dessert

S’more Rice Krispie Treats

July 5, 2018

There are so many recipes that I make at home that never make it to the blog. Some I photograph, but the finished product just doesn’t look or taste right.

Others I make, but never photograph, only having to make them again.

This was almost one of those recipes.

After the weather threatened our chances at making actual s’mores for our 4th of July cookout, I thought I would try something a little different. A total experiment. S’more Rice Krispie Treats!

However, after I made these and served them to my husband and neighbors, it was determined that they HAD TO GO ON THE BLOG.

My very picky husband literally called these S’more Rice Krispie Treats “amazing”.

So here they are, on the blog….with almost no photos. Don’t worry, though. They are very easy to make and require very little visual guidance.

How to Make Them.

First, lay down a layer of graham crackers. My square baking dish didn’t fit them perfectly, so I had to break a few in half to get the entire bottom of the pan covered in graham crackers.

Then, pour melted chocolate over the graham crackers and carefully spread it out so that there is a nice thin layer of chocolate over the crackers.

Now it’s time to make the Rice Krispie treats! Follow the directions on the box or make your very own version of the classic and then dump the Rice Krispie mix on top of the chocolate covered crackers. Use a spatula to press the Rice Krispies down into the chocolate so that the entire pan is full.

Then do everything in reverse! Melt some more chocolate, pour and spread it on top of the Rice Krispie treats, then top with more graham crackers.

Let the entire thing sit and harden for about 30 minutes or until the chocolate has hardened.

Finally, cut them into squares. You can use the top graham crackers as a guide, but they may not line up perfectly with the bottom grahams.

See, so easy right?

Recipe

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Beautiful Fruit Tart with Almond Crust

April 11, 2018

I have now made this tart three times, and in my opinion, it keeps getting better. After each fruit tart, I learn something new to make it a little better. For instance, for the first fruit tart, I made a shortbread crust. Something super simple and super delicious.

For the second version of this tart, I decided to make a Thomas Keller tart crust recipe. My neighbors, who have had this tart each time it was made, told me they liked the first crust better! So for the third (and final) tart, I made the original shortbread-like crust but kept the delicious mascarpone filling that everyone loved in the second.

However, we all know what makes this beautiful fruit tart so eye-catching! The fruit! I really stepped up my game when I made this for Easter and decided to make some pretty fruit flowers instead of just piling on the fruit. It was a hit! Adding the extra details to this tart makes it look very professional and sophisticated when (just between you and me), it’s SUPER easy to make!

I will even allow shortcuts to the recipe. For instance, don’t want to make your own tart shell? Buy one premade, use a frozen pie crust, use store bought cookie dough, or make a quick graham cracker crust! Sure, it won’t taste quite the same as the one I made, but I guarantee it will still be delicious.

There aren’t really any shortcuts for the filling since it’s just mascarpone and sugar mixed together. But, if you wanted to make it a tad healthier, you could use vanilla Greek yogurt instead.

All I am saying is that this post is more about how to assemble a beautiful fruit tart than it is about making one from scratch. However, if you are interested in the later, I’ve got you covered with the recipe down below!

How to Make It

For those who are interested in how to make the tart shell and the filling, read on. If you just want to see how I created the flowers, skip to the next section!

The tart shell is a cross between a shortbread cookie, pie dough, and the super fancy tart shell that Thomas Keller makes.

Combine almond flour, all-purpose flour, sugar, butter, salt, and a teeny bit of water in a food processor and pulse until the dough forms a loose ball.

Like this!

Roll out the dough between two sheets of parchment until it’s big enough to cover the bottom and sides of your tart pan.

Press the dough into the bottom and along the sides of the pan, then cut off any excess.

Add a sheet of parchment and then pour on pie weights, dry beans, or rice. Bake in the oven for about 15 minutes, then remove the pie weights and bake for an additional 10.

While the tart shell bakes, make the filling.

Mix together mascarpone, sugar, and vanilla until it’s light and fluffy.

Once the tart shell has baked and cooled, spread the filling into the bottom of the tart shell.

Now it’s time to assemble!

How to Assemble a Beautiful Fruit Tart

The hard part is creating the fruit flowers. It did take me a few tries to get the strawberries down, but they are pretty easy once you get the hang of it.

The mango flowers are even easier, provided the mangos aren’t too slippery. My mango was very juicy which made the slices a bit harder to roll. But they still aren’t very hard to make.

Like with any flower arrangement, whether on a cookie or on a wreath, I recommend using an odd number of the same type of anything. So I have 5 strawberry flowers and 5 mango flowers. I also have 5 clusters of kiwi. That wasn’t an accident. That was very much on purpose. Odd numbers are more pleasing to the eye so they make this fruit tart look very organic and natural, rather than staged.

However, the best thing about this fruit tart is EATING IT!

It is so delicious! It’s simple, not overpowering, but still incredibly flavorful because of all of the fruit flavors on the top of the tart. I absolutely love this combination of fruit because you have a mix of tart fruits, like kiwi and raspberry, with sweeter fruits like the blueberry, strawberry, and mango. There are also so many different textures, it all comes together to create the perfect dessert!

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised when my neighbors keep requesting this tart for any of our get-togethers!

Tools and Recipe

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Super Soft Sugar Cookies (Lofthouse Style)

March 9, 2018

Over the years I have had friends tell me that my sugar cookies remind them of the Lofthouse cookies that we all know and love. The main difference is that the cookies that I make when I decorate cookies are not quite as soft and pillowy (otherwise, they wouldn’t be good for decorating).

Since I hear that so often, I have long thought that I need to try my hand at making my own super soft sugar cookies, just like Lofthouse. There are lots of copycat recipes online, but none of them felt quite right.

