It's been a long time since I've made dessert for us. Not since the crystallized ginger chocolate chip cookies three weeks ago, which is indeed, a really long time in our life. Yeah, this quarter of grad school has found me so much busier than last quarter. But I had an extra sheet of puff pastry in the freezer, and I really wanted to make a...

These are easily one of the most decadent things to come out of our kitchen recently. And you know we've been making a lot of desserts... Soft pretzels serve as the base for a rich bread pudding with a combination of semi-sweet and white chocolate in every bite, plus white chocolate ice cream and fudge sauce on top. Make sure you serve these...

We've shared our fondness for brownie sundaes before, as they bring a sense of nostalgia to us from our early days dating back at Rice. Back then we stuck with super simple brownies, vanilla or chocolate ice cream, with a few sprinkles, a cherry, and maybe a little basic hot fudge. I'll always have a special place in my heart for those basic...

These chocolate covered espresso beans are proof that the simplest things can be elevated using high quality ingredients. When Dustin's parents visited us over July 4th, we hit up Espresso Vivace in the Capital Hill area. We've gotten great coffee the last two years, but Vivace has by far been our favorite. It's such a shame we discovered it so...

Rice pudding is definitely not the prettiest thing to eat or to photograph, but this recipe, earmarked in my Pastry Queen Cookbook for months, is absolutely delicious and decadent. I can't believe it has taken me this long to make! It does require a decent bit of time to make— a few hour of preparation to make the ducle de leche, cook the rice,...

This dessert doesn't look like much in the pictures, but trust me, it is rich and luxurious— doughnut in thick, rich, liquid form. There is a "molecular gastronomy" restaurant in Chicago called Moto that pioneered the idea of doughnut soup. Ever since I heard about it, I've been wanting to recreate it at home. Since the weather will (hopefully)...

Happy Easter (and Passover)! Today we are celebrating Easter with a fancy brunch and mimosas. Tonight we are celebrating Passover with our Rice friends in Seattle by having a Seder meal. It's also Opening Day for baseball, and we had a busy day running around doing touristy things in Seattle with our friends yesterday before they left town....

This is the first year that I can remember where I will not be attending the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo at least once. For anybody that doesn't know about Houston's big event, it's the largest rodeo in the world. It's a ton of fun from eating barbecue and every sort of fried junk food you can imagine, to a carnival, to actually watching a...

Last weekend we went to a Microsoft holiday party (a month after the holiday, but a holiday party nonetheless). I still haven't figured out how Microsoft (or at least Dustin's area of the company) throws a party. This year's theme was a masquerade ball. In theory it was fun, but the execution was not the greatest. Someone dressed as Buddy the...

This might be too simple to be called a recipe, but it's pretty much the perfect dessert— sweet, brown buttered cookie dough sandwiched between two salty pretzels. covered in white chocolate and dipped in sprinkles. Sweet and salty are the perfect (and dangerous) combination. Just as it is hard to eat a single pretzel, it's hard to eat just a...