Happy 2012: NYE & birthday margarita cupcakes, chocolate chip cookies and baguettes

A professor from my journalism school posted a link on Twitter the other day that was really thought-provoking. It was a blog post about questions to ask for yourself about the last year. Yes, perhaps it is something that's written in some form or another every year, but honestly, it made me realize what a wonderful year I've had. The most amazing thing I did in 2011? Get a new job and move to a new city. Am I happy about where I am in life? Completely. I have some amazing friends, many of whom I got to see during the holidays even though they live far, far away. I got to make plans to visit them in 2012. I got to see both of my stepsiblings for Christmas, even though they live in Canada. And as a whole, I'm really happy where I am emotionally and mentally. So 2012, bring it on. Let's make it even better. /end typical year-beginning/year-end post.

I'm not the type of person to really go for the whole big New Year's Eve out sort of thing. But one of my best friends, Tara, has her birthday on NYE, so I celebrated at her house with her family. That included bringing my customary bday gift of cupcakes, which this time was a margarita cupcake. And despite not being kid-friendly for all the little ones running around, I'd say these were definitely a hit. They're basically a lime cake brushed with tequila and then topped with a lime-tequila icing. Pretty good alcoholic treat for NYE!

I've been a little low on energy since the holidays ending. I was busy with family and friends for basically two weeks straight, so my baking was relatively basic, including these brown sugar chocolate chip cookies. Simple, yet always a hit. They always seem to disappear rather quickly at work.

Among the kitchen items I asked for for Christmas (how great is an immersion blender, seriously? Or is that just me being a dork?), I found something awesome on a sort of scavenger hunt Cathie sponsored. She loves to thrift, so on Christmas Eve, she gave each of us kids a $5 and told us to thrift and find something awesome. One of my finds? A baguette pan for $2.75. Not too shabby, especially for something I assume was given to the thrift store because whoever donated had no idea what it was. So on a recent trip to Aunt Betty's, we made a couple baguettes from one of her old bread cookbooks that came out perfectly, even with those little dots on the bottom, which are from the perforations on the pan. What a great find!

Daring Bakers' challenge: Candy!

The August 2011 Daring Bakers’ Challenge was hosted by Lisa of Parsley, Sage, Desserts and Line Drive and Mandy of What the Fruitcake?!. These two sugar mavens challenged us to make sinfully delicious candies! This was a special challenge for the Daring Bakers because the good folks at http://www.chocoley.com offered an amazing prize for the winner of the most creative and delicious candy!


I have to admit, this is my most favorite challenge in the last few months. There are so many options with candy, and yet I don't make it often because it's pretty challenging with temperatures and stuff. This is citrus paté de fruit...you know how I love my citrus! Basically it's homemade gummy candy. I don't like picking just one citrus, so this is lemon-lime-orange. Basically, this uses pectin to set, which I've never used before. It also has applesauce, which naturally has pectin. When we were cooking it (which took forever), I was worried the apple flavor wouldn't cook out, but it did! I want to try this again, for sure. Maybe in winter, when I'm dreaming of warm weather.

And these are chocolate hazelnut truffles. No fresh hazelnuts that we could find at this time of year, but we followed a recipe Daring Bakers provided and made hazelnut praline, kind of like peanut brittle with hazelnuts. You crunch that up in the food processor, mix it with the ganache for the center. After that chills, roll it up and coat it with crushed hazelnut, and we have truffles. They were a-maz-ing. My only problem with the challenge was I didn't have time to try making everything I wanted to! There was a recipe for honeycomb candy and filled bon-bons. I want to do filled chocolates for sure, but need to come up with a good filling that's not caramel. Ideas?

C is for...Canada? Cherry limeade cupcakes, citrus cake pops and cookies

My stepsister Katie visited last weekend. Well, technically she visited all last week, but she stopped in KC on Sunday. It was fun to introduce her to my new city, and just see her in general. She lives in Ottawa, Ontario, which is pretty darn far away (and plane tickets are expensive!). Technically, I'm an only child. But when my dad remarried almost a decade ago, I inherited a step-sister and step-brother, Katie and Justin. Even though I hadn't seen Katie in more than a year, we had a great time that day, going to City Market and shopping for as long as we could stand what my phone told me felt like 111 degrees that day. Stupid Kansas. We also lounged around and watched wedding reality TV shoes. So even though she came into my life around my teenage years, it's pretty darn cool to have an older sister!

