Chocolate is one of those ingredients, things, flavors, indulgences, aphrodisiacs, that just melts you at the first bite. Maybe it’s a bit of a slower melt if you’re snapping into a 90% dark chocolate bar, but it’s still a melt. Speaking of dark chocolate, that exact nearly-100%-but-not-quite used to be my favorite chocolate – it’s like eating the most decadent slab of dirt. But really, it’s incredible. Don’t just take my word for it, go grab a bar when you’re able to leave the house and stand in line at the grocery store for 45 minutes (worth it). There’s definitely some crazy amazing dark chocolate specifically in Ecuador – ever…
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Gluten Free Toasted Coconut Cupcakes
It’s in weeks like these – stuck at home, always slightly on edge worrying about family members who we may not see for a few more months depending on shelter in place guidance – that the dreaminess of coconut can work some extra magic on our comfort-food-demanding diets. Now, I know coconut can be a divisive topic: texture-wise it’s one of the more controversial dessert ingredients, but you’ve gotta admit, creamy dreamy coconut frosting sounds like the tiny tropical note we need now (unless of course you actually live in a tropical location in which case you might be craving something totally temperate. If so, we’ve SO got you covered…
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Gluten Free Lemon Ricotta Cupcakes
A wise old wizard once said, “happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light,” and that classic Dumbledore quip seems especially pertinent now. These are uncertain, dark times, and it’s imperative that we all remember to turn on the light whenever we can. These gluten free lemon ricotta cupcakes were some of the most fun to make and photograph (and eat, of course) because they really are quite sunny, and in a regularly-gloomy city in a particularly gloomy time, they brought at least a bit of light into my dining room, and to the few friends who got special…
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Gluten Free Chocolate Coffee Cupcakes with Coffee Buttercream
For all of you who are staying close to home, for work, for safety, and for social distancing as is our collective responsibility, the days can sometimes stretch into forever as we look out onto quiet streets and wonder when life might inch back towards “normal.” I was feeling this intensely yesterday and really needed something sweet and indulgent to pick me up mid-week and mid-shelter-in-place-slump, so, of course, I turned to baking. Full disclosure – I don’t actually drink coffee (I never have, remarkably), but I LOVE coffee-flavored sweet things. Give me a pint of coffee ice cream or coffee panna cotta or a great coffee flan I had…
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Raspberry Drops with Chocolate Caps
It’s October, and in October, all sorts of clever, colorful Halloween-themed treats abound. These were entirely a mistake – made because I discovered that if I blitzed up freeze dried berries, I got something akin to berry powder that could easily be subbed in for a bit of flour and which lends brilliant color to anything oven-bound. The chocolate caps on these tiny raspberry drops just happen to look a bit like the Harry Potter sorting hat or other seasonal costumes, so I’m dubbing them a fine entry into the spooky sweets category. They’re a bit of an oddball: deep dark chocolate ganache (or something akin to ganache) with a…
