There were some pretty incredible and edible things going on in blog world this week. Here are a few of my favorite sweet treats!
Food Rocks Man made the most beautiful Blanc Manger with Strawberries and Sponge Cake. It looks light, delicate and flawless. I love the way he took an great Dorie Greenspan recipe and made it [...]
Ok everyone… take a deep breath. It’s time for pie!
This beast of a pie is Peabody’s Grandmother’s Lime Conspiracy Pie with marshmallows.
It is a result of the convergence of several things in my mind and in my pantry.
A friend mentioned a pie topped with tiny colorful marshmallows. Sounds like a great idea, right? On [...]
Remember those Low Fat Chocolate Muffins I was working on last week? Well I’ve found a winner! These Two Bite Chocolate Chunk Muffins are sure to satisfy that nagging chocolate craving. Now, if you have a craving for something like… I dunno… dark chocolate cheesecake with extra thick hot fudge, then I suggest you kindly decline one [...]
It’s possible that you’ve never even considered the question of salt, but salt in an essential component in baking. Sure, you may only add 1/2 a teaspoon at a time to your baked goods, but don’t take salt for granted! Salt accentuates the flavor of bakes goods. It particularly enhances the flavors of butter, and [...]
It all started out so beautiful and promising- with diced dried fruit, wholesome nuts and old-fashioned oats. I was my day away from the bakery, and I thought I’d use my kitchen to experiment with homemade granola bars. I seem to have trouble eating normally, standing on my feet all day, working in [...]
This morning I started the day thinking about Easter as a child. It was the holiday as exciting as Christmas. There were personalized Easter baskets filled with candies and chocolates on a bed of fake plastic grass. There was always some sort of delicious ham and potato meal And the Easter egg hunt. Oh… the [...]
Can I get away with calling this an Easter muffin? Easter bunnies eat corn. Don’t they? Well, if they existed, they’d eat corn… right?
Didn’t Bugs Bunny eat corn? No, that was carrots. Oh crap. It was carrots, not corn. And here I am with Corn and Orange Muffins on Easter weekend.
I’ll admit, this [...]
I often find myself with several bags of chocolate chips roaming freely in my cabinets. Today I found large milk chocolate chips, mini semi-sweet chips and white chocolate chips. When I bake cookies, I usually chop chocolate from a large bar of good chocolate, so it’s strange that I would find so [...]
I’ll be the first to admit that I have gotten prematurely excited about strawberry season. I’ve already played with strawberry sugar paper, and here I am with strawberry ice cream. It’s not even April! Strawberries aren’t at their peak flavor yet, but I see baskets of them in every market I visit. I just can’t help myself, [...]
I took a day away from the kitchen yesterday, yet still found myself with a cupcake in hand. It figures-I’m never too far away from a sweet treat, whether it’s baked by me or one of my favorite Los Angeles bakeries.
This mini chocolate raspberry cupcake is from Vanilla Bake Shop in Santa Monica. It’s a chocolate [...]
I know, low fat!? I’m trying something different. I’m trying to make low fat muffins balls for those out of control chocolate cravings. I’ve made these muffins an easy snacking option- 2 muffins balls are 100 calories. Good, right!? These muffins are dressed up with whole wheat flour, part skim ricotta cheese and dark chocolate [...]
Slice and bake sugar cookies are so much fun to play around with. If you can dream it up, you can throw it in sugar cookies. This time around I chose sweet dried apricots and cornmeal for crunch.
I always have a log of sugar cookie dough stashed in the freezer for those [...]
These are simple Lemon Scented Buttermilk Cupcakes with Brown Sugar Cream Cheese Frosting, decorated with fondant flowers and edible pearls.
Cream cheese frosting is one of my favorite toppings for cakes and cupcakes! From citrus scented cakes, to rich chocolate cupcakes, cream cheese frosting is a decadent and versatile cake topping.
Cream cheese frosting is [...]
Spring has sprung and figs are growing! Their season is still a few months away, but I had to get a picture of these budding beauties in my friend’s backyard.
It’s possible that you may not understand my deep affection for figs. They are my favorite food, without hesitation. Figs are divine. [...]
Frosting a two layer cake doesn’t have to be daunting. You don’t have to be a math genius, or an abundantly creative person. It’s just cake! You’ll just need a plane cake, some frosting, a smile on your face, and a few basic kitchen supplies.
Ok, the smile is optional, but it generally helps.
Make the jump and [...]
How do I describe the taste of Red Velvet cake? Well, it’s not vanilla cake, but it’s certainly not all chocolate. Red Velvet cake, for lack of a more creative vocabulary, tastes like sweet red cake. Without rich and decadent frosting, this cake is light, moist, quite tasty and yes, red. My favorite Red Velvet [...]
The title to both this post and this dessert is a little hum drum. Russian Grandmothers’ Apple Pie Cake… it just doesn’t set off fireworks in my head. And frankly, I always feel a bit off put when apostrophes are in strange places (here I am considering s’ strange). I was an English major in [...]
With these Honey Pistachio Biscotti, I would like a do-over. Please and thank you. You know what a do-over is: another chance, a big pink eraser for life, apple Z on a Mac. See, this biscotti recipe called for dried cranberries to accompany the pistachios. Cranberries would have been lovely, right? Well I was completely [...]
The Whopper. The Red Velvet Whopper is a three layer red velvet cake with brown sugar cream cheese frosting. The sides are decorated with dried red velvet cake crumbs and royal blue dots. She’s a beauty. But this post isn’ really about the Whopper, it’s about all of the beautiful cakes in blog land this [...]
I’m not a kitchen equipment junkie. I more of a kitchen minimalist. I really couldn’t do without just a few things: stainless steel mixing bowls, my darling Kitchen Aid, a cast iron skillet, and good metal measuring cups, high temperature spatulas and my brilliant bench knife.
Don’t have a bench knife? Well you should! A bench knife is a 3-inch by 6- inch smooth piece [...]
I have a confession to make. It’s about cinnamon rolls. I love these gooey little treats to pieces, but I only eat the center. That’s it, just the center coil. Why? That’s where all the goodness is! I see the rest of the cinnamon roll as protection for the precious, beyond delicious center. I always [...]
This spring- green is the new pink, and navy is the new black. Trust me, I just know these things.
Are cake bites the new cupcake?
Cupcakes are all the rage, but these cake bites, they might just have something to em. These Strawberry Vanilla treats were inspired by Hilary and Bakerella. I fell hard for their Red Velvet [...]
Lemon and blueberry are my go-to ( by ‘go-to’ I actually mean lazy) combination. I’ve never had a bad day if lemon and blueberry joined forces at breakfast. It’s true, they never fail me.
Too bad I can’t say the same thing for the fail dogs. Have you seen the creatures? They are dogs (that have [...]
This dessert was born out of the current circumstance of my life. Big things are changing for me in the next few months. While it all feels good and exciting, I have to admit that big change makes me anxious. You might think that when I get anxious, I bake. That makes sense, right? Well [...]
By Sunday, my fridge is usually full of baking leftovers from the week- a bit of cookie dough, scraps of cake, a tiny bit of frosting. What to do with all these treats sometimes perplexes me. This week, I married the leftover cookie dough I had in the freezer from my cookie extravaganza, and the Swiss [...]
I come from a food lovin’ family, so nearly all of the treats I bake are an effort to rekindle a fond memory from my past. My sister and I are so fixated on food, that all of our family vacations growing up are remembered soley for the food we consumed. About 15 years ago, [...]
