I have a wonderful new recipe to share with you today! These brown butter apple bars are insanely delicious. They combine the best of fall flavors into a moist cake-like bar that just melts in your mouth. 

It’s officially fall here in Michigan, which means all the fun of apple picking and donuts and cider. We’ve already gone apple picking twice and when I offered to bring a dessert to a neighborhood potluck, I knew it needed to be something with apples. I wanted something that would be easy to pick up and eat (so not a pie or a crisp), and I wanted to try something new. So with those guidelines I went searching for a recipe. As soon as I found the recipe for these brown butter apple bars I knew they were going to be good.

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You are going to love this recipe for watermelon sherbet! In our family we tend to have a watermelon obsession. We can eat A LOT of watermelon. 🙂 We can go through one of those giant watermelons from Costco in just a couple days and Zeke asks all throughout the year if it’s watermelon season yet. I think it’s safe to say we REALLY love watermelon.

Zeke found this recipe for watermelon sherbet in one of my cooking magazines and immediately told me that we had to make it! I agreed, and we just so happened to have lots of watermelon in our fridge that day! Even better, it wasn’t a great watermelon. I would hate to sacrifice perfectly sweet and crisp watermelon to be made into sherbet, but thankfully this watermelon was just slightly overripe and the tiniest bit mushy. Perfect to be blended up into another recipe!

This watermelon sherbet is so good! It is sweet and refreshing and perfect for a hot summer day. There are only a few ingredients so the watermelon flavor really shines through. Actually I didn’t tell my 4 year old what I had made, just handed him a bowl, and his first reaction was “hey, this tastes like watermelon!” 🙂

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Blueberry cobbler is one of those desserts that just epitomizes summer. Fresh juicy blueberries play a starring role in this classic summer dessert!

This recipe comes from America’s Test Kitchen so you know it’s tried and true. They are the best at repeatedly testing a recipe until it comes out just the way they want it. As soon as I saw this recipe I knew I needed to try it, and everyone in my family was very thankful that I did. 🙂

The blueberry filling is sweet and juicy and bursting with blueberry flavor. The recipe uses plenty of fresh blueberries and just a little bit of sugar and cinnamon for sweetness and flavor. That allows the blueberry flavor to really shine through. The topping is reminiscent of drop biscuits and adds a nice rustic touch to this classic recipe. The biscuits bake up to be light and tender with a little bit of cinnamon sugar crunch on top.

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Meet my new favorite fall dessert! Seriously, this pumpkin chocolate chip crumb cake is SO GOOD! I mean can’t-stop-eating-it good!

In the course of a normal day around here there is not usually a lot of down time. Which means that if I’m going to take the time to bake something and try a new recipe I’d better be pretty sure it’s going to turn out well. The combination of pumpkin, fall spices, chocolate chips, and a crumb topping sold me on this recipe, and boy did it ever deliver!

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Would you believe this is the first time I’ve ever made strawberry rhubarb pie? And you can bet I will be making it again – it’s so good! I’ve always been a little wary of rhubarb since it’s so tart, but when Mike’s coworker brought some into work I decided to give it a try.

My pie crust never turns out very pretty – thankfully that doesn’t seem to affect the taste. 😉

This strawberry rhubarb pie is simple and easy to make – it just takes a little prep time to make pie dough and cut the fruit. I used my old standby pie crust recipe from an old Betty Crocker cookbook, but feel free to use your favorite recipe or just buy a refrigerated crust to keep things simple.

The pie filling is perfectly sweet, with plenty of strawberry flavor. This strawberry rhubarb pie held together better than any strawberry pie I’ve ever made, and the flavors of the strawberry and rhubarb mixed together with a little bit of sugar and cinnamon were perfect! And it is even better with a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top. 🙂

This is the perfect pie to make use of spring produce. You can bet I will be making this strawberry rhubarb pie again and again – we loved it!!

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How good does this cranberry apple crisp look? Apple crisp is one of my favorite desserts, and I’ve always felt that it was really too bad that it was so clearly a fall dessert. I would make it once every fall when I went apple picking, and then it would be a full year before I would get to make it again!

