Spiced brown sugar cookies

As much as I love cooking and baking I understand it’s not everyone’s cup of tea – so you can imagine how happy I felt when I noticed that my sister loved cooking and baking, too – I swear I never pushed her towards it: it all began with her passion for brownies and cookies. :)

After tasting some of these cookies she told me they were delicious and she needed the recipe “asap”; she also told

Pear, apple, brown sugar and maple syrup cake

People who like to cook and bake – myself included – get mad at recipes that do not work – I think it’s only natural to feel that way about something that involves time, ingredients ($$) and expectations. I get really angry sometimes, to the point of cursing like a character in a mafia movie. :D

But if the recipe works and the food tastes good, I’m OK with a couple of details that might be

Brown sugar cake with mixed toffee nuts + a list of hints and tips

I’ve told you before how much I enjoy receiving your comments and emails, I really do - they have brightened some dark days I’ve had. Since some of those emails are packed with questions and doubts I thought a list of hints and tips would be useful – and I’ve added one to the blog menu now.

I don’t mean to sound presumptuous, please – I still have a lot to learn and I do not have any

Chock-full of chocolate chip cookies

Yes, people, chocolate chips again – the person behind this blog has serious problems trying to control herself sometimes, and that can result in the purchase of a 2.5kg (over 5oz) bag of chocolate chips. So get ready to see loads of chips around here (luckily the chocolate is excellent and I can melt it to make brownies and such). :)

Speaking of control – or the lack of it – buying a huge bag

Brown sugar and chocolate chip pound cake with maple glaze

Every once in a while I go through my recipe stash – Joao kindly calls it my “mess” – and find ripped pages/prints I did not remember existed – like this recipe from when I was a Bon Appétit subscriber, ages ago.

It’s a good cake – I expected it to be a bit more tender, but one of my official Guinea pigs said it was great; however, it was the icing that won me over: I left the espresso out and

Butterscotch pots

You almost got another panna cotta here today. :)

I think of panna cotta every time I need to use up heavy cream before it goes bad – what changed my mind this time, you might ask? The poor lonely egg yolks left from the buttercream on my MIL’s birthday cake. :D

These pots are delicious but also very, very rich – small cups are the way to go here.

Butterscotch pots
from Sticky, Chewy, Messy,

Piña Colada cake

This is the cake I made for my MIL’s birthday; I’d already set up my mind to bake a chocolate cake, but when I called her to ask which flavor she wanted she told me I was being kind enough to bake her the cake, so she would not choose the flavor – I should do that, instead; just what I needed to try a different cake from my favorite layer cake book. :D

I could not find canned pineapple in

Little strawberry meringue tarts

The strawberry maniac strikes again – and this time with pies topped with meringue. :)

I know I’ve been carried away by the strawberry season, but tell me: would you resist making such adorable little pies? I’m not that strong. :)



Little strawberry meringue tarts
adapted from Australian Gourmet Traveller

Filling:
400g strawberries, hulled and quartered
½ cup (88g) brown sugar, packed – you

Oatmeal cookies with golden raisins and milk chocolate chips

I used to be a person who loved going to shopping malls, even if just for window shopping; now, one would have to lock me up in a straight jacket to get me into a mall without a very specific purpose – and lately, going to the movies has been the only reason.

I once arrived too early for my movie session and ended up in a book store to pass the time; that turned out to be a bad idea for my

Banana butterscotch pudding

I’m here today on a very special mission: I must convince you, my dear readers, to make this dessert next time you see a very ripe, freckled banana hanging around.

Banana bread is delicious, and so are banana cakes and cookies, but hear me when I say you’ll be an extremely happier person once you’ve tasted this pudding. Did I mention there’s caramel sauce involved? Oh, yes, there is. Plenty of

Cherry, cashew and white chocolate chunk cookies

“I’m not sure this is gonna work, but I’ll try it anyway” – my thoughts exactly when I came across this recipe. The ingredients were very appealing to me, but would they go well mixed up in a cookie? There was only one way to find out. :D

Even though I wasn’t completely happy about the texture – the cookies turned out really thin and delicate, difficult to carry around without breaking – the

White chocolate lime cookies

Remember when I told you I’d watched “Zodiac”? After returning it to the video store, I decided to get two more movies. I was in a hurry and did not think much – sort of grabbed whatever was in front of me, because those were movies I’d been dying to see for ages. Do you know what I got? “Blindness” and “Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind”. Yes, my friends - three movies with Mark Ruffalo in

Butterscotch marble blondie drops

Watching “Zodiac” this week I found someone as addicted to cookies as I am.

These blondie drops would make Inspector David Toschi very happy, I’m sure. But I’d rather bake them for Detective Malloy. :D



Butterscotch marble blondie drops
from Big Fat Cookies

112g (4 ounces) semisweet chocolate, chopped
2 cups (280g) unbleached all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
1 cup

Hawaiian macadamia coconut cookies

“Oh, no. Walnut cake. Why does he always ask for walnut cakes??” :(That used to be little Patricia complaining about her uncle’s birthday cakes always being walnut flavored cakes. And little Patricia did not like walnuts. In fact, little Patricia thought that walnuts tasted weird.But little Patricia has become a big girl – she’s 30 now! – and has learned to love not only walnuts, but all things

Aunt Mary Dillon's praline cookies

“Funny Games” opens today here in Sao Paulo. I know it’s a frame by frame remake, like Gus Van Sant’s hugest mistake, and there are some harsh reviews about it going on here, but I don’t care – any movie with Tim Roth and Naomi Watts has my undivided attention. Have you seen this poster? It’s absolutely fantastic.I can’t say the same about the photo of these cookies, though. It’s OK, but not as

Dark and white chocolate chunk cookies and your opinion about a magazine

Kristen left me a comment a while ago, asking my opinion about Bon Appétit’s new “look”. To be honest, I’m not so thrilled with the magazine anymore. The issues are getting thinner and thinner and each time there are more ads instead of interesting recipes and articles. Such a bummer. :(
Now I would love to hear your opinion, too – how do you like the magazine?

I did find something of my

Nika’s chocolate coconut hedgie cookies

I had these on my del.icio.us for ages – ever since Nika posted them, more than a year ago. Her cookies looked so good! Every time I took a look at my bookmarks I felt like baking these just to, seconds later, realize that the type of coconut in my pantry was not the one the recipe called for.A quick trip to the grocery store solved that problem and I wish I hadn’t been so lazy: these cookies are

Honey-almond coffee cake

Almonds are delicious – my favorite kind of nut. I also love honey – when I was little, my mom used to mix honey and lime juice and feed me by spoonfuls when I had colds and coughs.
Put almonds and honey together and you’ll have a super delicious combo.

It’s like De Niro and Scorsese. They are both wonderful, but when they are together... Magic is made.

Hey, Marty, enough with the DiCaprio

Dulce de leche cake for my dad's birthday

My father has a weakness for dulce de leche; well, pretty much everyone I know does. :) So it was easy to choose his birthday cake.

His birthday is today, but we celebrated it last Saturday – a small group of great people, good food... I’m glad Dad liked it.

I laughed my heart out when he arrived and looked at the cake – there were two big candles with the numbers “6” and “0”.
“Not anyone

Glazed apple lattice coffee cake

Some ideas are so great that we wish we’d thought of them ourselves. When I read that David Helfgott was the man behind the amazing piano played in Emotion Sickness I was stunned - Silverchair is just genius.

The same thing crossed my mind when I saw this coffee cake on the Oct, 2007 issue of Bon Appétit magazine. A coffee cake filled with apple, brown sugar, zest and spices was something I