Bake or Break

Salty Chocolate Chunk Blondies

As you’ve probably noticed, I adore the combination of salty and sweet. From cookies to brownies to cake, a little salt with your sweet just elevates some desserts to magical levels.

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Cream Cheese Pound Cake with Strawberry-White Chocolate Sauce

I’ve never been a huge fan of pound cake. I like it just fine and definitely wouldn’t turn down a slice. (Although, when given a choice, I’ll go chocolate just about every time.) But, in the case of this one, there’s pound cake and then there’s pound cake.

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Weekly Mix

The weather here in NYC has been a bit on the damp side this week. All of these rainy days don’t equate to much activity outside the apartment. There seemed to be no shortage of baking activity around the interwebs this week. Narrowing down to just a few to share with you was tough. These are some of my favorites. Enjoy!

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Blondie Cupcakes

As a big fan of all things brown sugar, I can really get behind a good blondie. These are a bit different from the traditional in that they are baked in muffin pans, much like cupcakes.

Of course, doing that doesn’t make them automatically have the normal texture of a cupcake. They are still dense and very much blondies. In fact, you can bake them in the more traditional way by using a square baking pan.

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Toffee-Almond Oatmeal Cookies

I confess that I don’t often bake with whole wheat flour. I think that’s due more to habit than taste. But, it can be a great substitute for traditional flour in many recipes, like this one.

I am fairly confident that if you tasted one of these without knowing the list of ingredients, you’d never guess that they are made with whole wheat flour. In fact, of all the cookies in my recent baking memory, these are probably in the top 10.

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Weekly Mix and a Cookbook Giveaway

Last weekend was perhaps the most beautiful couple of days I’ve ever experienced in New York. The weather was perfect, and we were actually able to get out and enjoy it. Our very full slate for the weekend included a tour of the old City Hall subway station, a show at City Center, and a game at Yankee Stadium.

This week, however, I spent most of my time inside as I had a brand new experience. Jury duty! I spent a couple of days downtown in the criminal courts building and was eventually excused without ever having my name pulled out of the bingo cage. All of that sitting around gave me plenty of time for taking leisurely strolls around the internet. Here’s a bit of what caught my eye this week.

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