Chocolate Glazed Bouchons-Perfect for Valentine’s Day

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Chocolate Glazed Bouchons RecipeA heart shaped box filled with chocolates makes me smile.  It has always been my favorite gift to receive on Valentine’s Day.  Not just chocolates, but chocolates nestled in a red box, preferably decorated with cherubs and frilly lace.  And if the box were vintage, well, Cupid’s bow would strike right in the center of my heart.  H reads all of my posts so I either just made things very easy or very complicated for him.  BTW – only dark chocolates please. Continue reading →


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Do As I Say, Not As I Do

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Grapefruit Upside Down Cake RecipeI believe strongly in the power of intuition.  After all, Oprah drilled this into our heads for years, didn’t she?  99.999999999% of the time, our intuition is correct.  We just need to learn to trust it.  I knew in my gut that this cake wasn’t going to work the way I hoped it would.  My intuition proved right – as per usual.  Square pegs cannot be forced into round holes.  A grapefruit is not a lemon.  Let me explain where I went wrong and why this cake was both a failure – and a success. Continue reading →


Posted under Baking, Cakes, Desserts
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Tunnel of Fudge Cake with Hazelnuts

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"Tunnel of Fudge Cake with Hazelnuts Recipe"I love hazelnuts but I don’t necessarily enjoy the process to remove their bitter skins.  It’s tedious and messy.  Imagine how excited I was when I happened upon hazelnuts all pristine and perfectly skinned.  I don’t consider myself a lazy baker but I’m all over anything that makes my life easier.  I found these beauties weeks ago while in the midst of my Christmas Cookie Countdown. Knowing how much baking was ahead of me – hundreds of cookies would be going in and out of my oven over the weeks leading up to Christmas – I welcomed the shortcut skinned hazelnuts offered.  I don’t think I want to know how much I paid for them (I never looked at the price), but with an uncanny ability to rationalize a purchase when need be, I told myself that the extra $ spent would be worth the time saved. Continue reading →


Posted under Baking, Cakes, Chocolate, Desserts
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Cheddar Jalapeño Monkey Bread

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"Cheddar Jalapeño Monkey Bread Recipe"Yeast has been calling screaming out to me for weeks now.  Between the rush of the holidays and the ruthlessness of the flu bug, I just haven’t had the time to rear a yeasted dough through its required stages.  Breads cannot be rushed.  Yesterday, as I rose to greet the early morning hours, I knew I had finally captured a window of time in which to nurture a risen bread to completion.  The weather has been more than chilly in these parts and the first order of business was to warm the house.  The fireplace was lit and the furnace clicked on.  Yeasted dough does not take kindly to a frigid environment. Continue reading →


Posted under Baking, Bread, Savories
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Banana Bread With Chocolate Streusel

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"Banana Bread with Chocolate Streusel Recipe"What to do with an abundance of over-ripe bananas?  Well, make banana bread, of course.  I usually have a banana every morning for breakfast, but ever since my go round with the flu, they just haven’t sounded a”peel”ing to me.  This morning was going to be the last morning I would face that cluster of eight,  huge, VERY ripe, tropical fingers that have been sitting on my counter ever since H went marketing during my illness. Continue reading →


Posted under Baking, Quick Breads
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