Well, you can see how I’ve gotten around that little problem! I’ve added cranberries to my traditional apple crisp, which clearly makes this a perfect winter and Christmas dessert!

This cranberry apple crisp is so good. It is sweet and perfectly spiced, just like any good apple crisp should be. The cranberries add just the right amount of tartness to counteract the sweetness of the crumb topping. Plus they add a nice pop of bright red color in an otherwise brown dessert. 🙂

You can use any traditional baking apple, but I stuck with Michigan Fuji, a tried and true favorite for apple crisp, and they didn’t disappoint.  The apples and cranberries are tossed with cinnamon sugar and nutmeg mixture and topped with a brown sugar crumb topping. Yum!!

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Please promise me that this chocolate chip cookie pie will make an appearance at your Thanksgiving table! Doesn’t it look so good?? And trust me, it tastes even better than it looks!

When I was in college, there was a certain dessert that was universally loved. It was called Tollhouse pie and was a delicious combination of pie and chocolate chip cookies. I’ve wanted to recreate it at home for awhile now, and this chocolate chip cookie pie is exactly what I hoped it would be.

It is rich and chocolately and gooey and completely delicious. It is basically a melty chocolate chip cookie in a pie crust. Serve it warm with a little sweetened whipped cream or ice cream and you will not believe how good it is.

Best of all, it is one of the easiest pies I’ve ever made. It would be perfect for your Thanksgiving dinner, or really just for anytime you need a yummy dessert. Enjoy!

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I can’t even begin to tell you how good this old fashioned apple cake is! It is one of the best cakes I’ve ever made, and definitely my new favorite fall dessert.

The cake is perfectly spiced, incredibly moist, and full of chunks of apples. And the brown sugar frosting tastes just a little bit like brown sugar fudge!

The combination of the moist cake and rich frosting makes this cake a winner. It’s very sweet, which means you can cut small pieces and serve a crowd. It’s definitely my new go-to pot-luck dessert!

I made this old fashioned apple cake to take to pot-luck lunch at church, and it was a definite hit. I didn’t bring too many pieces home, and any cake that was left over was quickly gobbled up by family members later that night. I think that means it was a success. 🙂

Please try this cake – I have a feeling it will become one of your favorites as well. 🙂

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I’ve got one more blueberry recipe for you to help you finish off summer baking in spectacular fashion! I have made so many blueberry recipes over the past few years, and yet there always seem to be more I want to make. 🙂 When I made this blueberry buckle with lemon glaze, I couldn’t believe how good it was! It is rich and buttery and crumbly and absolutely chock full of blueberries. It’s basically a single layer cake studded with blueberries and topped with a delicious crumble topping – kind of like a cross between a blueberry muffin and a coffee cake!

I made this cake with fresh Michigan blueberries that we’d picked a few days earlier, but I’m pretty sure you could use frozen berries with just as much success. If you’ve got extra blueberries around your house I hope you try this recipe – you will love it!

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If you’re looking for an easy and delicious candy to make this Christmas, look no further than this easy sea salt toffee! It only requires four ingredients, and it certainly passes the “I can’t stop eating this candy!” test. 🙂 The toffee has a perfect sweet and salty taste, and the texture is deliciously crunchy. I’m serious when I tell you it is addictive! You need to immediately find some people to share this with or you will be in trouble. 🙂 This toffee makes a tasty Christmas gift and is perfect to set out for people to snack on when you have company. Best of all, you probably have all the ingredients to make it in your house right now. It’s so quick and easy to make that you have no excuse – give it a try and let me know if you like it as much as we do.

Easy Sea Salt Toffee is day 3 of the 12 Days of Christmas Treats! I will post a new cookie every day for the first 12 days of December. You can see all these recipes from over the years under my Christmas Cookies tag. 🙂 See all of this year’s cookies here: 12 Days of Christmas Treats 2015. Enjoy! And, as always, let me know if you try any and how you liked them.

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