Category: Cakes

Rainbow Cheesecake Bars

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Hello, friends!

I have made quite a few delights for Pride Month but wanted to make sure I ended the last week pride month with a NuNaturals recipe! This is a modified version of these cheesecake bars. I made them for Jon’s birthday and he enjoyed them immensely. I replaced the sugar with NuNaturals Monk Fruit 1:1 sweetener. This would have been keto, but I decided to use leftover mint girl scout cookies for the crust. 🙂

I pulsed the cookies in my food processor and added melted butter. Then I smushed it onto a parchment paper-lined square pan and baked it for 8 minutes at 350 degrees. The rest of the ingredients in the first picture made the filling (I only used the egg whites in this recipe and used the yolks for brunch later).

I have seen rainbow cheesecakes where there’s a layer of white cheesecake and then a layer of swirled rainbow cheesecake on top as a second layer. This recipe is lighter in part because they are cheesecake BARS, not a full cheesecake. So I did not use a white layer below and split all of the cheesecake batter into 6 cups to color.

One trick to lifting cheesecake bars is to have parchment paper to pull up. I have seen people bake with metal clips on and I plan to eventually. I don’t have any so these adorable chip clips from my mom helped keep things in place while I added the colors. I have seen people do blobs and swirl them. I wanted to make the rainbow colors stripes, but not in ROYGBIV order (they are in order, but they don’t start with red. Which is pretty pink. I digress…). Then I used a knife to swirl the edges of the colors to make it sort of tie-dyed. I think it looked pretty dope:

See that top piece of parchment that wants to fold in? It did while baking and ruined (what would have been) the perfect shot of the baked cheesecake. Here’s the full pic (followed by a cropped pic to soothe my ego):

You know what fixes blemishes like that? Whipped cream. And I just happened to have some leftover whipping cream in the fridge. I painted the inside of a pastry bag with rainbow colors then filled it with the whipped cream. Boom. Magic.

I should also add that this painting technique for piping also is shown off in this Instagram reel when I made these adorbs meringues. I used this recipe and once again subbed sugar for NuNaturals Monk Fruit 1:1 sweetener. You might say this post is full of monk fruit, food coloring, and merriment.

Happy Pride, y’all! I hope you enjoyed these recipes. I also wanted to share a little highlight of some of the treats I made this month (I didn’t share the Transgender pride flag cookies because I assembled them wrong for the picture. I did make sure to use the flag colors in the unicorns seen on the bottom left though):

As NuNaturals often inquires, Isn’t Life Sweet?

XO,

Burger Time!

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I need to keep things 100 with y’all- these tiny cupcake burgers are freakin delicious.

I made these little dudes to take to the hair salon with me tomorrow. After taking the pictures, Jon walked in and asked about these “burger muffins.” He thought they were muffins because the tops of the cupcakes are nude. Scandalous, I know. Baking pro tip: this means you need to use a toothpick instead of a fork to check if they are ready because the top is exposed. Just a heads up.

Now that I think about this… the assembly of these cupcakes is an interesting one. I have a few tips to make this more streamlined:

  • Use a scoop for the chocolate frosting. Otherwise, spreading it on a cut cupcake just moves a bunch of crumbs around. Dollop some frosting on top, then squish with the tomato (strawberry slice) and bun.
  • Use one or two strawberry slices per cupcake. These should go on top of the frosting to help with the squish.
  • I have seen recipes where the burger patty is a brownie. I like this idea- brownies are amazing- but I feel like a cupcake needs frosting. You do you, boo.
  • I used a simple syrup of honey and hot water to brush on the tops of these so the sesame seeds would stick. These are not placed on the muffins cupcakes pre-baking. Now Jon has ME calling these muffins. They are cupcakes. But also burgers. Not muffins, though.
  • This version of a cupcake is messy to eat. HOWEVER, you get an even amount of frosting in each bite. Don’t pull a George Costanza and eat this with a knife and fork. Ovary up and eat it with your hands, people. 🙂
  • Technically there are strawberries and lettuce (made from green icing), so it is a fruit and vegetable serving.

