This recipe for cheesecake bars is a personal favorite; it’s easy to assemble and so delicious. The bars bake up thin since the recipe is made on a sheet pan, with a tangy, creamy filling. I like to use sour cream with cream cheese to give it a l…
I was in my early twenties and I had never eaten a proper scone. My initial encounters had all been tasteless affairs: coffee-chain-store scones that crumbled all over my lap when I bit into them and left me frantically guzzling down coffee as I tried …
I honestly woke up this morning craving these particular bars, even though I had never made them. I set off to my kitchen and must admit they are the best thing I have made in quite awhile; the moist banana base and rich chocolate buttercream paired pe…
It has been ten years since the original pan-banging chocolate chip cookie recipe was published in my Vanilla Bean Baking Book , and I am floored that so many of you are still making them! Bakers tapping their cookie pans in the oven isn’t new, of cour…
This is a tart I’ve been making since the early 2000’s; it was a recipe made at a coffeehouse I worked at in south Minneapolis, and brought along with me to another coffeehouse I baked for. The original recipe was based on a streusel tart f…
Yes, I’ve made quite a few of these little cakes now: the original jammy cakes, then pumpkin and carrot. There is also banana, and cherry. I love them all equally, but the tart lemon curd and rich almond cream hit all the right notes in this version, a…
I make scones for every possible occasion, as they can be shaped ahead of time and frozen, then pulled out and baked as needed. I like them plain, packed with fruit, dusted in sugar, coated in icing, studded with chocolate and white chocolate and more …
These Carrot Cake Cinnamon Rolls are adapted from a recipe in my book, 100 Morning Treats. The recipe found there is for a Giant Carrot Cake Cinnamon Roll, which is a fun project, but I went with individual buns using the sweet dough base from my soft …
Back in college when I was working at the Blue Heron Coffeehouse, Cherry Almond was a popular muffin flavor that showed up in the bake case at least once a week. Since my reader favorite Blueberry Muffin recipe already had almond flour in it, I decided…
This is a re-vamp of the lemon meringue cake from my first book. My mother-in-law requested this cake for her birthday last year, and I changed a few things around with great results. First, I swapped out the yellow cake base for white, and found that …
I have a bag of lemons and blood oranges in my refrigerator. Maybe it’s the Minnesota in me, but March and April can drag here, and bright, tart citrus is a welcome addition to the snow covered yards. After years filled with brief moments of blis…
I used to work at a coffeehouse that made the most perfect lemon sugar cookies: gigantic in size, with light lemon flavor and a dusting of sugar. However, when the baker left (along with a few important recipes), this cookie was pronounced lost forever…
Every winter holiday of my childhood involved a sugar cookie decorating day. Hours upon hours were spent decorating trays of cookies, each one unique (and often over decorated). While I loved spending quality time with my siblings sprinkling and frosti…
Nutmeg has been my spice of choice this last year. (If you are not a nutmeg fan, no worries! This cake still tastes delicious without it, just omit it.) This spice has been showing up in a lot of my recipe testing, and I can’t seem to get enough …
This post is sponsored by Nordic Ware. I often put things off until the last minute (I can be a chronic procrastinator) but holiday cookie baking is always something I prepare for well in advance. It appears many of you do as well, as making cookie dou…
I didn’t grow up eating Snickerdoodles. In fact, the first time I ever tried one was in my twenties; a colleague had made them for a work meeting, and I was instantly smitten with their crackly, spiced tops and chewy centers. The most traditional…
It has been awhile since I have made a peanut butter cookie, and I have found myself craving them, per usual, at the beginning of September, when school is back in session. It’s probably due to peanut butter sandwich nostalgia (because wow, I ate…
After making my Creamy Jammy Coffee Cakes and then Creamy Pumpkin Streusel Coffee Cakes, I decided to experiment with banana bread as the base. I have been faithfully using this banana bread recipe for decades, but switched things up in 100 Morning Tre…
There are two sour cherries trees in our front yard, and the last two weeks it all came to fruition: the cherries gleaming ruby red, then picked, and pitted, and frozen. I was able to get one large batch picked before the blue jays decided they would s…
I forgot they were in my freezer. Door County cherries, tucked underneath bags and bags of raspberries the kids and I had gathered every summer afternoon from our backyard bushes. I had to dig through those berries and move them around and curse slight…
I have chocolate cake in many forms on this website: The Chocolate Cake and my Easy One-Layer Afternoon Cake, just to name a few. However, we all know that there is always room for yet another chocolate cake recipe, so here is another one, this time in…
Carrot cake was my go-to cake in college when I was trying to make a good impression. I made several for my husband while we were dating and brought one to every wedding shower I hosted. Throughout my childhood we only made boxed chocolate cakes, so ca…
As you may have picked up on, I love toasted sesame oil, and use it frequently in my baking. Mostly I have used it in cookies, such as my Chewy Brown Sugar Toasted Sesame Cookies and my Sesame Chocolate Chip Pan-Banging Cookies, but today I have incorp…
About this recipe: I was in my early twenties and had never eaten a proper scone. My initial encounters had all been tasteless affairs: coffee-chain-store scones that crumbled all over my lap when I bit into them and left me frantically guzzling down c…
Orange buns: so unassuming at first glance! But don’t let them fool you. These small buns are light and sweet throughout, with some caramelization on their bottoms from the orange-sugar filling. Then they are topped with even more orange in the f…
