Weekend | Thanksgiving

This past weekend was Canadian Thanksgiving, my second most favourite time of the year! Every year during the duration of the weekend the town I live in holds a small Thanksgiving fair. It has become a tradition between myself and my best friends to head on over for an afternoon of unhealthy food options and feeding some friendly goats. This year, the weather was really on our side - it was a perfectly sunny day and quite warm, especially for October. There were quite a lot of food options, including a barbecue stand and your usual deep-fried fair food, but I decided to be healthy and get a really delicious falafel pita (and get a bit jealous when my friends ate funnel cakes and french fries)! After eating we headed over to the petting zoo and as you can see the goats really took a liking to me. At one point I had three goats trying to climb on me to get a part of the ice cream cone I was holding! There were also some baby pigs there that were so cute! I didn't manage to get any decent photos of them unfortunately, waaaaah. When it was time to leave I quickly grabbed myself a big stick of cotton candy - my favourite part of the fair!

Before heading off to work on Sunday I spent the morning doing lots of baking for our Thanksgiving dinner the following day. With a bit of help from one of my sisters I managed to bake five pies! Four pumpkin (I know, I know...) and one beautiful (if I do say so myself) apple pie! They were all incredibly delicious and I wish I had some leftovers to eat right now... at eleven thirty at night. For the pie crust I used this recipe and tripled it. For the pumpkin pie I tripled this recipe and this recipe for the apple pie using Gala apples. I didn't take any photos during our actual Thanksgiving celebrations, I was much too busy stuffing my face with mashed potatoes and slices of pie topped with whipped cream. Oops!

To my Canadian readers and those who celebrated, I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving filled with lots of delicious food! Thanks for reading! xo

Baking | Gingersnap Cookies

In my house gingersnap cookies are most commonly baked (and eaten) during Christmas time. While these cookies were being baked in the oven my entire house filled up with a smell reminiscent of Christmas. I know, I know. I'm about two months too early. However, the spicy flavour of these cookies make them perfectly suitable for the Autumn months as well. These cookies are soft and chewy and just so delicious!

The recipe I used comes from the October issues of Canada's Style at Home magazine. According the the magazine this recipe makes two dozen cookies, but I was able to make thirty-eight nice sized cookies. I have also altered the recipe slightly by using a bit less butter (by accident!) but they turned out perfectly fine!

Gingersnap Cookies -

Yield: 24-38 Cookies

Ingredients:

4 Cups All-Purpose Flour

2 1/2 Tsp Baking Soda

2 Tsp Ground Ginger

1 Tsp Cinnamon

1/2 Tsp Ground Cloves

1/2 Tsp Salt

3/4 Cup Room Temperature Unsalted Butter (I used 1/2 Cup instead)

2 Cups Granulated Sugar, Plus More for Coating

3 Large Eggs

1/2 Cup Fancy Molasses

1 Tsp Pure Vanilla Extract

Instructions: 

1 - Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and line your cookie sheets with parchment paper or lightly grease them.

2 - In a large bowl, sift together your flour, baking soda, ginger, cinnamon, cloves and salt; set aside. 

3 - In the bowl of your stand mixer using the paddle attachment, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy on medium-high speed. Be sure to scrape down the sides of the bowl.

4 - Add in the eggs one at a time, briefly beating between each addition. Scrape down the sides of the bowl.

5 - Add in the molasses and vanilla. Mix on high speed until the molasses and vanilla are well combined and the batter is light brown in colour. Scrape down the sides of the bowl again.

6 - With the mixer on low speed, add in the dry ingredients and mix until fully combined. 

7 - Fill a small bowl with about a 1/2 cup of sugar. Use an ice cream scoop to drop out equally sized portions of cookie dough into the sugar one at a time. Roll the ball of dough around in the sugar until coated. Repeat with remaining dough, placing the cookies onto the baking sheet 1 1/2" apart. 

8 - Gently press down on the balls of dough with the palm of your hand to slightly flatten the cookie.

9 - Bake for 15-17 minutes or until the cookies are firm around the edges but still slightly soft in the centre. Remove from the oven and transfer cookies onto a rack to cool. 

I hope you all had a great weekend! x