First of all, a lot of them contain sour cream, heavy cream, shortening, etc. All things I do not normally associate with sugar cookies.

Second, the ingredients are right on the package! So we know exactly what goes into making those super soft sugar cookies!

Let’s take a look, shall we?

(I feel a little bit like Alton Brown, right now, so forgive me a while I nerd out…or just skip ahead.)

Ingredients

A quick Google search of “Lofthouse Cookie Ingredients” will direct you to Walmart’s website where they list the very ingredients for the cookies we are trying to mimic.

Ingredients: Sugar, Enriched Bleached Wheat Flour (Flour, Niacin, Reduced Iron, Thiamine Mononitrate, Riboflavin, Folic Acid), Margarine (Palm Oil, Water, Soybean Oil, Salt, Mono- & Diglycerides, Annatto Extract Color, Calcium Disodium Edta [Preservative], Artificial Flavor, Vitamin A Palmitate), Eggs, Corn Starch, Contains 2% Or Less of: Water, Vegetable Oil (Palm Kernel Oil And/Or Palm Oil And/Or Partially Hydrogenated Vegetable Oil [Cottonseed And/Or Soybean Oil]), Dextrin, Soy Lecithin (Emulsifier), Natural & Artificial Flavors, Skim Milk, Confectioner’s Glaze (Lac Resin), Leavening (Baking Soda, Sodium Aluminum Sulfate, Monocalcium Phosphate), Colors (Carmine (Color), Red 3, Red 40, Blue 1, Blue 1 Lake, Blue 2, Blue2 Lake, Red 40 Lake, Yellow 5, Yellow 5 Lake, Yellow 6, Yellow 6 Lake), Carnauba Wax, Food Starch-Modified, Polysorbate 60, Sodium Propionate (Preservative). Contains Egg, Milk, Soy, Wheat. Manufactured In A Facility That Processes: Peanuts, Tree Nuts.

Ok, some of the ingredients look like things you would find in your high school chemistry textbook, but actually most of it is stuff you would probably already have at home.

Sugar – well, that’s an easy one. Sort of….is it granulated sugar, caster sugar, or confectioners sugar? I am going to guess since it’s listed first (and ingredients are always listed in descending order by weight) that it is both granulated (for the cookie) and confectioners sugar (for the icing).
Enriched Bleached Wheat Flour (Flour, Niacin, Reduced Iron, Thiamine Mononitrate, Riboflavin, Folic Acid) – This is actually cake flour. The cake flour helps make these cookies extra soft and light!
Margarine (Palm Oil, Water, Soybean Oil, Salt, Mono- & Diglycerides, Annatto Extract Color, Calcium Disodium Edta [Preser vative], Artificial Flavor, Vitamin A Palmitate) – Another easy one. I bet margarine is both used in the cookie and the frosting. However, I also bet that it is used instead of butter because it’s cheaper and more shelf stable. Butter will actually yield a more tender cookie, which is exactly what we are trying to achieve.
Eggs – Totally self-explanatory
Corn Starch – Another deceiving ingredient. Is it for the cookie or the icing? Since confectioners sugar is a mix of very fine sugar mixed with cornstarch, I am going to guess this is part of the confectioner’s sugar that goes in the frosting.
Water – This one is tricky. I know I add a bit of water to buttercream to help loosen it a bit, so maybe that’s what it’s for.
Vegetable Oil (Palm Kernel Oil And/Or Palm Oil And/Or Partially Hydrogenated Vegetable Oil [Cottonseed And/Or Soybean Oil]) – This is another tricky one. Oil is sometimes added to cookies to make them a bit more tender. And since these cookies are definitely tender, I’ll bet it’s added to the cookie dough for that very reason.
Dextrin – This is a thickening agent that is probably used for the icing so that it stays on the cookie and doesn’t melt or slide off.
Soy Lecithin (Emulsifier) – If you read your labels carefully, you will realize that this ish is in everything! As you can tell by the parenthetical it is used as an emulsifier so that the water and fats stay together and don’t separate. Probably for the icing.
Natural & Artificial Flavors – While they don’t explicitly say what flavors (gotta keep some secrets), it’s almost certainly vanilla and maybe almond extract.
Skim Milk – The use of skim milk surprises me since I find that whole milk is certainly better for baking. But I am not exactly sure where it fits in. I’ll bet that it’s in the dough as another way to keep the cookies moist. If it were added to the frosting, it wouldn’t be shelf stable.
Confectioner’s Glaze (Lac Resin) – This is a baking wax that helps certain ingredients set, like butter, margarine, or chocolate. I’ll bet this is used to help keep the frosting shelf stable.
Leavening (Baking Soda, Sodium Aluminum Sulfate, Monocalcium Phosphate) – We all know what baking soda is, but what about those other two items? Guess what, that’s baking powder! Sodium Aluminum Sulfate and Monocalcium Phosphate are the compounds that make baking powder. And we know, specifically, a baking powder that contains aluminum.

And that’s about where I am going to stop because the rest of the ingredients are just the colors to help the cookies look a certain way.

But holy cow, that is a lot of ingredients for a simple cookie, right?

And you know what I didn’t see on that list? Sour cream, heavy cream, or shortening. Actually, most of the ingredients look like the very same ingredients in my favorite sugar cookie recipe. Shocking!

(Note the sarcasm).

How to Make Them

Okay, now that we know what ingredients go into the cookies we can figure out how to actually make them!

Lucky for you, I’ve already done that part.

You’re welcome.

First, cream together the butter (or margarine) and sugar making sure to get the butter super light and fluffy because the air bubbles will help to keep the cookies pillowy soft.

Next add in the oil, milk, and egg. The oil and milk add a bit more fat and moisture to the cookies so they don’t dry out as much.

