Apple Peanut Butter Sandwich Cookies

These cookies are the perfect accompaniment to a cup of hot tea or make a great afternoon snack if you bring your lunch to work.  They are soft and cakey with the subtlest hint of spice from the cinnamon and nutmeg.  The tartness of the Granny Smith Apple provides a nice balance to the rich frosting.  Their simple appearance is deceiving – you’ll be really pleased how good they taste when you bite into them.  It’s the happiest I’ve been with a recipe in months.

Read the rest of this entry »

Peanut Butter Bars

This weekend we had friends over, and when I asked if they had any dessert requests they suggested something with peanut butter.  I absolutely love peanut butter, so I was really excited to try a new recipe that incorporated one of my favorite baking ingredients.  Having recently eaten my one and only box of Tagalongs in one sitting I was anxious to make something that combined the peanut butter, shortbread, and chocolate elements of that cookie.

Read the rest of this entry »

Bite Size Sticky Toffee Pudding

Sticky toffee pudding isn’t a pudding at all, but a very moist cake made with figs.  When the cake is removed from the oven it’s doused with a warm toffee sauce.  For me, it has all of the elements of the perfect dessert – a delicious cake without the distraction of frosting, my favorite flavor of caramel, and something you don’t see everyday.

I opted to make it bite size since I was serving it at a party where I’d made several other desserts.  If this is the only dessert you’re making I’d recommend making it in a square pan so you can serve a big slice warm out of the oven with a dollop of whipped cream.

  Read the rest of this entry »

Brownie Bites

I have a bit of an obsession with bite sized desserts.  For someone like me who can’t make fewer than three desserts when we’re having friends over it’s the best way to ensure that guests can taste everything I baked.  Making minis can be a little time consuming, but I think it’s worth the extra effort since they are so cute and can be eaten with (slightly) less guilt.

Read the rest of this entry »

Cranberry Walnut Rugelach

I didn’t grow up eating rugelach, I’d actually never heard of it until I moved to New York, but I’ve been making it regularly since finding this recipe during the Food Network’s “12 Days of Cookies” a few holiday seasons ago.  I really enjoy the process of making rugelach, it’s more time consuming and difficult than a typical cookie, but well worth the effort.

Read the rest of this entry »

Homemade Gnocchi

I’m pretty sure that in 2 years this is only the second time I’ve posted a non-dessert food on here.  It’s not that I don’t cook, it’s just that I’m not an especially good cook and the the food I make is boring.  This gnocchi dinner on the other hand seemed worthy of sharing.  I’d been wanting to try making gnocchi for awhile, but assumed it would be too difficult.  This weekend I had some extra potatoes around and figured why not? If they didn’t turn out we’d eat frozen pizza.  I was so surprised how easily these came together.  Don’t be intimidated by the recipe, it’s long, but none of the steps are difficult.

Rolling the gnocchi

Read the rest of this entry »

Peanut Butter Blondies

This is a recipe that I decided to make at the last minute when I found out I was having lunch with a vegan friend.  I chose it because I had all of the ingredients on hand, it was a bar cookie which is less work than scooping out individual portions, and it was described as appealing to people who like really peanut buttery desserts.  I had no expectations and just hoped they would turn out reasonably good.  I ended up getting such a huge reaction from my friends and actually had several people describe these as one of the best desserts they’ve ever had.

This recipe got me excited about Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar again.  When I first got the book I had really high hopes since I’m such a fan of the authors’ cupcake cookbook.  The first cookie recipe I tried from it was great, but the second really wasn’t very good.  After my success with this recipe I’m going to put the cookbook back in more regular rotation.

Read the rest of this entry »

Pineapple Upside Down Cupcakes

When I was up in Vermont for Christmas, my mom and I talked quite a bit about baking.  She’s a great cook, but absolutely hates baking because she thinks there are too many ingredients, too many steps, too many dirty dishes, and she finds the results unreliable.  She recently made these mini cheesecakes from the blog and thought they were way too much work.  I would describe the cheesecakes as pretty simple, but requiring a bit of patience when making the little crusts.  It was a nice reminder that my perspective on the difficulty level for a baking recipe is a bit skewed considering how often I bake and how much I enjoy it.

This recipe is truly easy and since it is just a doctored cake mix is very reliable.  I actually really like yellow cake from a mix, and unlike chocolate cake, think it’s very often better than homemade.

Read the rest of this entry »

Gingerbread Cake

This is my first attempt at making gingerbread and I couldn’t be happier.  I’d always been biased against gingerbread thinking it would taste like the very adorable, but often dry and hard gingerbread cookies you see at Christmastime.  Last Christmas I got a silicone cake pan that makes 6 small gingerbread cakes so I decided to give it a shot.  My criteria for choosing a recipe was that I already had all of the ingredients in the house which is how I stumbled on this one from the King Arthur Flour Baker’s Companion.

Read the rest of this entry »

Snowman Jello Mold

Police are still searching for suspects.

I ate a lot of Jello growing up.  At my grandmother’s house we’d either have Jello or apple sauce as a snack and in elementary school I would take Jello single serving cups in my lunch box.  I still love the stuff, but virtually never eat it.  I got this really cool Snowman cake pan last Christmas and thought it would make the perfect Jello mold. Read the rest of this entry »