This was part of the ‘Cajun Birthday Lunch’
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I LOVE pralines. It’s that brown sugar-y sweetness that I just can’t resist. I wanted to put that into a cupcake, yet that wasn’t quite enough…I decided to top it off with a PRALINE COOKIE. Oh. Yeah. What have you got to lose, right?

ingredients:
1-1/2 sticks (3/4 cup) butter
1 cup sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
3 eggs
1 Tablespoon vanilla
2-1/4 cups cake flour
1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1 cup milk
1 cup chopped pecans

vanilla buttercream frosting
praline cookies (recipe here)

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Prep a cupcake pan with liners.

In a medium bowl whisk the flour, baking powder, and salt in a bowl. Set aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer, cream the butter and sugars until fluffy.

Add eggs one at a time. Then the vanilla.

Alternate the milk with the dry ingredients until combined.

Now I am sort of anti-nuts in my desserts, but these little chopped pecans add SO MUCH to this cake. It’s scrumptious, seriously.

Stir in the chopped pecans, then pour into prepped liners.

Bake 17-20 minutes depending on your oven.

Let cool on wire racks.

When cool, frost with vanilla buttercream. You could stop there. You…could. OR…

…you could make a batch of Praline Cookies!!

Just add a praline cookie on top and you’re good to go! Totally unecessary? YES. But it looks so good and you get a cookie AND a cupcake. Hooray for overload.

First birthdays are the best – over the top fun! I made 100 cupcakes for the Sweets Table and what a sweet table it was – look at that candy!

Red Velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting dipped in lavender and soft green sanding sugars – to match the birthday colors of course – and some in lovely folded parchment cups with just a few lavender sugar pearls on top. Divine.

Can you believe it was storming torrential rain as I drove up with these? Poor little cupcakes. They survived though!

Happiness to the birthday girl!

I saw this recipe in the Martha Stewart Cupcake book and thought I’d change it up a bit. The real kicker here is I added cinnamon chips which made everything just sing. Talk about flava!! I also added a Wookiee, but if you don’t have one you can just make do.

ingredients:
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1 cup (2 sticks) butter
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
3 large eggs
1-1/2 teaspoons vanilla
1/3 cup whole milk
1 cup semi sweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup cinnamon chips

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Prep a cupcake pan with liners.

In a medium bowl whisk the flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer beat the butter, sugar, and brown sugar. Once combined, add the eggs one at a time, then the vanilla.

Alternate the flour mixture with the milk until combined. This will look like cookie batter!

Cinnamon Chips are hard to find, but so worth the hunt. They are made by Hershey’s and as far as I can tell in the Los Angeles area they are only sold at Alberton’s. So weird! If you can find them – get them, you won’t be disappointed. They add a whole new dimension to baking. Plus wookiees love them. Just look at him, he can’t wait.

Now fold in the chocolate chips and cinnamon chips.

Fill your liners about 3/4 of the way full.

Bake for 18-20 minutes until toothpick test says they’re done! Let cool on a wire rack.

These are pretty addicting, I’m not just saying that. I’ve had people eat one and then immediately ask for more. Not one more, like TWELVE MORE. This is why Chewbacca is keeping this one all for himself…

The Kid is off of school for a whole week. A WEEK?? I never got a week off when I was a kid!! Must. Find. Things. To. Do.

I thought an easy and fun thing to do together would be to make a pie. A S’mores pie. Is your mouth watering? The Kid loves all things marshmallow so why not kick up a bit?

Sure it’s a reach, but the components are there: graham crackers, marshmallows and chocolate. I threw this together on the fly this morning and it came out just as I had hoped. Believe it or not, the bittersweet chocolate cuts the sweet – but boy is it rich…n the best possible way.

ingredients:
Graham Cracker Pie crust (see recipe here)
20 large marshmallows
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup heavy cream
6 ounces bittersweet chocolate
Pinch of salt
1 Teaspoon of vanilla
1/4 cup mini marshmallows

1 cup heavy cream
1/4 powdered sugar

Prep your graham cracker crust and set aside. Get a small sous chef to count out 20 marshmallows. Tell him it’s a FUN game. That’s how you get things done.

In a double boiler (witness my janky do it yourself version) heat the marshmallows till they get a little melty. Add the chocolate, then the cream. until it’s all combined. Keep stirring, it may take a while.

Note: Scharffenberger is king of chocolate. You won’t find a richer, smoother chocolate to work with. This 6 ounce bar melts down to a little bit of heaven and really makes all the difference in flavor.