Then add in the vanilla and almond extracts for flavor.

The last step is to mix in the flour. I strongly encourage you to use cake flour instead of all-purpose flour because it does make a huge difference.

Regular all-purpose flour has a higher protein content than cake flour which means that it can become a bit tougher and crunchy. That’s perfectly fine for any other cookie, but not these. You want them to be super soft! So go with the cake flour!

(If you don’t want to go out and buy cake flour, here is how you can make your own substitute)

For even more airiness, sift the flour, baking soda, and baking powder into the bowl then mix everything together until just incorporated.

The best part about these cookies is that they require no rolling out or cutting. Just scoop out balls of dough, roll them between the palms of your hands, then press them down to flatten ever so slightly.

Bake the cookies at 325 for about 12 minutes, until they are just barely starting to brown around the edges.

Now, resist the urge to scarf down a cookie immediately out of the oven. Actually, while they are warm, you may think they are TOO soft! They will just fall right apart. But once they cool, they will be perfectly soft and pillowy in the center, with a slight crunch around the outside.

While you wait for them to cool, you can make your frosting.

How to Make the Frosting

The Lofthouse cookie frosting is obviously made with lots of stabilizers and preservatives, as we can see in the list above. That is needed for those cookies since they sit on the shelf for God knows how long before we actually buy them and eat them.

Since I certainly don’t bake with dextrin and soy lecithin, and I assume you don’t either, we are just going to make a classic American buttercream to add to the top of our cookies.

To make the frosting, beat together soft butter, powdered sugar, vanilla, and a bit of water until super creamy and fluffy.

If it’s too dry or crumbly, add a bit more water.

If you want to add some color to your frosting, add a couple drops and mix in.

Then spread the frosting over top of the cooled cookies and decorate however you like!

I like to top off my frosted sugar cookies with some sprinkles because that’s how you would find them in the store.

Now they are especially fun and festive.

But more importantly, they are super soft, sweet, and delicious! Just like the Lofthouse cookies, I would find at the store.

Somehow, these taste even better because of that one secret ingredient…

…love.

Too cheesy?

I know, I rolled my eyes at myself.

The real secret ingredient, in my opinion, is the lack of additives and preservatives. There is just something about a cookie you know isn’t going to last for weeks that just tastes so wonderful!
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Blood Orange Lemon Bars

March 7, 2018

And my obsession with blood oranges continues (example here and here)….

When I first picked up a bag of blood oranges at the grocery store the first thing I wanted to make with them was actually these blood orange lemon bars. I love a good lemon bar, so it seemed like a no-brainer.

Where I went wrong, and why it took me so long to post this recipe, was that I decided to try out a new recipe. Instead of sticking to my tried and true lemon bar recipe, I tested out a couple on the Internet. Even following them to a tee, they turned out horribly. Sure, they tasted fine, but the look and texture were just off.

So I went back to my favorite recipe. Why I ever decided to stray is beyond me. This recipe is delicious, easy, and totally customizable, as evidenced by the two ways I have made it (I even have a Paleo version).

For instance, maybe you want to make this recipe after blood orange season, then make it with normal oranges. Or maybe you like some strawberries with your lemons, make strawberry lemon bars (using this recipe as your guide).

The options are endless.

How to Make It

The foundation of these lemon bars is the crust. What is great about this crust is that it’s a mix between a pie crust and a shortbread. Oh, and you can make it in a food processor!

Pulse together the flour, sugar, and butter in a food processor until it forms a crumbly ball. If it is too dry, add a itty bit of water until it starts to come together.

Press the dough into the bottom of a pan (lined with parchment for easy removal), and poke a few holes in the top so that it doesn’t puff up too much. Pop the crust in the oven to bake while you work on the filling of the lemon bars.

Before juicing your fruit, take all of the zest off of the orange and lemon. You will end up with about 1 tbsp of zest, but I basically just zest the whole fruit without worrying too much about the amount.

With the zest off of the fruit, cut them in half and squeeze the living juice out of them. Hopefully, you will end up with around 1/2 cup. If not, squeeze in another lemon or orange until you get to 1/2 cup.

Next, whisk together the sugar and eggs and give them a good whisking.

Then add the juice, zest, and flour and mix until smooth.

Pour the batter over the baked and cooled crust, then pop back into the oven to bake for a few more minutes.

Once it’s done baking you have a couple options. You can leave it as is and just top with a bit of powdered sugar, slice, and eat.

Or you can top with some blood orange curd for extra blood orange flavor!

I clearly prefer the latter because it not only amplifies the flavor, but it also makes the bars look so polished and professional, with only a little bit more effort.

Now, this last step is definitely optional. I really only did it for the photos because these blood oranges are just so pretty!

I sliced up an orange and a lemon as thinly as possible and then layered them on top of the bars. If I were to make these again, I would actually candy the lemon and orange slices first because they were a bit too juicy.

But it looks so pretty!

Insert heart eyes emoji here. I am so in love with how these look, I almost forgot to mention how amazing they taste.

Insert another heart eyes emoji. I mean, I already have a place in my heart for regular ol’ lemon bars. But these just push it to another level. They have a bit of an orange flavor, but the lemon still comes through. Mostly, I just love the color and the extra layer of citrus flavor.

Once these blood orange lemon bars were sliced into (irregularly shaped) pieces, I wasted very little time gobbling a few down.

They pair very well with a blood orange margarita…I assume…I am definitely not speaking from experience. 😉

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Sugar-Free Sugar Cookies

October 24, 2017

If there is one thing you can find in abundance on this blog, it’s sweets. And I don’t discriminate, I like sweets of all kinds – cookies, cupcakes, cakes, brownies, ice cream. But I do like balancing my sweet tooth with a healthy diet (most of the time). Sometimes I can have the best of both worlds and have my sweets but also be healthy.

