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Breakfast/Brunch

Breakfast/Brunch, Cookies, Desserts, Sweet Snacks

Browned Butter Salted Caramel Apple Crumble Bars

I know that I make Crumble / Shortbread Bars a lot, but they are easy, tasty and for the most part, travel well both if I am physically handing them to someone at a potluck or mailing them. So I’ll continue to make them. And share them. And in the meantime, I have found a way to make them even better. Instead of just melting the butter, this time I browned the butter, so all the nutty goodness was added to the crumble mixture. Add a drizzle of salted caramel to the end result and these may be the best Browned Butter Salted Caramel Apple Crumble Bars that you’ve ever tasted.

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Breads, Breakfast/Brunch, Desserts, Sweet Snacks

Quick and Simple Blueberry Almond Cake

It’s Blueberry Season! I know, many of you might say that it is almost always blueberry season, but for me, “real” blueberries — the sweet, tart, bursting with flavor despite only being a 1/4 of an inch big, one that you rake from the barrens in Maine — are the only blueberries that count. If you make this blueberry cake, seek out the little gems and if you can’t find the real Maine wild blueberries fresh, go for the frozen ones (Wymans are great) but avoid fresh cultivated ones that are about the size of grapes because they sink to the bottom of your loaf cake and make a mess.

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Breakfast/Brunch, Sweet Snacks

Apricot Cardamom Muffins

Here is another simple and quick muffin recipe. Pretty much all my standard muffin recipes follow the same format, and you can swap out the berries or the fruit (or the chocolate chips of whatever). They are ready, start to finish, in under an hour and this time, I had almost overly ripe apricots, so I went with that as my “mix-in” option. Easy to have ready on the breakfast table.

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Breakfast/Brunch, General Reference/Tutorial, Sweet Snacks

2026 Strawberry Jam Varieties: Strawberry Vanilla Paste Jam and Strawberry Honey Plum Jam

As long time followers will know, every year (even through the pandemic) I go strawberry picking. I’ve actually been going strawberry picking every year since I was a little girl — my first real “commercial endeavor” so to speak, and my sister and I would always sell them from a stand on the end of the road and that would be our spending money for the rest of the summer. In the intervening decades, both my sister and I started making our own varieties of jams from the strawberry harvest and this year is no different. I made one variation that I make many of the years — a strawberry vanilla (very popular) and this year, also tried a Strawberry Honey Plum Jam, which is also delicious…. a little earthier but still very vibrant.

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Breakfast/Brunch, Sweet Snacks

Strawberry Almond Muffins with Strawberry Glaze

Heya! So, it’s been almost a month since I posted anything and I could give you all sorts of excuses on why, but we’ll leave it as “I needed a break”. While I am generally a hater of the month of January, the end of May to the end of June comes is a close second as bad in the mental health department. Suffice it to say, I AM BACK! I went strawberry picking so here is the first of the Strawberry recipes: Strawberry Almond Muffins with Strawberry Glaze. They are light and delicious and very strawberry-y. Just be careful not to add too many berries, lest the muffins get all mushy!

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