Baked goods

Hey guys! Happy 2 days ’till Christmas! It’s so crazy how fast this holiday season has gone by.

This year, I haven’t been in much of the holiday spirit at all, mostly because of this year’s crazy exam season (I’m a sophomore in high school). Even though we’ve decorated our house and put up our inflatable snowman outside, the stressing about studying for finals and trying to keep my grades up has honestly made me forget how soon Christmas is (and how soon it will be over!)

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Hey guys…!!!!!!!!

I was just reading through some of my most recent blog posts (although they aren’t exactly “recent” per se), and a LOT of them start off with me complaining about how busy I am, how sorry I am for not posting, and I will definitely post more consistently. If I counted how many times I’ve rolled my eyes at the incessant ramblings of my younger self, well… I’d definitely be much better at math. 

This loooong break has really taught me some interesting things. Mainly, how much I’ve missed baking in my spare time. Especially since it’s the holiday season, it’s kind of sad that I’m not running out of butter and sugar because I’ve baked so many cookies, or that my house isn’t smelling like cinnamon and molasses from baking gingerbread treats from scratch. Also, I’ve missed the enjoyment and satisfaction of taking photos that are pleasing to the eye and fun to drool over. It’s always fun to challenge myself with how minimalistically I can edit my photos while making them look both natural and appetizing.

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I’ve made a couple cookie recipes on my blog before. I’ve got my good ol’ nutella chocolate chip cookies (which I’m currently in the process of re-shooting/updating), peppermint sugar cookies, 5 ingredient chocolate peanut butter cookies, and even my homemade gingerbread cookies (that recipe is soooo old!!)

There are so many different cookie recipes out there, and honestly? Trying to pick just one to make is one of the most challenging aspects to baking, in my opinion. But I was flipping through Sally McKinney’s latest cookbook (her cookie addiction one), and I was delighted to stumble upon a whole section dedicated purely to oatmeal cookies!! Just looking at all the beautiful pictures was enough to make my stomach rumble. I’d forgotten how much I used to love a basic chewy oatmeal cookie.

I have a little folder I keep filled with various recipes I’ve accumulated through the years. Some of them are printed off from the internet, and others just consist of a couple ingredients I’ve jotted down when trying to come up with my own. Flipping through the stack, I actually found an old oatmeal cookie recipe I’d recieved from a baking class I took in elementary school! I played around with it a bit, because it was pretty outdated; I added less raisins and more chocolate, increased the amount of brown sugar, and added cinnamon.

They’re big, fat, and chewy—everything you could ever want in any type of cookie. They’re loaded with tons raisins and chocolate chips, but you could easily substitute nuts or any other candy. Most importantly, they’re seriously sweet.

You really can’t go wrong with an oatmeal cookie.

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Thank you to Nielsen-Massey for sponsoring today’s post! I recieved a product from Nielsen-Massey’s Vanillas to help develop this recipe. Remember, I only support brands I truly believe in!

My ideal day: wake up at 6AM, make myself some of Lindsay’s peppermint mocha, eat a nice hot plate of eggs and toast with peanut butter, get ready for the day in about 20 minutes, and watch some vlogmas and Christmas movies with about 30 minutes to spare before I have to head out the door. Then, when I come home from school in the afternoon, I spend a good hour taking pictures for my blog, about another hour doing homework, go on a run, eat dinner, and get ready to go to bed at 9:30.

Reality: wake up at 7:30, spend 95% of my morning making and eating breakfast, and the other 5% doing everything else. No time for YouTube… laziness strikes again! I come home from school, rush to get those food photos taken before the sun sets at like 4:00PM, then spend the rest of the evening drowning in homework. Oh yeah, we can’t forget about editing pictures until 10:00 PM and then taking a nice, long shower (aka one of the only stress-free parts of my day). Bedtime’s at about 11:00.

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