Case in point: sugar-free sugar cookies.

Now, I know what you are thinking. How can you make a sugar cookie without sugar? While there may not be any refined sugar in these cookies, there are some all natural sweeteners (agave syrup and Stevia) in these cookies that give them their classic sweetness without the sugar rush.

In addition, the cookies are made with some whole wheat pastry flour which really amps up the healthy factor. Almost making these cookies guilt free. Almost.

These sugar-free sugar cookies already have the sugar-free thing and whole wheat flour going for them, but, in addition, they also use half as much butter as my classic sugar cookie. Thanks to the moisture provided by the agave syrup, you only need a half a cup of butter to make a full batch of cookies.

To make the cookies, I start by mixing together the butter, agave, and stevia. Then I add the egg and vanilla. After that, I mix in the whole wheat pastry flour.

You could also use plain all-purpose flour or normal whole wheat flour. Just be warned that by using 100% normal whole wheat flour you will end up with a distinct whole wheat taste. If that doesn’t bother you then go for it! If it does, I recommend finding some whole wheat pastry flour or white whole wheat flour or mix in half all-purpose and half whole wheat to still get the whole wheat benefit.

One great thing about this dough is that it can be rolled out immediately if you are short on time. But I prefer to wrap my dough in plastic wrap and to let it chill for about an hour before rolling it out. This not only helps the flour soak up some of the moisture, but it makes it a lot easier to roll and cut out.

Normally when I roll out my dough, I just roll it out right on my pastry board with a little bit of flour. But because this dough is a little on the dry side (whole wheat flour tends to do that) I want to use as little flour as possible. To roll out my dough without it sticking to anything, I roll it between two sheets of parchment paper and a tiny sprinkling of flour. Of course, I could do this with my normal sugar cookies, but I am just too lazy.

Then I cut out my cookies as normal and pop them in the oven to bake.

These cookies are perfect for decorating because they keep their shape really well, but are also really light and fluffy thanks to the agave syrup. For decorating these cookies, in keeping with the sugar-free theme, I made a batch of this sugar-free buttercream frosting. I did attempt to make sugar-free royal icing…but I am pretty sure that is impossible. You just need some sugar to make the icing work.

Full disclosure, though, the sprinkles are 100% sugar. I struggled to find any sugar-free sprinkles and decided in the end that cookies with 99% less sugar than a normal frosted sugar cookie is pretty dang good. Of course, if you are looking to eliminate all the refined sugar, you can just skip the sprinkles. Or make your own.

These cookies will be perfect for Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, you name it. You can frost them with sugar-free frosting, or use my favorite royal icing (which is basically pure sugar) if you are just looking to cut out a little bit of sugar.

I am so happy to have this recipe in my back pocket now. Next time I make cookies for my friends’ kids (or myself) I will certainly use this recipe to cut out some sugar and make my cookies a bit more healthy!
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Easy Pie Crust Recipe

June 18, 2017

A pie can only be as good as it’s filling, right? I’d argue that it’s only as good as it’s crust. Okay, maybe the combination of the two.

As a pie crust lover (as a kid I would ONLY eat the crust, not the filling), I’m not above turning my nose up at a pie that has a soggy, rubbery crust (call me a pie snob). A great pie not only has a delicious filling, but MUST be surrounded by a flakey, buttery crust.

Trouble is that getting that perfect pie crust at home isn’t always so easy. It can be a pain in the butt to cut the butter into the flour and make sure you get the right consistency. That’s why frozen pie crust exists!

But frozen pie crust is not the answer. I have found the secret to delicious, flakey, buttery pie crust that you can make at home while barely lifting a finger: the food processor!

You may be thinking that a food processor is just a cop out or its cheating, or that it just can’t produce a good pie crust. I’m hear to tell you that you are wrong and that it can make an excellent pie crust, with one simple tip.

The key to any pie crust is cold butter. I cubed mine up and set it in the freezer for about 10 minutes. Once it was hardendd I added about 3/4 of the butter to the food processor. I kept the rest off to the side to add in later.

Then I processed the butter with just a bit of flour to chop it into smaller pieces.

Finally, I added the rest of the flour and pulsed it in the food processor until it resembled a coarse sand. At this point I added in the reserved butter (so I could have some bigger chunks of butter in there), and turned the processor to low speed while I drizzled in the water.

I knew the dough was ready when it started coming together but still looked a bit dry.

After letting the dough chill for a while, I rolled it out into a relatively thin sheet. I kept a portion of the dough off to the side to decorate with later.

To transfer the dough to the pie dish, I likr to fold the dough in half twice then place the center corner in the center of the pie dish. Then all I do is unfold it, form it to the pan, and trim the edges.

From here, you can fill it with any filling you like. I filled mine with a berry filling that I was testing out (verdict: tastes delish, but method needs some tweaking). You can see that the filling is pretty wet and you may be worried I’ll end up with a soggy bottom (any British Baking Show fans out there?). Well, never fear! This pie crust can stand up to some pretty soggy filings!

I also tried out some fun decorative lattice work. I braided a couple strips and layered then with some plain strips of dough. The I cut out tye extra dough with a small star cutter and placed then aroubd the outside. After a generous egg wash, the pie is ready for the oven!

I couldn’t wait to dig into this pie!! I did my best to let it cool so the filling wouldn’t topple out every where. And iy was worth it! A delicious filling surrounded by a crispy, buttery, and flakey crust.

The pie crust lover in me loved this pie, especially the crust. The best bites were the ones right at the end when it’s 97% crust and 3% pie filling.

I encourage you to try your hand at making your own pie dough at home! I promise, if you let your food procesor do the work for you, its almost as easy as buying the stuff from the store!

