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.

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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 »

White Chocolate Chex Mix

Pat tried this sweet/salty snack mix at a Christmas party a few years ago and wanted to know why I’d never made it.  To be honest it’s not really my style – I love to bake so mixing a bunch of ingredients together in a large bowl and calling it a day isn’t that appealing.  To Pat, on the other hand, that simplicity was what he liked.  This mix is a delivery system for snacks he loves, held together with white chocolate glue.  The ease of making it came in handy, when we recently had some friends over, and I’d already baked two desserts and wanted to make a third option that wouldn’t take a lot of time.   I looked up this recipe, walked to the store, bought the ingredients, and had it made in less than an hour.

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Cinnamon Chip Muffins

Recently we had a new member join our team at work.  I really wanted to do something nice to welcome her and thought a basket of muffins had the perfect “welcome to the neighborhood” vibe.  The muffins also had the added benefits that they only used ingredients that I already had in the house and could be thrown together in 20 minutes, which made them ideal considering I had to bake them on a night I got home from work at 9 pm.

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Vegan Cowboy Cookies

I’m not vegan, but I occasionally like to make vegan desserts for friends who are.  In general people are very excited and thankful when you bake for them, but when you bake something for a vegan friend the thanks is tenfold.  People with dietary restrictions are so often left out of food sharing that they seem especially appreciative when they are included.

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Melted Ice Cream Bread Pudding

Last Friday my boyfriend said he’d bought me a flavor of ice cream that I was either going to love or going to hate.  When I asked the flavor and he replied “pumpkin” I immediately scowled.  He had good reason to think that I love pumpkin.  I’ve been stockpiling pumpkin for several months.  I heard there was a pumpkin shortage and wanted to be prepared.  It’s not because I am a pumpkin fanatic, but because everyone else seems to love it so much.  I predominantly bake for other people, hence, the pumpkin stockpile.

Fresh out of the oven

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Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins

Sometimes I purposefully buy products I don’t want.  Recently I was in my local supermarket and asked the store manager for help finding pumpkin puree.  He took me to the aisle and pointed in the right direction.  When I still couldn’t find it I asked for his help again.  This time he brought me straight to the display rack and I found myself face to face with a can of pumpkin pie filling.  Not what I wanted.  After all the trouble he’d gone to on a very busy Sunday night I couldn’t bring myself to leave without buying it.  The problem is all of my favorite pumpkin recipes call for pumpkin puree and most of them say in big letters, “NOT PUMPKIN PIE FILLING.”  Since the pie filling is already sweetened and spiced it won’t give you the same result.

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Peanut Butterscotch Drops

When I bought a box of cornflakes to make cornflake-crusted French toast earlier this week, I was really excited because it meant I had an excuse to make these awesome treats.  I first had them a few years ago when my Auntie Sharon brought them to our Christmas Eve dinner.  I found them completely addictive.    They’re perfect if you need a delicious dessert and only have about 25 minutes to spare, since they’re no-bake and only require three ingredients. Read the rest of this entry »

Chocolate-Covered Peanut Butter Krispies

So it’s really hot in New York.  Really, really, really hot.  Just terribly hot.  And it’s going to be hot for 10 days.  There are a lot of terrible things about the heat.  Being outside is miserable.  Being inside can also be miserable (my office likes to crank the AC so high that it’s like working inside a walk-in refrigerator).  You feel tired before you even make it to the end of your block.  What do I usually do when I’m miserable?  I bake.  Not when it’s 99°.  That’s where no bake recipes come in.  And these chocolate-covered peanut butter krispies are definitely the best no-bake dessert I’ve made this year. Read the rest of this entry »

Cookie Dough Truffles

This weekend was my boyfriend and my 2nd anniversary.  I could have made him an elaborate dessert, but the reality is he doesn’t enjoy anything more than chocolate chip cookies.  But I make him chocolate chip cookies all the time.  For our anniversary it had to be something special.  These truffles were the perfect solution.  They satisfy his love of chocolate chip cookies, but were something a little bit different.

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