Bake or Break

This morning, on a long-awaited day off from work, I woke up with the overwhelming urge to make muffins. With Quinn out for the day, I had a good excuse to use some of the coconut left over from Fathers’ Day’s Chocolate Coconut Almond Cheesecake. Quinn really doesn’t like coconut, but I love [...]

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Every trip to the bookstore begins with a perusal of the cooking section. I am generally very well disciplined and resist buying anything. Sometimes, though, I am not so strong. So, as you can probably guess, I have a new cookbook, Better Homes & Gardens New Baking Book. [...]

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In a quest to make something out of whatever was in my pantry, I came up with these cookies. Chocolate chips times two, peanut butter chips, and pecans all rolled into a basic cookie dough. This recipe is actually a combination of several recipes plus some improvisation.

First, beat 1 cup of [...]

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My sister gave me this recipe a while back, but I had put it in my ever-growing stack and managed not to make it for, well… years. I’ve never had much luck with lemon bars. Today, though, it’s briefness and simplicity beckoned me. And am I ever glad it did! [...]

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I am usually much more inclined to bake desserts than breads, but I’m trying to do better. Recently, Quinn was planning to grill filets for us, so I decided that I would make some bread. Looking through my seemingly bottomless stack of “recipes to try,” I happened upon a recipe from a several [...]

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This recipe is such a wonderfully easy made-from-scratch cake. I tend to be reluctant to make cakes in 9×13 pans, just for aesthetic reasons, but this sounded so good I had to try it. The title doesn’t really give away much about this cake. It is a wonderfully rich, moist chocolate cake [...]

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For Father’s Day, my father said he wanted cheesecake. Flipping through my very favorite cheesecake book, I Love Cheesecake by Mary Crownover, I found what I had to make for him. Chocolate Coconut Almond Cheesecake. Essentially, it’s an Almond Joy cheesecake. This I knew he would love. His aunt used [...]

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I was intrigued by this recipe. Chocolate. Peanut butter. No eggs. Lots of corn starch. Curiosity got the better of me, and I decided to try them out.
I think it is safe to say that I’ve never made anything with 1/2 cup of corn starch. Maybe 1/2 teaspoon. [...]

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Our favorite place to be is New York City. So much culture — so much food! My NYC guilty pleasure is an order of garlic knots from any pizzeria, sometimes instead of pizza. As a guest baker (and full-time husband), I made Emeril’s garlic knot recipe.
The pizza dough portion of the recipe was a [...]

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