Katie requested a baked good for her visit, and Dad chimed in that he thought I should make cake pops (I think he just wanted me to make those so she could take some home to him!). With these, I tried something new: citrus flavors. I've only made basic flavors so far for cake pops, like yellow cake, chocolate and red velvet. For these, I did lemon cake with a frosting to which I added lemon and lime juices. Being a citrus fanatic myself, I loved them. Katie liked them too, and I heard reports from out West that Dad and Cathie enjoyed them. Mission accomplished!


So this picture kind of cheats. I actually made cookies twice, and this is a combo of both recipes. First (the smaller cookies) were my favorite all-brown sugar chocolate chip cookies. I actually found these really great semi-sweet and white chocolate swirl chips, which made for a great twist on the cookies. The other cookies were my favorite peanut butter cookies from Smitten Kitchen. Always a winner and always nice, soft cookies.

I've been making fewer cupcakes than normal. It may not seem that way on here, but Kelly's cupcakes I made weeks ago and hadn't gotten around to posting them. We've had crazy hot temperatures in Kansas lately, but it finally started cooling off lately. Cherry limeades are one of my favorite summer drinks...or anytime drinks. I made these last summer, but lemme tell you, this year's cherry limeade cupcakes were WAY better. If I remember correctly, I used grenadine in the frosting last year. This year, it was maraschino cherry-flavored. With the lime syrup brushed over the already lime-flavored cupcakes, they're flavor-packed. Someone at work even said they were the best treat yet. Success!

(Posted on Hoosier Homemade's Cupcake Tuesday.)

Summer sweets: margarita cupcakes, oatmeal scotchies and chocolate coconut no-bakes

Wedding season has started! I've got three this summer, and already another for next year. Each one this year is someone my age getting hitched, which makes me feel strangely old, even though I'm only 23.

About a week ago, my friend Haley (Jones) Williams got married. We lived in the same dorm freshman year, took classes together and went through the journalism school together, ending up at the Kansan. Her wedding was so Haley, as my friend Lauren and I put it. Haley looked unbelievable in her dress, and she walked down to a song from "Pride and Prejudice," which I LOVED. Her main color was pale yellow, which was the theme in the candy bar on the right. The cake was simple and perfect. Such a lovely day.

What is not lovely (in my mind) is this cookie, for one reason and one reason only: coconut. I HATE coconut. It is one of my least favorite foods. However, if someone requests something specific, I will usually make it. Even if it's like this no-bake chocolate coconut cookie...which burnt my finger. Apparently these were pretty good...I wouldn't know, because I didn't try them.

So, to offset my dislike of coconut, I made these oatmeal scotchies to take to work as well. I've had issues with them in the past, becoming too crunchy and thin. So I added slightly more oats and slightly more flour, and they turned out perfectly. Except for, you know, that tray I overbaked to a crisp. The others were excellent though :)

Last weekend was a yearly party a photographer at the LJ throws every year, and that photog, Richard, loves tequila. So I had to make margarita cupcakes for his party. I made a couple of edits to this recipe: 1) I subbed a tablespoon of tequila for lime juice in the cupcake batter, 2) brushed a lot more than a tablespoon of tequila over the tops, 3) added quite a bit more powdered sugar to the icing to make it pipeable and 4) topped it with coarse salt. Lemme tell you, they tasted a lot like margaritas, and they were a hit at the party. They were gone pretty darn quick, and I had a few people ask for the recipe. I will put those on my to-make-again list (and they're going on Hoosier Homemade's Cupcake Tuesday and Tasty Tuesdays)!

Meringues and a birthday: Meringue cookies, meringue candied almonds and tiramisu cupcakes

Last summer I remember how mild severe weather seemed. In Kansas, you can always expect some rockin' thunderstorms and a few tornadoes in the spring. Well, we are definitely getting paid back for it this year. I know everyone's heard about the tornadoes in Joplin, which are just a huge tragedy. We had tornado warnings around here about that time, which freaked me out a little bit, but they went south. The mark of a true Kansan: watching the storm coming (the lightning was cool!).

But the tornado experience I got this year I've never had before was having to go into shelter at work. I was in downtown KC when our publisher made us go down to the parking garage. Later, the whole building was told via loudspeaker to take shelter. There were multiple funnel clouds around and a couple actually touched down in the metro area. We were downstairs for more than an hour, and the long-time employees didn't remember that ever happening before. Naturally, it happens to me in my first week!


