I found a recipe online for a brownie, cookie, Oreo bar and send it to my sister. She audibly gasped on the phone when she saw the image. And then she read the recipe and decided that brownie mix and standard cookie mix just wouldn’t do and she’d have to make her own version. Oh and did she. My sister Anne made chocolate chip from scratch and spread them in the pan. Then she layered in Oreo cookies and then she covered all of that goodness with homemade brownies. And they cooked into this wonderful little bar that we proceeded to put ice cream and hot fudge on top. Too much? Or just enough? Clearly, my sister loves me.

Washington, DC got its own Serendipity restaurant with Serendipity 3 in Georgetown. My family went there on Sunday to celebrate my sister’s birthday and I made sure to save room for dessert. 

I’ve been to Serendipity in NY and had one of their famous frozen hot chocolates (a peanut butter frozen hot chocolate to be exact) but this time I went for the red velvet sundae with vanilla ice cream instead of chocolate (I don’t do chocolate on chocolate on chocolate). 

It was good but it wasn’t amazing. I thought the cake was a little dry and I found it odd that they put the hot fudge underneath the ice cream cup on the plate. Why are you making me work for my hot fudge? WHY?! The staff was very accommodating, the manager was silly and joked with us and we had a good time celebrating my sister’s birthday. I’d go back and just order dessert though and not an entire meal. For a glass of water, a salad, a bowl of chili and 2 sundaes the husband and I spent $68. And although that included the tip, I still thought it was a bit overpriced. But I’m always willing to pay a bit more just for dessert. 

Right before Christmas in 2006 after I bought the house I’m living in now, I was in the grocery store and picked up Cooking Magazine’s Best of Chocolate issue. I figured there would be a multitude of baked goods that I would make from that magazine and help expand my chocolate recipes. So I bought it without hesitation. 

In the 5 years since I bought that magazine, I’ve only ever made 1 recipe from it : Brownie Cookies. Or as all my family and friends have so affectionately renamed them, Brookies. 

They look like brownies with the glossy crackled top but when you bite into them they’re a deliciously rich and decadent cookie. It’s the best of both worlds. They’re also the first dessert I ever made with bittersweet chocolate (I use 1 bag of the Ghirardelli 60% Cacao chocolate chips for this recipe) and they’re super simple to make. They’ve now become an annual request at the holidays from my husband’s office (the head of his firm usually asks when they will be arriving around the first week in December) and friends always ask if I’m making brookies if they’re coming over for dinner.

This is definitely a recipe you need to add to your baking list. YUM!

Okay, the title might be an exaggeration but when I cook and know I have company coming over, I like to do special things like make homemade ice cream the night before.

A few weeks ago we had friends over and in their honor I decided I needed to use the remainder of my organic heavy cream to make French Vanilla ice cream from the Ben & Jerry’s recipe book.

2 years ago my husband said he wanted an ice cream maker for his birthday. This man doesn’t cook so really what he wanted for his birthday was for me to learn how to make him ice cream. I was reluctant so I bought a small 1 quart ice cream maker for no more than $30 at Target and found the Ben & Jerry’s recipe book online. Once I made that first batch of vanilla ice cream I was hooked.

It’s so simple. Heavy cream, whole milk, eggs, vanilla and sugar. That’s it. And when you blend it all together in my tiny ice cream maker it makes a silky, smooth treat. I usually use all organic dairy but since I was doing just a quart, I used regular whole milk. 

I think I love cooking so much because when you cook with love, you get love back. We spooned this ice cream over homemade double chocolate chip cookies and drizzled it with chocolate sauce. In the middle of our conversation my friend looked up and said, “No for real, this ice cream is really good.”

That made my entire night.

Perhaps now I will invest in the KitchenAid ice cream maker attachment for Butter. I make a mean peanut butter ice cream too.

Thanks Ben and Jerry!

When I made my red velvet cheesecake I had to buy a quart of buttermilk. I didn’t want the buttermilk to go to waste so I tried to find recipes that would require buttermilk, and that’s where the whoopie pie project came from.

I call it a project because this is a bit of a process. You have to bake the cakes, make the frosting and assemble them. BUT, the response to these were so good, I will have to make them again (and again). 

I own the Martha Stewart Cookie Book and the Cupcake Book, so I just used this recipe for her Peanut Butter Whoopie Pies. I didn’t do peanut butter frosting (out of peanut butter in the pantry) and decided to use the recipe for buttercream frosting from the red velvet cheesecake recipe to give the pies a richer, sweeter frosting. There is also a 7 minute plain frosting that Martha gives as well, cause she’s nice like that.

The cake was super moist and dense and I whipped the frosting until it was spreading like silk. You really only need 1 to satisfy that deep chocolate craving but I usually ate 2 with a tall glass of milk while lounging around on the couch.

The funny thing about these was my husband had never heard of a whoopie pie before (I swear sometimes he was raised by wolves…) so he kept referring to them as moopie pies. Whatever.

I just call them a tasty treat.