Muffins are such a delicious way to start your day! Plus they are quick and easy to make! After the holidays I had a bag of cranberries left over, along with some buttermilk and walnuts. I found this tasty recipe to use all of them.

Cranberries and oranges are such a good combination! The tart cranberries and sweet oranges really complement each other. You can use other other fruits and other citrus zest for this recipe, but this is a good pair to start with.

An added bonus is the streusel topping. This one is made of butter, brown sugar, cinnamon and walnuts. Love the cinnamon flavor and crunch that the streusel adds. I sprinkled a bit of sanding sugar on top for some extra sparkle.

Best warm right out of the oven, but you can also warm them up for about 20 seconds in the microwave for a quick snack later. Enjoy!

For the recipe, click on the link below:

https://www.food.com/recipe/cranberry-orange-buttermilk-muffins-142983

Holiday Baking always brings back memories of baking with my family. We would always make a variety of cookies to share with our neighbors. Can you imagine 6 kids cooking in the kitchen? What a mess we must have made – but fun memories too! One of my parents’ favorite cookies were these Date Pin Wheels.

Dad and Mom both liked them, but I remember them as ones that my Dad particularly enjoyed. I remember baking them, wrapping them up and giving the cookies to him as a gift

This is the original recipe I wrote out in high school. I still have so many of our family favorites in my first little recipe box. Happy Baking and Happy Holidays!

Sugar Cookies are part of our traditional holiday baking for us to enjoy and share. This year I decided to try a new recipe from the Half Baked Harvest blog, these Easy Vanilla Bean Christmas Lights Cookies.

This will definitely be added to our Christmas Cookie recipe files. So delicious! This sugar cookie recipe has brown butter – which always gives such a depth of flavor to baked goodies and it has double the vanilla as most recipes. I did roll out the dough between two sheets of parchment paper and let it chill before cutting out the shapes.

The vanilla icing recipe also added to the deliciousness of these cookies. Along with the powdered sugar, you add maple syrup, and again, twice the vanilla as usual. What a difference that makes! To decorate, you can melt chocolate chips to create line for the “lights.” Use Holiday Mini M&Ms set on their sides for the lights.

Or just top the cookie with frosting and add your favorite sprinkles. Sprinkles always make cookie baking more fun.

Such a yummy variation of the traditional sugar cookie! The secret is the brown butter, double vanilla and the maple syrup in the icing. Merry Christmas!!!

For the recipe and more photos, click on the link below: