Apple Crisp

I know I am a little slow but this is the dessert I made for Thanksgiving.  Hope you all had a wonderful holiday!  My mom taught me to make this and we always switched it up with different fruits and cake mixes.  Here is the basic one, feel free to make it your own.

8x8 pan greased
6 apples sliced (Or canned apple pie filling)
1 Tbsp flour
2 tbsp Cinnamon
Half a bag of cake mix (I used yellow)
1/2 cup oatmeal (any except steel)
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup walnuts
1 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp ginger
7 Tbsp butter

First preheat your oven to 375. Mix the apples with the flour and cinnamon and put them in the pan.  In a bowl add cake mix, oatmeal, brown sugar, nutmeg, and ginger.  Using a pastry cutter cut the butter in until it is crumbly.  Sprinkle it over the apples and then sprinkle the walnuts over that.  Bake for 30-45 minutes until it is brown and bubbly.

Silly me forgot to take a picture of it after it was done cooking but here are some of the before:

Pineapple Upside Down Muffins

My Aunt has been telling me about these pineapple upside down muffins that they used to have at Perkins. All of our Perkins have closed in Colorado so I never got the chance to taste these creations she talks so highly about! She told me about the topping so I searched and searched for a copycat recipe and found nothing, so here I am blindly copycatting (Is that a word?)a recipe I've never tasted. I don't know how Perkin's muffins taste but these are definitely yummy and I will be making them again!

 Pineapple Upside Down Muffins
 Servings 10

10 Pineapple Rings
10 Stemless Cherries
 6 Tablespoons Brown Sugar
 4 Tablespoons Butter, Melted

 2 Cups Flour, whatever you prefer
 1/2 Cup Sugar
 2 1/2 teaspoons Baking Powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
 1 egg
 1 Cup Milk
 1/4 Cup Butter, melted or Coconut oil to make it healthier

 Melt the 4 Tablespoons of butter and mix in the brown sugar. Grease the muffin pans really well and add a spoonful to ten of them. Lay the pineapple rings down and put a cherry in the middle. Mix the rest of the ingredients and add to the top of the pineapple and cherries. Bake at 350 for 25-30 minutes. Check with a toothpick to make sure they are all the way done. These are what they look like...yum

Zucchini Cupcakes

My niece's 1st birthday party was this last weekend.  I made a tutu for her and the cupcakes.  My sister came over the day before to help me.  She was dead set on zucchini cupcakes that look like watermelons. A friend of ours found these cupcake liners

Aren't they cute?

Anytime my sister and I get together we start out with a recipe and end up ignoring it and making our own.  She brings out the creative side of me!  So here is our version of a zucchini cupcake, although they have the consistency of muffins.  Nobody was complaining though!

Dry Ingredients:
1 Cup of sugar
1/3 Cup Brown Sugar
2 1/2 Cups Flour
2 tsp Cinnamon
2 tsp Baking Powder
1 tsp Baking soda
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp Nutmeg

Sift together or if you aren't professional like me whisk it together!

Wet Ingredients:
1/2 Cup Apple juice
3 eggs
1/2 Cup Canola oil (or Coconut Oil )
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 Cups Zucchini (chopped or pureed)
2 Apples (Peeled and chopped)
1/2 Cup Pineapple Tidbits
1 Carrot-Shredded

Mix together the apple juice, eggs, oil, and vanilla.  Add to the dry ingredients until just combined.  Fold in the zucchini,carrot, apples and pineapple.

I tried out the method of pre-heating the oven to 350 then lowering it to 325 when I put the cupcakes in.  It is supposed to help the cupcakes rise and as far as I can tell it worked.  This recipe makes 50 so if you are looking for a smaller batch half it.  Bake for 20-25 minutes.

They were a big hit at the party.  They weren't too sweet.  My sister had the bright idea to use whipped cream and that was a big old melting mess lol but you live and you learn right?!

Here they are with no whipped cream, they didn't even need it!

Pineapple Sheet Cake

 Pineapple Sheet Cake

2 cups fresh pineapple or 1 20 oz. can of diced pineapple
2 cups flour
1 cup sugar
1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup of walnuts or nut of your choice


Mix all the ingredients until just mixed. put into a 13x9 pan.  Bake at 350 for 25-30 minutes.

My sister came over for the weekend and wanted to bake.  We made this and used a cherry frosting because that was all I had in the cupboard.  A cream cheese frosting would probably go best with this or even no frosting at all!   The cherry overpowered the pineapple which we were pretty sad about, but there is always next time.