Tag Archives: dessert

White Chocolate Cranberry Cookies

Posted on January 30, 2013 by Julie • 2 Comments

white chocolate cran cookies

Oh, man, I love white chocolate and cranberry together. The tartness of cranberry with the crazy over the top sweetness of white chocolate is one of my all time favorite combinations. I even love the look of the wintry red and white together. I had grand aspirations of making this cranberry white chocolate tart for Christmas dessert, but I didn’t think it would be enough. I still want to revisit it at some point, but when I reaaaalllly (like REALLY BADLY) wanted something cranberry/white chocolate last weekend, I only had an hour or so before leaving to pick a friend up from the airport – just enough time to slap some cookies together and set them out to cool. And over the last year, I’ve mostly solved my cookie problem, so I’m less nervous about baking fails when I stack some cookies up in the oven and walk away.

Speaking of fails, have you guys seen these Pinterest Food Fails? It’s a couple of months old now but still cracks me up – the “nailed it!” gets me every time. So funny, and I cannot even tell you how many times I’ve tried something I saw online and been left with a full trash can and an empty stomach, wondering what sort of weird Martha Stewart parallel universe these people were living in when they created this seemingly un-reproducible perfection. One thing I’ve learned is that the ability to laugh at oneself is key in these situations.

… [click for recipe and more]

Filed Under: Desserts, Quick & Easy

Tiramisu Cupcakes and New Year’s Resolutions

Posted on January 15, 2013 by Julie • 7 Comments

tiramisu1

It’s been a month! A month since I’ve updated my now 13-month-old blog (does that mean my blog is a toddler now? And I didn’t even get it a smash cake). Work has been crazy, the holidays are always insane…excuses, excuses. If I made New Year’s resolutions, I’d make one to be the same perpetually prolific Jill of all trades in real life that I am in my head.

I don’t really believe in New Year’s resolutions, though. Can’t stand them, in fact. I think you set yourself up for failure as soon as the intentions leave the safe confines of your mind and reach other human ears. Plus, they virtually ensure that the gym will be utterly, miserably packed for the first six weeks of the year, until everyone remembers that they hate working out. I mean, come on – we all have our faults. Pretending that we’re going to change for two weeks in January is fun, but it never really sticks. Case in point: every year, I decide that this is the year I’m going to become an Organized Person, so I buy a day planner with the intention of keeping it (and a roller ball pen) always on my person, so that I may take notes throughout the day of things I should remember or stuff I have to do. In my most successful year, I lasted a week and a half. In my (two) least successful years, I’ve lost the thing within two weeks of the New Year. So then I’m disorganized AND filled with shame. Nobody wins.

… [click for recipe and more]

Filed Under: Desserts

Apple Pie Fudge

Posted on December 1, 2012 by Julie • 3 Comments

It’s a little sad heading down to the farmer’s market on Saturday mornings of late, mostly because I feel quite strongly that I should still be in bed. Does this happen to any of you? You go to bed on Friday night with the best intentions of sleeping in until some shameful hour, or at least until all major fast food chains have stopped serving breakfast – and instead you jerk awake at WTF o’clock and then lie there waiting for the first light to trickle in the window while thinking about everything you have to do today until you finally surrender to wakefulness and get up. WORST. This happens to me once in a while – once in a while being every single Saturday morning. This is how I know I’m aging a little – the definition of “sleeping in” has slowly, insidiously crept back from the early afternoon hours and now resides at about 7:30. If I’m lucky.

But! The silver lining in the degradation of my internal alarm clock is that instead of rolling out of bed in late morning after the farmer’s market has already closed, I now get the pick of pretty much everything. This is awesome in the spring and summer, when produce is bountiful and the town square (yes, we have one of those!) is positively teeming with farmers, home canners, bakers, and jewelry makers. After Thanksgiving, though, the majority of the vendors drop off – the remaining ones have to-die-for selections of my favorite winter veggies – kale, broccoli, all kinds of gourd-geous squash (see what I did there?), but pickings are slim when it comes to fruit. Apples are pretty much the only game in town, and even those are starting to thin out. A few weeks ago one of the vendors was selling home-bottled apple cider along with the fresh apples, and this recipe for apple pie fudge immediately popped into my head. I’d seen it and bookmarked it the week before and remembered it called for apple cider – it seemed like it was meant to be.

… [click for recipe and more]

Filed Under: Desserts

Pumpkin Mousse

Posted on November 21, 2012 by Julie • 0 Comments

It happens to the best of us. You plan the perfect holiday dessert. You go to four different grocery stores to get the ingredients. Maybe you even order something online. You’re so excited to share your kitchen prowess with your family and friends, and then…something goes horribly wrong. The pie doesn’t set. The souffle falls as soon as the oven door opens. The cake doesn’t rise. And what are you left with? The dregs of all the ingredients you worked so hard to find, just enough to be completely useless if you want to remake your failed creation. Your own dashed hopes. Oh, and no dessert.

If you’re like me, and this happens to you often enough that you always, always have to have a backup plan, this is for you. This is your five-minute, failsafe, “look what I just whipped up!” backup dessert. This warmly spiced pumpkin mousse, made creamy with silken tofu and sweetened with maple syrup, can be served in individual ramekins, or spooned into miniature pie or pastry shells and topped with whipped cream for a makeshift pumpkin custard “pie.” It’s also on the lighter side, so it won’t contribute to the almost inevitable post-Thanksgiving dinner sweats.

… [click for recipe and more]

Filed Under: Desserts, Quick & Easy, Vegan

Peanut Butter Cup Blondies

Posted on November 10, 2012 by Julie • 0 Comments

Let’s discuss my shortcomings. Or rather, let’s discuss ONE of my shortcomings, because we’ll need stuff to talk about in the future and I don’t have that many.

Humility, apparently, should be added to the list, but that’s not the one we’re talking about today.

The one we’re talking about today is my complete disorganization in all aspects of my life, specifically with grocery shopping. I make my list, spend about five minutes in the store halfheartedly attempting to stick to it, and then ripping it into tiny, confetti-like shreds, tossing it into the air, and running down the aisles with both arms out, theatrically sweeping everything that isn’t meat into my cart. I have fragmented thoughts of half-recipes while I’m doing it (“Coconut milk! We can have curry tomorrow! Butternut squash! I can make ravioli! Oh, white chocolate chips! I need those for…something.”). Then I get home and am confronted with the cold reality that I don’t have any curry paste to go with the coconut milk, I don’t know how to make ravioli, and I already have four bags of white chocolate chips – and I still can’t remember what I desperately needed them for.

… [click for recipe and more]

Filed Under: Desserts