That last statement was not entirely true. But it reminds me of the time I tried to convince a leader at Weight Watchers in the early 2000s that a banana split should count as a dairy AND fruit serving. I said what I said. There’s a whole banana. Come on, now. A rose by any other name?

Back to burger time: Here is my IKEA assembly picture set up (this time I did circles and highlighted the importance of Mise en Place- aka having everything in place before assembly):

That’s it. Easy peasy. One might say easier than trying to explain to a Weight Watchers leader that A BANANA IS STILL A FRUIT, EVEN IF THERE’S ICE CREAM AND HOT FUDGE ON TOP. Listen to reason, woman.

Until next time,

Espresso Keto Cheesecakes

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I think it is fitting that I am writing a post about caffeine-infused sweets, as I woke up at 5:00 a.m. today, apparently VERY excited to begin my week. 🙂

I previously made Keto No-Bake Cheesecakes, which I enjoyed quite a bit. There were two small differences that made it clear these were not baked:

  1. The texture of the no-bake cheesecake was not a “solid” layer
  2. The crust was also not a solid layer and these two mingled together once eating the dessert.

I wanted to make a baked keto cheesecake AND have the distinct layers I missed whilst eating the last dessert (Though I want to be CRYSTAL clear- if you don’t want to turn on an oven that no-bake cheesecake is delish! I just wanted the layers for the gram and the satisfying snap when a fork or spoon takes a bite of cheesecake).

Per usual, here is my IKEA Instruction Recipe Rundown (I used this recipe, but used NuNaturals 1:1 sweetener instead of Swerve):

The final product was cooled until ready to be refrigerated. I put it in the freezer so they would be easier to remove from the silicone molds. After they came out, I put whipped cream on them. This was the layered amazingness I was looking for!!!! I had to use up this shelf-stable whipped cream by the end of the month so I added some NuNaturals Vanilla Syrup and stevia to it.

I have an issue with garnishing. Like… I want to add more to things. So I have two examples of this below, both using the aforementioned keto whipped cream. First, I decided that these layered cheesecakes looked BALLER from the sides, but not the top. So I added a cat stencil using cocoa powder. Next, I made my man orange jello (using NuNaturals gelatin) with mandarin oranges inside. I felt like those looked lonely with just whipped cream, so I added an orange slice. I stand by these decisions, and wish I had a bowl of this whipped cream right now.

I should add that this cheesecake recipe was made in a silicone mold I purchased for the oldest daughter of my decades-long friend Matt, aka The Domestic Specialist. She has been KILLIN IT with desserts and I thought it would be fun to see what she made with the same mold. She and her younger sister are both artists (I know this isn’t fair to the rest of the world, but her parents are amazing so it is not shocking). I asked her younger sister to decorate the box.

This was a test round…. but I have my idea for the mold ready to go. I’m ready to get completely destroyed by her amazingness.

For reference, look at a macaron side-by side:

Hers have the “feet,” which have been elusive to me. I have made two batches. While this one was miles better than my first, I still didn’t have feet. She did. She’s 11.

Remember when that little drummer prodigy girl kicked Dave Grohl’s butt in a drum-off? That’s what is going to happen here. I’m toast. 🙂

P/S- If you’d like to play along, I got the mold here. I do not get $ from Amazon or anything. I’m a baller on a budget and wanna share in case you’d like to make something, too.

XO,

Come and knock on my doooor…

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That reference may be dated, but I love John Ritter.

I LOVE baking, but some weeks are busy and other times I want to see what other people are doing or making. I am inspired by everything on Instagram, but I cannot eat those things… though full disclosure- when I finish my mileage for the Trail Racing Over Texas Trans-Texas Virtual Run I WILL be ordering these cookies from Levain bakery:

I took this picture from their Instagram. WUT.

Generally speaking, I am the one who knocks (shout out to Heisenberg) when I mail treats. But, I know this shocks NO ONE, I also like eating baked goods from the mail. 🙂

So, this post is dedicated to my homies at Farmhouse Delivery. I have tried a few of their baked goods over the past few months and wanted to share them with you here. There’s no baking required (except for the last one and WORTH IT). Like all other Farmhouse items (including fresh flowers, eggs, etc.), these bad boys just show up on your front porch. And you even get a text so you know to awkwardly hover near the door. Ha!

