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It was the photo of Praline Apple Bread in Betty Crocker’s Fall Baking recipe booklet that made me want to make it and eat it. Creamy caramel glaze overflows the top of a brown loaf studded with pecans. I read the recipe and was instantly suspicious of the glaze -- it seemed like too few ingredients. But I proceeded, wanting to give the recipe a fair trial. I melted the stick of butter and stirred in the ½ cup of brown sugar and boiled it for a minute. The glaze was still separated, with the sugar clumping in globs. I decided to go my own way and make a quick caramel frosting I’ve made before that I knew would be creamy and look like the photo. I stirred in ¼ cup of milk and about 1/3 cup of powdered sugar, which is all I had. You really need to use more powdered sugar than that. I poured the glaze over the bread and it ran down the sides to puddle under the cooling rack on the baking sheet. That was OK. What pooled on top the bread around the pecans formed a crunchy topping t...

In the past month I've made two kinds of cupcakes -- both to rave reviews. I made chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter frosting for the concession stand at a theater production. My daughter had a small role in "The King & I." I packed them in adorable cupcake boxes made from scrapbook paper. To see that technique, visit my scrapbooking blog . They sold for $2.25! I made them again for a scrapbooking crop and I had four requests for the frosting recipe. Recently, I needed a snack for a Girl Scout meeting. I had a lot of quickly ripening bananas and a yellow cake mix. I remembered a recipe for banana cupcakes with a caramel frosting. I made them and most of the Girl Scouts liked them. I took leftovers to the scrapbooking crop the next day and they went fast. The frosting reminds me of a candy I've blogged about before: January Thaw . They are similar in ingredients and cooking method. This is a perfect cupcake to make this time of year. "The Cak...

You'll feel naughty eating these decadent brownies. A plain brownie is pretty scrumptious but I prefer dressing them up with toppings. I've done a coconut frosting, raspberry jam swirled with white chocolate chips and a turtle variation. For the past year I have made a lot of the rocky road brownies from a recipe I got from a former co-worker. This spring I started thinking about recreating a Hershey's Take 5 candy bar by topping the chocolate brownie base with pretzels, caramel and peanut butter. I didn't add Hershey's fifth ingredient, chopped peanuts, so my creation is more of a "Take 4." Good -- they won't get me for trademark infringement. I also had the urge to make a Fluffernutter topping for a brownie, but instead of pairing peanut butter with marshmallow fluff, I used marshmallow ice cream sundae topping. The result was yummy. Brownies are the perfect portable thing to tote to a potluck, picnic or reunion. They hold up well for transport, they...

The tub of ready-to-eat cheesecake filling was intriguing and the urge to eat it a spoonful at a time, here and there, actually not that great. I bought it not because I planned to dump it all into a graham-cracker crumb crust and serve it -- it's obvious primary intended use. No, I was thinking about other things I could use it for. Inspired by Bob Evans or IHOP or another of those breakfast-all-day chains, my first application was stuffed french toast. This recipe is easy enough to make for Sunday breakfast and still get to church; it'll only look and taste like you made a big fuss. Plus it's a simple way to make an everyday day extraordinary. Take one day-old loaf of braided challah (Jewish egg bread...see side note below) and sliced it into pieces at least 1-inch thick. I probably had 8-10 slices. Beat 4 or 5 eggs in a glass pie plate with a splash of milk. Dip the bread slices one at a time in the egg batter and fry them on a hot nonstick griddle. To assemble the stuff...