Once everything is melted, add the salt and the vanilla. Let cool for a few minutes.

In the bottom of the pie crust sprinkle around the marshmallows. (Note: the Kid helped and I just let him do what he wanted, so we just mixed them in instead.) On top of the marshmallows and pie crust, pour the chocolate mixture, then put in the fridge to set.

When you are ready to serve, whip the heavy cream with the powdered sugar and serve with the pie. So good it will make you cry.

As you know, I cook with mochiko…A LOT. I wanted to make something for a party, and brownies are always a good choice. Adding mochiko gave this an extra little ‘chew’ and a little heft. They were a hit!

ingredients:
1 cup mochiko (sweet rice flour)
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
pinch of salt
4 Tablespoons butter
1/2 cup chocolate chips
1 (12 oz) can evaporated milk
1-1/2 teaspoons vanilla
1 egg
1/2 cup chocolate chips

Mochiko is a sweet rice flour that gives things that familiar ‘mochi-ness’ – it comes in a 12 ounce box and it pretty cheap.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line an 8×8 pan with parchment and butter it. This will make your life way easier when you go to take these out. (Note: I made this in a larger pan, ’cause I made a double batch since I was going to a party.)

In a saucepan over low heat, melt the butter and chocolate chips and stir to combine. Set aside and let cool for a bit.

In a bowl whisk together the mochiko, sugar, baking soda and salt.

Add the melted chocolate mixture, evaporated milk, vanilla and the egg. Mix until combined.

Pour the batter into your prepared pan. Sprinkle the chocolate chips on top of the batter, then bake in the oven for 35-40 minutes until the center is done, it’s hard to tell since the mochi does give these a little more ’spring’ than the average brownie, but you can kind of tell when it’s cooked through.

Let cool in the pan for about 10-15 minutes, then using the overlapping parchment, pull the brownies out of the pan and let cool on a wire rack. Cut the brownies into squares and you are good to go!

These are so good little people may try to steal them…

I love Valentine’s Day because I love pink and I love hearts – it’s also a perfect time for sweets. This year I made some old favorites with a twist:

I made my Neapolitan cookies but used TEENY cutters and cut out little hearts. They look so good in the pan but unfortunately they spread like crazy…

They are still cute but it makes me want to use a miniscule cutter next time to see how small I can really get these things.

I also made up some M & M cookies but used the ‘Valentine’s mix’ which means pink, red and white. Cute idea but the M & M’s don’t show up that well. Doesn’t matter, they were still delicious.

Then I made mixed boxes of red velvet cupcakes and chocolate ganache cupcakes. I just love how the white and brown look together with the little hearts.

Who knows if people appreciate all this work, but I had fun making all of it. Now what holiday is up next…?

Neapolitan cookies recipe, here.
M&M cookies recipe, here.
Chocolate Ganache cupcakes recipe, here.

Mochi. And donuts. If there are two more wonderful things in the world, you let me know. I thought I’d combine the two to get a nice sweet donut with a little chew. These are similar to ‘dango’ which is a fried dough that is sold at church carnivals – but those are plain. I wanted to add more sweetness and FLAVA and you can’t go wrong with cinnamon and sugar.

ingredients:
2 cups mochiko (sweet rice flour)
2 cups flour
1-1/2 cups sugar
3 eggs
1-1/2 cups whole milk
4 Tablespoons baking powder
2 teaspoon vanilla

oil (you need to DEEP fry these, so they are immersed)

1/2 cup sugar
3 Tablespoons cinnamon

In a large bowl mix together the mochiko, flour, sugar, eggs, milk, baking powder and vanilla. Set aside.

In a separate shallow dish, stir together the sugar and cinnamon. Set this aside for later, and start to heat your oil.

You know I HATE frying, but someone gifted me a fryer years ago and man, I think it’s the best thing ever. It does all the work and no mess. Heaven. If you don’t have one, just heat some oil in deep skillet, that’ll work too. The optimum oil temp for these is around 350 degrees.

Now you’re going to drop these by the Tablespoon into the hot oil. They expand a lot so don’t go crazy overflowing the spoon. Also the mochiko makes the batter very pull-y and sticky, so try your best to keep it formed into nice round shapes or you will get some craziness at the end of it all.

Once the dough pops up and floats, you know you are in good shape. Fry until golden brown, a few minutes on each side. Drain them on a wire rack. If you drain them on paper towels alllll the oil will get sucked back into the donut. GROSS. Trust me and use a rack.

