Banana Whoopie Pies for Valentine's Day

I know it's a bit late in the game to be making a sweet for your sweet, but these little heart shaped sweets are too good and too easy not to share.

Their adorable heart-shape is thanks to Wilton's Heart-Shaped Whoopie Pie Pan, but they work just as well if you pipe little mounds of batter onto a parchment lines baking-sheet.  Though I think these are a bit  cuter.

Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies with Sea Salt

WARNING: These cookies are completely addictive.

I don't bake cookies all that often.  But a few months back, when I was working on a movie, my boss brought in a box of these amazing chocolate chip cookies topped with sea salt.  Made courtesy of his ridiculously talented baker of a mom.  Seriously, this woman is nuts I've been lucky enough to taste many of her treats and to bake with her and she is truly a wonderful baker.

Well these cookies were so good and completely the opposite of what I usually look for in a chocolate chip cookie that I had to ask her for the recipe.

Raspberry Blueberry Pie

Over the past week we've had a decent amount of snow.

At least compared the complete lack of snow we've had so far this year.  It has actually felt like winter. Which is kinda nuts considering we're more than halfway through January!

Because of the winter-like weather I've been all over comfort food, including an insane Bolognese that I made last night.  We had our good friends the Shacks over for dinner, so I had to make a dessert too.

OK, well I didn't have to, I could have asked them to bring dessert, but to be honest I was looking for an excuse to bake and it's much easier to justify if we're having company.

The Search for the Ultimate Brownie - Ad Hoc at Home Brownies

I love brownies.

They are by far one of my most favorite baked goods.  They surpass even pie in terms of my most crave-able sweet.

Brownies are this perfectly simple, homey treat that are oh so satisfying.  They are reminiscent of bake sales and warm kitchens.  There is just something magical about them.

Brownies were actually one of the very first thing I baked from scratch.  Back when I was younger, maybe in junior high or high school, I had a hankering for brownies and my parents didn't have a mix in the pantry.  So I pulled out my family's go to cookbook, Fanny Farmer, and turned to the brownie recipe.  We luckily had all the ingredients I needed, even unsweetened chocolate. So I went about baking them.  As I remember it, they were the most perfect brownies, so much better than any box mix I'd ever had.

Burgers & Buns on the Grill

Cheeseburgers are amazing.

Seriously, if you don't agree you might be in the wrong place.

There is something about a freshly grilled burger eaten outside on a gorgeous summer day that can't be beat.

I'm a fan of a good greasy burger from my fave burger joint, The Burger's Priest.  They are pretty transcendent, but even they don't compare with a burger made with good meat, cooked in the open air.

If you follow me on Facebook or Twitter (if you don't, get on it, you won't be sorry) you may remember a couple weeks ago lots of updates about my amazing dinner inspired by a visit to the farmer's market and the gorgeous weather. The short story is that I picked up some delicious beefsteak tomatoes and organic romaine at my local farmer's market. I know for many people that would mean a lovely salad and I'm sure it would have made a lovely salad but my mind immediately went to burgers.  I think partially because we hadn't had them in awhile, but also because I had just seen Zoe Francois' post about baking buns on the grill.  My house is a hot box in the summer, the oven is the last thing I want to turn on, it's that hot.  So the prospect of being able to make fresh baked buns on the grill was amazing.

Meatless Monday...Guest Post

Welcome first time guest poster Tania from Love Big Bake Often. I found Tania and her blog as soon as I started blogging and have considered us virtual friends ever since. She is Canadian, married to an American; the exact opposite of me, an American married to a Canadian. The big difference is that her hubs is in the US Army and she spent most of last year as a single mom to her two adorable boys while her hubs was deployed. She believes in making everything from scratch and much like me shows love through the things she makes for her family. She'll be posting twice this week and I'm sure it will all be delicious!

Hi there! Tania here. I love guest posting, so when Jen asked me to help her out, I jumped on the chance. Jen was actually the first person who told me about Meatless Mondays, and since then I have been trying to participate as much as possible. Jason hopped on board as long as it wasn't too much tofu! Though I have to say that he has thoroughly enjoyed the tofu stir-fry that I have made for him and eats it with gusto. And I am always on the look out for new tofu recipes, so if you have one leave me a link would ya? Thanks.

I am a Quiche Lover! Jason wasn't so much a quiche lover when we met, but I think I have turned him into one. Yes, I see a trend here....there are a lot of things that Jason had never experienced before he met me. This is one quiche that I make often....and we love. For dinner, breakfast, lunch...it's good hot or cold.

Birthday Cake!

I have managed to become the birthday cake person with the Boy's family, I'm not sure how but I have.  Two years ago a cupcake or cookies was all I could manage and now I'm pulling off multi-layer cakes, it's beyond stressful but has it's moments where it's fun.

A few months ago I bookmarked I recipe I came too via my fave food porn site, Tastespotting.  It was a gorgeous photo of a special looking cake from Sweetopolita, it immediately went into the file of things that I always mean to make and rarely find the time to get to.  When I was asked to make a birthday cake for the Easter potluck dessert, I knew that this was just thing.  Special enough for the person whose birthday it was, just a bit festive, with the strawberry layers for Easter, had chocolate for the birthday boy and would utilize some of my homemade jams.

