cornmeal lime cookies

I promised you some yummy lime treats a while back and it’s taken me forever to deliver! I first had these cookies from Joanne Chang’s new cookbook, Flour, when a friend made them and brought them to work last fall. It was before I had gotten Chang’s book, named after her bakery in Boston, and one bite of this cookie further solidified my need to run out and get this cookbook.

I am first and foremost a chocolate lover, but I also really love both lemon and lime desserts. I used to eat lemons straight up as a kid until my mom got worried about what it was doing to my teeth and made me stop. To this day, one of my favorite non-alcoholic drinks is seltzer with a lot of fresh lemon or lime juice. So I love the sour citruses straight up, but I love the tartness that they lend to desserts. Joseph, unfortunately, tends to be a bit more of a chocolate purist, so I sometimes have to convince him that a lemon or lime dessert can be the perfect refreshing bite , especially on a sunny spring or summer day.

perfect chocolate chip cookies from cook’s illustrated

A few weeks ago my sister, Jessica, and I were talking on the phone when she asked me if I had any good chocolate chip cookie recipes. She was asking because she said she had tried several recipes and while they were good, they just didn’t really compare to the classic Nestle Toll House recipe. I can’t tell you how many times we made those cookies together as kids, but I’ve probably made them close to 100 times by now. The Toll House cookies and the apple pie I made every Thanksgiving were the most significant recipes of my childhood. But while I only made the apple pie once a year, the cookies we made whenever we wanted to bake, which was often.

As the younger sibling, I got stuck with the easy stuff: the dry ingredients. The wet ingredients always seemed so much more glamorous. Looking back, I’m not really sure what Jessica and I were doing, because those cookies seemed to take forever to make. I think we must have spent at least an hour making the dough, whereas I can now throw it together in about 10 minutes or less. So I really don’t understand what I was doing that took me so long, especially since my main task involved mixing flour, baking soda, and salt together. Perhaps it was because we were climbing on the counters trying to reach the ingredients and we had to stop to snack on the brown sugar and chocolate chips?

key lime coconut cake

When we were planning our little Easter dinner (just for the two us), I was most excited about picking out a dessert (surprised, anyone?). I scoured recent posts on tastespotting and foodgawker, I checked out Epicurious and the Food Network, and while there many lovely, tasty looking desserts, nothing was jumping out as quite what I was looking for. I wasn’t sure what I was looking for, but I wanted it to be a little bit different, light and spring appropriate, and not too big since it was just the two of us. Then I went to Smitten Kitchen, clicked on the the cake recipes, and there it was: lime coconut cake.  I don’t know what it was about the lime coconut cake, but it just felt right.  It conjured pictures of tropical beaches with crystal clear blue seas and I wanted to go to there.

The cake may not actually transport you to Fiji, but it is exactly what I was looking for. It’s light and moist and the coconut adds a really nice, delicate crunch. Also, I’m just obsessed with lime.  I just love it and I’ve been on a total lime kick lately (I’ll be sharing another lime treat with you soon…).  It’s just so refreshing!

I like coconut, so I don’t know why I never cook with it. In fact, making this cake brought back memories from my bakery days when I worked at Cake Love because that was the last time I worked with coconut (5 years ago!).  I was a prep assistant and one of my jobs was to toast the flaked coconut. My boss was always giving me a hard time about leaving the oven door open too long and letting heat out while cakes were in there baking, while I was just trying to stir a huge, hot sheet overflowing with coconut without spilling it all over the place. It always stressed me out, but man it smelled good.

chocolate angel food cake

I love baking for other people.  There’s just so much satisfaction in giving someone one of your favorite treats, like chocolate glazed gingerbread cakes, chocolate raspberry cake, apple cider cake, or a cranberry upside-down cake (can you tell I like cake?). But what about when that person is on a diet?  You’d hardly be a good friend if you showed up with these sinfully delicious, rich, gooey, brownies.

This chocolate angel food cake has become my answer to that.  It’s light and and airy and chocolatey and oh so very good, and the best part? There’s no butter, no egg yolks, no oil, and hey, it’s half air! How bad can it possibly be? It’s a much healthier alternative but it’s still so good, especially served with fresh strawberries and homemade whipped cream.

So when I said I’d bring dessert to a dinner party to celebrate the birthday of a friend that has lost over 30 pounds through several months of hard work and dedication, this is the dessert I immediately thought of.  But I was still pretty wobbly after knee surgery and was a little nervous to committing to that much time standing in the kitchen. What if I got halfway through and just couldn’t stand long enough to finish it?

chocolate peanut butter macarons

Well, as I mentioned a couple days ago, I took an awesome class at the Cambridge School of Culinary Arts taught by Master Pastry Chef Delphine Gomes.  Macarons are clearly the hot new (well, not as new now…) thing, and I love them, but I just can’t afford to keep up the habit with the prices shops charge for them.  Besides, it’s much more fun and rewarding to make your own!

