Owl Reese's Pieces Cake (Thanksgiving Dessert 3)

Owl Reese's Pieces Cake

Prep: 30 Minutes

Bake: 35 to 40 minutes

Cool: 1 hour

Yield: 12 servings

Apple Tart (Thanksgiving Dessert 2)

Apple Tart

Prep: 1 hour

Bake: 1 hour, 375°F

Cool: 2 hours

Yield: 8 servings 

Pumpkin & Pecan Pie Cheesecake (Thanksgiving Dessert 1)

Hope you all had an amazing Thanksgiving with plenty of turkey and desserts. I'm still enjoying those holiday leftovers. Especially when it comes dessert. In my family pies, tarts, and cheesecakes are a must-have at the Thanksgiving dinner table. This year I got to put a cake in the mix for our birthday girl in the family which is always a plus. After a few hours of recipe books and internet surfing I finally made my picks. For our Thanksgiving dinner we had Pumpkin & Pecan Cheesecake, Apple Pie Tart, Owl Reese's Pieces Cake, and one sleepy baker.

Pumpkin & Pecan Pie Cheesecake

Prep: 30 minutes

Bake: 1 hour to 1 hour and 15 minutes, 350°F

Cool: 2 hours

Chill: Overnight

Yield: 16 servings

Spiderwebbed German Chocolate Swirl Cake

It's not a party unless sweets are present!

Yield: 24 servings

Prep: 35 to 40 minutes

Bake: 350°, about 30 to 40 minutes

Sweet Mummy Cookies

Finally recovering from one of my most stressful and eventful weekends. Surprisingly, after all the cursing and faint whimpers here and there I wouldn't hesitate to do it again. My friends and family who witnessed me at my worst would probably call me crazy. Problem is it just felt too damn good seeing all those desserts all set out. It made me forget all the mayhem I had just been through the past month.

Pumpkin Pie Party Dip

Halloween Party Dip

October! Absolutely love this month! Well pretty much October on thru December. It is my pie, tart, and colorful scarf season and it is never long enough. This season is a busy one for me especially in October. Got 4 family birthdays and all in love with cake but the big one is the Halloween party right around the corner. Been asked to provide the "spooky" and fun sweets to be exact. So, a simple cake with some frosting slapped on isn't going to cut it. So safe to assume this month will be all about fun ideas for Halloween sweets.

First up, Pumpkin Pie Party Dip!

Banana Walnut "Muffin" Cookies

Banana, walnuts, and chocolate chips
all in one cookie!

So ran into a little dilemma with this recipe? Well many actually but the most important was…What the heck did I just bake?! 

It started off as a cookie but after coworkers gave them a try it became a muffin top. It's got the shape and all the normal baking ingredients and steps of a cookie. But it's got a soft and airy texture that you can't help compare  to that first bite of a perfect morning banana nut muffin. Without the crumbly mess. That muffin and coffee was my idea of a perfect breakfast. Well that and Bill-Miller tacos. Just ask my roommate. Better yet any of my past classmates who saw me run in past ten with a Starbucks or Bill Miller cup in my hand all thru college.

Now back to the matter at hand. Could it possibly be a little of both with a hint of "pretty damn delicious"? I blame the ripe bananas for that soft texture and sweet smell.  Haven't figured it out just yet but glad about whatever screw up I did when I bit into these cookies…muffins…uh I let you decide.

Banana Bread

What's soft, sweet and absolutely delicious when thrown in with bread? 

Chocolate Almond Biscotti

Biscotti! One cookie that one can never go wrong with dipping in a nice cup of dark coffee. Well actually it would be a biscuit I believe or maybe a coffee bread. A twice baked one at that. Well whatever they call it, its delicious and I needed one asap.  

I usually stick to simple almond biscotti which I'm sure will come up in future recipes not about chocolate. Future just seemed so far away and so I went ahead and threw some nice dark chocolate in that mix to enjoy that crunchy goodness in the present. 

So start brewing that coffee and enjoy!

Prep: 30 - 35 minutes

Bake: 35 to 45 minutes

Cool: 10 minutes

Yield: 24 cookies

Almond Joy Double Chocolate Cookies

Whoever came up with the idea that Almond Joy and coffee are a perfect match is a genius. It so delicious that next cake I’m throwing an Almond Joy in there. Maybe three.

Following day I packed my ingredients and headed over to mom’s kitchen ready to take my family’s taste buds on a little island vacation. With the recent birthday I had just celebrated, cake and I were on a much needed break. Cookies felt like the way to go for a nice little tropical snack.

