holidays Archives – Pies & Prejudice

Hello Friends!

I hope you’ve been having a good winter so far, and if you’re lucky you got to sneak away somewhere warm and sunny. If you did, I think you may have forgotten to bring me? (Whoops!😂)

One thing is for sure–we’ve had WAY too much snow and it just keeps on coming. We’ve even broken a few records for snowfall amounts this winter (trust me, these are not the kinda records you want to break lol). Meanwhile, the cherry blossoms are coming up in BC!! (Bastards😁). I’ve been wanting to call my brother in Vancouver to catch up but I think I’ll wait ’til our deep freeze is over. I just can’t bear to hear about their t-shirt weather while I’m wearing long johns and four layers every time I step outside. Update: I took a risk and called him anyway and they’ve recently got snow. HA! I feel a little better now.

I am SO looking forward to Spring. Who’s with me? I’ve got a Spring Counter on my blog now (and by “now” I mean since last October), so you can count down along with me. 18 days, people! It can’t come soon enough.

I guess you’ve probably noticed a lot of crickets around here lately, hey? I figured it’s about time I shared an update as it has been a couple of months. As most of you know, last year was a pretty crappy one with the loss of my mom and some work/career changes as well. So, after the busy holiday season I finally had some time to kick back, relax, and re-evaluate where I was going and make some changes. One of them is this blog (again).

It was a little over a year ago that I decided to turn my blog into a food blog. I was baking way more than travelling at the time and I’d always wanted a food blog so it seemed like a good idea. But clearly (ie: crickets) it’s not going very well. Ya’ll know I love to bake but I just don’t spend enough time in the kitchen to keep coming up with new recipes. Most of my food blogging friends share several recipes each week whereas I’m lucky if I post one per month. I loved being part of the Recipe Round Up and a big thanks to my friend Kelly ‘Cereal Bar Queen Extraordinaire’ who graciously invited me to join the fun. It encouraged me to share more recipes but I still struggled to keep up.

It also doesn’t help that most people don’t like to bake pie. Pastry can be really finicky and it usually takes a lot of practice before it doesn’t drive you crazy. I’ve been baking pie for years and it still drives me crazy (ha ha). As a result not a lot of people have been trying my recipes– which is the main purpose of having a food blog, really #majorblogfail.

As you can probably tell by my geeky pies, I enjoy designing pies more than anything. But for some reason no one else wants to go to the trouble of putting Darth Vader, Superman or Doc Brown on their pies!!? What is wrong with you people? 😜

….Wait a minute, Doc… Are you telling me you built a time machine…out of a PIE??

So you’ll see a few changes to this blog as I’ll be posting more lifestyle-related content such as travel, local stuff, fun stories (quite a few people have recently told me really they enjoy my stories–who knew?), fitness & sports (I just joined a tennis/squash club at my local gym!) and, of course, loads of nostalgia. Especially anything 80s-related (with or without a geeky pie).

Now that I’ve officially declared this not a (designated) food blog anymore, I can go back to random ramblings and road trip stories now, right? (please say yes). It’s funny because I’ve been wanting to share some of my recent travels but I’ve hesitated because this is supposed to be a food blog haha. Thanks for (hopefully) sticking around, guys. I hope all my foodie friends will still visit, too. Because you know that you can ALWAYS count on me to bring you back in time with my nostalgic pies. No DeLorean required.

Ok, it’s time for my winter recap. I really don’t want to say ‘Holiday’ because that was so long ago now. But since I started writing this post at the end of January (let’s blame my friend Al for going away to NZ for most of February which made me extra busy, shall we? haha) I technically made the cut. You might recall how I feel about Christmas talk (or holiday movies) once January is over. But no more holiday talk after this post, I promise!

You’d better go grab a coffee as you may be here awhile 😁Because you have nothing better to do with your Saturday or Sunday than read my ramblings, right? (here’s where you lie and say “no, no, of course not” haha).

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Hi Folks, I hope you’re all doing great and not overly disappointed that winter is here…especially after such a relatively mild, dry Fall (at least here in Ontario). Just when I was hopin’ for a green winter…curses! 🙂

The snow has, at the very least, thrown me right into holiday baking mode. Okay, okay I’m always in baking mode but—right now it’s ALL about the cinnamon, the peppermint, all those fun cookie shapes and, of course.. the Egg Nog!

How about one of these to make your holiday season Merry & Bright? Spiced Rum & Eggnog Cupcakes with a whipped eggnog buttercream…

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This doesn’t look like a bad way to drink all that Holiday ‘Nog, right?

This year will be my first Christmas with my baking biz so I’m pretty excited. I’ve gotten a couple orders already (woohoo!) but now that I’ve got my holiday menu out, I’m hoping to be baking non-stop ’til Christmas Eve. Since this blog is moving toward baking & food, I thought I’d share some of my favourite holiday recipes with you guys. This is the first recipe of my 12 Treats of Christmas!