The problem was that the first recipe I tried was a little more complex and I probably should have read up a little more ahead of time to really figure out what I was doing.  I guess I thought since I could handle meringues, macarons wouldn’t be too much harder.  I was wrong.  Macarons are notoriously finicky, are fragile, and crack easily.  My first attempt, did not go so well….

cranberry, cherry, and clementine cream scones

Growing up, I was always very proud of my Irish heritage.  Every St. Patty’s day my mom would make her version of colcannon (basically mashed potatoes with shredded cabbage, bacon pieces, and grated cheddar) and currant scones.  The scones were always my favorite part.  As an adult, my celebration of St. Patty’s Day has changed considerably (hello, Guinness and Irish Coffee!), although I still always make  scones.

This year was my most uneventful St. Patty’s Day to date.  I had class that night and hadn’t been since my knee surgery and didn’t want to miss another class.  Not just that, but I haven’t been able to get in the kitchen and cook with my bum knee and didn’t want to ask Joseph to go out of his way to make an Irish meal for me when he has a lot going on himself (plus, he’s already been waiting on me hand and foot ever since the surgery).

chocolate raspberry cake

Let me get straight to the point and tell you that this is one of my very favorite cake recipes.  It’s chocolate (which scores it several points right off the bat) accented by a delightfully tart raspberry filling.  The layers are moist and rich and the three of them piled up together give it some impressive height.

The cake is a little more complex and the ingredients are a little pricier than the average cake (especially because I always seem to accidentally buy twice as much chocolate as necessary because the original recipe calls for a ganache filling instead of raspberry), but it’s definitely worth it.  Still, I currently only make it once a year for the annual February get-together for the birthday celebration of my mother-in-law and sister-in-law.

This year’s family get-together was especially fun with the addition of Jill, an old college friend of my brother-in-law and sister-in-law, and because my niece, Amelia, is now nearly 2 1/2 years old. We don’t get to see Amelia nearly often enough and each time we see her it’s like I’m looking at a whole new person!  She grows and develops new skills so quickly and it’s so cool to see how much she has changed.

chocolate stout cake

Want something a little more grown up for the Super Bowl than brownies?  How about chocolate stout cake anyone?  Now, this is for the more sophisticated crowd since it does kind of require a fork and plate.  I know, we’re just getting highfalutin over here!

But it does seem pretty fitting for a football game, right?  I mean, chocolate and beer!  Now, I admittedly don’t know a whole lot about football, but I certainly think that beer and chocolate make any football game a heck of a lot more interesting.

The sour cream in the cake makes it delightfully moist and the cake isn’t too sweet.  If you’re not a beer person, or even if you are but you’re not a stout person, don’t worry you’ll still be clamoring for more of this cake.  The beer makes the chocolate flavor more intense and brings out a bit of nuttiness.

chewy brownies

My sister specifically requested a recipe for a Super Bowl dessert and at first my mind drew a blank.  Thinking of main courses and appetizers are so easy (turkey burger, spicy sweet potato fries, turkey chili and corn bread, smokey chipotle salsa, guacamole, and chips are just a few), but desserts? Well, chocolate came to mind really quickly and the idea of brownies quickly followed.

Here’s my logic.  Chocolate goes with nearly everything, especially winter when everything’s cold and dismal.  Can you tell that I live in Boston and have had enough snow storms to last a lifetime?  Also, brownies are so easy to transport if you’re going to a party and they’re easy to handle.  Just grab one of a platter (or straight out of the pan), grab a napkin or plate to catch the crumbs (or let them fall freely), and you’re good to go.  No forks or knives to deal with! No need to look away from the TV. Just dig right in!

cranberry upside-down cake

Last Friday night the Aggies were playing their bowl game and my intention had been to make this cake because the Aggies colors are maroon and white.  But between going to the gym, going to the grocery store, making dinner and then a wine and beer tasting at Spirited Gourmet, well, it just didn’t happen. Luckily I had made meringues for my sister who was in town because they’re her favorite.  I mean, you just don’t want to get caught without any options for dessert now do you?

So it wasn’t until the next night that I made the cake. It’s not at all that the recipe is too complicated or anything — it’s quite easy actually — I just ran out of time Friday night.  In fact, I almost forgot about the cake again the next night, so didn’t make it until around midnight.  We had plans to meet up with my sister at a bar and I didn’t have time to prep and bake the cake before we’d have to leave.  I prepped everything (all the way down to having the cranberries, sugar, spices, and zest in the buttered pan with some saran wrap on top) and then when we got back I whipped the rest together and threw it in the oven.  It was so good warm that second and third helpings may have occurred.  It wasn’t so bad the next day either.  I can’t tell you what it would have been like by the third day because there wasn’t any left….