Prep: 20 to 25 mins

Bake: 12 to 15 minutes

Yield: 40 cookies

Cool: 10 minutes

Chocolate Swirl Pound Cake

I recently had a birthday and made a deal with a friend for a simple exchange. “I give you cake, you sing me happy birthday”. If memory serves me right the birthday song was usually a given but leave it to me to have one of those rare occasions where I buy my song with cake.

Good thing is he is a simple guy whose palate appreciates a simple pound cake. Figured I was getting a pretty good deal here. I get to do what I enjoy most and out of it I finally get to hear those vocals I’ve heard for months now how amazing they are.

Lately I’ve been all about adding chocolate to my recipes. Which I think it’s safe to say chocolate is great in any dessert combo. Well at least according to my palate it is.

Try out this Chocolate Swirl Pound Cake and let me know if your's agrees!

Yield: 24 servings, 2 loaves

Prep: 1 hour
Bake: 300°F 1 hour 15 mins to 1 hour 30 mins (no preheating)
Cool: 1 hour and 10 mins

Chocoflan

Not So Impossible Chocoflan

So I know I'm about two months late with this recipe. I had a good excuse for like the first two weeks of it with my new job. As for after that…I got nothing. But I promise this cake is awesome and hopefully it'll make up for my little disappearance.

Months back I was told about a cake called Chocoflan which I'm sure you already guessed is a combination of chocolate cake and flan. The combo sounded delicious and I immediately started looking up recipes and a lot of them were titled the Impossible Cake. So I put that recipe somewhere in the back of my mind hoping it got lost somewhere and moved on to another cake combo.

Well it wasn't long till the recipe came up again as a birthday request and this time I couldn't yield to the intimidation. So I was back on recipe research and found two versions of this cake. The first version used the classic flan recipe and the other added cream cheese to the mix. I've actually never had flan so wasn't sure which to choose. I personally love the creamy texture and flavor that cream cheese creates so went with that. Thankfully it worked out and that first bite was pure bliss. Also you'll be happy to know it wasn't that impossible.

Now it's you turn to give it a shot.

Yield: 12 to 16 servings

Prep: 1 hour

Bake: °350F, 1 hour to 1 hour and 15 minutes

Cool: 1 hour, refrigerate overnight (unless you want to serve warm)

Peach Butter Cake

Butter Cake
with Sunken Peach

Turns out that third time's a fail in my case. The recipe was for a simple butter cake with some peach pieces tossed in. I managed to make it very complicated and ended up with three different cakes. None of course being what I had planned for. Without a doubt Sweet Flukes will be the bulk of this post.

In my family we are all avid coffee drinkers. In the mornings we're on our own to get that coffee fix but as for the evenings, its a family ritual to always have a cup after dinner. Sweets are a must for these evening gatherings. Recently, my family in Guatemala shipped us some cake that I definitely plan to get the recipe for. The crumbly textured cake had this light buttery flavor that paired up perfectly with a dark cup of coffee. We loved this cake so much that in order to keep the peace my dad was literally rationing out the hidden stash. I decided to try and solve our shortage issue by giving the cake a shot. With a little added ingredient of peaches of course. 

I'm posting the third recipe which ended up being a very moist buttered flavored cake with peaches that had sunk to the bottom. Still tasted great with a cup coffee but will definitely be doing a round four of this cursedly delicious butter cake.

Yield: 12 to 16 servings

Prep: 1 hour

Bake: °335F, 45 minutes

Cool: 1 hour

Mini Peach Cream Tarts

Mini Peach Cream Tarts
with Brown Sugar and Chocolate

Finally! After all the nitpicking I'm telling myself to just post already and it's all about peaches this month! This is definitely a summer recipe but I couldn't fight the craving for that juicy goodness. 

Late spring to early autumn are when you can truly find the sweetest peaches. When choosing peaches I searched for ones somewhat firm and with a fragrance that had me reminiscing about those gorgeous summer days perfect for picnics. Seeing that I was about two months too early for the best pickings I had a little difficulty but thankfully someone was generous enough to leave me four.

This dessert was originally meant to be one simple pie but I went ahead and minified the recipe into tarts. Wouldn't you say sweets are much more fun to create and eat in their mini forms?

This summer dessert is a thin flaky crust lined with dark chocolate and brown sugared peaches. The filling is a sweet cinnamon-almond pastry cream. Topped with a blackberry to add some color and a hint of citrus flavor.

I had mentioned in my About Me this blog was about my triumphs and fails. So at the end of this post you'll find the Sweet Flukes section where I own up to my little mishaps and how I managed to rescue the recipe.

Now for the best part, the recipe:

Yield: 24 Mini Tarts

Prep: 1hour 30 minutes

Chill: 1 hour