Blueberry Muffin

Farmhouse deliveries include local farmers AND local businesses. Texas French Bread has several offerings in their bakery section, including this amazing Blueberry Muffin. The thing weighed like 40 pounds.

One of the reasons I was SUPER excited for this muffin was…. Well first we should cover the fact that I put butter on all fruit filled muffins. I used to get this BALLER orange muffin from Marshall Fields restaurant and I put butter on that. And Blueberry muffins. I just do, okay.

Anyways, sometimes the cold butter rips the muffins. That’s where a BUTTER CROCK comes in. You put cold water in it and it keeps butter soft on the counter. It took its maiden voyage for this blueberry muffin moment:

Full disclosure, taking pics of this buttered muffin was similar to a dog balancing a treat on his nose (which are always labradors. Labradors are too polite sometimes, man…).

If you do not have a butter crock, my dad used to put his hot coffee cup on a pat of butter at restaurants (wrapped in foil, obvs). Perfect spreadable butter. Freakin genius.

Cinnamon Sugar Croissant

This croissant is also from Texas French Bread. It was delivered in my CSA box and I was NOT disappointed. Look at the sparkly sugary goodness! It actually looks fake. But I know it was not because I ate it. Promise (like you had doubts).

I know that Paul Hollywood is all about laminated dough when it comes to pastries like this, so I also have a shot of how this looked when cut in half:

Texas Strawberry Pies

These beautiful bebes are from Flourvine and were SO DANG DELICIOUS. They even put a little note inside asking me to slice a few holes on the top before baking. Thanks, friends. I did and it was perfect. I added some egg wash and turbinado sugar before baking because I am that guy who says “this is great! I modified it though…”

I would also like to add that those baller strawberries that were basically the size of these hand pies were also Texas strawberries from Farmhouse. They are the best, y’all. 🙂

My “To Try” List

There are still several items on Farmhouse Delivery’s baked goods/desserts section that I have yet to try. I have several weeks of baking plans on lock, but when those are finished I am going to try some of these bad boys:

Sausage and Jalapeno Croissant from Texas French Bread

Raspberry Croissant

Bake at Home Buttermilk Biscuits

I had the kit Farmhouse sold this fall, where you made the dough using ingredients in separate containers (from Dai Due). It was SO good! I don’t see that one anymore and like the idea of a square biscuit. So this will happen.

And Finally….

This is called “Late Night Fridge Grab Dessert Box” and I have ZERO chill. Pun unintended, but I am amused and it stays. This looks SOOOOO good, but I would need to buy it for a night where I am hanging out with friends so we could all try a bit of it. I cannot imagine this would end well if these were all in my fridge for just me.

I don’t have to imagine, it is written in stone. I would eat all of it at 2 a.m., then Jon would find me in the morning covered in cookie crumbs laying on the kitchen floor sleeping whilst smiling.

Even so, I will wait until I can share it.

Thanks, Farmhouse!

I love how all of these items are local. There are also baked goods from Easy Tiger, Sugar Mama’s, Rockstar Bagels, Slow Dough, and Tiny Pies! We had the Texas Pete pie from Tiny Pies, but I did not include it in this post because that was a savory pie. I didn’t want to have to check the “savory” tag, then disappoint people when there was a post full of sugar. 🙂 Anyways, the pie was vegan and delicious. I look forward to slowly checking everything off this list as groceries are conveniently delivered to my door.

XO,

Seasonal Treats

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I LOVE a seasonal treat.

There’s something special about making a treat or meal that is tied to a time of year. Peanut butter eggs taste better than peanut butter cups. Pumpkin pie is a key November staple. Peppermint ALL DAY in December, right? These times are special.

I love walking down Target’s seasonal section looking for baking ingredients or serving vessels/bags. When I was scrolling through my Instagram Grid recently I noticed that the Easter vibe was SO present. It made me wonder if other holidays were the same.

They were!

Let’s take a tour of some of the more recent holiday/seasonal times with a look at “the ‘gram,” AKA what my Instragram grid looked like at these time periods.

