Red Velvet Mocha Brownies

Red Velvet Mocha Brownies 

There are many universal truths in life. One I have realized recently is as follows:

Brownies are more delicious than cake 99.9% of the time.

There, I said it. Call the baking police, alert the wedding planners, whatever. I’m convinced, and if you’re not yet, you will be soon.

Given this new life philosophy, I decided to try turning red velvet cake mix into brownies. Also, I was in the mood to add some mocha to the mix, so I sandwiched some mocha brownies in between red velvet brownies, because I’ve learned after years of experience baking that delicious food + delicious food = REALLY delicious food. This creation fit the equation perfectly :-)

Chai Blondies with Chocolate Salted Caramel Filling

Chai Blondies with Chocolate Salted Caramel Filling




I just love the flavor of chai tea. Whether's it's in my ever-favorite soy chai latte at Starbucks or used in baking, the unique spice mix always puts a smile on my face. Recently, I've started buying chai concentrate. Oregon Chai makes a great sugar free (and calorie free!) concentrate that is great for making chai tea lattes at home for a fraction of the calories and dollars of a Starbucks chai tea latte. Though, just as a forewarning, low cal wasn't exactly my aim in this recipe. Still, I think the use of chai concentrate in baking is a really fun and easy way to add amazing flavor to your baked goods! Here's how I incorporated chai concentrate into my baking for the first time!

Dark Chocolate Nut Butter Crisps with Pistachio Chocolate Chip Dip

Dark Chocolate Nut Butter Crisps with Pistachio Chocolate Chip Dip

What could make a better party snack than chips and dip? Well, in my opinion, a lot of things. But for those of us with a sweet tooth, cookie crisps and sweet dip are quite the improvement on the traditional chips and dip! To be honest though, this concept was a bit of an accident. I wanted to make a sort of sandwich cookie, with the pistachio dip as the filling. However, it just wasn’t really the right consistency to work well as a filling. So, I ended up with these incredible, crispy thin cookies and a refreshing pistachio dip. Bring this to the next party you attend, set it next to the chips and dip, and see what gets finished first!

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookie Dough Rice Krispie Treats

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookie Dough Rice Krispie Treats

                Just like the Caramel Mocha Brookies in the last post, these Nutella Peanut Butter Cookie Dough Rice Krispie Treats came to be largely due to what was on sale at CVS. Such is the life of a broke college student with no car and no grocery store in reasonable walking distance. This time, boxes of Rice Krispies were 3 for $5. Especially considering the ridiculous prices that CVS typically charges for food, this sounded like quite the steal to me. So, I got a box of Rice Krispies and another of Cocoa Krispies. The other major factor in the creation of these tasty treats was my ever-present desire to find more socially acceptable ways to eat cookie dough. Alas, my gluttony and the CVS gods (that's what I'll assume they call the people who decide the sales at CVS, and therefore, my impulse buying decisions) led me to yet another delicious recipe. As always, I am left with no shame and no regrets.  

Dark Mocha Caramel Brookies

Dark Mocha Caramel Brookies 

A few weeks ago, I gave my friend Sarah a baking lesson-not that she needed it. She was a more than capable co-chef! Together we made one of the most delicious things I've ever tasted. Not even exaggerating. I was thinking of making dark mocha caramel brownies. I had thought those up because Goetze's Caramel Cream candies had been on sale at CVS so I had picked up a bag, I was in the mood to try baking with coffee, and I have a new(ish) obsession with Hershey's Dark cocoa...well at this point maybe it would actually be better classified as a persistent obsession. 

Anyways, if my idea didn't sound good enough, right before we were about to start baking the brownies, Sarah asked me how you would make brookies, which are brownies baked with a chocolate chip cookie underneath that are sold in a lot of the Vandy Dining locations. I figured I might as well take this dessert to the next level by showing her how! So, now imagine a dessert with chocolate chip cookies, creamy caramel filling, and gooey dark chocolate mocha brownies...it just sounds too good to be true, right?! Well, whenever you imagine a dessert and that's the case, you know it's time to get your bake on!

21 Cake

“21 Cake”

Pumpkin Butterscotch Cake with Nutella Salted Caramel Filling and White Chocolate Cinnamon Icing

A few weeks ago, Lauren turned 21. Needless to say, this upped the ante. Obviously, I was going to make her a birthday cake, but I have a baking blog with her, so it couldn’t just be any normal birthday cake. It needed to be epic. Creative, multi-faceted, and full of things that Lauren loves. While brainstorming this cake, I realized it was going to require a lot of ingredients. So, I made absolutely sure that it had 21 unique ingredients, one for every year Lauren has graced the Earth. 

We had the cake at Lauren’s birthday party, and it was definitely a hit. I may never make a cake this awesome again, but you should totally try. Here’s how: 

Peanut Butter S'mores Cake Pops

Peanut Butter S'mores Cake Pops

Cake pops are perhaps one of the best things ever created. They provide an excuse to eat cake (as if you actually needed one) without feeling like you're overindulging. After all, they're so small and bite sized, how could one (or two, or three, or ten) hurt? :) It couldn't. Trust me, I'm pre-med.

My friend Rachel gave me a cake pop maker for my birthday last week (finally 21!!!!) and naturally I couldn't wait to test it out. My first experiment involved strawberry angel food cake pops, but it turns out whisking egg whites by hand doesn't work unless your name is Hulk. They turned out tasty, but unfortunately the texture did not translate into beautiful cake pops, but rather awkward half-tortoise shells that I covered in white chocolate. Delicious? Sure. Pretty? Not so much.

I realized that I needed to use a thicker batter in order to achieve the desired texture. So for the next batch, which Dena and I baked together in my new apartment kitchen (!!!!), we decided to use a blondie as the basis for our cake pops. We figured that this would create a dense but delicious center that would hold up to any necessary manhandling. We also decided to go with a s'mores theme, so we filled each cake pop with a marshmallow, covered it in chocolate, and rolled it in crushed graham crackers. Oh, and we added peanut butter to the blondie because, well, why not? The result: Huge success! The brown sugar creates a caramelized outer shell that locks in the moist richness of the peanut butter blondie, and the chocolate and graham cracker shell works perfectly with the flavors and the texture. Not to mention the gooey marshmallow center that oozes out when you bite into the pop. Sooooo goooooood. They literally disappeared faster than anything that we've made before (and trust me, that's saying something). Seriously, make these right now. Go.