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Cinnamon Swirl Chocolate Chip Bread

I had a relaxing morning reading God's word, listening to Hillsong, finishing my wax-ups, and baking this! Lately, God has been convicting me of not feeling content with my situation, and it has really been depleting my joy in Him. For more read below! Anyways, here's the recipe I made. It's one of the simplest recipes ever but surely will be a favorite! Click here for the recipe!

This morning, I read this devotional from Oswald Chambers (utmost.org) that talks about why we suffer, and how we can use our persecutions or criticisms or failures for God's glory. These are all definitely things that we all go through. And let me tell you, it's never easy. In these times, we are to remain faithful because faith brings us closer and more aligned to Christ. God tests us, and for good reasons, and in the end we can look back and say that it made us stronger and so much more dependent on Him. Right now, I can't say I completely always trust God, especially when things suck and school is hard. But reading His word every day is a reminder to me that, with faith, comes doubt. And doubt is okay! We are allowed to doubt God, but through this, we need to remember to CLING to Him and just watch His faithfulness shine through.

 . . but rejoice to the extent that you partake of Christ’s sufferings . . . —1 Peter 4:13

If you are going to be used by God, He will take you through a number of experiences that are not meant for you personally at all. They are designed to make you useful in His hands, and to enable you to understand what takes place in the lives of others. Because of this process, you will never be surprised by what comes your way. You say, “Oh, I can’t deal with that person.” Why can’t you? God gave you sufficient opportunities to learn from Him about that problem; but you turned away, not heeding the lesson, because it seemed foolish to spend your time that way.

The sufferings of Christ were not those of ordinary people. He suffered “according to the will of God” (1 Peter 4:19), having a different point of view of suffering from ours. It is only through our relationship with Jesus Christ that we can understand what God is after in His dealings with us. When it comes to suffering, it is part of our Christian culture to want to know God’s purpose beforehand. In the history of the Christian church, the tendency has been to avoid being identified with the sufferings of Jesus Christ. People have sought to carry out God’s orders through a shortcut of their own. God’s way is always the way of suffering— the way of the “long road home.”

Are we partakers of Christ’s sufferings? Are we prepared for God to stamp out our personal ambitions? Are we prepared for God to destroy our individual decisions by supernaturally transforming them? It will mean not knowing why God is taking us that way, because knowing would make us spiritually proud. We never realize at the time what God is putting us through— we go through it more or less without understanding. Then suddenly we come to a place of enlightenment, and realize— “God has strengthened me and I didn’t even know it!”

Oh How I Need You

You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.

{Jeremiah 29:13}

When it's just one of those days....

Lord I find You in the seeking

Lord I find You in the doubt

And to know You is to love

And to know so little else

I need You

Oh how I need You

Oh how I need You

Oh how I need You

Lord I find You in the morning

Lord I seek You every day

And let my life be for Your glory

Woven in Your threads of grace

Light glorious light

I will go where You shine

Break the dawn, crack the skies

Make the way bright before me

In Your light, I will find

All I need, all I need is You

Pumpkin Pie Bars

I had the sweet pleasure of having lunch and baking with my lovely friend Brenda yesterday! She is an amazing woman of God, and I am always so encouraged by her devotion to serving God through serving others. I am so glad that I have her with me in dental school because I'm not sure what I would do without her! Anyways, here's what we made! 

Me in my new apron from Ner! <3 td="">

Hard at work!

Find my Matcha Green Tea Shortbread recipe if you wanna learn how to make these! 

INGREDIENTS

For the crust/topping:
1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
¼ cup granulated sugar
½ cup brown sugar, firmly packed
12 tbsp. cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces
1 cup old-fashioned oats
½ cup chopped pecans/peanuts

For the filling:
8 oz. cream cheese, softened
½ cup granulated sugar
3 large eggs
1 (15 oz.) can pumpkin puree
1 tbsp. pumpkin pie spice
1 tsp. vanilla extract
White Chocolate chips, for topping

Preheat the oven to 350° F. Line a 7×11-inch (you can also do 9x13) baking pan with foil, extending the foil over the edges of the pan. Lightly grease the foil. Combine the flour, granulated sugar and brown sugar in a small mixing bowl and toss with a fork. Add the pieces of butter to the dry ingredients and cut it in with a pastry blender until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Stir in the oats and chopped nuts.

Reserve 1 cup of the crust mixture and set aside. Add the remaining crust mixture to the prepared baking pan and press onto the bottom of the pan in an even layer. Bake the crust alone in the oven for 15 minutes. In the meantime, prepare the filling.

To make the filling, combine the cream cheese, sugar, eggs, pumpkin puree, pumpkin pie spice and vanilla in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix on medium speed until smooth and well combined.

Once the crust has been removed from the oven, pour the filling into the pan and smooth over the crust. Sprinkle with the reserved crumb mixture and white chocolate chips, as desired. Bake for 35-40 minutes (if using 9x13 bake for 25 min) remove from the oven and transfer to a wire rack to cool. Slice and serve.

