Grace's Worms in Dirt

As Beatrice's mother would say, "Eat your dirt!"

Happy Halloween, everyone! Halloween is one of my favorite holidays, and I'm always excited to get a chance to celebrate it. Admittedly, that usually gets a little harder to do when you get older and trick or treating if off the table, but now that I'm finished with school and employed, I decided this year I'd throw my first ever Halloween party. 

The theme? A certain animated miniseries that perfectly blends Americana, folklore, fairy tales, and general Halloween fun called Over the Garden Wall. Jessi and I carefully planned a menu full of treats inspired by the show and one of them is an old favorite classroom treat of mine: worms in dirt. Read on to learn a little about the history of this perfectly spooky treat!

It's Our Fifth Anniversary!: Milestones, New Beginnings, and a Giveaway

Happy fifth birthday to the blog!

So, today is a very special day for me – it’s A Peek into the Pantry’s 5th anniversary! So much has changed since I started writing this blog, most of it definitely for the better, and to celebrate, I’m hosting another giveaway featuring some of my favorite recipes from the past five years. 

And yes, they’re all dessert. Maybe we’ll do the savory version next year!

Mini Grace dines at America Eats Tavern in Georgetown

Historically inspired dishes in the heart of Georgetown!

This has been an exciting, eventful summer so far, which is unfortunately why the blog has been so quiet these last few months. I’m hoping to come back with a fall full of exciting historical recipes, possibly with some new friends to explore those with us, as well as celebrating A Peek into the Pantry’s fifth anniversary next week! 

But until then, I do have a little something to tide you over: a trip to America Eats Tavern in Georgetown!

Les Grandes Grandes Vacances de Petite Grace, Part Two

First stop: Disneyland Paris!

Hope you all enjoyed Part One of Grace’s Long, Long Holiday! Time to kick off part two, which might be a little bit shorter. I did overdo it with the pictures a little in the first one… 

Speaking of which, I forgot to share some of the pictures of all the beautiful poppies we saw in Normandy! I was in heaven. Poppies are my favorite flower and seeing them sprinkled through the fields was really magical.

But okay, on to Disney Paris.

Les Grandes Grandes Vacances de Petite Grace, Part One

Or, Mini Grace's Long, Long Holiday

Guess who finally graduated from her master’s program! And then promptly still hasn’t had enough time to sit down and get back to blogging the way she wants to. Hopefully that will change once I’ve moved into my new place, gotten back to work, and gotten married (!!), but we’ll see. Maybe I just need to make peace with the fact that A Peek into the Pantry isn’t going to ever get back to a seven posts a month schedule. 

Another reason I’ve been a little absent here is Mini Grace and I went on quite an adventure! Enough of one that I’ve decided to split it into two blog posts to spare you all from sifting through hundreds and hundreds of photos all at once. I’m really excited to share some of our adventures with you. 

Where did we go?

Grace's Last Minute Christmas Baking: Santa's Trash Cookies and Holiday Shortbread

Some tasty, last minute additions to any holiday gathering!

In the four years I’ve been doing this blog, there are only two holidays I’ve done a post for every year: VE Day, and Christmas. Sort of a weird pair, right? 

Considering how infrequently I’ve been able to post this past two years, I knew I didn’t want to break my streak, but I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do this year. The first few years I’ve had this blog, I tried to feature historical recipes for each character, and I’ve shared some of my family’s Christmas traditions in the past as well. I knew I wasn’t going to have time to do the former, and a lot of the latter had already been taken care of by my family members, so I was feeling a little stuck. 

Fortunately, the internet provided some awesome last minute suggestions that I was happy to break out. One didn’t turn out as well as I had hoped, but the other might just become a fan favorite. I know I sure liked them! 

Read on to find out how some simple additions can make any cookie nice and festive.

It's Our Third Anniversary!: New Adventures, New Friends, and the Boston Cooler

Hey everyone! Long time no see! This is Grace stepping in to make sure this blog post actually gets out in time for our anniversary. Gwen's been sooo busy lately she's barely had time to look at our email, let alone cook (or bake! :( ) anything new and exciting, so me and the other dolls thought we'd do her a favor and write this year's anniversary post for her. Since Gwen likes to joke that I'm turning into her mini me, I get to be the one catching you guys up!

