Category: Most Popular

  • Lemon yogurt cake with blueberry sauce

    Lemon yogurt cake with blueberry sauce

      Lemon-scented desserts remind me of breezy summer nights on the Amalfi coast, where every dessert menu features at least one, if not more, lemon-infused delights and trees hang low with the weight of the luscious fruit. Lemon-based sweets are just tart enough to awaken the senses but sweet enough to soothe them too. No…

  • Welcome Baby Boy Cupcakes

    Welcome Baby Boy Cupcakes

      I made these for the arrival of a friend’s bouncing baby boy. These aren’t quite as pretty as my pretty in pink cupcakes, or as whimsical as my Easter egg nest and Star of Bethlehem cupcakes. But they are perfect gifts for new parents of baby boy, or even to make for a baby…

  • Baci di dama, or chocolate-filled hazelnut cookies

    Baci di dama, or chocolate-filled hazelnut cookies

      When I was 16, my Sweet Sixteen present from my parents was a trip to Belgium and Holland. During the day, I wandered around Antwerpen by myself as my father had business to conduct. Sure enough, this meant drinking lots of coffee at outside cafes. I was pleased to discover there a small sweet…

  • Easter egg nest cupcakes

    Easter egg nest cupcakes

      I know it’s a bit early to be making Easter-themed cupcakes but ever since I saw the Cadbury eggs perched atop cupcakes in one of my books, I’ve been dying to make my own version. I got the idea for the toasted coconut from Williams Sonoma’s version of Easter cupcakes, I thought it would…

  • Mini-financiers au miel

    Mini-financiers au miel

      These morsel of honey-almond goodness are underwhelming at first glance. But anyone who’s taken a bit out of the dense dough is unable to resist “MMMMing.” That’s because it’s hard to believe these small beige bites could hold so much honeyed, almond flavour. I like to serve these financiers, made in a mini muffin…

  • Bahama Mama Banana Rum Cake

    Bahama Mama Banana Rum Cake

      Ever since my trip to Bahamas this fall, I have been resenting the fact that I had to rush out of the airport without buying a box of the famous Bahamian rum cake.So I had my eye on this recipe in Jill O’Connor’s “Sticky, Chewy, Messy, Gooey” for several weeks after buying the book.…

  • Nigella’s cherry chocolate trifle

    Nigella’s cherry chocolate trifle

      I bought this glass bowl just to make this trifle for Christmas. If chocolate custard and sour cherries and chocolate pound cake don’t spell Christmas dessert, what does? In my mind, Christmas dessert should be indulgent, should be creamy, should be luscious, moist, decadent. Should make you feel guilty. Hence – cherry chocolate trifle.…

  • Cupcake Decorating 101: My Designs

    Cupcake Decorating 101: My Designs

      When I signed up for an all-day designer cupcake decorating class at Bonnie Gordon’s School of Confectionary Arts, it was all I could do not to tell everyone who crossed my path. Her wedding cakes have been featured in countless magazines and Hollywood movies and I’d been drooling over her cakes for years. While…

  • Barefoot Contessa’s tomato and goat cheese tarts

    Barefoot Contessa’s tomato and goat cheese tarts

      Ina Garten has never steered me wrong. Whether I’m making her strawberry cheesecake recipe, coq au vin, or French chocolate bark, her recipes always come out just right. As one of my friends once remarked, Garten’s husband seems to have the best life in the world as he seems to appear at the end…