In my never-ending quest to find food I can munch on at work (so I don't spend a million dollars at the food quart), one of the options I came up with were these candied almonds. I've made something similar to them before, but this new recipe used meringue, which is quickly becoming one of my favorite things. Too bad it's a pain in the ass to make in rainy weather, which we seem to have an interminable supply of lately. Anyway, these almonds are super tasty and easy to make. Will probably do again.

Meringue No. 2 for this week: meringue kisses. I've also made a variation of these before, a peppermint sandwich version for Christmastime. I really like how cute the little cookies are, and I pipe them, which I like doing too. These are all three different flavors: the orange ones are orange creme, the green are lime and the pink are tutti fruiti. The basking recipe is from Joy of Cooking. To be honest, the only decent ones were the orange creme, which I want to make again. The other two tasted like cough syrup. Lesson learned: stick with sweeter flavors and less citrus with meringues.


Most of my friends know they all get a free pass — for your birthday I will bake you whatever you please (so if you didn't know this, here's your warning!). Last weekend was my friend Brianne's birthday. Back when my friends and I had the time (and the same days off) to do dinner parties, she requested a tiramisu cake. So it was only fitting that for her birthday I make her these tiramisu cupcakes. I've also made these before, but I remember them being significantly more difficult. Guess I wasn't as experienced then. Even Joe, who's anti-coffee flavor, ate at least part of one. Paired with some sake bombs, these were a fun birthday treat! (P.S. - Posting them on Hoosier Homemade's Cupcake Tuesday!)

A cookie sort of week: Monster cookie cupcakes, thumbprint cookies and chocolate malt cookie sandwiches

I'm jonesing for lake weather. To be able to go to camp, relax, read a book and go lounge on the boat. I think calling it "camp" is a Canadian thing, or something. It's definitely a small house on a small lake, but that's what Cathie called her old place up north, so I picked it up. I want to watch movies and hang out with the super friendly neighbors. My dad wants me to go tubing, but I think he'd specifically try to knock me off. Anyway, I can't wait for it to be time to go down there. I used to HATE going to the lake. But that was just going, with no boat to go out on it. And I've really started to appreciate the downtime it provides. Now if only it were May!

I didn't want to throw away the lemon and lime curd I had left over from last week's cake, so I decided to make thumbprint cookies. The first recipe I made was weirdly crumbly, and wouldn't even form balls to be formed into cookies. So I went to the old reliable, Martha. I used this recipe, with no hazelnuts. The cookies were the perfect complements to the super tart fillings.

Next, I was in the mood for cookies. Well, actually, I guess I was in the mood for cookies all week. This was a chocolate malt sandwich cookie from, you guessed it, Martha. Kelly chose them, and they were definitely tasty. SO RICH though. She took them to the Kansan, and I guess they were approved, because she said they were gone pretty quickly.


And, even though you can't tell immediately, this is totally a cookie. In cupcake form. I used to work at this coffe shop/bakery called Capers. Yes, I was a barista, and no, I don't like coffee. At all. But Capers did introduce me to the best cookie ever — the monster cookie. It's a peanut butter oatmeal cookie with chocolate chips and M&Ms. This Paula Deen recipe is the one I use when I make the cookies, minus the raisins (YUCK). So I felt like making them into a cupcake. These were peanut butter cupcakes (Martha again!) with chocolate chips and oats mixed in at the end. On top, at Kelly's suggestion, plain ol' vanilla swiss meringue buttercream, so not to conflict with the other flavors. And the crowning achievement: M&Ms. These are one of my more favorite cupcakes I've made lately. They will return! (Also, I posted these over at Hoosier Homemade's Cupcake Tuesday!)

Fruit + citrus: Lemon and lime curd cake, pineapple cookies and strawberry shortcake cookies

So on Sunday, my useless ability to remember ridiculous lyrics came in handy, if only for a second or two. I played trivia for the first time in a while. I'm fully aware my use is fairly limited to Disney trivia, and I occasionally come through on some random other things. For one category on Sunday, the host asked who was on the sideline during Don McLean's "American Pie." Anyone? Anyone? Well, despite being unable to memorize geography for my Politics of Africa class or memorize works of art for art history in college, I can remember song lyrics like nobody's business.