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Mexican Chocolate Brownies

May 1, 2017

Looking at these brownies and you may think there is nothing special about them. Sure, they look like plain ol’ brownies. They even smell like plain ol’ brownies. But they are anything BUT plain ol’ brownies.

They are Mexican chocolate brownies!

What is Mexican chocolate, you ask? Well, I am sure someone can give a very technical definition of it, but to me Mexican chocolate is a rich chocolate that is flavored with cinnamon. Sometimes it packs a little punch with some chili. All you really need to know is that it’s delicious and that it makes one damn good brownie.

Don’t worry, you don’t need any fancy or expensive Mexican chocolate to make Mexican chocolate brownies. Actually, your favorite brownie mix and a couple of spices will do the trick just nicely.

Now’s the time I will throw in my quick unsponsored PSA about my favorite brownie mix. I have still yet to find a brownie mix better than Ghirardelli. In fact, I have no motivation to make my own brownies from scratch because this mix yields some of the best brownies that I have ever made. (No they aren’t paying me to say this. I bought that bulk sized box of brownie mix with my own cash money.)

But I do have a trick to making really good brownie mix even better: Replace the water with milk and oil with butter. It will give you the richest, moistest (is that a word?) brownies.

Now you can not take my advice and use another brownie mix or you can make your brownie batter from scratch. But if you want to make them Mexican chocolate brownies, you will need these three things: cinnamon, cayenne, and nutmeg.

You don’t need a lot of any of them to pack a punch. In fact, I recommend only using a dash of cayenne. Just enough to give the brownies a little bit of a kick without people actually realizing what it’s from.

I also used Ceylon cinnamon versus the cinnamon you just buy at the grocery store. I know, you are thinking, “what’s the difference?” If you subscribe to my newsletters you already know the answer. The short story is that the cinnamon that we all know and love isn’t “true” cinnamon. It’s actually a close relative of cinnamon that sort of tastes the same. Ceylon cinnamon is what is used in Mexican chocolate and has a much spicier, richer taste. Of course, if you can’t get your hands on Ceylon cinnamon, you could use the cinnamon you have in your spice cabinet. I am lucky enough to live next to a great spice shop, so I am pretty well stocked with a couple different varieties of cinnamon.

After the spices are added, they are just like any other brownie. Mix up the batter and pour it into a pan. I like to line my pans in parchment so that I can easily lift out the brownies when they are done.

The parchment make it so much easier to get the brownies out of the pan that way they can cool faster…which means you can cut into them faster! The worst part of making brownies is the waiting! Sometimes I will stick them in the fridge to help them cool faster.

If you find that your brownies don’t have enough cinnamon or cayenne, you can always dust them with a little bit of powdered sugar mixed with either….or both. If you want really rich brownies, you could sprinkle on some cocoa powder with some cinnamon mixed in. You can’t go wrong with whatever you do. The brownies are just delicious on their own, but with the added spices they are just at a whole other level. Definitely not your plain ol’ brownie!

Just make sure you have a cup of milk handy when you dive in!

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Delicious Raspberry Lemon Bars

April 12, 2017

Two of my favorite things in life: raspberries and lemons. Love them together, love them separately. But boy are they good together.

As a lemon lover, you better believe I can throw down some lemon bars. They are one of my absolute favorite desserts (Exhibit A: It is my one and only Paleo dessert recipe)! You know what makes them even better? You guessed it! Raspberries! Every bite of these raspberry lemon bars is like drinking raspberry lemonade while eating your favorite lemon bar. Which I could totally go for right about now.

These little lemon bars are made up of three layers. Only two are necessary, but I recommend all three. The first is the crumbly crust.

To make the crust mix together butter, sugar, flour, and lemon zest. To make this easier on yourself, you use food processor to form it into a crumbly dough. If you like to work for your food, then you can use a pastry cutter, a couple knives or forks, or just your hands. They all work great!

Once the dough has sort of formed into a ball, dump it into a square pan and press it down into the bottom and a little bit up the sides. Take a fork and stab it a couple times to make sure that no big air bubbles form. Then pop it in the oven to par bake for a couple minutes while you get the filling ready.

The filling is lemon juice, lemon zest, sugar, eggs, a bit of flour, and some raspberry juice.

To get the raspberry juice, blend the raspberries with a bit of the lemon juice and then strain it back into the measuring cup before adding it to the filling. Once it’s mixed all together, you just pour the filling right into the crust and then bake for another few minutes.

To add even more raspberry to these raspberry lemon bars, you can sprinkle some raspberries into the filling so that there is a little bit of raspberry in each bite.

At the last minute, I decided that there just wasn’t enough raspberry for me, so I decided to make a raspberry curd to go on top.

Raspberry curd is exactly like lemon curd, except you substitute some raspberries for lemon juice. It sounds fancy, but it takes less than 10 minutes to make! Once the lemon curd has cooled a bit, you can spread it over the baked lemon bars, then pop then in the fridge to chill.

I like to let my raspberry lemon bars chill at least a couple hours so that all the layers set and they are a whole lot easier to cut. Just look at those layers! Crunchy, crumbly crust, topped with a sweet raspberry-lemon filling, topped with a raspberry curd. I could just dive right through this computer screen and take a bite.

And don’t forget those little pieces of raspberries! Since the raspberry flavor isn’t overwhelming, it’s nice to get that little pop of berry to balance out the sour lemon.

Now go run off and make these and let me know what you think! If you are a lemon bar lover like me, I would love to know if you like this raspberry version even better!