This is basically a guided tour of The Louvre… but food pics. You’re welcome.

Fall/Thanksgiving

This time was full of pumpkin. Somehow I did not do many Halloween treats. I realized after some investigation that this was because I was having pretty bad depression in October. When my mood stabilized in November (thanks Zoloft!), I hit Turkey Day running.

I made my first pie crust from scratch. It was wicked good, but my pie plate was a little too large so the crust was not substantial.

I am not sure why that recipe was a liar, but I took it personally… just like MJ in basically every 5 minutes of The Last Dance (Bad Boys 4 Life). To redeem myself, I doubled the recipe next time to make a Buttermilk Pie for my Bobcat BFF Jess.

Christmas Time

During Christmas I was hyper-focused on mailable treats. But I also made a Yule Log cake for me and Jon. He is not a “cake person,” but loves a Red Velvet with Cream Cheese frosting. I make holiday cakes in that flavor combo so I am not eating cake alone. This theme will pop up again for Easter.

The pic on the bottom left was the first Panettone we’d ever eaten. I turned it into french toast because of course I did. I also made round foods, pork, and rice for the new year because, as Michael Scott once said “I’m not superstitious, but I’m a little stitious.”

Valentine’s Day

This is easily my favorite baking holiday. I truly do not care about Valentine’s Day (or Sweetest Day for that matter). But I love pink and hearts and sparkles and THIS HOLIDAY HAS EVERYTHING.

I’ve always loved the classic foil heart-shaped box of chocolates, so I made several treats you could create to fill the box. I also recommend eating the chocolates as you make the new stuff because you deserve chocolates, too! The waffle on the top left was for Galentine’s Day, a Leslie Knope tradition.

Easter/Spring

This is the most recent holiday I baked and make delish foods for. I made cake popcicles for the first time (which Jon dubbed “the personal pan pizza of cakes”). This was made using the red velvet/cream cheese frosting combo so he would share with me. I was going to make carrot cake ones, but he said he didn’t like carrot cake (narrator: but he did).

I have realized while planning this post that there aren’t a lot of good food holidays coming up. Basically the next good one (in my opinion) is Halloween. So what can I celebrate until then?

  • Pretzel Day (yes, office fans that’s on April 26th)
  • Apple Pie Day (May 13th)
  • Donut Day (June 4th)
  • Ice Cream Day (June 7th)
  • Eat Your Vegetables Day (June 17th)
  • Strawberry Sundae Day (July 7th)
  • French Fry Day (July 13th)
  • Milk Chocolate Day (July 28th)
  • Chocolate Chip Cookie Day (August 4th)
  • Potato Day (August 19th… and every other day imo)
  • Waffle Day (August 24th)
  • Cheeseburger Day (September 18th)
  • Queso Day (September 20th)
  • Ice Cream Cone Day (September 22nd)
  • Coffee Day (September 29th)
  • Cinnamon Roll Day (October 4th)
  • Pierogi Day (October 8th)
  • Cake Decorating Day (October 10th)
  • Day of the Nacho (October 21st)

These “national holidays” were found on the internet. For all I know someone threw darts at a dartboard then made the site, but damned if I won’t celebrate NATIONAL POTATO DAY.

Which one would you celebrate?

XO,

Post-Easter Protein Muffins!

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Why, hello dear readers! I am (once again) sharing a trick my cousin Nikki taught me long ago- you can use leftover holiday candy and PUT IT IN PANCAKES! I showed you how to do that with a waffle for my Galentine’s Day post. Today, I will show you how to sneak some delish leftover candy into some protein muffins.

Collagen Protein Muffins

The muffins in this recipe are featuring ingredients from both Kodiak and NuNaturals. They also showcase the various baking items my mom sent our way! Check this out:

How cute is that latte covered in easter sprinkles!?

I digress… I used the bunny ears, sprinkles, baking cups, and mini eggs in this recipe. I also modified Kodiak’s recipe on the box (below) and cut it in half as well because there are just two of us. It made six muffins.

