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.

Nutella Mascarpone Frosting

A tea cup full of frosting?

I say, why not?  Especially because this frosting is the be all and end all of all frostings if you ask me.

It's rich and decadent, but not too sweet.

I'm the type of person that often prefers the cake to the frosting, since so many frostings are cloyingly sweet and as much as I love dessert I don't enjoy overly sweet treats.

I thought about this frosting sometime last week in preparation for World Nutella Day, but there was a glitch in that World Nutella Day fell on Superbowl Sunday and as much as I love me some Nutella, we all know where my heart was this Superbowl Sunday and the days leading up to it. So it was impossible for me to focus enough to test out my idea.

So here it is, my belated World Nutella Day entry.

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.

Quick and Easy Apple Tart

It's so hard to grocery shop when you are preparing to move. You don't want to fill up the fridge to have to move it, but you really don't want to be stuck with a full fridge to either throw out or have to move.

Oh yeah, we're moving.  I don't think I officially shared that info yet.  

We actually made a grown-up step and purchased our very first home.   Super exciting but also pretty scary too. 

We are currently living amidst a half-packed or let's be honest a quarter-packed house and trying to decide on paint colors, because we close on Tuesday and move on Saturday!  Insanity. 

Strawberry Gelato

Look at that bucket of berries.

Insanity, right?

Well we had two of those buckets filled to the brim last week.  All picked by the Boy and I in about an hour.  It was literally back breakin' or should I say back achin' work.  Strawberry picking is one of those things that should maybe be reserved for kids.  The unfortunate thing is that we love them.  And there is nothing, I mean nothing like the taste of a warm sun-ripened berry.  It has to be one of my favorite tastes of summer.

Strawberry Rhubarb Pie on the Grill

Today, July 5th, is a Pie Party across the web.  It was put out there by the ever fabulous Shauna Ahern, the Gluten-Free Girl.

I think it obvious that I'm a fan of pie, while I haven't made one in awhile I have done a plethora of pie posts since I started this blog.  So when presented with a blogworthy excuse to make one I am all over it.

Here's the glitch, summer is here in full force in Toronto.  80 degree days packed with humidity make my kitchen the last place I want to be when the oven is on.  So what's a girl to do?  The easy answer would be to make an icebox pie.  The problem is my love of fruit pies in a buttery crust will always win out over any graham based crust and pudding type filling that I identify with icepbox pies.

Doughmesstic Guest Post...Watermelon Sorbet

I am so excited to have Susan from She’s Becoming Doughmesstic guest posting.  She’s another blogger I discovered very soon after I began blogging.  Among being a extremely  talented baker and cake decorator, she makes some pretty fabulous savory dishes, too.  She is a mom to Seven, wife to Jon, and all around pretty fabulous.  And if that wasn’t enough, she’s planning an amazing sounding party this weekend for BlogHer Food – the RockHer Blogger Bash.  I’m beyond jealous that I won’t be there.  I’m sure you’ll love what she has to share with you today.

Thanks for having me, Jen! Hope you are enjoying your time away!

Now, readers, tell me this doesn’t look exactly like a fresh watermelon.  Don’t you want to just dig right in?

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.

Last Minute Easter Dessert: Tiramisu

Portions of this article first published as Easter Dessert: The Perfect Tiramisu on Blogcritics.

I first learned how to make Tiramisu during my semester in Florence in college.  I remember almost every recipe I learned in that class, but the class where we learned tiramisu sticks out like no other.  See the class was divided between two tables, each held 8 people. My table was the foodie table, we were excited to play with the beautiful ingredients and to enjoy the fruits of our labor, all while sipping on a glass of wine. The other table was a bunch of kids who just wanted an easy class, guys with too much hair gel and emaciated girls who winced every time the teacher add more than a drop of olive oil to the pan.  What's better than a class that encourages wine consumption, in small amounts anyway.

On this day, each table made their own 11"x17" dish of tiramisu.  My table finished first, of course, and the professor had us make another full batch but this time we folded chocolate shavings into the mascarpone mixture, making a kind of straciatella tiramisu.  This all sounds faboulous I'm sure.  We then let all of the tiramisu sit in the fridge for as long as we could wait before diving in.  Here's where it all went awry. Once we were encouraged to try our dessert, my table dove into our first batch and finished it in short order. We then couldn't help but pull out the straciatella version and without even thinking polished that one off too.  It was just so damn good we couldn't help ourselves.  Later that evening we paid, oh did we pay with tummy aches from the large amounts of sugar, cheese and eggs. Now it wasn't food poisoning from the eggs, as I'm sure many of you think, I promise you that.  It was that kind of tummy ache you get from eating too many sweets, which we absolutely did.   I swore I'd never eat tiramisu again and I actually didn't for the rest of the semester, partly because of my tummy ache, but mostly because I didn't have a mixer in my teeny tiny studio apartment kitchen to beat the egg whites.

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.

Whiskey Laced Peach Slab Pie for Pi Day

Happy 3.14 or Pi Day as it's more commonly known.  I'm a huge fan of pie so any day where the baking and eating of pie is encouraged is ok by me.  While thinking about a pie for Pi Day I knew I wanted to use the peaches I had frozen at the end of last summer but I also wanted to figure out a way to tie the upcoming St. Patrick's Day into it.   St. Patty's Day to me is all about beer and whiskey.  I wasn't really feeling the idea of beer and peaches, though if anyone has a recipe that proves me wrong on that one I'd love to see it.  But peaches & whiskey?  Why not?

