I know I posted cookies last week, and whined how they’re not always photogenic, but these babies were delicious AND smiled pretty for the camera.  It has to do with a cookie-baking trick I picked up recently – if you want your cookies to have visible chips or mix-ins, after rolling the dough into balls, place a few chips on the top of the ball evenly spaced.  That way once they bake up, there will be some expertly placed pieces of candy on each cookie.  I actually added these Heath Pieces halfway through baking because I didn’t want them melting completely into the cookies.  It’s a little extra effort, but I love seeing the punch of color on the top of each cookie, so it was worth it to me!  I brought a huge batch of these to Martha’s Vineyard for Memorial Day Weekend where we rented a house with 14 other friends.  They disappeared in the first few hours, and I’m pretty sure someone even claimed they were the best cookies they’ve ever had.  SO you probably better make them if you want happy friends too!!

Hopefully you caught a few glimpses of the wedding if you follow me on Instagram (@ericasweettooth) and don’t worry, I’ll do a full post once I’m settled in New York!  That’s right, I get back from the honeymoon on a Sunday and start my residency program orientation the next day.  We didn’t give ourselves much wiggle room, so we packed up our entire apartment the week before the wedding and will be moving the weekend after we get back.  Because planning a wedding and freaking out about a tropical storm forecast for your wedding weekend just wasn’t enough stress :)  In the meantime, I’m hopefully enjoying a relaxing two weeks in Spain forgetting about all of the craziness beforehand and reflecting on an amazing wedding weekend!!!  Enjoy the cookies – they’re not Spanish, they’re not wedding themed, but they’re really, really delicious.

A few months ago I saw a post on Cookies & Cups for a basic cookie recipe that’s open to any sort of mix-ins.  Shelly called it “The Perfect Cookie Base”, so I tried it out and absolutely loved the recipe!!  The cookies were chewy and soft but had a nice crisp edge and the dough held the M&M’s well.  I also added some chocolate chips to the mix just because.  This was actually my first time making M&M cookies believe it or not, and I don’t know why I waited so long – such an irresistible classic.  Then smother them with frosting and stack them on top of each other and you’ve got a lost cause!   Cutting into this cake was so much fun, I love the layers of cookies and splashes of color from the M&M’s.  When I served this at a dinner party my friends kept just taking cookies from the top, but I scolded them that that was too boring.  Cutting into and getting little slices of stacked cookies is much more fun :)   It’s certainly decadent so a small piece goes a long way, but good luck resisting seconds!

If you’re looking for a show-stopping dessert for a party that is different than your average cake, you have to try this.  Sure it’s a few extra steps than your average batch of cookies, but it’s really not hard and the result is very impressive.  Just be prepared to make a lot of cookies to make a large impact!   And if you can find some sparkly toothpicks like this I think it would also make a great 4th of July treat since they are firework-esque.  Okay, now time to start working on making my own fireworks this weekend – next time I write I’ll be a Mrs.!!!  (And please continue the happy thoughts, forecast could definitely use some improvement!)

I’ve done Corona and Blue Moon Cupcakes, which were fantastic and one of the most popular cupcakes on this blog, so I figured it was about time to try another lager.  Ever since I discovered Summer Shandy last year I’ve been waiting for its appearance again for the season – it’s just so good and so refreshing!  The beer is brewed with lemonade so it’s the perfect combination for a hot summer day.  Since I did lime with the Corona cupcakes and orange with the Blue Moon ones, I opted for lemons in this recipe to bring out the lemonade flavor in the cupcakes.  I even mixed in a teaspoon of Crystal Light lemonade to give it an extra kick.  The beer flavor is not extremely overpowering, but you can definitely taste that there’s something a little different going on with them.  I highly recommend them for your next BBQ – and don’t forget the six-pack of Summer Shandy too!

