These are my favorite chocolate chip muffins. Soft, almost like a cake texture but still a muffin. A touch of cinnamon to bring out the chocolate flavor of the chocolate chips.

You could use white chocolate chips too!

They make a great breakfast muffin or an afternoon snack. They are best served warm and are great for sharing, especially around the holidays.

Gift idea!
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I don’t like to drink soy milk. I just don’t. But I had some leftover after I made these sparkled ginger cookies and wanted to use it up, so you guys are getting this great orange scone recipe.

They are light and fluffy, dry in all the right ways, and complimented with a sweet orange glaze. Bonus: they’re vegan.
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I felt really motivated this morning, I’m not sure why. I was just going to make some chocolate pudding and have that be the end of it and out of nowhere I thought “why not make a whole pie?”

So I did. Completely from scratch. From the graham cracker crust to the whipped cream and the pudding in between, it’s all homemade.

It doesn’t actually take that much time, probably less than 30 minutes prep time and 4 hours down time to let the pie chill. If you aren’t up to making your own pie crust, you could just use one of the grocery store pre-baked ones, or skip the crust and serve the pudding in ramekins or small glasses. It’ll be tasty any way you decide to serve it.
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This hot chocolate is good. It’s nothing mind blowing or over the top, but it does taste delicious and really warms up the body, plus it comes together quickly, it’s great for a freezing winter morning.

The recipe makes exactly one mug’s worth and takes about 5 minutes from start to finish. Top it with some marshmallows (vegetarian mini marshmallows or homemade marshmallows made with vegetarian gelatin are great), I pull them right out of the freezer and the hot chocolate softens them up in a heartbeat, they cool off the steaming hot chocolate a little bit as well. You could also add a dollop of homemade whipped cream with a small sprinkle of cinnamon. I like to add in a couple chocolate chips while I’m heating it to give it a thicker chocolate flavor and make it a little bit sweeter.

Print Recipe
Quick & Easy Hot Chocolate

Makes 1 mug

1 cup whole milk
1 1/2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 to 4 chocolate chips (optional)

Combine all ingredients in a small saucepan. Heat over medium-high heat, whisking constantly, until all ingredients melt together (chocolate chips may not be completely melted) and the hot chocolate starts to steam. Pour into heatproof mug and top with marshmallows, whipped cream, or leave plain. Serve warm or hot.

Before I go into this post, please do not let the “vegan” title of this post scare you away.

I’ve made a few vegan recipes on this blog, my favorite being this pumpkin bread. I hold vegan recipes to the same standards as non-vegan recipes because I know they can be just as delicious, or even more delicious, depending on how it’s done and the right flavors and ingredients, etc. People think vegan baked goods are dry, dense, inedible, but that just isn’t true. Try the pumpkin bread I mentioned, or try these sparkled ginger cookies, it’ll change your mind and you’ll realize you’ve been missing out.

And before you say “I don’t have all the weird ingredients they put in vegan things!!”, check your cabinet. Do you have sugar, flour, and other normal baking stapes? The only thing this specific recipe calls for that you might not have it soy milk, which can be replaced with an equal amount of whole milk.

These cookies are delicious, you don’t have to wait for anything to get to room temperature, and you can eat the dough without any health risk. What’s not to love?
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These cookies are adorably small, you can just pop one into your mouth and be done with it (or eat one after the other because they are so small and easy to eat). They are about the size of a quarter and topped with a chocolate chip for added flavor and cuteness.

The recipe makes 15 dozen, but if you don’t want to sit and roll them all out at once, you can wrap the dough in plastic wrap and freeze it for a week or two, probably up to a month. You could also make a bunch of tiny cookies and then make bigger ones topped with hershey kisses.
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Cookie season is in full swing and it’s time to get those cookie sheets warm and fill your belly with fresh baked cookies.

It’s important to taste test things before you give them to your loved ones, I won’t tell if you eat a cookie or two or thirty before wrapping them up.

Let’s start with something easy, these cocoa dream cookies. It’ll get you back into the swing of things before we start having to roll out dough and use cookie cutters and piping tips. They come together quickly and bake up into delicious chocolate goodness, a crispy outside with a soft, chewy center. You can add chocolate chips to bring these over the top into a real “cocoa dream”. It’s the holidays, indulge a little.
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You may have seen this post a little earlier in the week over on JavaCupcake, a fantastic food blog with a special focus on cupcakes. The owner, Betsy, took an interest in my blog and asked me to do a holiday cupcake guest post, I did some brainstorming and came up with these gingerbread cupcakes with brown butter frosting!

The holidays are coming, it’s December, and you need to get in the kitchen RIGHT NOW.

Seriously, pick up your computer (I don’t care if it’s a desktop) and get in the kitchen.

Take out some molasses, brown sugar, butter, and your mixer and let’s get started, the holidays are going to be here before you know it and you will want to be prepared with this gingerbread cupcakes with brown butter frosting.
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This is my KitchenAid, isn’t he beautiful?

I got him last December as a Christmas gift to myself and I’ve been smitten ever since. If you don’t have one, you deserve to get yourself a holiday gift.

KitchenAid mixers come with three heads, a beater, a whisk, and a bread hook, but you can buy a lot of attachments, one of them being the “Beater Blade” by New Metro Design, which is just like the beater but has rubber wings on the side to scrape down your bowl for you (which means you don’t have to stop and dig around with a rubber scraper). It’s also dishwasher safe and durable, I’ve had mine for almost as long as I’ve had my kitchenaid (a year) and it is still working perfectly.

Interested in winning one?
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Before I start, this isn’t the only cupcake truck in Philadelphia. There is another one called Call Me Cupcake that I have yet to try.

I tried doing a joint review of Buttercream with Call Me Cupcake, however I went out to the Call Me Cupcake scheduled stops (I tried three different spots) and the truck was nowhere to be found in any of them. They didn’t update their information to let people know they wouldn’t be where they said they would and I wasted a few hours traveling all over Philadelphia, needless to say they won’t be getting any of my business.

The good news is, Buttercream is fabulous enough that I don’t need any other cupcake truck.
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