Dark chocolate, pear and pistachio cake

A long time ago I told you that I was addicted to IMDb’s movie trivia – I still am, therefore it was a joy for me to find Gabrielle Wee’s gorgeous Tumblr: just be careful because you’ll probably lose track of time reading it (I speak of personal experience). :D

On that same post I also told you how much I loved browsing Gourmet Traveller’s recipes – I still do, and this delicious cake comes

Peanut butter sandwich cookies with milk chocolate filling + two favorite Tumblrs

I’ve been obsessing with sandwich cookies lately – I want to bake each and every recipe for sandwich cookies I see (and no, I haven’t forgotten about biscotti, believe me). :)
I’d planned making one of Martha’s fabulous cookies but the jam I had around was very chunky – the jam is actually quite good but not thin enough for filling the cookies. I turned to the Karen DeMasco’s wonderful book and

Almost mother-in-law cake – a cake that was baked because of its name (but turned out delicious)

Despite my promises of not buying new cookbooks I ended up with a handful of new titles at home; one of them is “From Season to Season – a Year in Recipes” and after going through the beautiful book I chose this delicious cake to be the first recipe to be tried from it, and I even made my own candied orange zest to use in it: after all, how can one resist a cake with a name like that? ;)

Chocolate orange ganache tart and all's well that ends well

I started writing this post with EBTG’s “When all’s well” playing in my mind; I explain: this tart is a result of some stressful moments, but it all worked out fine in the end.

The initial idea was baking this tart to finish up the marmalade jar I’d bought for Nigel Slater’s cake. I’d already thawed some really good pastry I had in the freezer and lined the tart pan with it; after that, I made

Ana's chocolate cupcakes

Besides the piña colada cake, I made these cupcakes for my MIL’s birthday – chocolate is THE universal favorite flavor and I thought that they would look pretty on the table. :D

The recipe comes from my dear friend Ana Elisa and you won’t believe how easy and quick it is.

Speaking of Ana – the newest and loveliest mom-to-be in the food blog community – she’s getting a little bit older today.

Chocolate cake with caramel ganache for my sister's birthday

Traditions. I did not like them when I was younger, I must tell you that. But I have learned to cherish them over the years – I guess one should get wiser as they get older, right? :)

One of the traditions I hold dearest is baking my sister’s birthday cake - that started several years ago, long before I even knew what a food blog was. And lately I have been sharing these cakes with you, too.

Passion fruit macarons

My whole life I've heard that being persistent pays off – and I should say it’s true. That works in several levels in life, but today I’ll stick to the culinary side of the story. :)After getting two not so good batches – and tossing many others – I finally made beautiful macacons, with feet! I sure looked like a crazy woman dancing around my kitchen after taking these out of the oven. :) I have

Vanilla buttermilk cake with whipped passion fruit ganache for a very special someone

Last year, it was lemon and strawberries; this time, vanilla and passion fruit take the stage to celebrate my sister’s birthday.

I don’t bake layer cakes as often as I would like to, but when I do this is the first book I reach for – again, the results were great. The cake layers turned out tender and the ganache was delicious and light, yet easy to spread and firm enough to hold the cake

Brioche filled with chocolate ganache

After all those tears on the weekend, a video made me laugh my heart out Monday night. Have you seen the 9 year-old boy who acts like Gordon Ramsay? I watched the video 3 times in a row – that’s how much I liked it. And there wasn’t a fourth because Joao said I would probably wake up the entire building. :)

“There is nothing like a day after another” – my granny always says. Despite her sailor

Blueberry macarons

Making macarons – talk about a brave decision! And here I thought that chopping off 4 inches of hair, like I did a couple of months ago, had been a bold move.I’d had an eye on these pink beauties for quite a while but it was Helen’s wonderful tutorial that gave me the courage to finally try making macarons. And even though they don’t look like hers or the Master’s – which I was lucky enough to

Three tier chocolate cake

Wow, I haven’t been here for a while - Happy New Year, everyone!I haven’t visited your blogs either – I had a few days off from work and took a short break from the computer; I organized many things at home and also did a sort of “summer cleaning”. And because of that – and also the 33-35ºC (92-95ºF) days were were having here in Sao Paulo – I didn’t cook much. But I did bake a birthday cake for