I bought a jelly roll pan to make my first roll cake this Thanksgiving, and in the end I was quite happy with my results. What really sold me on this recipe was the beautiful picture in The Pastry Queen cookbook. It is absolutely gorgeous. The cake I ended up with doesn't look nearly as impressive as the one in the cookbook. I guess that's...

Happy Thanksgiving! I'm sure we'll be posting lots of pictures of our Thanksgiving dinner recipes over the next few days, but today we share cake batter popcorn inspired by this recipe on Tasty Kitchen, made on a whim one Friday evening to accompany a movie watching. Melt approximately 1/4 cup white chocolate chips in the microwave, stirring...

The second half of October officially means candy season is upon us. Homemade candy in this house. I had every intention of recreating one of my favorite candy bars— Reese's peanut butter cups, but I realized I didn't have enough chocolate to create the outer coating. I have a list of traditional candy bars I want to make from-scratch...

I really, really wanted to make white chocolate covered banana ghost pops last Halloween as a quick DIY craft project, but I just plain ran out time. This year I wanted to make sure that didn't happen; however, I made a few changes for my ghosts. My ghosts were not on popsicle sticks, hence they were not ghost pops, but rather mine were more...

I first saw this skinny peanut butter pie on Skinny Taste awhile back, filed a mental note that I should try it sometime, and proceeded to forget about it as peanut butter pie was replaced with some other equally delicious recipe I wanted to try. It wasn't until I saw this amped-up version on Sally's Baking Addiction that I remembered that pie...

Our first attempt at homemade granola bars was a huge success, so when I saw this recipe for Biscoff granola bars I knew they'd be perfect for our trip to Olympic National Park. As fate would have it, I had a jar of Trader Joe's cookie butter in the cabinet, begging to be used. These are pretty much the same as the other granola bars, except I...

One cool, foggy Sunday morning we went on a hike with some friends up to Rattlesnake Ridge. It was a relatively easy (i.e. well-paved) and short (2 miles, one way), but quite steep (the elevation changed rapidly over the first mile), hike in the Issaquah Alps, cutting though lots of forest. Supposedly, the views from the top are gorgeous, and...

Corn crème brûlée was a great success, so we figured it was time to pull out the torch again when Dustin's parents visited us and make a traditional, sweet vanilla crème brûlée— a restaurant dessert menu staple. Here is the recipe I used as the base for an incredibly basic and super easy crème brûlée. All you have to do is whisk two cups of...

During Dustin's cook off challenges awhile back, he might have you believe that the judges got the best end of the deal, implying that we just sat back and did nothing. However that was far from the case, as each and every time I made sure to supply a delicious dessert (mini cannoli cups and mint chocolate chip cookies to be specific) for each...

One of the best happy hour restaurants near us make a Manhattan with brandy-soaked cherries that Dustin really enjoys and also inspired the making of these bourbon soaked cherries. While we didn't have brandy in the house, we did have bourbon, which I thought would probably pair nicely with the cherries. I also figured Dustin could add them to...