[amd-yrecipe-recipe:144]

15 Amazing Easter Desserts

April 7, 2017

Hi, my name is Lindsey and I’m addicted to baking. How do I know? (Have you read the blog? That should be all the proof you need.) Well, I promised myself I wouldn’t do any baking this coming weekend after a tornado of flour and sugar went through my kitchen last weekend. But here I am, a week away from Easter wanting to make all of these fun desserts! As I sit here I’m strategizing how I can fit in a carrot cake, macarons, cookies, and petit fours all before Easter. I clearly have issues, folks.

(Although I would also argue that I’m just looking out for my emotional wellbeing per this article)

Since I will hopefully no baking (…well, maybe a little baking?….like one cookie?…I cant just make one cookie….how about 12 cookies….) I thought I would share with you all the things I wish I was making this weekend. Maybe both of us will be inspired by the 15 amazing Easter desserts!

No Bake Chocolate Oreo Bunny Garden Dessert from Oh Sweet Basil

Easy Easter Oreo Bark by Suburban Simplicity

Mini Easter Egg Cakes by the Cake Blog

Italian Easter Bread by Bake with Christina

Easy Easter Bunny Cookies by yours truly

Carrot Patch Cupcakes by Life Made Simple

Cheesecake Filled Chocolate Easter Eggs by Raspberri Cupcakes

Eyelet Lace Easter Cookies by this girl

Pineapple Carrots Cakes by Just a Taste

Healthy No-Bake Chocolate Peanut Butter Nests by Joy Food Sunshine

Surprise Inside Easter Bunny Cake by me

Homemade Reese’s Eggs by OMG Chocolate Desserts

Bunny Pay Thumbprint Cookies by the Bearfoot Baker

Bunny Booty Pretzels by A Soccer Mom Blog

Easter Egg Hunt Cookies by Moms and Munchinks

That solves it. I will definitely be making one of these Easter desserts this weekend. Like those adorable little bunny butt pretzels that require no actual baking. I found a loop hole!

So, who else want to join bakers anonymous with me? I’ll bring some (homemade) donuts to the next meeting. 😉

Classic Red Velvet Cupcakes (made without Food Coloring)

February 13, 2017

My very first experience with Red Velvet cake was watching Steel Magnolias as a kid. Not sure why, but that experience didn’t really inspire me to try red velvet cake for myself (maybe something to do with the Armadillo shape to the cake). It would take another 10+ years and a move to the South for me to have my first bite of red velvet.

And I have been hooked ever since. I have experimented with several recipes over the years trying to find the ultimate recipe for red velvet cupcakes.

But there is something a little bit different about my red velvet cupcakes. Beet juice. Yes friends, my secret ingredient is beet juice. Well, it’s not that big of a secret. A couple of decades ago, just about every red velvet recipe called for beets to give the cake that redish hue. Nowadays, we just dump a whole bottle of red food coloring into the batter and call it day.

But aren’t you kind of sick of using excessive amounts of food coloring? I think it says a lot that the girl that owns no less than 75 bottles of food coloring is telling you not to use food coloring. But I promise, you will feel so much better about eating these cupcakes knowing that they are pretty much au naturale.

Just like any other red velvet recipe, this one combines flour with a touch of cocoa powder and buttermilk to get it that moist velvety texture.

Then to put the red in red velvet I used Mother Nature’s very own food coloring. I actually found some beet juice in the juice aisle of my local grocery store. But I wanted to have a much more concentrated color pay-off without adding too much moisture. So I decided to reduce it on the stove. I poured half a cup of the juice into a sauce pan and let it simmer on the stove for a few minutes until it had reduced by half, resulting in 1/4 cup of some thick beet juice.

I know that seems like a little bit more work than your typical cupcake recipe. But look at how great that batter looks? It’s nice and red, but not artificially so. You know, it’s not that bright stop-sign red.

Once they are baked, they are wonderfully moist and delicious! There is absolutely no sign of beets anywhere in these cupcakes except in color. There is a subtle chocolate flavor, but it’s not too heavy or rich.

And of course I topped off my red velvet cupcakes with my favorite cream cheese frosting. Because in my opinion it’s the cream cheese frosting that really makes a red velvet cupcake so good.

While red velvet is definitely appropriate for Valentine’s Day, I think of red velvet being in season year round. It’s a perfect cake for Summer, since it’s not as rich and heavy as chocolate cake can be. It also seems like a perfect choice for Christmas paired with some green sprinkles or something festive. But please, whatever you do, don’t turn it into an armadillo cake like they did in Steel Magnolias. Nobody wants that.

[amd-yrecipe-recipe:128]

Christmas Oreo Truffles

December 5, 2016

Who else is in the full swing of Christmas baking? This past weekend I probably made 10 pounds of gingerbread dough in addition to a few other Christmas treats. Even though I love it, sometimes it can all get to be too much. Too much melting, mixing, baking, frosting, etc. It’s in these moments that I am so thankful for some really easy, fool-proof Christmas treats. These Oreo Truffles, for instance. They could not be easier to make. 2 ingredients mixed in a food processor and coated in chocolate. And no matter how they look, they taste delicious!

I wanted to do something a little different with my Oreo truffles, so I placed them in a Christmas Ornament candy mold so that each truffle looked like a tiny ornament. So cute, right? It may seem like a lot of work, but I promise, it’s actually really easy!

First, to make the truffles, I processed a box (bag? container? What would you call that thing Oreo’s come in?) of Oreos. Once they were finely ground, I added in a brick of cream cheese and processed until it formed a ball. The I set the mixture aside while I worked on the molds.

I piped melted white chocolate into the details of the mold, flipped the mold over and tapped out the extra chocolate. Then I filled the mold with semi-sweet chocolate and again flipped the mold over and tapped out the extra chocolate.