I used the following for six muffins:

The only sort of finesse to this recipe was mashing the banana separately and adding it second to last. The Collagen from NuNaturals added some extra protein and the NuNaturals vanilla syrup added a subtle sweet note. The last item was the crushed mini eggs. I put them in a 350 degree oven for about 15 minutes. Here are some process pictures:

You may have noticed that the adorable eggs (bottom left) looked wicked sad when they were baked (second from left on bottom). Since chocolates are baking duct tape, I just plopped a NEW egg on top of the baked eggs whilst they were cooling. And added bunny ears. I also ate the ugliest one so it did not feel bad about missing the photo shoot. It was delightful.

Easter Picnic Fun

Speaking of “delightful,” I promised to share how our Easter picnic went! Well, we had to change plans a bit. The Easter Bunny got my husband a Covid Vaccine! So we moved the picnic to Saturday…. which was rainy. We decided to eat our meal in the house and enjoy our dessert on the back porch with our cat Champion (he’s allowed out on a leash… yes, you read that correctly).

Here’s the delish Easter spread (I was able to do open-faced Grinder sammies since we were at home, so that was a plus!).

The bottom left is our “Easter pic” we sent to family while waiting for Jon’s vaccine appointment. The right is proof of our porch picnic, where we ate cakecicles and Champ mostly sniffed the air suspiciously.

If you want to know more about these ADORBS cakecicles we enjoyed, here are a few pics and a reel I shared of the process on Instagram!

As you can see on the pic on the left, there were some “happy accidents” as Bob Ross would say. So instead of painting happy little trees over them I covered the cracks with white chocolate and sprinkles, which is basically a baker’s version of… say it with me…. bakers’ duct tape.

Happy Easter if you celebrate! Happy Peanut Butter Egg season if you don’t!

XO,

(I don’t know what is scarier- carrying a purse with the carpet pattern from The Shining so close to a topiary bunny or admitting to the masses that I exclusively eat black jellybeans… they are the best jellybean.)

Mini Carrot Cakes!

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I wanted to make a carrot cake for Easter because I’m basic. I LOVE a carrot cake. However, holiday weekends mean a LOT of cheer so I wanted a lightened up version. Additionally, there are only two people in this house and ONE* does not like carrot cake. So I had to make some improvisations.

I started with this recipe, meant for two tiny ramekin carrot cakes. Then, like most commenters on ANY recipe (including how to boil water), I made some changes. 🙂

First, I subbed the spices for NuNaturals Chai syrup. Then I subbed the oil for unsweetened applesauce. I used less brown sugar than the recipe called for- and if I am being completely honest I think a pinch of it would be good.

Next, I omitted the cream cheese frosting entirely. I know (clutches pearls). Instead, I boiled some rainbow carrot ribbons in a mixture of water and NuNaturals vanilla syrup. After they simmered for a bit I put them on a silicon baking mat and crisped them in the oven at 350 degrees for 8 minutes (whilst the cakes baked). Here’s the process:

When it came time to plate the recipe I was pretty overwhelmed. See… the ramekins that they were baked in are adorable serving dishes on their own… but they also come out of those ramekins nicely. So they COULD be on a little cake stand or in a bebe skillet. Choices are hard…

I opted to eat mine in the skillet (pictured in the center). It was SO good!! I decided to offer a bite to my husband as a “maybe I’ll win him over” test. See, he isn’t a sweets person. He is MOS DEF not a carrot cake person. He is a cream cheese frosting person, but there was nary a cream cheese morsel to be found.

Welp.

*Remember the one person I asterisked above? That was me. Now there are two people who like carrot cake because Homeboy wanted to SPLIT IT. He liked it! My husband is very honest and does not eat things he doesn’t like, especially baked goods. So, he ate half from the skillet plate and I ate the other half on the little cake stand.

You heard it here first, folks: this recipe will turn carrot cake haters into carrot cake eating machines (or diplomatic “let’s go halvsies” dudes). Here’s my modified recipe:

Yay! Let me know if you try it. So easy AND delish!

XO,

Yule Logs are Not Easy to Roll. Or Decorate. Or Take Pictures of, TBH…

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I REALLY wanted to make a Buche de Noel for Christmas this year. We did not travel anywhere and it seemed like the perfect time to create a dessert with a stupid amount of steps and processes. I am going to share the broad strokes with you here! There’s a full video if you want to watch this go down- including me rolling the video and seeing my cake crack… thrice.

