Category: Cooking

My First Attempt to Make Alcohol Free Pretzel Bagels from The Cottagecore Baking Book

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Two years ago, I decided to try to make an non alcoholic version of the Everything Bagel Beer Pretzel Knots from The Cottagecore Baking Book. At that time, the book was full of recipes I wanted to learn how to make. Most, if not all, the recipes in the book are made from scratch the way I’m most familiar with. (Such as cinnamon rolls that have to go through three rises to create the perfect texture) Back then, I needed to learn how to make more recipes from scratch, so this book was a perfect book for me to try.

Today, The Cottagecore Baking Book has become one of my most favorite cook books. I have made cinnamon rolls, cakes, breads, and many other foods using it. Everything I make using the book requires time and effort, but the taste of the food is completely worth it!

Back when I purchased the book, I discovered a recipe for pretzel bagels. At that time, I needed to omit bagels from my diet due to certain ingredients used in commonly available in bagels sold in my area. I missed eating them, so I decided to use the pretzel bagel recipe to see if I can create my own bagels at home.

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Roller Rabbit x Target Collection- Food & Beverages

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It is finally time for the last post in my series about the Roller Rabbit x Target collection! There is just one category I still want to talk about: The food and beverages.

For this post, I decided not to pick any favorite items in the food and beverage side of the collection. The reason is because I have food allergies. Although some of the food looks like it will be ok for me to eat, I decided not to consider purchasing anything from the food and beverage category.

Instead, I decided to show everything that will be available in the food and beverage category. They include cookies, candies, and drinks. In my opinion, I believe the drinks will sell out the fastest. The reason is because the drinks are actually made by Poppi. They come in three flavors: Watermelon, Raspberry Rose, and Shirley Temple. Since Poppi is a popular drink on social media, I think the ones in this collection will be the most popular items in the whole collection.

Aside from the drinks, I really love the cookies. They are decorated cookies and come in two shapes: A monkey and a heart. Both are designs by Roller Rabbit for this collection. Even though I know I won’t be able to eat them, they are super cute!

 

Please Note: All the items mentioned in this post are picked by my own personal taste and is based off what I saw online before anything is available to be seen and touched in person. All the photographs of the products are from Target’s free to download media pack on Target’s website. All the names of the items and it’s cost is taken from the listings from Target’s website.

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Reminiscing & Wondering Where the Children’s Chocolate Advent Calendars Are Sold Today

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Ever since I was a girl, I loved advent calendars. I usually had the calendars with chocolate in them. Every day in December, I would open a new window, find the chocolate, and eat it. When I had a major health crisis as a teenager, I decided to make myself a bucket list of things I wanted to do before I became to sickly to do them. One of the simplest ones was to buy a chocolate advent calendar for children and eat all the chocolate in one sitting. I ended up doing this years after the health crisis. I did this for only one time, but have no regrets about doing it!

Today, I see many types of advent calendars for sale. Among them are Legos, Disney toy collectables, and other toy brands. I’ve seen advent calendars for adults featuring beauty products, books, and socks. I’ve seen food based advent calendars and ones I just don’t understand who the target audience is, but there it is. There are also advent calendars that are for fans of certain movies and TV shows. These include Harry Potter, Gilmore Girls, and Wicked: For Good. (If you haven’t heard, Wicked: For Good has so many brand deals that it makes sense they would have a tie in advent calendar)

Yet, after browsing all these calendars I realized something: I didn’t see any chocolate advent calendars for children.

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Attempting to Make Brioche Bread Again

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Last December, my mixer broke while making a new bread recipe. This recipe was for brioche bread.

Today, I have a new mixer that is stronger than my old one. Even though it is stronger and far more reliable than my old one, I still was worried about how well it would do making brioche. A few weeks ago, I decided to try to make the bread again.

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Murder by Cheesecake’s St. Olaf’s Cheesecake Recipe Review

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Earlier this year, a new murder mystery novel was released. There are many murder mystery novels that get published every year, but this one was different. This one is called Murder by Cheesecake and is inspired by the TV series The Golden Girls.