Wish me luck as I go through the next week up until the wedding!  It’s my last week living in Connecticut, which is certainly bittersweet, but there is just so much good stuff going on it’s easy to be distracted.  I’ll miss my current baking nook, our huge apartment, all of the storage space, and of course my family that won’t be making the move with us to New York.  I finished up a few recipes that were the last ones to come out of our Connecticut kitchen so soon enough you’ll see some new backdrops!  Now it’s back to the chaos that is my life – I’ll be sure to report back next week before we say our I Do’s :)

The recipe is even semi-healthy by including whole wheat flour – perfectly acceptable for breakfast :)  Maybe not if you’re 2.5 weeks away from your wedding, but any other time would be totally fine in my book.  I really loved how fluffy these muffins turned out, nothing like a dense banana bread muffin or something of that sort – they really are pancake-esque.  I think the addition of sour cream helps keep them lighter even with the use of whole wheat flour. And of course the blueberries add a burst of flavor that I adore in pancakes as well as in these muffins.  The maple glaze adds the perfect amount of sweetness, but I dusted them with some powdered sugar too just to be safe.  And plus, everything looks prettier dusted with sugar!

I chose to bake mine in mini muffin tins so they were bite sized, and I found myself just grabbing one or two as a snack to curb a sweet craving throughout the day.  I ended up throwing most of them in the freezer, with the glaze and everything, and just defrosted one on the counter for a few minutes for a late night snack.  It’s always great to have treats in the freezer for those cravings – especially when they’re mini and at least somewhat healthier than ice cream!  With berries getting cheaper and cheaper the closer we get to summer, it’s a great recipe to bake up for your Memorial Day guests, or just because it’s Wednesday and you have some time.  (It is Wednesday right??  I tend to forget the day of the week recently, you’ll have to forgive me…)

I want to say that this was really easy to put together, because it’s fundamentally not hard, but I just happen to hate cutting melons and pineapples.  I still don’t really understand why these cost upwards of $60 store-bought, but if you caught me covered in pineapple juice with my counters a mess, I might have paid you a pretty penny to finish the job.  If cutting up the fruit is the hardest task involved with this project though, it’s really not bad.  I found a cute tin basket at a craft store to use as the base because after stalking Edible Arrangement photos for awhile, I learned that I liked the lower and wider style of arrangements better.  I trimmed down a half-dome styrofoam to fit in the tin and a variety of wooden skewers and toothpicks to get everything at the right height.  It really was fun putting everything together and I loved filling in the holes and being OCD about making sure everything was even and balanced.  I think it’d be a great activity for kids to get involved in (once the fruit is cut up obviously) – and there’s nothing like free labor to help get the job done!

I wanted to include some step-by-step photos of the process just to help visualize what I did to get to the final product.  The half-dome shaped styrofoam was great because it gave the arrangement a natural curve to start with and some height as well.  All I had to do was trim the sides a bit to fit into my tin.  For the pineapple flowers, I cut the pineapple into slices and used a flower cookie cutter to get my shapes.  Cantaloupe balls were attached with toothpicks (I found this to be the easiest way, not sure how the pro’s do it though)  and the pretty flowers were complete.  I started with the pineapple stem in the middle and I loved that it gave me a starting point and some height from the beginning.  Then I added a few pineapple flowers, lined the edge with honey dew wedges/”leaves” and started adding skewers of grapes at random.  From there I just kept filling in, sometimes just adding a grape or 2 to cover a hole in the arrangement   I tried to load up on the chocolate covered strawberries as much as possible because we all know those are everyone’s favorites.  I hope this inspires you to try your own edible arrangement and avoid those pricey sellers!!

Here’s a photo from the weekend of the two ladies of honor – love you Mom!

For the sorbet I started with a pina colada base that included basically a whole pineapple and 3 forms of coconut – coconut water, coconut juice, and cream of coconut.  And of course rum. Before this recipe I wasn’t even aware that all of those different forms of coconut existed, but now that I do I’ll definitely be going back for more.  I altered my strawberry margarita sorbet recipe a bit by subbing the tequila for rum and used it as a swirl throughout the pina colada base.  I think the flavors work extremely well together, and the colors are really pretty too.   Overall it’s an incredibly refreshing dessert that with enough imagination will immediately transfer you to the beach.  Just put on your sunnies, slip on your flip flops, and grab a spoon!

