Dessert

Category: Dessert

17
Jan
2015

Make-Ahead Tiramisu

categories: Boozy, Cakes, Coffee, Dessert, italian

It’s a new year & that means new kitchen adventures!

I took more than a little break since last year because so much has happened!

Between weddings, graduations, tons of catering jobs, moving to a new city, finding a new house, and starting up my business in this new town, my poor little blog went to the wayside.

Poor ‘lil .com. I’m sorry.

But I promised myself that I would attend to my neglected blog & finally download all these photos of deliciousness I have been making these last couple months because you know I didn’t stop cooking & creating recipes!

The first on my list: Make-Ahead Tiramisu.

While this Make-Ahead Tiramisu may NOT be a traditional tiramisu, it IS super simple to put together and perfect for gatherings & potlucks because well, you make it ahead of time so there’s no rushing on the day of! One to two days later, the tiramisu has had enough time to let the flavors mingle and just the right balance of rich sweetness.

OK, so let’s just get this out of the way: I’m not a coffee fan. I know, I know…In this world of frappu-fancy-ccinos, a person who doesn’t like coffee might as well be put on the “no fly list” but I can’t help it. That stuff is usually bitter and my mouth hates me a little whenever my brain forgets that I don’t enjoy the stuff. When I took my first bite of this dessert I have to admit, it wasn’t a game changer. The cream was kind of bland and the espresso tasted exactly what I thought it would taste like. Bitter. I had kind of given up on it but decided to cover it and wait the recommended 24 hours before I judged.

Now, I don’t really know what happened after the 24 hour mark, but I’m pretty sure it involved some unicorn-type magic because what tasted like a bland yet bitter cookies and cream cake, now tasted like pure friggin’ heaven. The bland cream had somehow, amazingly, become sweet and the bitter ladyfingers had turned into a kind of mocha flavored cookie.

Like I said: Unicorns.

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14
Feb
2014

Home Baked Red Velvet Donuts with Cream Cheese Glaze

categories: Cakes, Dessert

I love a donut.

A doughnut.

Wait, a donut.

How the heck do you spell this anyways?

According to my sources (Google) I found out that the correct spelling is DOUGH-NUT which was later shortened to DO-NUT & didn’t really become popular until after Dunkin’ Donuts opened their doors.

With that being said: I like spelling it do-nut.

So there.

You know what else I love?

Valentine’s Day.

Yeah, I know it’s commercial.

Yeah, I know it makes single people feel like lepers.

Yeah, I know it is a nonsense holiday made up by people who make greeting cards & heart shaped boxes of chocolate.

With that being said: I love Valentine’s Day.

So double there.

I really shouldn’t love February 14th…

There’s been a long list of terrible Valentine’s Days in my past.

Each one its own little heart shaped death that ultimately made me

swear off Valentine’s Days, for like, a decade.
It was a dark phase, what can I say?

And the fact that I am old enough to refer to things in terms of “decades”

makes my youth die a little death of its own, but that’s besides the point.

What was the most terrible V-Day gift I ever received?

Oh, I don’t know. Maybe it was the roses that were bought on the side of the road that still had thorns & bugs on them that later decided to make a home in my car

or maybe it was the sad Subway gift card for $10 & handwritten note given to me by an ex-stalker that found me at work…that, by the way, I’m pretty sure he got someone else write for him judging by the swirly lettering & heart-dotted letter “i’s”

or maybe it was the weird little cross-eyed bear from the gas station that clipped on to a single rose…a single dying brown rose…

There’s so many options, it’s really hard to choose.

You know what would’ve been great?

A homemade donut.

That’s all.

Just a donut made with my loved ones own two little hands showing me that they care enough to get their hands a little dirtier than rifling through the

CVS bargain bin of sad little stuffed animals that sing, “Wild Thang”.

I’m a simple girl with simple needs.

So to spare you from being the giver (or recipient) of a horrible Valentine’s Day gift, I present to you what a girl really wants:

A gosh darn Home Baked Red Velvet Donut with Cream Cheese Glaze!

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12
Dec
2013

Cranberry White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies & The 2013 Great Blogger Cookie Swap!

categories: Cookies, Dessert

Some people build houses.

Some people donate clothes & toiletries.

Some people give their pocket change. Some people run for miles.

We bake cookies & send them to strangers.

Then we blog.

Why do we do it?

To raise money for pediatric research for kids’ cancer! It feels so good to pay it forward. It feels 100x better when it’s for a good cause.

2013 is the third year of The Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap & I’m proud to say that I have been participating in it for all 3 years.

That’s sayin’ a lot because I have the attention span of a…. oooh, I should water my Christmas tree.

I love taking part of this event every heart because it makes me feel like I’m part of a big community of people who love to do what I do, want to share it with others & care enough to take the time to reach out to someone they hardly even know & send them a little something that will put a smile on their face. We are a pretty neat bunch!