Adapted from: Annie's Eats 

3 Ingredient Pumpkin Swirl Muffins

Okay, these don't look the greatest, but they taste pretty good! You only need three ingredients, DATS IT. The recipe was found on Pinterest :) The thing is that the cake part is hard to tell when it's done, because the cake batter was light and airy so it almost seems cooked already! I think I baked mine for about 10-15 minutes. 

Ingredients: 
1 box Yellow Cake Mix
1 15 oz. can Pumpkin 
2 cups any kind of spread (Nutella, Cookie Butter, Biscoff, etc.) I used the Speculoos and Cocoa spread from Trader Joe's 

Just mix the cake mix with the pumpkin really well. Scoop into a muffin tin. Then put a teaspoon of your spread into the batter and swirl it in. Bake at 350 F for about 10-15 minutes for the mini muffins. If you bake it in a cake pan then it will probably be 35-40 minutes.

If you have faith as a mustard seed..nothing will be impossible for you. Matthew 17:20

We have the idea that God rewards us for our faith, and it may be so in the initial stages. But we do not earn anything through faith— faith brings us into the right relationship with God and gives Him His opportunity to work. Yet God frequently has to knock the bottom out of your experience as His saint to get you in direct contact with Himself. God wants you to understand that it is a life of faith, not a life of emotional enjoyment of His blessings. The beginning of your life of faith was very narrow and intense, centered around a small amount of experience that had as much emotion as faith in it, and it was full of light and sweetness. Then God withdrew His conscious blessings to teach you to “walk by faith” (2 Corinthians 5:7). And you are worth much more to Him now than you were in your days of conscious delight with your thrilling testimony.

Faith by its very nature must be tested and tried. And the real trial of faith is not that we find it difficult to trust God, but that God’s character must be proven as trustworthy in our own minds. Faith being worked out into reality must experience times of unbroken isolation. Never confuse the trial of faith with the ordinary discipline of life, because a great deal of what we call the trial of faith is the inevitable result of being alive. Faith, as the Bible teaches it, is faith in God coming against everything that contradicts Him— a faith that says, “I will remain true to God’s character whatever He may do.” The highest and the greatest expression of faith in the whole Bible is— “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him” (Job 13:15).   [Utmost.org]

Green Tea White Chocolate Chip Cookies

I'm about to barf out a whole bunch of recipes for y'all. Here's what I made yesterday for some special friends! I'm obsessed with the green tea powder I bought from Amazon, so here's another way I used it. White chocolate x Green Tea is a great combo, lemme just say! These cookies are dense and chewy, they have the perfect green tea flavor. :) 

Ingredients

• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 tablespoons green tea powder (matcha)
• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
• 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1 large egg yolk
• 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• 3/4 cup white chocolate chips

1. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, salt, and green tea powder. Set aside.

2. In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat together butter, and granulated sugar until light and fluffy, about 3-5 minutes. Stop the mixer and use a spatula to scrape down the sides of the bowl. Add egg, egg yolk, and vanilla  extract, and beat on medium speed until mixture is fluffy, about 1-2 minutes.

3. Add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture and beat on low speed until just combined. Fold in the white chocolate chunks or chips with a spatula. Cover dough with plastic wrap and refrigerate for about 45 minutes.

4. Place racks in the center and upper third of the oven and preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

5. Scoop heaping tablespoonfuls of cookie dough onto the prepared baking pans, spacing them about 1 1/2-2 inches apart. Bake in preheated oven for about 12 minutes, until edges are lightly browned. Remove from oven, and allow cookies to cool on pans for about 10 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

Recipe and all credit goes to The Blissful Baker

Korean Glass Noodles (Jap Chae)

HEY PEEPS, so first of all, I'm not Korean or anything, but I do love Korean food! This is one of my all time favorites, and I made it like a couple of weeks ago. But I finally have had time to post it on my blog. Please don't judge if you know your Korean food... haha if this isn't authentic or anything, but I got the recipe off another blog! And tasted pretty legit to me, haha so try it out if you'd like :) 

For the recipe and a YouTube video and great explanations, click here!

"Christ has no body now on earth but yours, no hand but yours, no feet but yours; yours are the eyes through which he looks with compassion on the world, yours are the feet with which he is to go about doing good, and yours are the hands with which he is to bless us now." - St. Teresa of Avila

Have you ever stopped to realize how special you are, and how much God has empowered you to work through Him? I definitely forget all the time. We are his hands and his feet, and people should see Christ through us! What a difficult but rewarding way to live our lives and a constant struggle for me as well. When we are adopted into God's family, He will shower us with His blessings, and it makes Him so happy when we are living our lives in every way for Him...and for His glory only.

12 Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. 13 Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. 14And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. 15 Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. 16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God. 17 And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.  [Colossians 3:12-17]