Mayhem in the Kitchen!

Peanut Butter and Chocolate Overload Brownie Cake (Katherine Sabbath inspired)

I am SO excited to share this cake with you guys! Like everyone else in the food world, I am positively inspired by Katherine Sabbath and her incredible creations. If you’ve been living under a rock, Katherine Sabbath is an amazing cake artist who has been featured in magazines far and wide. She has a…

Homemade Waffle Toppings: Brandy Apple Compote, Coconut Whipped Cream, Sugared Strawberries, and Blueberry Compote

Some friends recently got married, and one of the things they registered for was a waffle iron. When my husband heard this, he expressed his envy to them, because he has always wanted one, but I just can’t justify adding another unitasker to our collection (yes, I’m familiar with Will it Waffle? :)) When our…

Sun-Dried Tomato and Rosemary Palmiers

The New Year is almost here, so I wanted to make sure I shared an *amazing* appetizer recipe that would be perfect for your New Year’s Eve celebration! We have made this recipe four times already this year – once for our Friends Thanksgiving, once for a Vikings game, and again for Christmas Eve and…

Vegan Chocolate Cupcakes with Chocolate Frosting

You’d be hard pressed to find a bad chocolate cupcake. Well, unless of course you’re talking about vegan cupcakes. Even those styrofoam Hostess ones are somewhat palatable, but vegan cupcakes taste like sawdust! 😉 …. just kidding, of course! I made these for a neighborhood dessert potluck, and was faced with a dilemma – they’re…

Peppermint Mocha French Silk Pie

Are you ready for Christmas? Less than two days to go! I’m not sure whether I’m super excited or super stressed, but for the purposes of happy blogging, we’re going to go with super excited. I made this French Silk Pie for a holiday party a few days ago, and although I’m crazy busy, I…

Caprese Skewers in a pinch

If you’re anything like me, mid-December is ridiculously over-the-top crazy hectic! Between parties, gift giving, shopping, cooking, and decorating, it feels like there’s seldom a single moment to spare. Last weekend it was another double party weekend for my husband and me – Friday was my office holiday party, and on Saturday our neighborhood threw…

Chocolate Amaretto Cookies

Oh my goodness you guys, it has been weeks! I have a pretty good excuse, though – we just got back from an amazing trip to Italy!! We had a fantastic time visiting Rome, Milan, Venice, and Florence. We saw awe-inspiring sights, enjoyed incredible food, and met some lovely people….but more on that later, let’s…

Rum Cake (Tortuga Copycat)

A couple of years ago my husband, his parents, and I went on a cruise to the Bahamas. At one the ports, my in-laws came back with a Tortuga Rum Cake. I’d never had one before, but they promised me I was in for a treat. A few weeks later I got to sample it,…

Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes with Salted Caramel Frosting

So, you may remember that last year I crowned my Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes with Brown Sugar and Cinnamon Frosting, like, the queens of fall. The end-all be-all of autumn related cupcakes. The autumnest of the autumn. The epitome of fall in a paper wrapper. Well, as it turns out, I was wrong. I know. How…

Big Soft and Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies (#11)

As I mentioned yesterday, we’ve had 6 new families move into the neighborhood recently. Since I had put off getting welcome baskets out to them, I had to kick it into high gear and get some cookies baked while the weather was still cool enough to use the oven! The first batch of cookies made…

Vegetarian Mexican Salad (or Cowboy Caviar Dip)

I’ve mentioned before that we moved into a new house last summer. Overall, I love everything inch of the new place – the location, the size, the interior, the exterior. I do, however, have one major complaint, and that is the lack of a sunny spot for a proper vegetable garden!Over the years I’ve grown…

Betty Crocker’s Chocolate Chip Cookies (#10)

We’ve had SIX new families move into our neighborhood in the last month or so. This may be a record! Normally I’d try to get welcome baskets out to them in a timely manner (is it really a great welcome if it comes 3 months after they move in?), but the weather was hot, sticky,…

Brown Butter Fudge

Every year at Christmastime, my dad makes incredible fudge. It is SO good. Like, “sure I just ate a half dozen cookies AND a full 3 course meal, but there’s always room for fudge!” good. It has become his specialty, to the extent that at holiday time and work potlucks, it is a given that…

Giant Cupcake Smash Cake and First Birthday Party

If you follow me on Instagram you may have noticed that my beautiful niece (aka my birthday buddy) just turned one! My sister-in-law and I continued our tradition and baked a cake together to mark the occasion. We waffled on the theme a little. At first we wanted to do strawberries in honor of the…

Soft Extra-Large Lemon Cookies

As part of a double birthday at the office, I made two types of cookies based on the requests of “something lemony” and “something chocolatey” – these lovely lemon (like that alliteration? Me too.) cookies were the something lemony, and they were a huge huge HUGE hit! Until now, the only lemon cookies I had…