Actually, in fourth grade, we learned our 6, 7, 8 and 9 multiplication tables to songs, and I still sing them in my head when I'm thinking about it. Grandma is always astounded when I know words to songs, ranging from Katy Perry to songs from "Singin' in the Rain." I'm glad this talent is so useful...but on Sunday, it gave me the Jester. We didn't win, but whatever. At least I got that question!

I guess the theme of this post is fruit. Because everything I made had some sort of fruit in it (and the cookies I have in the oven now are the same). I must be pining for spring and summer foods. Anyway, I used to hate pineapple, but it's grown on me as I've gotten older. I made pineapple cookies ones during Christmas, and then recently I ran across this recipe. As I'm sure you've all figured out, I'm a sucker for all things nostalgic, and the recipe obviously was for the author of the blog. So I made them at Aunt Betty's, and they were amazing. Pineapple makes a cookie so moist and awesome! Especially with a glaze.


My dad's a big fan of strawberry shortcake, so when I saw a recipe for strawberry shortcake cookies, I had to make them too. While they were tasty, they fell apart easily. I think we should have baked them longer (which would have meant following the recipe). But they were gone quick at the newsroom, so I suppose people liked them! I need to make real strawberry shortcake sometime soon.


My last fruit attempt was the cake at the top, which sliced into this. Recently, a local bakery that is closing had a sale, and I made away like a bandit with some great stuff, including a rotating cake decorating stand. I naturally wanted to make a cake, and I wanted some citrus in it, so Aunt Betty and I made my favorite three-layer white cake. Then Aunt Betty actually found a recipe for microwavable curd, which was waaaay easy. We made that lemon one, then adapted it to lime. I have to admit, the cake slid around a bit when we put it together, hence the curd coming out the middle in the picture at top. But it turned out pretty I think! I'm also fairly certain I don't have the patience to decorate cakes often. But I'm more than happy to make curd regularly. Bring on summer!

Pride and Prejudice and sweets: Cannolis, butterscotch cupcakes and lime pie

My senior year of high school, I had to do a book report on a book on the AP list. I chose "Pride and Prejudice" because I'd always heard so much about it. I still have the copy I read; it looks like it's sprouted sticky notes. I marked all these different themes in it for my paper, but I remember I also had to read it with a dictionary in the other hand. I'd never seen the word condescend used as a verb, among many other older words. The other day, I found out my new phone has a Kindle on it, and decided to read the book again. I'd forgotten how wonderful the story is! Elizabeth kicks ass, Miss Bingley is truly despicable, Mr. Darcy grows on you, Mr. Wickham's favor recedes. It bears mentioning that "Pride and Prejudice" is one of my top 3 movies, too, and it's funny that I pick up when quotes were moved to different characters. But the feeling of the story stayed the same. But I'm proud of myself; this time I don't need a dictionary! I'd forgotten why I loved the story, but I'm happy to say it's a top 3 book as well. Very satisfying.

One of my baking goals was a cannoli. After having one with my mom in NYC, and having her say she'd never seen one before (totally not true, as proven by her friend Merilee), Aunt Betty and I decided to make them soon after I got back. For these, we used a cinnamon cannoli shell recipe that we made in my pizzelle maker. It was kind of assembly-line style, with me cooking the shells and Aunt Betty holding them in the circular shape. Inside we did a ricotta-sugar mixture, with chocolate chips and pecans. They were excellent. Also, this completed one of my baking goals for this year. Woo hoo!


Another NYC-inspired dessert, one of the best sweets I had up there was a butterscotch cupcake from Crumbs. The cake was vanilla but the icing itself was flavored with butterscotch. That can be a pretty overpowering flavor, but just in the icing was perfect. For this one I used my favorite yellow cake recipe with the butterscotch icing from this cupcake recipe. It meant making butterscotch from scratch, like browned butter plus brown sugar and cream and all that. I think I might have a new frosting! (P.S. - submitted this over at Hoosier Homemade's Cupcake Tuesday!)


Then a few days ago Aunt Betty sent me a recipe for this lime pie. It was a little different, because the crust had toasted pecans in it. The filling was super easy: lime juice, lime zest, cream cheese and sugar. Lemme tell you though, I found all my hangnails squeezing those limes. Ouch! It took a while for this to set, but it was a great citrus-y pie. Even though it's cold and rainy outside, I refuse to think it's almost spring!

