Cinnamon Sugar Cookie Chips Coffee Cake

Cinnamon Sugar Cookie Chips Coffee Cake

Breakfast is calling. It’s wondering why cookie chips took so long to get into coffee cake.

Cinnamon is one of those dark horses. I forget about it for weeks, sometimes months, at a time. And then without warning, I eat a dessert with cinnamon, and wham! I can’t stop.

When I tried Hannah Max cinnamon sugar cookie chips for the first time to decide how to bake with them, I had to slap my own hand to stop it from reaching back into the bag. The cinnamon sugar flavor is more addictive than I expected. It’s always fun when life runs contrary to expectation in a good way!

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White Nectarine Upside-Down Cake

White Nectarine Upside-Down Cake

Gotta be honest with you: I don’t usually bake with fruit.

Have you noticed? Seriously, it’s not typically my bag. When you’re addicted to chocolate and peanut butter, fruit falls by the wayside. At least, it does in baked goods.

Now fruit on its own, raw, is a different animal entirely. And my number one favorite fruit of all time is the white nectarine. When perfectly ripe, it’s sweet and juicy and better than anything. I hate to do anything to them but eat them as they are. But every now and then, you get a less than amazing batch. Actually, more than that. So that’s when you bake them into cake!

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Patriotic Peanut M & M Cookie Cake

Patriotic Peanut M & M Cookie Cake

Sometimes I just need to bake cute, ya know?

Whenever I see a gorgeous woman, I might feel a twinge of envy. Okay, more than a twinge. But then I remember that being cute has a much longer shelf life than being pretty. Or at least, I hope it does.

Besides, people like cuteness everywhere. I saw a chocolate-covered Oreo shaped like a flower last week and I just had to have it. I mean, I always want a chocolate-covered Oreo, but when you put it into a flower chocolate mold that looks like a daisy, hot damn. That’s one adorable treat. So I figure I should bake cute whenever I can.

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German Chocolate Cake

German Chocolate Cake

My dad just had a birthday, so I made his favorite: German chocolate cake. And like the dutiful daughter I am, I didn’t work crazy hard on it because my dad told me not to. My parents are always telling me to take it easier.

While I was baking this cake, I realized that I don’t talk about my dad much on this blog, which is odd. My parents are a huge part of my life. We live close to one another, so I see them almost daily. And my dad explains a lot about who I am.

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Cinnamon Crumb Bread

Cinnamon Crumb Bread

The other day, I posted an easy Mother’s Day recipe. This one is not quite that easy, but it’s still pretty doable. So if you know what a spatula is, dig in!

For some reason, people associate Mother’s Day with brunch. Okay, I know that it’s traditional to take mothers out for brunch on the big day, but why? Don’t we rate a fancy dinner?

Listen, I’m not trying to knock brunch. The food is delicious and decadent, and it’s totally fine to feature chocolate in your pancakes, or waffles, or French toast. How could I possibly object to that? But I really, really love going out for dinner. Dinner out means one night of not having to cook for greedy little mouths.

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Black And White Birthday Cake

Black and White Birthday Cake

My youngest baby turned three the other day. And suddenly, time is just going at warp speed and I’m not sure if I can handle that.

You see, I’m one of those women who tries to beat everything. If someone tells me I’ll need to recover from something for 2 weeks, I love to prove them wrong and be up and running at the end of the first week. If someone looks at a piece of cake and says that it’s too rich to eat all at once, you can bet that my piece of cake is long gone. And though I know I’m aging and that time speeds up irrevocably, I keep fighting it. I know it’s futile, but it can’t be helped.

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Passover Crumb Cake

Passover Crumb Cake

If you read my blog with any regularity, you know I’m a crumb fiend. I love piling crumbs on everything, like this. Or this. Or this.

There’s no exception to that rule on Passover. In fact, while some people call it the holiday of matza, I call it the holiday of crumbs. If you’re wondering why, think about what matza does. It crumbles everywhere. On floors. In hair. Between tiles. Atop light fixtures.

And there I am, broom and dustpan at the ready, to clean it all up. Which is actually a huge step for me, because I am not good at keeping the house clean, much as I try.

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Browned Butter Half-Pound Cake

Browned Butter Half-Pound Cake

Here it is, beautiful readers! My last installment in this week’s browned butter series. I hope you’ve enjoyed this week as much as I have!

Today’s offering is inspired by Kenny, a.k.a. my non sugar-craving half, who thinks all desserts are too rich. I love pound cake, but he has two bites and puts it aside. So I decided to halve the butter, brown it, and see what happens. Verdict? Success!

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Easy Pistachio Cake

Easy Pistachio Cake

I know tomorrow is Pi Day, thus pies are being posted right and left. But kids, I couldn’t wait to share this one. I’ll share a pie next week sometime. We cool?

Do you remember the red pistachios? Do they still exist?

I loved those things. They got red dye all over my hands, but I always thought they tasted better than the regular kind. My grandparents always kept them around for me. And then one day, they disappeared. I haven’t seen a red pistachio since.

Things have a habit of disappearing, unfortunately. There’s a great poem by Elizabeth Bishop called “One Art” where she talks about what she calls “the art of losing.” It’s a great poem, and my English teacher self highly recommends it to you. But I sometimes get creeped out by how much I’ve lost without even realizing it until after the fact.

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