I’ve done quite a bit of stress baking over the last few months, and somewhere along the way I designed this neat system for a whole series of weekend-to-weekday chocolate treats. I got work down to a minimum by cheating on everything cheat-able. I figured out how to spread out the steps, so that any given day’s task is doable… Read more →

These little layered bars are soft, sweet, creamy crowd pleasers. You have to make them a day ahead to give them time to soften, which makes them perfect for Sunday afternoon tea (or, if you are North American, whatever you call that meal at 3pm that consists entirely of cake). It might sound like an odd creation, filling dense, thin… Read more →

TL/DR: Take your favourite chocolate cake with chocolate frosting. Add some coffee to everything and Bailey’s to the frosting. It works nicely! Last weekend I half-improvised a birthday cake for a friend, and I was really happy with how the flavours turned out. My go-to chocolate cake is a less sweet version of Julia Child’s chocolate sponge, along with my… Read more →

These little pastries are an Eastern European version of pain au chocolat. I like them just as much as their more famous French cousin, but they are easier to make due to a lower butter content. When I was growing up chocolate snails were a breakfast treat, but they take a few hours to make and taste best fresh out… Read more →

I’ve been owing a chocolate post for quite some time now, one that I promised you could use the Best Chocolate Frosting Ever for. When I was young we would get a bag of these little bite-sized cookies from a bakery; they were a big childhood favourite of mine. I always thought they would be way too much effort to… Read more →

I had promised that the next chocolate post would be about cute little cookies that you can fill with the best chocolate frosting ever, but that post takes some work to write (just like the cookies take some work to make). In the meantime, here is a way to make something that looks fancy with very little effort. I’ve just… Read more →

My issue with most versions of cake frosting is that the first bite is really delicious, the second one is ok, and after that the experience goes downhill very quickly. This recipe does a great job of solving this problem. It is based on a butter cream from Julia Child’s “Mastering the art of French cooking” – if you don’t… Read more →