Sour Patch Kids cupcakes

First they're sour, then they're sweet! First disclaimer: I know I don't usually write about just one dessert. But this one, I just had to. So Kelly and I have a favorite candy: Sour Patch Kids. Kelly will buy me a box of them any time I'm really down (she's a great best friend!). A bag of Sour Patch Kids has even mysteriously appeared in the background of one of my roommate's videos about Big 12 sports. So needless to say, the candy is a favorite.


So a while ago Kelly and I started talking about making Sour Patch Kids cupcakes. Like, six months ago. But I figured if we were going to make these cupcakes, we'd have to make them right.


So I got cupcake wrappers to match the four flavors.


Coloring to match the colors.


Flavoring to match each flavor (cherry, orange, lemon and lime). And the kicker, which was tart and sour flavor enhancer. (Edit: Looks like my original source for this is out, so here are a couple other places to find it: LorAnn, Baker's Nook, Sears and Amazon.) Add it into a swiss meringue buttercream.


A basic yellow cupcake and a Sour Patch Kid on top.


In the process, obliterate the kitchen. Many times over.


So in the end, you get a complete cupcake with a sour-sweet frosting in a specific flavor. Completely successful. I will make them again...but not for a while.

Edit: Since posting this, I've had requests for amounts and how to make them. I tend to experiment a lot, but here's the amounts. I wanted a massive amount of cupcakes to share with people at work and for Kelly to take home. I made 1 1/2 recipes of the yellow cake. Be careful not to fill the liners very far, because this recipe rises a LOT. 2/3 full will do it, and better to go a bit lower even. This gave me 48 (!) cupcakes. One batch generally makes 30, give or take a few.

Then I made two batches of this swiss meringue buttercream (not at the same time though, just when I was ready for them. I split the recipe in half for each flavor. I put in a bit of color and flavoring, then about a quarter bottle of the tart flavoring. That seems like a lot, but it took that much to really give it the punch of Sour Patch Kids. Then I added coloring and fruit flavoring to taste. So for two batches split in half, you'll get all four frostings. The amounts were almost perfect for 12 cupcakes each. Enjoy!

Two pops + two cupcakes = three desserts

I'm in the middle of a three-day weekend, which was definitely needed. The good news is I can finally drive myself places, so that's nice. It's the weekend of seeing people I haven't seen in forever. I had lunch with my friend Anne yesterday, who has been busy with school for a while. Friends are in town from Colorado, who we haven't seen in months. And then my aunt comes through town on her way up to see my mom. It's nice to see everyone, because it's been sort of strange finishing school. I'm sure this is how everyone who stays in their college town feels. Everyone I spent a lot of time with has moved away, save a few who I'm very grateful are still around. I know it's just a part of growing up, and now it's time to make new friends and try hard to stay in touch with old ones. But it's still strange. So here's to keeping in touch with people. I definitely intend to.


I went for a second go at cake pops this week. They are easily one of the most fun desserts to eat. I mean, come on, who doesn't love cake+frosting+candy+sprinkles in a bite-sized dessert? I have an ultimate football season goal though. I want to take these Sesame Street Big Bird cake pops by Bakerella and edit them into Jayhawks for tailgating. Doable? I have no idea. But I'm going to try. First, though, I had to make manageable plain pops, so that was my goal this time. I'm getting better at dipping them, which definitely takes a technique. I made these smaller than my last ones, which were larger than bite-size and incredibly hard to manage. I'm definitely getting better. We'll see if I get to Jayhawk-level, though.


I took a little break from baking through the beginning of the week, mostly because I was pretty much sleeping any time I wasn't at work. But then I decided to make another cereal-style cupcake. This time? Honeycomb. I didn't eat it regularly as a kid, but I got it the other day at the store, and it's soooo tasty! I thought it would be great to try. I made a honey cupcake featured in Martha's Cupcake book (which I got spiral bound this week...best decision EVER). Then some cream cheese icing on top, flavored with a tiny bit of honey, and one honeycomb on top. The cakes were REALLY honey-y, so I'm glad I didn't use honey buttercream on top too. I brought them to work on election night, which is apparently a night full of treats. It was fun though, and strange to walk into a newsroom full of people. It will be interesting when it's not the primaries anymore and the real deal.


