Two friends, miles apart, who love to bake!
Last Saturday we celebrated my brother’s confirmation with a Mexican dinner at home with family. My Aunt Paula made her famous beef enchiladas, my Aunt Teri made one of her amazingly delicious green salads and we had rice and beans. It was delicious, easy and …
I LOVE ice cream (and milkshakes)! It is my favorite dessert and if you were to ask my favorite food, 75% of the time I’d say ice cream. Mint chip from Baskin Robbins to be exact. Or toasted almond from Leatherby’s (an awesome local ice …
Every now and then you need a relatively simple dessert. You need something that comes together quickly, without any fancy ingredients and that everyone will love. And if you need this recipe in the fall…you obviously need it to be pumpkin.
While my pumpkin spice latte obsession has (mostly) subsided, I still love any excuse for pumpkin desserts. The classic pumpkin chocolate chip cookies are my favorite, but I got to thinking: what else could I add pumpkin to?
For #Chocotoberfest last year, I made cream cheese swirl brownies. Why not make them pumpkin?! After all, who doesn’t love pumpkin and chocolate!
Even though the brownie base is from scratch and there is a fancy swirl on top, I promise these are still easy. Melt the chocolate, butter and sugar, mix in the dry ingredients and there is your brownie batter. Whip together the pumpkin and cream cheese and you have your pumpkin layer. Layer those with a few dollops of chocolate on top, swirl a knife around, and voila! Pumpkin swirl brownies!
Remember I said sometimes you need an easy dessert? Well I needed these for book club. We ate almost an entire batch while we watched Practical Magic (first we read the prequel). Now if that doesn’t sound like a perfect fall evening, I don’t know what does!
There is one day left to enter the #chocotoberfest giveway and it is worth over $400! Good luck winning the prize and happy fall baking!
~Stephanie
Growing up, our parents didn’t buy us many prepackaged treats. Fruit by the foot, gogurt, dunkaroos…we never had those. I still remember going to a friend’s house that had MULTIPLE flavors of goldfish crackers and pringles. Another friend had an entire closet in the basement …
Happy Monday!! Why am I so excited about a Monday you may ask? Well, that’s because today is one of the best days of the year! It’s the Virtual Pumpkin Party! An annual event where almost 100 bloggers post everything PUMPKIN all day long. Even …
If you’ve been following along here for awhile, you’ll know that my husband hates peaches (I still am appalled). You’ll also know that I, on the other hand, LOVE peaches. And every time he goes out of town in the summer I use it as my excuse to put peaches in everything: peach muffins, peach crumble, peach freezer jam and my all time favorite peach cobbler! There’s currently an offer through work with local farms and you can buy 20lb boxes of fruit and I’m seriously considering getting all those peaches just for me. Who am I kidding…I’m totally doing it.
I hate to waste food, so when I had leftover mascarpone cheese from making Tiramisu Ice Cream I began looking for a way to use up the extra. After one quick search on Pinterest I remembered something I have been wanting to try for ages: GRILLED FRUIT. With a mascarpone cream dollop of course.
Before I was left to fend for myself for 10 days, I made sure to get proper instructions on how to use the grill (how has it taken me 28 years to learn how to BBQ?!) and anxiously awaited my solitary dessert night.
I feel a little silly even calling this a recipe. It couldn’t be easier! You cut your peaches in half and put them on the grill, then while they cook you whip a little heavy cream into the mascarpone cheese, add spices…and voila! You’re done!
I knew these would be good, I mean…how could they not be. But I failed to realize just how good they would be. The peaches are warm and soft from the grill and the heat just begins to melt the mascarpone cream, which is sweet yet tangy at the same time. You could even take it one step further and drizzle honey over the tops, if you really wanted to get carried away.
Not only are these peaches quick and easy to put together, they look elegant and time consuming. And those are my favorite kinds of desserts! The ones you keep in your back pocket for a picnic or dinner party, that will have your guests “ooh-ing” and “ahh-ing” over your creation. Add in the fact these don’t require turning on the oven and I think that makes them the most perfect summer dessert.
Enjoy!
~Stephanie
Grilled Peaches with Mascarpone Cream (adapted from Williams – Sonoma)
A few weeks ago I saw a Food & Wine article titled the Ultimate Cake Baking Bucket List. The goal is to bake a cake every month for a year and the idea is that each new cake will teach you new skills and give …
How is October halfway over?! I know technically pumpkin is still in season until the holidays are over, but to me…October is the month of pumpkin. Not only am I obsessed with pumpkin flavored everything, each year I have to go to a pumpkin patch and …
I just love coffee cake. It reminds me of lazy Sundays, drinking coffee and planning out the day.
While traditional cake is not seen as an acceptable breakfast item, add the word coffee to the title and it’s suddenly a-okay, encouraged even.
My sugar cookies use sour cream, which I know is what helps keep them so soft and moist. So when I saw a version of coffee cake using sour cream I just had to try it.
The sour cream worked miracles once again! This coffee cake is so light and fluffy, I felt like I could eat the whole pan and not feel bad about it. I didn’t though…just to clarify I only had maybe 1/3 of the pan in one sitting. #selfcontrol
This Sour Cream Coffee Cake would be the perfect addition to a baby or wedding shower, Easter brunch, or just your regular weekend routine. Make sure you give it a try.
~Stephanie
Sour Cream Coffee Cake (adapted from King Arthur Flour)
Topping
Cake
** Original recipe calls for a 9×13 pan, however I found this too big and the cake had to be spread very thinly to cover the entire pan. I prefer the smaller pan for a thicker piece of cake, but a 9×13 will work just fine if you don’t own the smaller size.
If you know me at all, you know I have a Starbucks obsession. Really it’s just a coffee obsession, but there is a Starbucks less than 2 blocks from my house. I end up there a lot. I don’t usually get food there, since I’m …