Once the molds were ready, I rolled small balls of the Oreo truffle mixture and pressed them into the mold. Then I popped the whole thing in the freezer until the chocolate was hardened. Once out of the freezer, I popped the truffles out and repeated the process to fill the molds. I then stuck the other half of the truffle into the fresh mold, making sure that the edge of the hardened chocolate touched the melted chocolate.

Then I froze the truffles again until the chocolate was hard. After that, all that was left was to pop them out. I did a little touching up on some scraggly edges with a warm knife, cutting off the excess chocolate.

See, not so hard? Right? Of course, you will need a candy mold, which you may not have laying around. If you don’t want to buy one, you could always just make them the classic way by dipping them in melted chocolate. I like dipping them in dark and white chocolate for a swirled effect. Just remember to freeze the balls first so that they stay rounded when you dip them.

Either way, they will taste amazing and look very festive. No one can pass up an Oreo truffle!

PIN NOW, MAKE LATER

[amd-yrecipe-recipe:103]

Mason Jar Pumpkin Pies

October 28, 2016

Pumpkin pie and I have’t always seen eye to eye (and I swear I didn’t try to make that rhyme). Maybe it was because Thanksgiving wasn’t really my favorite holiday. Or because, as a kid, I didn’t want my dessert to have vegetables in it. Now that I am older, not only have I grown to like pumpkin pie, but I also like the idea of having a serving of vegetables with dessert.

I will add, though, that my favorite part of pumpkin pie (both then and now) was the crust! That’s what I really like about these little mason jar pumpkin pies….the ratio of pie to crust is strongly in my favor. It’s almost 50/50! But, if you aren’t a crust-lover like me, you could skip the bottom crust and just fill the entire mason jar with the pumpkin pie filling and just top it with a little bit of crust.

But is definitely not what I did. I started by making my own pie crust (super easy, btw, when you make it in a food processor!), then cut out little rounds of crust and pushed them into the bottom of the mason jars. I pricked the pie dough with a fork, the par baked for a few minutes. I then poured the the pumpkin pie filling in to the jars and baked them on a baking sheet until they were set up around the sides, but still a jiggly in the center.

At that point, I added some additional crust on top then continued to bake the pies until the top layer of crust had browned.

Once they came out of the oven for the final time, I added a special touch that I learned from Alton Brown – bruléeing some brown sugar on top to create a crunchy, sugary, crust. This was my first time trying this technique, and I will never NOT add a brulée topping on my pumpkin pie again! I would have never thought of it on my own, but it really put this relatively ordinary pie over the top.

The other thing I love about these pies is that they are the perfect portion size. If I had a whole pie in front of me, I would “limit” myself to a sliver, then continue to cut off more and more slivers until I had practically eaten half the pie! These little pies are already portion controlled…and portable!

I think these would be so fun for a Friendsgiving or holiday party, don’t you!?

[amd-yrecipe-recipe:89]

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Chocolate Dipped Cheesecake Bites

October 7, 2016

Do you have that one recipe that is your “signature” recipe? Like the recipe that you make when you really want to impress people. That recipe that you know by heart because you make it so often.

As someone who makes a lot of recipes, it was actually kind of difficult for me to come up with a signature recipe to make for an office bake-off. Sometimes I tend to bake things that are a little to experimental and not necessarily “bake-off” contenders. Not that they aren’t good, but to win a bake-off, you have to play to the crowd. It’s all about strategy folks!

After thinking about for a while I concluded that while I may not have a signature recipe, my mom does! So I made my mom’s cheesecake recipe (also seen here), which I knew would be a contender, if not the winner!

To make the cheesecake a bit easier to eat, I decided to make them into little bites (of course, I had to do something to make the recipe my own) and dip them in chocolate.

I started by baking the cheesecake in a square baking pan with a graham cracker crust. After the came out of the oven, I let them cool to room temperature, then chill in the refrigerator overnight. It’s always good to let cheesecake cool completely before serving, but this also made it a lot easier to cut into bite-sized pieces.

I then dipped the chilled pieces of cheesecake into melted chocolate, first dipping the tops and letting the chocolate harden, then dipping the bottom half of the cheesecake bite. I tried drizzling the chocolate and some other dipping techniques, but this way worked the best for me. You can do it however you like.

After all the bites were covered in chocolate, I popped them all back in the freezer to harden. I would also recommend dipping the bites in batches, and keeping the un-dipped ones in the freezer until you are ready. They are much easier to handle when they are practically frozen.

Well, I would love to tell you that these cheesecake bites won the bake-off. They actually came in second behind a surprisingly delicious banana cake. Seriously, if a banana cake can beat cheesecake, it’s got to be one damn good cake. Don’t worry, I got the recipe so I will have to make it and share it with you guys.

But second place it’s bad at all! I’ll take it!

PIN NOW, MAKE LATER

[amd-yrecipe-recipe:84]

Pretty Rosette Peach Tartlets

August 5, 2016

If you are looking for an impressive dessert you can bring to your Summer parties, I have got the recipe for you! Don’t let these little peach tartlets fool you, they are actually really easy to make and only require six ingredients.

Peaches

Puff Pastry

Mascarpone

Sugar

Cinnamon

Nutmeg

I’m sure it wasn’t the ingredient list that concerned you about this recipe. What you are probably thinking to yourself is, “there is no way I can make these look like a rosette!”. Ok, you may not be thinking that, but that’s what I was thinking. I was willing to give it a try, but was convinced that they would end up looking like crap.

Sure the first one wasn’t my best, but I got the hang of it really quickly!

I’ll show you exactly how I made them.

First, I sliced a couple peaches into very thin slices. Like, I sliced them just about as thin as I could. In hindsight, using a mandolin would have been a good idea to get consistently sliced peaches.

Next, I unfolded a puff pastry sheet and rolled it out so that it was pretty thin (it should be thinner than what you see in this picture). Then I cut it into 6 strips. I spread out the mascarpone mixture onto each strip.

