Baroque Birthday Cake - I'm Seventeen!

It was my birthday recently, and besides going out to a wonderful restaurant with my family and a friend to celebrate (peach-mascarpone cannoli for dessert...I must attempt this at home), I made my own birthday cake. My mindset while planning and baking this was "It's my birthday. Now is the time to put everything that I love and shouldn't be eating in a cake." That's why this cake is now known in our family as the Baroque Cake - it's rich, complicated, over-the-top, and combines more flavors than are really necessary in a dessert. The only way a birthday cake should be done.

Double Whammy: Rainbow Cupcakes and Macarons

You read it right. The blogosphere's two favorite food trends in one shamelessly cutesy and (squee!) rainbow post. I made these for an art show a wonderful classmate of mine put on to showcase student talent in our city. I blogged about it when it was canceled in January due to snowstorms, but this time everything went according to plan. I made cupcakes and macarons in rainbow colors, as that was the show's theme, and because they're two baked goods that always seem to be a hit.

Chocolate Mousse

Hello all! I'm back from my ten-day trip to Madrid (with one day dedicated to Toledo). It was so much fun and we had a great time, but now it's back to business: the making and eating of delicious desserts. And blogging about them. This is actually something I made a little while ago, before going to Spain, that I never got around to sharing. That's a shame, though, because it's pretty fantastic. This chocolate mousse is smooth, fluffy, and has the perfect chocolaty flavor.

Cherry Apple and Nutella Macarons

Let me begin this post by saying:

¡HEMOS GANADO, HEMOS GANADO, EL EQUIPO COLORADO!

Marcona Almond and Nutella Macarons

First off, I owe some serious apologies. I haven't posted since...June 12th! My God. On a blog, that's like a year, isn't it? Well I'm going to ask your forgiveness, because it's been sort of impossible to get on here in the past month. With school ending, there have been graduation parties, a summer job to start, and lots of catching up to do with friends. We also had friends come in from Spain and stay with us for a few days, so that was hectic (though wonderful). On top of it all, my computer is broken, and anytime I have it on for more than a few minutes, it looks like the screen is throwing up. So it's been a little hectic around here. But! I come bearing gifts to make up for my laziness/business/computer brokenness, in the form of marcona almond and nutella macarons.

Vanilla Bean Chocolate Cherry Ice Cream

Finals week. My head head hurts, my desk looks like my locker threw up on it, and r=sin3theta, my chronological list of presidents of the United States, and the equations for determining potential and kinetic energy are all starting to run together. It's been a horrid week for everyone in my year, and I can't tell you how many times my cramming has led to nervous breakdowns over the past few days. On Friday, though I was supposed to go to a friend's birthday party, I came home and did my best to calm down by working on this fruity, chocolaty, delicious ice cream. It tastes so much like summer that I think it made me forget about school and finals and De Moivre's nth powers theorem. At least for a little bit.

Caramel Cherry Mini Tartlets

Let me begin this post by saying that I hate living in the North. Not a very positive way to start a post, but hear me out. I can't stand the cold (the temperature drops below sixty degrees and I automatically catch a cold), the short days and long nights, or the fact that winter up here last for five months at the least. However, some of the few wonderful things about the North that I grudgingly admit to appreciating are the berries. Blackberries, mulberries, raspberries (my favorite!), and cherries all grow if not in our neighborhood, then close to us throughout the city and its outskirts. We're actually lucky enough to have a massive cherry tree in our backyard, which this year is absolutely loaded down with fruit. You'll often see me picking around the yard for ripe cherries that the birds haven't gotten to yet. With the abundance of fruit this year, I made some wonderful caramel and cherry mini tartlets.