As many of you know, I bake exclusively gluten-free these days. I love creating copycats of all the classic faves and coming up with new creations, too. Many folks who have tried my goodies tell me they can’t tell the difference (from regular gluten ones) so I’m taking that as a sign that I’m on the right track. Regardless, I’m having fun creating and taste-testing. If you don’t need to avoid gluten, just swap regular flour for the GF flour in any my recipes. I always try to come up with very versatile, allergy or diet-friendly recipes and give as many options/substitutions as possible.

Today I’m sharing these fun cupcakes that will defintely put you in the Christmas spirit. Add a bit of booze to the eggnog buttercream as well (for adults only, of course) and you’ll REALLY start feeling the Christmas spirit 🙂

It just ain’t the holidays without copious amounts of eggnog, at least for me anyway. Even if you can’t have dairy, there are several great dairy-free options (homemade or store bought) these days so you never have to go Nog-less. I generally don’t drink a lot of dairy myself so I’ve tried quite a few of them. My absolute new favourite is the So Delicious Coconut Nog. It tastes just like regular eggnog (and not coconut-y, either–surprisingly) and it’s absolutely delish. I don’t care for the soy milk ones (good thing because I usually avoid soy like the plague) and the almond milk nogs I’ve tried aren’t amazing, but not bad either. But don’t worry, you can add any eggnog to these festive cupcakes and they’ll still be amazing!

Here’s a funny story about when I was a kid and spent a few months drinking eggnog as meal replacements because I wouldn’t eat real food (just scroll down if you want to jump right to the recipe):

When I was about 8 years-old, I suddenly started worrying that I was going to choke on my food. It would take me hours to eat a meal, especially if it was something chewy like meat. My mom would sometimes have to put my food in the blender (Ugh!) and she also made me fresh eggnog when I wouldn’t eat breakfast or lunch. I wasn’t eating a whole lot (and I was super skinny to begin with) so she really wanted to make sure I got enough protein/nourishment. The eggnog was quick and easy to make and there was no chewing involved whatsoever.

My parents were still worried though, so I eventually saw the doctor who thought maybe I was anorexic (I wasn’t). If that had been the case, though, I would have made history as the youngest person ever (at 8 years old!!!) to have an eating disorder. I didn’t have one, fortunately, but I went to see a counsellor anyway so we could figure out what was going on. Shortly after, my whole paranoia somehow passed and I was back to eating normally again.

I eventually figured out why I was so paranoid and it had to do with a story my brother had told me awhile back: One of his friend’s had almost died from choking whilst eating a hot dog!!! I guess at the time I didn’t realize how much it freaked me out, but that explains the panic I was feeling each time I ate anything (except for chocolate or cookies—for some mysterious reason). I must have just forgotten this story or somehow didn’t attribute it to my fear—until I put two & two together (much, much later).

People were actually quite surprised I was afraid of choking because I used to partake in food-inhaling contests with my friends (stuff like ‘who could eat a bag of marshmallows the quickest? yikes!). We’d barely chew our food so we could get it down fast to win the race. So clearly I wasn’t always afraid of choking on food, else I wouldn’t have been swallowing marshmallows whole….at lightening speed, even!

Aside from this brief episode of weird paranoia, I have always been a pretty happy eater.

See….

always talking or eating (or sometimes trying to do both) not much has changed. I’ve always loved food! Excuse the photo quality, this was the late 70s/very early 80s.

The eggnog that my mom made did help during that time and I always enjoyed it as it was always fresh, homemade and super tasty (I’m glad we didn’t worry about raw eggs back then or I wouldn’t have had the eggnog, either).

Moral of this story (besides never listening to your brother, or at least the scary stories) is that I was introduced to FRESH EGGNOG at a fairly young age. Sure the store-bought ones are pretty tasty, they just can’t really hold a candle to homemade ‘Nog. If you haven’t made homemade Egg Nog before, you are missing out and maybe you should add that to your list of fun things to do this Christmas.

If you like Eggnog (and rum), you’ll love these cupcakes. Even gluten-free, they’re moist and very delicious. Don’t worry, you won’t get tipsy after eating one of these because the alcohol in the rum cooks off during the baking process and it leaves just a hint of tropical flavour behind. You can use any spiced rum you like or just leave it out (gasp!), if you prefer.

The buttercream is a cooked frosting with a splash of eggnog. If you prefer, just use your favourite recipe and use a bit of eggnog for some of the milk or maybe try my yummy vanilla buttercream I posted awhile back that goes with my coconut cupcakes (just sub ‘nog for some of the coconut milk and use all butter). This frosting (below) is incredibly tasty, less sweet than a typical frosting, and has a wonderful whip cream-like texture. It’s similar to an Italian buttercream, but since I don’t like eating egg whites, I find this an awesome alternative. It takes a bit more work than your standard buttercream but it’s soooooo worth it. There are plenty of versions of this type of buttercream…just google ‘flour frosting’ and you’re bound to find tons of great recipes.

Hope you are all having a wonderful start to the holiday season! Happy ‘Nogging and let me know if you like the cupcakes. It’s not Santa that you have to worry about stealing these…you’d better hope Captain Jack Sparrow doesn’t find them first. Arrrrr 😀

xo Dana

Blog Recap, Childhood Memories and Almost Spring!🌼☀️

Boozy Cupcakes: Spiced Rum & Eggnog–with an Eggnog Buttecream