February 21: Sticky Bun Day

Today's Sticky Bun Day.  No baking or attempts at baking today, though - I looked at recipes for sticky buns and my arteries all just kind of shuddered at the thought of more butter and sugar.  (I still have that cherry pie to work on!)

Initially, I thought sticky buns were the same as cinnamon rolls.  They're not.  The crucial difference between sticky suns and cinnamon rolls is how they're baked.  Cinnamon rolls are made by making a roll of dough, slicing it, and then simply placing it in a baking dish.  Icing is then drizzled on top.  In contrast, traditional sticky rolls are made by putting all the "sticky" ingredients in the baking dish first, then putting the dough on top for baking.  After the buns are baked, the baking dish is flipped so that the all the sticky ingredients are on top for serving.  Sticky buns also typically have pecans or walnuts,

Due to my initial reaction of "OMG, no more butter for a week please!" I started looking to see if there were any "healthy" sticky bun recipes.  I found a gluten-free recipe, a whole wheat recipe, a vegan recipe, apple sticky buns.... even a sticky bun recipe from a diabetic food site!  I really wouldn't call any of them "healthy" though.

If you do celebrate Sticky Bun Day by baking sticky buns, just try not to eat the whole batch.  Seriously.  Every picture attached to a recipe looked so delicious, I can honestly see myself eating a whole batch if I made sticky buns.

February 15: International Gumdrop Day

Right after a day of chocolate indulgence and gift-giving, it's International Gumdrop Day!  I'm not sure how this one got "International" tacked on in the title while most others just get "National."

Like cream-filled chocolates, finding gum drops was harder than I expected.  I remember gumdrops being chewy candies with an outer coating of sugar, like these.  I couldn't find gumdrops like that at the three stores I went to.  In fact, the only gum drops I came accross were the DOTS brand, the smooth gumdrops that come in a multitude of flavors.  I'm most familiar with the five basic flavors, so it was neat to learn that DOTS also come in yogurt and tropical flavors.  (I'm not a fan of licorice, so those DOTS were always given away.)

In addition to just eating gumdrops, you can even bake with gumdrops.  Also, gumdrops are great for decorating sweets.  You can place them on top in pretty patterns, slices them for roof tiles or stepping stones for a gingerbread house, make roses with them, or other flowers like pansies or tulips.    Or you can just make your own grumdrops in whatever shapes you want!

January 22: Blonde Brownie Day

Again, another food I had to look up.  Oh, I totally know what a brownie is and I do indulge in one or two every once in a while.  (Those bite-sized brownie pieces make it hard to do!)  But I had no idea what a blonde brownie was.  I thought maybe it was another name for the brownies with peanut butter or butterscotch swirls.

I was wrong, but in looking at blonde brownie recipes, I'm still a little baffled.  Blonde brownies just look like a thick, more cake-y than normal chocolate chip cookie.  This Applebee's (or is it just Applebee's inspired?) recipe for blonde brownies uses a maple syrup topping and that definitely makes it different than chocolate chip cookies.   AllRecipes has a very popular blonde brownies recipe that, if you believe the comments, have earned awards at local cooking competitions.