I bought the novel after a suggestion from a friend of mine who just so happens to be a huge fan of The Golden Girls. Months after it was released, I’m still working my way through it (I started it a few weeks ago and I’ve been quite busy since then.) so I can’t write a review about it. So far I like it and it is written the same way the TV show would be.

Even though I’m still reading the book, there was something about the book I can review now: The St. Olaf’s Cheesecake Recipe.

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Discovering New Alternatives for Hard Apple Cider in Recipes

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Ever since I discovered I have food allergies, I have tried my best to adjust any recipe I use to avoid my allergies. Over the years I’ve become more adapted to recognizing recipes with ingredients I can’t use and how to still use the recipe anyway.

Last year, I decided to try make a new bagel recipe. It called for hard apple cider or beer for it. I don’t like to make recipes with beer in it because beer normally plays an important role in the recipe. In fact, the role is so important that I find it is hard to use the recipe with alternative ingredients.

Even though the recipe called for beer or hard apple cider (Both of which I am allergic to) I still decided to give it a try. I thought that if hard apple cider can be used instead of beer, then I could use another apple-based juice as it’s replacement. That’s when I began to learn about why apple juice isn’t a good substitute for beer or hard apple cider.

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I Have a New Tomato from My Tomato Plant!

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I have happy news! I harvested my first tomato from my tomato plant!

Here it is!

My tomato plant was able to grow two tomatoes since I brought it home. This one is the first one to become ripe. I am having some problems with my tomato plant with bugs, but it is still growing, putting out blooms, and otherwise doing fine.

The plant I own was purchased from Walmart. The tomato plant is called “Patio” and is from Bonnie Plants. It will grow about 2 feet tall and is supposed to grow well in containers. The type of tomatoes it produces are not big, but are not like cherry tomatoes. They are more like slicing tomatoes, just smaller.

 

That’s all for now! Thank you for reading!

Kate Spade New York x Target Collection Favorites: Homewares

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While browsing the new Kate Spade New York x Target collection, I discovered a lot of things I liked in the homewares section of the collection. Since the collection is so large, I was not surprised I would find things I liked in every category. What surprised me is that I liked the homewares more than the other categories! Stand out products are the vinyl record player, the tent, and umbrellas.

Everything in this post (And all other posts in this series) will be available to purchase online on April 12, 2025 at 3 EST and in store on April 12th.

All the photos in this post are originally from the media pack available for free on Target’s website. I edited them for this post.

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Kate Spade New York x Target Collection Favorites: Food

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When I found out about the Kate Spade New York x Target collection, I was very surprised by the large amount of items in the collection. Out of all the items in the collection, the items that surprised me was the food.

Although I’ve been a fan of the Kate Spade brand, I never thought about including food in the Target collaboration. Since the food was such a surprise to me, I decided to browse the food and see if there were any food items I liked.

I assumed if there was food in the collection, there would be a lot of drink options. (Kate Spade New York has a lot of references to alcoholic drinks such as martinis, champagne, ect. in their products) Especially alcohol drinks or mixes for alcoholic drinks. Although there are mixes in the collection, they could be used for non alcoholic drinks. Instead, there are a lot of snacks.

When I went through the food options in this collection, I picked my favorite foods based off what I would actually like to eat. I have food allergies that show up in many ready-made foods, but I did not take that into consideration when I picked my favorite foods in the collection. Even though I cannot eat everything on this list, I am happy to see the ingredients listed on Target’s website. This made it easy for me to decide if there are food items I can eat or cannot.

All the photos in this post are originally from the media pack available for free on Target’s website. I edited them for this post.

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5 Plants I Want to Grow But Haven’t Been Able to Yet

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It’s spring, which is the ideal time to begin to grow new plants. So far I’ve failed in growing all but two plants: An amaryllis bulb and a decorative cactus. I think my ability to grow these two plants is a major success for me. The cactus turns three this year and the amaryllis is 16 years old! Even though these plants are still alive and growing, I have failed in growing other plants.

Right now I’m trying another round of plant growing and so far I’ve been more successful than in a previous attempt. Even though it is doing well, I still wish I could grow certain plants in my home. Since I’m in the process of trying to grow plants again, I decided to list five of my top plants I want to grow but haven’t been able to yet.

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