Carrot Cupcakes

These super tender carrot cakes are choc full of nuts and freshly shredded carrot. 

They're flavored with cinnamon, nutmeg, and get a molasses-like flavor from brown sugar.

They're covered in swirls of simple cream cheese frosting.

 Dusted with cinnamon sugar.

 And topped with a white chocolate carrot.

These were my first carrot cakes - simply delicious!

Cinnamon Roll Cookies

Simply delicious and deceptively easy to make, these are sure to impress. Cinnamon roll cookies that taste exactly like the real thing.

I modified this recipe by throwing a few handfuls of almond flour into the dough and filling. It came out just right!

The dough was wet and a bit hard to work with, especially during the rolling part, but I froze the log for about 20 minutes to make it less sticky and it worked beautifully. In case you haven't noticed, that's my baking solution for just about everything: freeze it!

I drizzled a sweet glaze over these, tasted them after I took pictures, and then dumped a whole lot more glaze on top. Go crazy, it's hard to mess these cuties up.

These cookies were tender, crunchy, sweet and cinnamon-y. 

They were soft and chewy.

Small and delicious. 

Go make these - now.

A Truffle or Two

First, I should explain that I bake because I get this "I can do that" feeling whenever I eat something sweet. I get so much satisfaction from recreating treats I've tasted and that is how I ended up with dozens and dozens of truffles.

Unfortunately I didn't get any in-progress shots, but I can show you the final product! Most of these pictures were taking by Stephanie, as usual. She rushed over to my house in the morning right before I delivered the treat.

 Oh yes, and I made the box out of chocolate, too (a graduation present for a good friend). It was easier than it looks and pretty sturdy, too!

Ready for each type of truffle?

Here's the raspberry truffle.  I made a fresh raspberry filling - tart and just the right amount of sweet.

This one has a coffee buttercream center.

And a vanilla bean filling

This one was my favorite - cinnamon caramel filling with chopped pecans.

Mint chocolate ganache in the center

And creamy ganache dipped in chocolate, then rolled in toasted pecan crumbs.

Well, I guess I could have another...