The results are in, and Eric and I have held on to our title, but just barely! This is definitely the closest gingerbread contest yet. There was no telling who was going to win until the very end! Read more

This year’s gingerbread contest took the competition to a whole new level!  As last year’s winners, Eric and I got to choose this year’s theme.  We chose “A Science Fiction Christmas” and the results were truly out of this world!  Below are the three entries with detailed photos.  We need you to help us determine the winner by viewing the entries and then voting for your favorite at the end.  We’d also love it if you’d share in the comments why it was your favorite.  Voting will  be open until December 26, 2011 at 6pm Pacific time.  Thanks so much!
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I’m sure someone somewhere in the world has made pumpkin pie flavored sugar, but I haven’t seen it so I claim it as my own!  The sugar is mixed with ground cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, ginger and allspice to give that signature holiday flavor.  You can use it in your holiday baking, or stir it into hot wine for a delicious holiday cocktail.  My absolute favorite way to use it though is in my pumpkin pie creme brulee.  You can see it peeking out of the top corner of the photo.  That recipe’s coming next, I promise! Read more

When it comes to edible gift giving, I think that vanilla sugar is the most popular of the flavored sugars.  In my post about flavored sugar I talk about how I started making it as a way to use empty vanilla bean pods.  While it’s a great way to make vanilla beans more cost efficient, you can also use all the little beans inside the pod which I explain in the recipe.  I use clean, dry fingers to break up the beans in the sugar.  But if you’ve used the tiny vanilla beans for something else, feel free to just stick the pod in the sugar. Read more

Although I have been switching our family to using sucanat in place of refined sugar, there’s a small happy spot in my heart that sucanat hasn’t filled; the flavored sugar spot.  There’s something about flavored sugar that speaks to me on so many levels.  They speak to the freakishly frugal part of me, to the gourmet loving refined palette part of me, and to the part of me that loves DIY projects and secretly wishes I was a pioneer of old.  Flavored sugars take about five minutes of work and make a fantastic gift that’s cheap and easy. Read more