My trip to Miami was for a long weekend with three of my closest friends from school.  I didn’t enter dental school thinking I’d make such good friends, but four years of sticking together through the ups and downs of the rigorous curriculum made us extremely close.  And I’m very proud to say come Monday we’ll all be doctors, so you can start calling me Dr. Erica Sweet Tooth soon enough!!  We took this trip as an early graduation celebration, and it was very well deserved if you ask me :)  Miami, specifically South Beach, is such a unique city with its art deco architecture and beach culture.  We had a blast and I highly recommend Miami as a girls weekend destination if you need a getaway like we did.  The party continues this week and weekend with more graduation festivities, and after that it’s full time wedding mode – t-minus 1 month today!!  So many great things happening, so many desserts to help celebrate!  (Lots of exclamation points in this post, you’ll have to excuse my excitement for the next few weeks haha)

Tres leches cake isn’t something I would normally order from a dessert menu, especially from our favorite Mexican restaurant that gives you free churros after dinner anyway.  But ever since we went there for Ryan’s birthday last year and the restaurant chose their citrus tres leches cake as his treat, I have become a convert.  Tres leches cake is in fact soggy and that always turned me off from trying it in general, but only now do I realize that the extremely moist texture is what makes it so delicious!  The cake itself is of a very light crumb and acts like a sponge for the large amount of milk/cream that is poured over it after it is baked.  Since I wanted to make this as a birthday cake, I decided to do a layer cake, but I must say this isn’t the easiest option.  Most tres leches cake are seen as single layer sheet cakes, and now I understand why – the cake is so delicate and soft that stacking them on top of each other isn’t easy.  Although I was able to get some great photos of the cake, it was rather lopsided and messy overall.  I still love a layer cake (especially 6″ ones!) but would probably recommend a single layer if you’re trying to win some beauty awards.  I could tell my parents and Ryan were a bit skeptical looking at my lopsided cake, but once we cut in and had a bite – they were sold!

I decided to infuse my tres leches cake with oranges because that is how the restaurant served it and I remember loving it so much.  I figured it’d be a great way to use up some oranges and clementines towards the end of their season and add some bright, vibrant flavors and colors to the cake.  For the decoration I actually made some candied clementine slices that I think add a touch of class to my otherwise unfinished cake.  I actually love the look of unfrosted cakes, I’ve even seen that done for wedding cakes, and it saves me the trouble of frosting the entire thing.  Probably would have hid some of the cake’s flaws, but I think that just adds character!

Now I’m pretty sure they didn’t lose all of that weight eating these truffles, but indulging in a few of these for a treat is much better than most of the other goodies I post here.  They are insanely easy to make, and by using fiber cereal you’re getting a lot of good carbs and the banana and some peanut butter don’t hurt either.  The chocolate coating obviously doesn’t scream health food, but I opted for a semisweet/bittersweet blend that is lower in sugar and might just have some health benefits.  I topped some with chocolate sprinkles and some with crumbled up PB banana mixture and I really like the overall look.  You can definitely fool someone into thinking they’re not as healthy as they actually are!  Like all things made with banana, they definitely have a banana flavor to them, but I think that goes wonderfully with peanut butter and chocolate so I loved them.  With a little over a month until the wedding, I’m trying to avoid sweets as much as I can resist, but with something like this I don’t have to feel badly!  Here we are below before heading out to a gym class together last week, seeing us all together (looking so good, if I may say) in workout clothes would have been unheard of a year ago and it makes me so happy to see now.

So if you’re looking to shed a few pounds for wedding season and/or bikini season, but can’t resist sweets every now and then like me, I definitely suggest these truffles to curb your sweet tooth.  And I’m not trying to trick you into thinking they’re delicious like my suspicions with recipes like black bean brownies or chickpea cookie dough balls .   I’m thinking the people who claim those types of recipe to be yummy really just haven’t had a real brownie or cookie in awhile.  So you can trust me, I’ve had plenty of brownies and cookies, and these are still pretty irresistible.  I’ve lost a few pounds myself but still have found plenty of room for a good dose of chocolate here and there.  It’s good for the soul!