So I signed up, donated my $4 & waited for my email telling me who my matches were. Now to make a cookie I’ve never made before… I’ve made A LOT of cookies in my day but after dropping off a cookie order to a customer, they asked me if I could make them a cookie with cranberries in it. Boom! And a cookie & a blog was born. I’m all about cranberries. I usually put them in my yogurt or salads or just directly into my mouth but just never in a cookie. Something in my brain must have told me they were too sour for cookies but that’s also probably the same part of my brain that tells me that wine & brownies are a good combo. After a little tweaking, a little rummaging through my cupboards & a little taste testing, I decided to make these Cranberry White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies for you & three of my new blogger friends at A Picture Journey, Rose and Henry & Dining With Alice!

Saving the best for last, I want to thank Amy from Simple Everyday Food for her delicious gingersnaps, Christine of Cooking With Cakes for the decadent chocolate chunk peppermint pattie cookies & Amy at Cakestar for her amazing hazelnut chocolate chip cookies! You made my day with your yummy cookies!! So go make some cookies, send them to someone to let you know you are thinking of them & bake someone happy!

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02
Dec
2013

Lemon Currant Pound Cake with Lemon Glaze

categories: Brunch, Cakes, Dessert

There’s nothing I like more than a good baking challenge & this holiday season Donsuemor contacted me again with a challenge to make something out of one of their new products.

In case you haven’t heard of Donsuemor, they are a California-based company that specializes in making delicious French madeleines & cakes. This company has a special spot in my heart because they were one of the first companies to show interest in my “little-blog-that-could”.

Two years ago I made these “accidental” Almond Roca Mocha cake bites (…let’s just say there’s a weight limit to a cake pop…so the pops became bites!) & the year after that I had a Peruvian Tea Party with my family where my dad ate about 10 madeleines before he fell asleep on the couch. Ha!

This year I decided to get back to basics & used their new Lemon Currant scone mix to bake something a little different 🙂

I figured after about 2 years of constant baking for my business, I could handle a new challenge & decided to take their scone mix & make myself a pound cake.

Why a pound cake?

Well, first of all because I love ’em & second of all, because I wanted a cake that would travel well to a friends’ holiday party. This cake came out absolutely delicious! It was like a scone-cake hybrid. The Lemon Glaze added another level of tartness & sweetness that made it perfect for a big ol’ cup of coffee at the end of the night. The scone mix already had most of the ingredients in it that I needed for pound cake (flour, sugar, baking powder, lemon zest, etc) so with a couple of little additions, I had a ridiculously easy yet visually pretty treat!

So get your mix here, get a pretty pan like mine here & make yourself a

Lemon Currant Pound Cake with Lemon Glaze!

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20
Sep
2013

Guinness Irish Cream Cupcakes

categories: Boozy, cupcakes, Dessert, Irish

I don’t really care for goodbyes.

It might just be me but I think they are kind of awkward & sad.

The worst part is that there are so many ways to accomplish this sad awkwardness:

There’s the weird hug that lingers just long enough to make you drop your arms hoping it signals “let go of me” but the other person still keeps on hugging…so you slowly raise your arms back up to keep hugging them only to have them pull away and leave you there with your arms weirdly outstretched….

There’s the weird “handshake-hug-high-five-confusion” that happens with people you kind-of-sort-of-know just well enough to be confused as to where your relationship stands at this very moment…

There’s the uncomfortable “waving-goodbye-from-a-foot-away” which I feel is like a slightly less bitchy way of saying, “I’d really prefer if you wouldn’t physically touch me as we part”…

There’s the “oh-yeah-and-one-more-thing” goodbye which leads to the “saying-goodbye-five-times-before-you-actually-leave” goodbye.

There’s the “I’m-saying-goodbye-to-a-kiss-on-the-cheek-goodbye-kinda-person” that leaves you feeling like you are either better looking than you thought you were or like someone just over-shared about their last OB/GYN visit.

Yeah…I don’t really wake up in the morning missing that one.

Lucky for me, I chose friends that are none of the above.

For instance, when a friend recently left on a trip to Ireland for 6 weeks, not one person shed a single tear or waved goodbye 6-inches away from my face.

Yup, my friends are pretty awesome & socially appropriate.

So in order to thank my Ireland-bound buddy for not being weird & never ever kissing me on the cheek, I made her these Guinness Irish Cream Cupcakes!

They are a delicious mix of Irish whiskey, Irish Cream, Guinness,
chocolate & buttercream.
If you don’t happen to have any store brand Irish cream on hand (for example, the Bailey’s I pictured above), you can make your own using my Homemade Irish Cream recipe. This recipe will make more than enough liqueur to make the frosting with leftovers for Irish Coffee’s all week long.
Who said St. Patrick’s Day can’t be St. Patrick’s week?

Even though these cupcakes were pretty boozy, I promise no one over-hugged each other & there wasn’t even one Irish goodbye said that night (google it!)

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