Inspiration for this recipe came to me after enjoying a white chocolate and limoncello cupcake while visiting my daughter in San Francisco. Limoncello and white chocolate are a match made in heaven. You may use store-bought limoncello or make your own with THIS RECIPE.

I brought these sweeties to a neighborhood luncheon last week to test them out, and since they were a hit, I will be making them tomorrow, along with this puff pastry appetizer, on Channel 3-  Your Life A to Z.          I hope you can tune in at 10:00 AM Tuesday morning.

Oh, and please note, there are only six ingredients – seriously, these are “easy-breezy”!

[Read more →]

It has been 11 days since the above hashtag* in my post title first appeared on Twitter. It was Friday, August 12, 2011, and the food blogging community came out in full force to support one of their own. I was in Florida at the time, but I witnessed a beautiful and quickly growing phenom. When I returned home, my time was all about preparations for and then posting about, this blog’s 2nd Anniversary Party.  But that hashtag and all it means has not been far from my heart or my thoughts these past days.

I am always on time and hate being late, but for the first time, it has been great to be late. Had I made the Pie For Mikey a week ago, I would not have had a chance to see the outpouring of love from all of the amazing food bloggers out there. It reinforces why I so enjoy blogging on an almost daily basis. So today, 11 days later, I want to share it with you.

First, you must leave this site to watch and listen to this beautiful video… right now, please!  Honestly, don’t press “read more” until you’ve seen the video.

[Read more →]

One of the candies that always makes the list of peoples’ Top 10, is Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups.

After you have this decadent ice cream, you may never want to eat a plain old peanut butter cup all on its own again!

[Read more →]

Two weeks ago when I posted a picture of all the tomatoes, potatoes, onions, and garlic that we’d be using in classes, a loyal follower asked to see a picture of what my refrigerator looked like at the start of classes. I said, “Oh no you don’t!” I assured her that it was so full, that one had to worry about things falling out when opening the door, and that my extra freezer in the laundry room was so full that I had to use duct tape to ensure that it would keep closed – embarrassing but true! But she insisted that she would enjoy seeing the fridge, so I told her I’d post a picture before the next set of classes… the day has come…ouch!

Above is the new set of tomatoes, potatoes, citrus, and friends and below……. is the fridge – don’t judge, it’s my job.  And you will never see a picture of the duct-taped freezer, and that’s final!

Yes, the drawers have been over-filled so many times, that they no longer have usable tracks to run on. They are currently so full that you couldn’t fit a tiny jalapeno into any one of them right now!

Now on to prettier and tastier things…

Ganache (pronounced /gah NAHSH/) is a rich mixture of chocolate and cream which can be used as a frosting or filling. Depending on the intended use, different ratios of chocolate to cream are used, to create anything from a light glaze to a dense and rich chocolate truffle. Although ganache is exceedingly luxurious, it is what I like to call “easy-breezy” to make!  Ganache was developed in the mid-1800s, and both France and Switzerland claim credit for the invention.

[Read more →]

What makes something suddenly become a fad, the new “in” thing, all the rage?  Especially when it’s something that’s been around forever?  And when I say “forever” – I’m talking about more than 200 years.  And what I’m talking about are cupcakes!

According to the source of all modern knowledge… Wikipedia… “The first mention of the cupcake can be traced as far back as 1796 when a recipe notation of “a cake to be baked in small cups” was written in American Cookery by Amelia Simms. The earliest documentation of the term cupcake was in “Seventy-five Receipts for Pastry, Cakes, and Sweetmeats” in 1828 in Eliza Leslie’s Receipts cookbook.”

[Read more →]

Half of these cupcakes are topped with homemade Samoas and the other half with store-bought cookies

Yesterday in class we made the Samoa cookies, today we are using those cookies to make some seriously out-of-the-world cupcakes. I would say, “Hey, don’t let the 7 1/2 sticks of butter (nearly 2 pounds!) between the recipe for the cookies and this recipe for the cupcakes scare you off”… but I would be lying, it totally scares me! According to my math (and my math is iffy at best since I married a CPA and I rarely use that part of my brain), that is about 2 tablespoons of butter per cupcake! So let’s just agree that one cupcake would serve as your dessert for several days and not buy into the guilt. They taste delicious and I recently got some tips for storing frosted cupcakes so I’m hoping they’ll last for a while. That’s if we don’t eat them all first!

Speaking of guilt, I’m going to add a little “Linda’s Psych 101” into today’s post. This is what I feel about “guilt”… it is a wasted emotion. I’ve heard it said that “The Jewish people invented guilt, and that the Roman Catholics perfected it.” I would have to agree, and here is one Roman Catholic who wants to abolish it!

[Read more →]

Yesterday, May 30th -Memorial Day 2011, was the first day of our 2011 Summer Classes. It marks the beginning of Les Petites Gourmettes’ 17th year. Seventeen years, that’s a long time! But it’s only about half as long as Girl Scout Samoa cookies have been around.

Today in class, the kids made homemade Samoa cookies, well kind of.  More like the top layer of Samoa cookies, the caramel-coconut-chocolate part, minus the crispy bottom cookie part. I’m including the full recipe (bottom and top portions) here.  The only reason we skipped a part was because of time restraints. We are going to use the cookies for our Samoa cupcakes that we are making today.  That recipe will be posted tomorrow.  If you want to make the cupcakes and if you don’t still have a box of Girl Scout Samoa cookies in the cupboard, and don’t want to make your own, you can purchase Keebler Coconut Dreams Cookies instead.

[Read more →]

My friend and neighbor, Ronnie, is a CAbi (Carol Anderson by invitation) Consultant. CAbi is a line of beautiful woman’s clothing that is sold at private parties in people’s homes. Recently one of Ronnie’s hostesses served these decadent toffee cookie bars that are seriously candy rich! The recipe is from a recent Pillsbury Bake-Off.  I believe the original Bake-Off recipe used white chocolate chips, but the hostess substituted peanut butter chips, which I think is a great idea. Also, the original recipe makes 24 bars, these are far too rich for that, so I cut them into 45 bars… much more manageable for the tummy!  Thanks, Ronnie for passing on this recipe to me. I hope you enjoy that I’m passing it on to you! [Read more →]

These darling green tartlets are perfect for St. Patrick’s Day but they will soon be serving another purpose for me.

[Read more →]

Need a quick dessert? Do you have 10 minutes? If so, these are for you.  Add a scoop of vanilla ice cream and it’s a rich dessert, indeed. Plus this is perfect for the summer when you don’t want to heat up the oven.

I can’t believe it’s been a full week since I’ve posted a recipe!  It wasn’t supposed to be that way, it’s been a rough week! I know that one of these brownies will make me feel much better.

[Read more →]