Remember the Red Velvet Cheesecake Layer Cake I made a few years ago?  This is a similar take on a cake-cheesecake combination, but this carrot version is different because the cheesecake and carrot cake are baked simultaneously in the same pan, rather than just stacking together different layers.  Gotta love any recipe that saves you a few steps!  I’ve already professed my love for 6″ cakes, so again here I opted for a 6″ cake and then a handful of mini cheesecakes baked in this mini cheesecake pan.  When making these, I actually layered the carrot cake and cheesecake batter, hoping to get a striped look, but after I cut into it I realized all of the carrot cake wound up on the bottom.  I may have minored in chemistry, but I have no idea how this happened, haha!  Oh well, the end result was still very pretty and the mini ones kind of maintained their layers, so I got a little bit of what I was going for.  I was worried that baking the carrot cake batter as long as a cheesecake would dry out the cake, but it was SO moist and not dry at all.  Maybe it was all those delicious fats dripping down from the cheesecake into the carrot cake while the baking happened?  Again, no chemical explanation here, but really, really yummy results :)

I kept my carrot cake simple and traditional (my favorite) – very finely chopped carrots, no raisins or nuts, and lots of cinnamon.  The top is covered with plenty of cream cheese frosting to help cover up any flaws or cracks on the top of the cheesecake and helps adhere a healthy dose of toasted coconut on the top.  I just happen to love the look of toasted coconut on carrot cake, and the crunchiness is pretty great too, but feel free to leave it out if it’s not for you.  If your favorite part of a carrot cake is the cream cheese frosting (myself included), then you’re going to love this cake because we’ve added an entire layer of cream cheese flavor with the cheesecake and also loaded some more on top just for good measure.  The spicy carrot cake is perfect with tangy cheesecake and it makes for a beautiful dessert too!

Now it may seem a little bizarre that a girl in her twenties would choose Disney as a spring break destination for four consecutive years, but 1) I love the place (it’s truly magical), and 2) my brother is absolutely obsessed.  When my grandparents spent their winters in Florida, my family would visit them in Boca and then always made the trip to Orlando for a few days at the parks.  So after all those years, Scott grew accustomed to the annual trip to visit Mickey (I’m pretty sure I’ve been almost 25 times…).  For those of you who may be lucky enough to know my brother personally, he is a total doll and jokester with some intellectual disabilities.   He’s 20 but reads at about a 2nd grade level and can’t quite grasp things like money and time (yet).  He’s truly a kid at heart and Disney World is his absolute favorite place.  My Mom doesn’t share our fascination with this magical land however, so for the past few years we’ve let her stay at home with my Dad for a relaxing weekend while Ryan and I took Scott on vacation.  It’s definitely a win-win situation.  And when you add cupcakes to the mix, it becomes a win-win-win.

On a slightly unrelated note, a lot of people ask me when I knew Ryan was “the one”.  And as cheesy as it may seem, I actually have an answer.  When we took our first trip to Disney together with Scott, just the 3 of us, it really dawned on me what a great guy Ryan is.  Without my parents around, Ryan had to assume a quasi-authoritative role with Scott, rather than just playing out the part of fun older brother, and it definitely tugged at my heart strings.  My future will forever be intimately tied to my brother, and if Ryan was going to join that future, he had to love Scott almost as much as I do.  Seeing them together on these trips helped seal the deal for me, and I’m very confident there are many more to come.  Scott LOVES taking pictures with characters at Disney, and I desperately tried to get a good one with the princesses to go along with this recipe, but they didn’t come out very well and I much prefer this one of us all cleaned up before dinner at our hotel Coronado Springs.

As for the cupcakes, they were so much fun to make and really quite easy too.  I found some images of the princesses online (I chose the classics – Belle, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, and Snow White) and printed them on cardstock.  After cutting out the shapes (that part was kind of tedious) I taped a lollipop stick to the back and voila – princess toppers!  For the skirts of their dresses I replicated the technique I used for the anemone flower cupcakes, but just did 2 layers with the top one being slightly smaller.  I think it added the height I wanted without a giant mound of frosting and really looks like a princess dress!  You can’t really tell from these photos, but they’re also sprinkled with a TON of disco dust and this was really, really pretty in person.  If you’re making these for a party or something I highly recommend picking up some of this edible glitter because it truly makes them sparkle.  Just like one of the little girls coming out of the Bippity Boppity Boutique!  Of all the Disney princesses, my favorite has to be Belle.  She’s smart, witty, beautiful, brunette, and she loves yellow just like me :)  Who’s your favorite??

And you can stop crying, Mom, it’s just cupcakes :)