First, I wanted to make meringue mushrooms for this adorbs cake. I did… and were they the most adorable things I’ve created, then eaten? Yes.

Will I make them to top any dessert I create when we eventually entertain again? Also yes. SO. CUTE.

Next, I made the roll cake. My husband is not a huge cake person. He isn’t even a small cake person. He’s a human person who doesn’t love cake. So I asked him to choose the cake/icing flavors hoping this would entice him to eat a slice or two (it did!) He opted for red velvet cake and cream cheese frosting (in the same recipe link).

I thought about making a chocolate buttercream or chocolate cream cheese frosting for the cake, but my man is a PURIST and would be super sad there was another flavor sneaking into his VIP party in Flavortown. So I just made the cream cheese frosting brown with food coloring. Problem solved!

I also chopped off the roll on the front piece pictured below (have no fear- we ate it). It was not the blunt shape of the other ends and I wanted continuity. Next time I’ll attach it on that side, to not need this step (This is a lie- I will do the same thing so I can eat cake sooner).

I also wanted to cover the roll cake with rolled pieces of chocolate so it looked like real bark. This became an EXCELLENT idea because my roll cake had one three cracks in it when I rolled it up. I glued the cake back together with the brown colored cream cheese frosting, then covered it with the chocolate bark.

The last few steps were putting ground pistachios around as moss and placing the mushrooms (once again using brown cream cheese frosting as glue). The green sticks are matcha pocky. So cute, no?

The last step? Making my husband take pictures of me as I added powdered sugar snow:

Awe.

We ate most of this and I froze two slices for a rainy day. You can watch a video of the whole process here.

XO,

Coffee Cake

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I have some big news: coffee cake does NOT have coffee in it. But damn if it doesn’t taste delish with a cup of joe! Weird thing: The cinnamon swirl in coffee cake IS NOT LIQUID! I assumed it was a butter/sugar/cinnamon syrup blend. Nope. Check the pic below: sugar and cinnamon. No liquid. Whoa.

I have been doing mise en place for a while. This simply means having your ingredients out and measured (if possible) before you begin. It helps me make sure I do not miss an ingredient along the way. Mise en place really helps with baking recipes because it is super sciency! The measurement matters, y’all.

I also like to break eggs in a separate little bowl before adding them to the mixer. I’ve never had a “bad egg,” which is why most chefs do this. I do because I don’t want little eggshell bits sneaking in there. Not the texture I am looking for. You can see most of this below. I also have containers for all of my flours and sugars. Each has a measuring cup inside, so it is really easy to use.

Check out the streusel crumble below:

Below is the brunch where we were SUPPOSED to eat the coffee cake. My partner and I were SO full from the hash and eggs that we both ate the coffee cake later in the afternoon. Good thing I put it in these adorbs ramekins.

Thanks for reading!

XO,

Petite Zucchini Apple Cakes

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Sometimes I want to make a recipe completely from scratch. Other times I like to doctor up a mix that already exists. Bonus points if the Kodiak bear is on the box.

I used Kodiak blueberry muffins and added shredded zucchini and apple. I also replaced the oil/butter with applesauce. I figured it would enhance the apple flavor and save me some calories as well. The result were these fluffy little miracles:

They kept their shape pretty well!

I used a tiny cake pan from NordicWare and ended up making enough where they were 25 calories each! Here’s a few eaten the day of with a nice cup of joe:

Look at those petite treasures!

We do not eat enough baked goods to plow through 70 tiny cakes before they go bad. So I put the remaining cakes in bags for the freezer. This is the parking lot for additional baked goods. I generally thaw a treat or two for part of my late lunch. For funzies, I thought I would include a picture of what was left in the freezer before I made these petite wonders:

Challah, thick-cut homemade bread for french toast, banana chocolate chip muffins, zucchini chocolate chip bread, and three mini zucchini bread treats.

Cheers to 60ish petite cakes joining the freezer friends above. I plan on eventually using a combination of these treats to make a bread pudding. Stay tuned for that once there’s more variety. 🙂