A couple nights ago Drew and I went to four different grocery stores to find ingredients for these cupcakes I saw on the Confessions of a Cookbook Queen blog: bomb pop cupcakes. How great an idea is that? Definitely perfect for these 100-degree days. Anyway, the recipe called for cherry and raspberry extracts, which were not easy to find. A trip to Target, Wal-Mart (they have a surprisingly large supply of extracts), Dillons and Hy-Vee later, I had my ingredients and was ready to go. I used my favorite lemon cupcake recipe, edited with a little lime juice and lime zest like the bomb pop recipe said to do. When they're done, the recipe said to pour a mix of raspberry Jello powder and boiling water over the top, so you end up with a sort of lemon-lime-raspberry cupcakes. Then, for the frosting, you do three different flavors, just like normal Bomb Pops. The blue was raspberry, the white was lime (flavored with lime juice) and the red was cherry. A popsicle stick on top and they're done!

I made these cupcakes for Matt and Sarah getting here from Colorado. They were good friends on the Kansan and we don't see them hardly ever. Today, Sarah and I are getting pedicures — it's my first one! I can't wait. And then, I go from being a super girly girl to not...as in, I'm covering the demolition derby. I cannot even articulate how excited I am about this! The demo derby is one of my favorite things to go to during the summer. You skip the whole racing cars part and just see the crashes. I'm going to put a new spin on the story, I hope. We'll see how it turns out!

The five-hour dessert

I think when I'm stressed, I bake more. That, and when I can't drive. So I'm blogging twice this week. Life in general has been stressing me out a bit, plus I've been sort of chained to my house. I got the new car, and I took it out on my time off when I wasn't busy eating, sleeping or working. Which left days off. Then, when I finally had time to drive, the car would die and need to be jumped. I actually had time to take it out the other night and drove it without killing it (!), and then it died when we stopped at the gas station for water. All signs pointed to needing a new battery, especially after it took 10 minutes to jump it. Turns out that battery turns seven years old next month. I think it was definitely time for a new one. Now I just have to get comfortable driving a stick shift. Sigh.


So on one of those days off when I was planning to drive, I took the day to bake with Aunt Betty. I like to have a couple days off in a row before baking with her, because we inevitably end up taking hours and make multiple things. Focaccia was on the list this time, and then we decided to pick out something from Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook, which Mom got me for graduation. I really want to try making macarons, but apparently those don't mix too well with humidity. So instead we settled on a chocolate napoleon. Little did I realize that it would take five hours....


First, though, the Joy of Cooking focaccia. This is my aunt's go-to cookbook, and she gave me one last year. I can see why, too, because the bread is yummy. It starts its life as pizza dough, but you let it rise longer and then put yummy toppings on top. We did one round of sundried tomatoes, parmesan and herbs and the other with olives, herbs and cheese. Pretty easy for some tasty bread!


Let's talk about this puff pastry for the napoleon though. Homemade puff pastry — don't ever do it unless you've got strong arms and lots of free time. Martha wants you to roll out the pastry six separate times, and since each cycle is actually rolling it out to a 20x9 inch rectangle twice, that's a lot of rolling. Lots of butter, too. See those layers in the picture, though? Yeah, we put those there. Through lots of rolling.


It turned out really yummy though. A nice chocolate custard, fixed by Aunt Betty after it wasn't thickening, a yummy glaze on top and I've made a napoleon! Aunt Betty said the last time she made it was 35 years ago. I think that sounds like a good time frame for the next time I make it! :)


My next day off, I didn't do anything, and it was great. I watched a movie (Serenity, finishing out Firefly — so good!) and read a book (Percy Jackson part 3...seriously some good stuff). The next day, though, was my most productive recently. Replaced my bank card, got a car battery, moved out of my old house and made cookies, all before work! The cookies were a recipe my friend Sarah gave me. This is the same Sarah who asked for vegan cupcakes for her birthday, so these are vegan Mexican chocolate snickerdoodles, a cookie she'd made before too. Seriously, though, easiest cookie ever. Tasty too, with a kick, because it had cayenne pepper in it. It's like eating a cookie and only about 10 seconds later realizing it was spicy. Definitely will be making these again.


My last dessert this week was a quickie last night — lime sherbet. I'm a huge sherbet fan...I think I like it better than ice cream. Blasphemous, I know, but I'm more of a fruit-flavored girl sometimes. I was surprised at how easy it was: milk, sugar, lime zest and lime juice. That's it. It tasted so much more natural than the store-bought stuff, so I will have to try some other flavors soon.

Well, off to bed for me! Have to make sure I get enough sleep to have time to work on my cake pops I've got in the works. Oh, and catch up on Project Runway! I already watched the new Jersey Shore :)