Elegant Desserts | Just About Baked

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Caramel Apple Cheesecake

November 12, 2014
Mir
Cupcakes and Cheesecakes, Elegant Desserts
26 Comments

I get a little crazy sometimes. Don’t we all?

Case in point: my grocery store sells packaged caramel apples from late September through Halloween. They’re delicious. They’re covered in peanuts and I buy two packages a week. It’s so major in my household that my kids get way too excited on my behalf when they see them.

But as soon as the end of October hits, my supply abruptly dries up. The first year that happened, I actually called the company. It was a pretty embarrassing conversation. They told me that they don’t make the caramel apples after Halloween, and I actually begged them to make an exception for me. I offered to pay them more. They very politely refused. And I hung up, realizing I just had one of those crazy lady moments.

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Best-Ever Honey Cake

September 26, 2014
Mir
Cakes, Elegant Desserts, Let Them Eat Cake
4 Comments

This one is for all you Rosh Hashanah people out there. You know, the Jewish New Year? It’s going on as we speak. And what better to celebrate than a traditional honey cake?

Except, well, they’re often not so great. Honey cakes can be dry, sort of like pumpkin cake’s less sexy counterpart. Why make a honey cake when there’s pumpkin around?

I’ll tell you why. This cake. This amazing, tricked-out, not dry but super moist honey cake!

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Chocolate Mousse Pie

In the mood for something sweet that’s a bit lighter? Today’s your day!

I’m not really sure how to classify this dessert. My grandmother, who taught me how to make it, called it a cake. In fact, she made it for my grandfather’s birthday every year. But darn it, whenever I make it, I just see a pie. So we’ll go with that. Sorry, Grandma.

Whatever you call it, this dessert is fabulous and easy to make. It’s one of those happy recipes that are mind-numblingly easy to create but that will still impress the masses. Impressing your fans is important. You want people to think that you worked so much harder than you did.

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Raspberry Almond Pound Cake

July 14, 2014
Mir
Cakes, Elegant Desserts, Let Them Eat Cake
12 Comments

They say the darkest hour is just before dawn.

With all due respect, that’s a pile of $#!*. Just not true at all, I’m afraid. The darkest hour is 9:30 PM when your kids have gone to bed and you wanted to watch episodes of Cake Boss but you can’t because you’re in piping hell. The cake isn’t looking right, melted frosting is leaking out of the wrong side of the piping bag into your hair, and you feel nothing but deep despair.

Or does that just happen to me?

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Strawberry Cream Pie

It’s Monday morning and I’m a little on the exhausted side. Father’s Day was great, but crazy partying comes at an expense to my beauty sleep.

You see, my husband and I had to have margaritas last night. I knew at the time it wasn’t going to feel good this morning. I knew it. But I went ahead anyway. And I know that my past self isn’t sorry, and my future self won’t be either. But man, my present self is a little ticked off.

On the plus side, we made it through the holiday with a minimum of our usual string of disasters, with the exception of my son getting sick once again. What is it with my child? Does he enjoy curling up on the couch with his stuffed animals and conking out? Actually, that sounds pretty good right about now. Or anytime, really.

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Lemon Pound Cake

May 18, 2014
Mir
Cakes, Elegant Desserts, Let Them Eat Cake
10 Comments

For a great portion of my life, my definition of a pound cake came from an Entenmann’s box or a Sara Lee freezer item. These pound cakes came in neat little loaf shapes and I always loved the top part the best. The crumb was also extremely solid and dense, perfect for dipping into chocolate. Mmm. It was good stuff, and I liked it a lot, but I never tasted pound cake from scratch until I was nearly in my thirties. Ooops. I take that back. I’m 25, people!

When I finally did try a homemade pound cake, I was bowled over by the butter notes, so striking and so, well, buttery. Having not grown up with butter (a different story for another time), I took to pound cake like a new mom to caffeine. It was just so amazing, and I was a sucker for the duality of the tightly-packed crumb with the butter undertones.

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Sunshine Lemon-Lime Tart

This is the best time of year. As soon as Cinco de Mayo hits, the weather gets sunnier and spending time outside is nothing but a sheer pleasure. Lazy days, frosty margaritas, flip-flops…and lime-infused desserts!

I still remember my first slice of key lime pie. It was quite a special moment. My husband and I were dating and we went on vacation to Florida, and in a restaurant overlooking the Gulf of Mexico, I had my first slice. I think that moment was perfection. And I’ve been trying to recreate it ever since. This particular tart, though not a key lime pie, manages to bring back that happy feeling effortlessly.

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Chocolate Coconut Macaroon Tart

April 14, 2014
Mir
Elegant Desserts, Passover Edition!, Pie Day
0 Comments

It’s Passover Week on Just About Baked! I’m sharing my go-to Passover dessert recipes this week because, well, I’m on a mission. For years I ate substandard desserts because I thought there was nothing else out there. But a few years back, I did some research and then I did some baking. Well, a lot of baking. The recipes you’ll see this week are all crowd-pleasers and they’re also easy. What could be better?

Onward! A year ago, I was reading my Good Housekeeping magazine (which is kind of ironic because I’m not that good at housekeeping) when I saw this three-ingredient recipe, just in time for Passover. It looked so fancy and elegant, but it turned out to be the easiest thing in the world to make.

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Golden Peanut Butter Cup Cake

March 30, 2014
Mir
Cakes, Elegant Desserts, Let Them Eat Cake
2 Comments

My son doesn’t like chocolate. Or so he claims. At first, I was grief-stricken when I heard this news. Was he mine?!

Then I realized that he does like chocolate but he doesn’t want to admit to it, for some weird little kid reason. For example, he loves Reese’s peanut butter cups. I can’t bring the telltale orange and yellow packaging anywhere near the house without him begging to have some, puppy eyes and all. But if the chocolate gets too rich, suddenly it’s not his thing anymore.

Which is all totally fine, except that the boy asked for a peanut butter cup cake for his birthday this year. And he wanted it done with yellow cake, not chocolate. As much as my instincts tore me away from this challenge kicking and screaming, I had to obey. I mean, he’s my kid and it’s his birthday. What am I supposed to do?

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Cookies and Cream Bark

About a year ago, I embarked upon a kindness project. It’s not much, but I decided to bake something for each co-worker’s birthday. You see, every time someone did me a random act of kindness, I’d just feel so grateful. And kind of guilty, too, because I wasn’t doing enough back. So the birthday baking is my way of showing appreciation for the people I work with, but it’s also my way of making them feel special.

Anyway, this past week, I messed up. An intern’s birthday somehow slipped through my fingers. I promised to make it up to him and he told me that the easiest way to make him happy was to incorporate Oreos into whatever I was baking.

I’ve noticed something about Oreos: they have the same fanatic fan base that my beloved peanut butter cups do. And like any loyal fan, Oreo devotees accept no generic substitutes. It has to be Oreo or bust. I understand completely. I accept no peanut butter cup that’s not a Reese’s.