So, what have we been up to?

That's not my beautiful kitchen...

We've moved!

Grace's Root Beer Float Cupcakes

My long search for the key ingredient is over!

Can you believe it's August already? I feel like the last two months have gone by way too fast. I'm neck deep into packing for my big move, and am trying my very best to keep up with blog stuff until I'm out the door and on the road.

People keep insisting that I shouldn't kill myself trying to make sure blog posts go out on time, and they're right! But the fact is, I want to do as much as I can before I start my next adventure. I intend to continue posting here and learning more about food history, but since none of us know what the future holds, might as well make the best of things while we can, right?

One thing I knew I wanted to do before I left was feature this unusual but extremely tasty cupcake recipe. Much like the flourless chocolate cake I made earlier this summer, this is a recipe I've been wanting to feature for a really, really long time, but there was one thing keeping me from committing to it: root beer extract.

Grace's Flourless Chocolate Cake

Or, the dessert I promised my sister I'd make three years ago. Sorry, Abby!

July has worked out to feature two recipes I'd never thought I'd make in my own kitchen that turned out pretty darn amazing, if I do say so myself. You'll see the next one in a couple days, but right now, I want to take a minute to talk about one of the best desserts I've ever made. I know, I know, I say that basically every other week, but every once and a while, I really truly mean it.

Okay, I actually mean it every time I've said it, because I have made and eaten a lot of really fun, tasty stuff.

But this kind of holds a special place in my heart because it really was never something I thought would be simple and delicious to make and eat at home. I'm sure most of us have at least seen if not tasted a flourless chocolate cake at a restaurant. It's a pretty standard dessert offering, usually paired with raspberry sauce and/or vanilla ice cream, and I've enjoyed it many a time, figuring hey, this probably doesn't turn up on people's picnic tables because it must be really hard to make.

As it turns out, not only is that not true at all, but you probably have all the ingredients to make it in your own home right now! Talk about awesome, right? My life is never going to be the same.

Grace's Chocolate Mousse

Simple, delicious, and probably shouldn't be served in a giant ramekin...

When I first introduced Grace, I mentioned how I'd found out that in France, most people don't make their own desserts. It's customary to purchase them at a local bakery or sweet shop instead. But there are two recipes that are exceptions to this rule: the yogurt cake I tried and slightly failed to make in said intro, and chocolate mousse. Which is what we're going to talk about here!

Chocolate mousse has slightly mysterious - or at least murky - origins. No one really knows when it was invented, but we do know that people have been making mousses since the 1700's, and it did get its start in France. Since Europeans had been enjoying chocolate for almost a hundred years at that point, it's not all that surprising to think that someone got the idea to put the two together! Some researchers think it came to be when people started adding eggs to the customary chocolate drink to make it thicker and foamier, and eventually someone added cream and sugar, and presto! Chocolate mousse.

Grace makes Cookie Brittle & Elevator Lady Spice Cookies

Happy Holidays from A Peek into the Pantry!

Happy Holidays, everyone! Whether or not you celebrate Christmas, I hope you've had a good December so far and can get a kick out of hearing about some of my family traditions. I've had a chance to highlight a few of these in the past, but the recipes I'm sharing today are something I took charge of making this year, rather than learning from the original masters: my two grandmas!

It seemed only fitting that Grace be the host for this post. Grace's books center around her love of baking, which started because her grandparents run a successful bakery in town. She loves visiting them and helping them out in the kitchen, and turns to them for advice when she and her friends decide they want to start their own baking business! I don't exactly have a tradition of baking with my grandmas and we definitely don't own a family bakery, but I definitely do think of these recipes as "their" recipes. I hope you'll enjoy hearing about how to make them yourself!

It's Our Second Anniversary!

Welcome to Year Three, everyone!

And we're celebrating with the skillet cookie and a giveaway! That's right: for the first time ever, there's free stuff involved. As a thank you to our loyal readers, I wanted to host a small sweepstakes, and because mailing you all a skillet cookie would be a little messy, I decided to do something a little different.

