheese tray for him to stay out of the main course. On NYE, we like to do just appetizers for "dinner" and we kind of spread it out over the course of about 8 hours - from 4pm to midnight. I'm not really sure if that's the norm for everyone else, but I love it! We usually do some kind of cheese dip, wings, and meatballs. We dig into the buckeyes and potato candy that my mom-in-law makes each year. This past NYE, I also made strawberry salsa with cinnamon tortilla chips and s'mores dip (that we dipped fresh fruit and grahams into). But again, it's always a good idea to have a snack around.

This recipe makes a pretty decent size batch and I sent some home with my mom-in-law because not only did we love them, she did too. They are one of those things that you have to hide before you devour all of them! I personally don't care for maple syrup or honey (which this recipe has) and figured that I wouldn't like the nuts at all, but I was totally wrong. I loved them! They taste like fall, first of all, and the little cayenne really adds dimension to the flavor. You get a little bit of that heat as an end note, but it isn't overwhelming!

*Update 12/28/15 - found my recipe, so I updated the quantities I used!

Secret Recipe Club: Maple Bacon Cinnamon Rolls

It's time for Secret Recipe Club once again :) For those who haven't heard of Secret Recipe Club, it's a large group of bloggers who each month are assigned another SRC member's blog secretly, make a recipe from their blog, and post it for reveal day. It's so much fun to see who got your blog and what recipe they decided to make. If you are interested in joining, go check out this page and get put on the waiting list! This month, my group welcomes a newbie: Wendy from A Day in the Life on the Farm.

This month I was assigned to Amy of Fearless Homemaker. Amy is seriously just adorable and I love the overall look of her blog entirely too much. AND she lives in Tennessee! Not to mention we have yet another smarty pants in Group D - Amy has a Masters degree in positive psychology. I'm so happy to have such an inspiring and amazing group of ladies!! It always excites me when I find out there is yet another amazing woman in the group!

It was the first month I utilized my secret board for Secret Recipe Club and let me tell you what, it was getting filled up with stuff from Amy's blog!! I seriously had such a hard time picking just one thing. It was between One Pot Tomato, Basil, & Chicken Pasta, M&M Cookie Bars, Homemade Flour Tortillas, Perfect Buttermilk Biscuits, and Bacon & Kale Quinoa Fried Rice.

And I went with Cinnamon Rolls with Maple Glaze which is a Pioneer Woman recipe that Amy adapted - SCORE! But I adapted it ever so slightly from Amy's adaption because she was talking about doing caramel bacon glaze next time she made them and I had some bacon bits on hand. Unfortunately no caramel bits though....so my adaption means they are Maple Bacon Cinnamon Rolls

These are the best cinnamon rolls I've ever had and the maple complimented them perfectly. My adaptation was just mixing in some bacon bits into the glaze. Not that weird crunchy ones, but the REAL bacon bits. Like Amy, I would like to try them with a caramel bacon glaze :)

Maple Bacon Burgers

These burgers were another deployment experiment. I wanted to see how good they would be before I made them for Nick when he got home. I've yet to make them since he did get back from deployment, but they are definitely on the list.

Nick has this obsession with maple. So maple + bacon + beer = a happy husband. The burgers were really delicious and even with the crappy college beer, the beer made them so good! I really would love to try this recipe with a maple porter. I think it'd be a fabulous beer to have with the maple bacon :)

Maple Bacon Donuts

As per the Awesome Wifie Code, I have been experimenting with different maple recipes before Nick gets home from Afghanistan. He loves maple everything! Me personally, I will eat maple nut goodies (I think that's what they are called), but that's about it. I barely put syrup on my pancakes and waffles, while Nick and the kids drench theirs.  I'm the weirdo in the family.  He even for a while smoked maple-flavored nicotine juice in his e-cig - which by the way, I hated. The smell of maple makes me nauseated and apparently it made his coworker hungry all day long for breakfast! :)

I love making donuts. They are such an easy thing to make and there's so much variety. I knew these would be a huge hit with the kids because they'll eat anything with bacon. These are more dense donuts instead of light and fluffy, but it really goes with the maple and bacon. I'm hoping to make them again soon when Nick is home :)