Brown Butter Blondies with Whiskey Caramel

A few weeks ago I took part in a bake sale to raise money for the relief efforts in Japan.  It was an amazing event, put together by Heena & Niya, two amazing women here in Toronto.  Sales took place over 2 days at 6 different locations across Toronto with countless people donating their baking talents and time in a effort to help make a difference in the lives of the people of Japan.  Over the course of the weekend and online fundraising in the weeks that followed we have raised almost $30,000 100% of which will be donated to relief efforts.  I donated my treats and helped out at the Evergreen Brickworks, one of my favorite farmer's markets.  It was truly an amazing day.  I was impressed by the sheer volume of treats that were donated and as a result we always had a table full of treats with a constant mass of people 2 and 3 deep there to donate and get some tasty treats.

As the bake sale approached I thought of what I could make that would represent me and would do well in a bake sale environment.  I settled on Apple Hand Pies immediately.  I used the same heart molds that I had for my Nutella Ricotta Pies, pairing an all butter crust with apples sweetened with brown sugar and cinnamon, they were an easy winner.  But I wanted to make something else.  I then thought of The Domestic Diva, she has participated in a number of charity bake sales and always make Bacon Brownies with Bourbon Caramel.  Jumping off that idea I decided to come up with a recipe for Brown Butter Blondies with Whiskey Caramel.  I tend to prefer whiskey to bourbon and have it on hand more often than bourbon so that was an easy switch.  Also I'm kind of obsessed with brown butter, I actually have been since I was younger when my mom would let the butter brown to fry up my scrambled eggs or would toss cooked carrots in brown butter.  Ever since I made Brown Butter Waffles back in January I've been wanting to make another treat with brown butter and the bake sale seemed like the perfect opportunity to do some testing with it.

Sour Cream Topped Brownies

Something on my Christmas list that most people would probably laugh at was Black Cocoa from King Arthur.  It may seem silly but living in Canada King Arthur products aren't easy to come by, actually they are impossible. I had seen different recipes in the blogosphere using this uber-dark cocoa and was intrigued.  Especially since I am a fan of all baked good chocolate, especially brownies.  I happily received this specific, albeit odd, request from my Christmas list and have pretty much been hoarding it until I knew what to do with it. I mean this cocoa is like gold to me and I just don't want to waste it on anything.

Yesterday a brownie craving struck and I recalled seeing a recipe for Black Cocoa Brownies, or Ebonies, on the King Arthur site. It was pretty straightforward recipe and I set about making it.  As I was mixing the batter I thought about cheesecake brownies, one of my favorite brownie varieties. Unfortunately I didn't have any cream cheese but I did have sour cream.  So I mixed up a cheese cake like filling with the sour cream and topped these dark chocolate beauties with the mixture.  I was excited at the prospect of how the tangy sour cream would work with the rich brownies and set about waiting for them to bake and cool.

Birthday Lemon Meringue Pie

We now take a break from our standard Meatless Monday recipes for a belated birthday sweet recipe.  A few weeks was Carole's, my friend and co-blogger, birthday. On more than one occasion when we have chatted she has mentioned that one of her favorite desserts is Lemon Meringue pie, she admitted even to loving the Shiriff Lemon Meringue Pie mix.  I try to go out of my way to make something special for my friends on their birthday's and aim to make their favorite.  While I'm not completely opposed to mixes for desserts, it just doesn't seem special enough for a birthday.

I have had quite a few lemon meringue pie fails in the last few years, so I was a bit nervous to attempt this one.  Either the lemon doesn't set up or the meringue is just lame or the crust doesn't quite bake right.  I consider myself a pretty excellent fruit pie baker, but anything with a custard type filling makes me a bit nervous.  But this is for a birthday, so I was hellbent on getting it right.  I found a basic-sounding recipe on Epicurious that I tweaked a bit based on other user's comments and decided to give it a go. Lucky for me the Boy has an iPad and let me download the Epicurious App onto it.  If you have an iPad, this app is great for cooking with, you have access to their whole library and don't need to futz around with your laptop or printing out a recipe.  Both the Boy and I use it all the time.

Rosemary Lavender Scones with Strawberry Earl Grey Jam

FoodBuzz and Electrolux tasked FoodBuzz's Featured Publishers with coming up for the perfect Tea Party Treat for our very own Virtual Tea Party hosted by Electrolux spokesperson Kelly Ripa.  Not only do I love tea parties and doing a proper Afternoon Tea, but this is also for an extremely good cause, raising money and awareness for Ovarian Cancer Research.  For every post that a Featured Publisher writes FoodBuzz will donate $50 to Ovarian Cancer Research.

You mean I get to make my favorite tea party food and raise money for Ovarian Cancer Research all at the same time?  And I get a chance to be featured in FoodBuzz's Top 9 on top of all of it?!  Sign me up!  You can take part too, even if you aren't on FoodBuzz or a Featured Publisher, for more info check out Kelly Confidential.

When I think of tea parties or Afternoon Tea I think of the first time I went to London, right after college.  I had spent some time traveling Europe with a friend and at the end met up my mother in London.  Needless to say after a few weeks of backpacking I was tired, dirty and kinda over it poor student travel.  So when I got to the posh hotel where Mom & I were staying all I wanted was tea and scones.  We had afternoon tea each of the 3 days we were in London, once at Harrods which was pretty fabulous. Now more than 10 years later, since I moved to Toronto I'm back on an afternoon tea kick and have gone to both the Windsor Arms & The King Edward Hotel, two of the nicest places in town for tea.  The Windsor Arms wins for their gorgeous and oh-so-girlie tea rooms and lovely eclectic teapots.  The King Eddie wins for their varied menu, mouth-wateringly delicious food and beautiful matching china.  Needless to say I have all kinds of inspiration for tea party treats.