Now comes the tricky part (hint: it’s not that tricky). To make the pretty rosette pattern with the peaches, I layered the peach slices one on top of the other along one half of the puff pastry strip making sure that a significant portion of the top of the peach was sticking out. On some of the tartlets, I added a second layer of peach slices just below the first. Not only did it help me use up all my peach slices, but the ratio of peach to puff pastry was much better.

Then I folded the other half of the puff pastry up and rolled the entire thing into a tight spiral. The trick to getting the peaches to roll is to put your thinner peach slices on the end that will be in the center and the thicker ones on the outside.

I placed each of the tartlets in a muffin tin then sprinkled some more sugar and nutmeg over the top of the peaches. All that was left to do was bake them and pray they still look like rosettes afterwards.

And once they were out of the oven I breathed out a big ol’ sigh of relief because they turned out super cute! Not to mention, they are delicious with a side of some vanilla ice cream!

Don’t they look like they just walked out of a bakery? You could totally impress your friends with these pastries, don’t you think?

[amd-yrecipe-recipe:63]

Dairy Free Coconut Ice Cream

August 1, 2016

All you lactose-intolerant, Paleo, or just anti-dairy people out there, this recipe is for you! This coconut ice cream is made without a single drop of milk or cream. And even better, it has far less added sugar than a normal ice cream recipe. Bonus!

I, myself, have tried to cut out a lot of dairy from my diet after my Whole 30 experience. But that also means cutting out a lot of other wonderful foods, like cheese and ice cream (is life even worth living without cheese and ice cream?). To supplement, I have tried quite a few dairy free ice creams and ice cream recipes, but most of them are a weird consistency and the flavor seems very artificial.

I get it. It’s really hard to imitate that creaminess without actually using any cream. Fortunately, through some trial and error, I think I have come pretty close. The key is coconut cream!

I used both coconut milk and coconut cream, along with some vanilla and sugar, to make this ice cream. The natural flavor of the coconut milk and cream give this ice cream a noticeable, but not overpowering coconut flavor. Also, because coconut is naturally sweet, this recipe doesn’t need as much sugar as your average ice cream recipe. Score!

I started by bringing the coconut milk, coconut cream, sugar, and vanilla pod to a simmer in a medium sauce pan. I just wanted the sugar to dissolve and the vanilla flavor to permeate through the milk. I let the mixture cool completely on the counter, then put it in the fridge for a few hours to really help the flavors develop.

In the mean time, I chilled the work bowl of my ice cream maker. Once is was chilled, I poured the cream into the bowl and let the ice cream maker go to work. While I have never made ice cream the old fashioned way (save for that one time in Girl Scouts many moons ago), I imagine you could also use this same recipe with a manual ice cream maker.

Once it was all churned, I put it into my ice cream container (a loaf pan would also work) to harden even more in the freezer.

I let the ice cream sit in the freezer overnight so that it was nice and frozen the next day. Because it’s not quite as creamy as normal icing, I did have to leave it sitting on the counter for about 5 minutes to soften up before I could scoop it out.

After that, it is ready to eat! I enjoyed my first bowl of this coconut ice cream topped with some fresh berries and shredded coconut. It would also be good with chocolate chips, caramel sauce, or just on it’s own! Just remember, you really can taste that coconut, so choose your toppings wisely!

But most of all, enjoy it! I sure did! It was very creamy and rich, the flavor was perfect, and it really hit the spot on a hot Summer day. The best part was how I felt afterwards. My stomach wasn’t grumbling and upset at me for consuming all that dairy. It was definitely worth all the work just for that!

[amd-yrecipe-recipe:59]

S’more Brownies

July 20, 2016

Smore-Brownies-title To me, s’mores are the quintessential summer dessert. Sitting around the camp fire, roasting marshmallows is one of those memories that remind me most of Summer. Because of that, I knew I wanted to make something s’mores-related for our 4th of July-firework watching-picnic. Since we wouldn’t actually have access to a camp fire, I had to come up with some other way to serve up s’mores. Then it hit me, s’more brownies!

Smore Brownies-1

These s’more brownies are actually incredibly easy to make. If you follow me on snapchat, you saw that I made these brownies in less than 60 minutes while rushing out the door. All I used were some graham cracker crumbs (and butter), brownie mix, and marshmallows.

First, I mixed the graham cracker crumbs with butter and a hint of sugar, then pressed about 1-2 tbsp into the bottom of a muffin tin. I used the bottom of a sprinkles bottle to help me get an even press.

Then, I mixed together the brownie batter following the instructions on the back of the box. I have to say, this Ghiradelli brownie mix is the best boxed brownie mix I have tried. It is amazing!

Smore Brownies-6

Once the brownie were almost all the way baked, I put a marshmallow on top of each of the brownies and let those bake for about 3 minutes until they became slightly golden brown and puffy.

I had attempted charring the marshmallows under the broiler, but every time they became overly burned. That’s when I settled on the baking method which gets the marshmallows all gooey, then I could just go back over them with a kitchen torch to get them nice and charred.

Smore Brownies-11

To me, the char is the most important part. I love a good roasted marshmallow. Like, I want that sucker on fire! (Actually, the broiler method would have been fine for me, but I know other people don’t like they food that toasted.) It’s that gooey, fire roasted marshmallows are what make this brownie so good.

Smore Brownies-12

First, you’ll bite into the top and sink your teeth into the soft marshmallow, then you’ll get a bite of the rich chocolate brownie. Then at the end, you’ll get that graham cracker crunch. It’s not exactly your fire-side s’more, but it is just as good and definitely brings back all those wonder summer memories.

[amd-yrecipe-recipe:55]