Blood Orange Cardamom Crostata for an early Pi Day

It never fails, blood oranges always transport me back to Florence, Italy 1998. It was then and there that I first had a blood orange.  That I first saw it's gorgeous purplish-red flesh.  It's because of that semester abroad that I have a minor obsession with blood oranges.  Peeling them, eating them, cooking with them reminds me of such a specific time in my life.  A time I long to relive or even just to share with the Boy, who has never been to La Bella Italia, as I so fondly think of it.

It was a time of alot of firsts.  The first time I went to a foreign country where I didn't speak the language, the first time I had even been so far from my family, the first time I was required to cook for myself everyday, the first time I actually enjoyed red wine, my first cooking class and so many more.  It was such an amazing time, to live in and learn about a place, people and culture and to completely fall head over heels in love with everything about it. From the people, to the food, to the landscape, even the random and annoying transit strikes, it all holds a special place in my heart.  Because of the memories this simple piece of fruit (am many other Italian ingredients and dishes) evoke I can't help but snatch them up whenever I see them.

CCC: Butterscotch cupcakes

I was excited when this month's Cooking Club Challenge was chosen to be Riccardo's Butterscotch cupcakes.  I was excited to have the opportunity to make real butterscotch from scratch, something I may not have tackled otherwise.  While I love chocolate cake and icing, it's something I naturally gravitate towards while baking, so this recipe gave me the chance to try something completely new.  Plus after the rich German Chocolate Cake I made last week, as much as I wasn't hankering for cupcakes, there was something about these little bites that I was excited to make.

German Chocolate Cake

As many of you know, this past weekend we had some house guests here in the T dot.  My sis surprised her boyfriend, DD, with a trip to Toronto for the weekend.  Now quite a few people I spoke with as the day approached asked, "does he WANT to come to Toronto?"  Because let's be honest Toronto in February is not the most appealing place, it's generally grey and cold and the snow is all dirty and gross.   Luckily though he had been wanting to come up here, nether he nor my sis have ever been to Toronto or Canada for that matter AND a good friend of DD's from New Zealand just moved up here.  Seeing a new place and old friends makes for a good surprise trip as far as I'm concerned and luckily DD agreed.  When she got home from work on Thursday night she handed him a card telling him to pack a bag and plan for cold weather.   Then at the airport she handed him his passport as they got into the Virgin America international line to check-in.  He was so confused and thrown by the surprise, but also excited.

So why am I telling you all of this?  What does any of this have to do with why you visit my little blog?  Well, my tag line is "food made with love for the people I love" and a birthday can't sneak by without me making a cake, cupcakes or pie. A few weeks ago as my sis was planning the trip I asked about Dave's favorite cake.  She insisted that I didn't need to do anything, but you can't stay at my house on your birthday and not get a homemade treat and I go out of my way to make sure it's your fave.  She told me that German Chocolate is his favorite.  German Chocolate Cake has never been my favorite, but I was pretty excited to make since I've never made it before and I figured that making it might change my thoughts on it. And once I found an amazing sounding recipe on David Lebovitz's site. I knew this was the one I had to make, so as last Thursday rolled around I set to work on all of the components.

Nutella Ricotta Pocket Pies for World Nutella Day

I first remember eating Nutella sometime in high school, likely at a friends house and remember loving it instantly. The chocolately nutty goodness was my ideal.  I don't ever remember having it at my parents house, either mom couldn't find it, because this was before Nutella could be bought at any grocery store, or she decided we just didn't need another sweet spread on top of peanut butter and jelly.

I then went away to college and my love for Nutella took a back burner to boys, books and beer (not in that order).  My junior year I went to Florence to live and study for a semester and it was then that my true love affair with Nutella began.  My roommate brought out first jar home, just a small jar and we went through it in two days.  See this is what happens when you live upstairs from a bread bakery and your favorite little shopkeeper on the corner carries Nutella.  Throughout the semester we would, on most mornings, buy a loaf a bread and eat half of it in the morning with Nutella and the other half at dinner with olive oil.  But it was that freshly baked bread dripping with hazelnut and chocolate that I really remember and miss dearly.

Whoopie Pies! & a visit to the King Arthur Flour Store

I tweated about these Whoopie Pies a week ago and I'm so sorry for the delay in getting them posted.  If you read my other blog No Reeats you'll know that I am back to work for a few weeks and have been insanely busy.  Regardless of that, I promise these fabulous little chocolate sandwiches fondly known as whoopie pies were definitely worth the wait AND just in time to make for your upcoming Superbowl party or even for your sweetheart for Valentines day.  

Over the holidays the Boy and I spent some time down in Boston.  On our way back to Toronto we made a little side trip at Mom & Dad's trailside condo in Killington.  As I was researching the weather and figuring out when to go, it dawned on me that we would be driving dangerously close to the King Arthur flour plant and store.  That I had spent so many years growing up and as an adult driving to Killington and never realized this seems crazy.  But I guess it's because up until I really got into baking a few years ago I had no idea what King Arthur Flour was, to be honest I could care less about any specific flour, just so long as I had what I needed to make a tray of brownies.

As I've gotten more into baking the brand King Arthur has come up more and more.  I'm specifically intrigued with their black cocoa. So much so that I asked for some for Christmas and was lucky enough to receive it.   I didn't use it in this recipe, but did use some other treats I bought on my trip.

Christmas Cookie Round-up

There is something about Christmas that just makes me want to bake large amounts of cookies.  I'm generally not a cookie person and yet I always make them this time of year.  Since many people have a few days off this week for the holidays I wanted to share what I've been baking as each recipe can easily be done in a day, so there's still time to make them for Christmas Day or they are so yummy they'd even be great to bring to a New Year's Eve Party.  I didn't get to making as many varieties of sweets as I would have liked, but what I did make was delish!