Readers who enter the sweepstakes will have a chance to win a $15 e-gift card to King Arthur Flour, a 225 year old company that specializes in baking and cooking equipment. They're where I bought my ice cream machine!

For sweepstakes rules and more information, please click "Read more" below!

Mini Grace's Report from Munich

Hello from Germany!

A few weeks ago, my parents, younger brother and I went on a trip to Munich, Germany. While I didn't have access to a kitchen and probably wouldn't have done a blog post there if I did, I did want to share some of our adventures with my readers, and so I brought along a little friend with me.

Say hello to mini Grace! Who unfortunately is always going to be promoting her love of Paris no matter what because I lack the ability to make her a mini Munich t-shirt. She was a fun pocket sized travel companion, and we got to see a lot of interesting stuff!

Grace's Ice Pops

Nothing beats a home made frozen treat!

Since 1993, American Girl Magazine has been publishing bimonthly magazines full of articles aimed at eight to fourteen year old girls. While originally the magazine had slightly more of a focus on history and the doll line sold by the company - several short stories about the older characters like Molly and Samantha were first published in the magazine before being released as small hardback books - it eventually became less connected specifically to the doll line and the historical characters, and now mostly focuses on the experiences of average, modern girls.

One thing that hasn't changed is their enthusiasm for sharing easy recipes for kids to make themselves, or with the help of a parent. What we're making today are two recipes I remember from an issue of the magazine I read sometime around 1997 and have never been able to get out of my head. Amazing what some decent food photography can do to keep something floating around like that!

Guacamole with Grace and Kailey

A weekend favorite we're always dying to bring out again.

Whenever my sister's home from school, there is a huge demand for her to make her famous guacamole, especially on weekends. This stuff goes fast, and if you don't take your spot at the coffee table and swoop in with enthusiasm, you don't get any. It truly is a case of you eat or you don't get any in the Game of Guacamole.

Sorry, that was bad.

Honestly, I didn't used to like guacamole much, but after trying some at a restaurant out of desperation - I was starving and our food was taking forever to arrive - I've become a fan, much to the disappointment of my other family members because that means one more person to compete with for it.

I've been wanting to share this with you guys for months, and Abby and I finally found a time to do it this weekend! Since Grace and Kailey are our Girl of the Year dolls and this really isn't a historical recipe, they're hosting this post, and my sister got to be the hand model you see in most of the pictures.

Grace's Trip to Hen & Heifer

A taste of France in freezing cold New England.

About two years ago, a very interesting new bakery opened up not too far from where I live. Instead of just being a typical bakery, Hen & Heifer in Guilford, Connecticut prides itself on making the most authentic French treats you can get outside of, well, France! There's no cutting corners or phoning it in, here - the owner will find a way to get his  hands on the most authentic equipment and ingredients he can get to give you a really special treat to snack on, or share with your friends.

Assuming you want to share.

It's a favorite stop of just about everyone in my family, but particularly my grandparents and brothers. Since I've taken an interest in baking and my most recent acquisition to my doll roster happens to have a particular interest in French baking, I decided we needed to take a trip down there and get some tips on how to bring the best French pastries, cakes and cookies to the table, and luckily for us, the owner was happy to let us do a feature!

Grace's French Yogurt Cake

A moist, chocolatey treat that gave me more trouble than I thought it would!

I tried to resist. I really did. But as soon as I heard that this year's Girl of the Year was going to be a baker, I pretty much knew that no matter what she looked like or what her story was, there was a very good chance she was going to be coming here to guest star on my blog. I've never been a big fan of the Girl of the Year line - I didn't get into AG because of the modern dolls, and even if the dolls themselves have been pretty, I've never really bonded with any of the characters, but since she's a baker and her books are actually pretty cute (and are a lot more believable than certain other GotY stories!), I picked her up a few weekends ago while we were in New York.

Thanks to Grace's books, I had no problem coming up with a good first recipe to feature for her. Unfortunately, mine did not turn out as perfectly or easily as Grace's did, to the point of where I'm not sure I'd use this particular recipe ever again! Read on to discover what happened.