While still hot, roll the donuts in the cinnamon sugar mixture.

These things are BEST warm, but people who ate them hours later said they were still great. There’s nothing more comforting than sugary donuts. YUM!!

Just like last year, the Lemon Fairy left a gigantor bag of lemons on my porch. And FINALLY we’ve come to the end of Lemon Week!
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This dessert is so light you’ll want to eat the whole pie, but don’t fool yourself, it’s chock full of ice cream and whipped cream, aka two of the most fattening fabulous things in the world. But the secret is the crust. I had leftover Nilla Wafers lying around and didn’t want to waste them. Thank goodness, it sent this pie over the top! You just may find yourself eating it straight out of pie plate like I did. Ahem. I’m classy.

ingredients:
1 (9 inch) nilla wafer pie crust (see recipe)
3 cups vanilla ice cream, softened
1/2 cup lemon sugar (you can just white sugar if you don’t have lemon)
3/4 cup water
1 teaspoon lemon zest
1/4 cup lemon juice
1 cup heavy whipping cream
4 tablespoons powdered sugar

Prep your pie crust, set aside.

In a large bowl, mix together the sugar, water, lemon zest and lemon juice. Fold in the ice cream, make sure it’s softened, you’re job will be easier!

In a mixing bowl whip the heavy cream with the powdered sugar until soft peaks form. PAY ATTENTION: You will only use HALF of this. Fold HALF into the ice cream mixture and pour into the pie crust. Place in the freezer until set!

NOW use the other half of the whipped cream to dollop on top of the pie before you serve! And come on, serve it on a clean plate, let’s be civilized here!

I often have leftover Nilla Wafers lying around, and while I’ve made cupcakes out of them, the obvious thing to do would be to make pie crust!

ingredients:
approx. 36 Nilla wafers
1/4 cup butter, melted
1-1/2 Tablespoons sugar

In a sealed plastic freezer bag, bash the heck out of the vanilla wafers. Or use a food processor. Whatever works. Combine the crumbs with the melted butter and the sugar – then press into your pie pan.

As you can tell from my picture I got super lazy and did not crush them that fine.

Now you can bake this or not, depending on how lazy you are. Use it as is, or to make it REALLY NICE, bake at 350 for 6-8 minutes depending on your oven. Let cool before you use it.

I am going stir crazy being stuck in the house due to the storm of the century. This is NOT typical Los Angeles weather. Slightly depressed and freezing, I turned to my pantry for warmth. I found it in old bread crusts (thanks to the Hello Kitty sandwich making-fest we had!) and a jar of Nutella. Ah, Nutella. My breakfast of choice everyday when I lived in Italy. Pure comfort.

I should teeter on the edge of sanity more often. I come up with some pretty good recipes in the end.

ingredients:
approx. 8 cups of bread crusts, cubed
2-1/2 cups milk
½ cup heavy cream
4 eggs
1 Tablespoon vanilla
¾ cup sugar
2 Tablespoons Valrhona cocoa powder
3 Tablespoons nutella

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.

You are going to make EIGHT tiny bread puddings, so grease 8 small single serving ramekins with melted butter.

As for the bread crusts, I cut mine into small cubes, not gigantor size, seeing as how they are small ramekins. Equally portion out your cubed bread crusts into the buttered ramekins. Set these aside.

Now you’re going to start the custard. In a bowl, whisk the milk, heavy cream, eggs and vanilla. Carefully add the sugar and the cocoa powder. Stir well – this make take some mixing as the cocoa powder will clump a little, do your best it doesn’t have to be totally incorporated, just enough.

Now stir the nutella into the custard mixture. Oh, Nutella. So creamy and delicious. How I love it on a piece of crispy toast, the perfect crunch – just heaven in the morning with a cup of tea. Oh, hi. Enough daydreaming, back to the recipe. Again, the Nutella won’t completely break down – just keep stirring until most of it has been combined. The rest will probably sink to the bottom.

Place the ramekins on a cookie sheet, this is only to catch possible spillage and to make it easy to transport to your oven. No one wants a chocolate-y mess on the floor.

Carefully pour the custard over the bread in each ramekin. You’ll get more in there than you think, once the bread starts soaking it up. You’ll see that some of the nutella has settled to the bottom – no problem – just pour it right on top of the bread. Trust me, it will be great when it’s all done baking. Let sit for 10 minutes.

Bake for 40 minutes in your preheated oven. Let cool just a bit and if I may be so bold, add a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top. Comfort food, indeed.