Minty Oreo Cheesecake Brownie

This is the illegitimate love child of three recipes. In addition to those three recipes, I also bastardized it with a little of my own madness. Oh yes, this brownie is a dirty dirty brownie.

My boyfriend requested that I make this Triple Layer Fudgy Mint Oreo Brownie except he said to make it really fudgy. I know fudgy brownies! I decided to borrow the minty oreo idea, modified this brownie recipe from My Baking Addiction as the brownie base. I'm not a big fan of the white chocolate/marshmallow tops of the Triple Layer Fudgy Mint Oreo Brownie recipe, so I decided to top it off with minty cheesecake from this cheesecake brownie recipe also from My Baking Addiction.

My sister sent me an IM that said:

"Omg your brownies are too much ... I'm going to have a heart attack and die."

So yeah...this will also be known as the Heart Attack Brownie.

Are you ready for this monster?

Lemon Bars

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I actually made these lemon bars the day after I made the lemon strawberry cheesecake squares because I had so many lemons. Don't worry, I brought the lemon bars over to my friend's house along with the cheesecake squares.

Lemon & Strawberry Cheesecake Creme Brulee Bars

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My mom has a lemon tree that grows a lot of lemons. The Chopping Block's mom has three lemon trees! Do you know how many lemons that means for us? A whole lot of delicious lemons! I saw these cute little lemon cheesecake squares on Lauren's Latest, and I thought what a good way to use up some of my lemons! I doubled her recipe to get 32 squares! Whoa! I bought them over to a friend's house to share, so don't judge!

Oreo Cheesecake

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What a delightful surprise! I got a text from my neighbor, Chris, that he has a giant tripod he didn't need and whether or not I wanted it. In exchange for the tripod, I baked him an oreo cheesecake. That's what he requested! He didn't want any variation of the cheesecake, just the classic cheesecake. (I also made him go to the store and get the things I didn't have... like cream cheese). I know, I know. Everyone (and their moms) should have cream cheese in their refrigerators at all time.

"Better Than Sex" Coconut Cake

Every Christmas my boyfriend's aunt would make a delicious coconut cake. Again, I was too shy to ask for the recipe, so I looked it up online. I guess there are lots of variations for the cake, but I think this recipe closest resembles her cake. She doesn't put pineapples on it, and personally, I think pineapples on this cake would be weird.

Banana Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Frosting

I love peanut butter and banana sandwiches; it's one of my all time favorite breakfast/snack foods. I remember when I first read about it in 3rd grade and we had to read this vampire bunny novel. The main character was making a banana peanut butter sandwich, and at first I was like, "Man, that sounds gross!" Of course I had to try it, right? And it turned out to be awesome. A few years ago I decided to add some honey on top, and it was marvelous. More recently I saw a photo from my friend where he sprinkled a bunch of cinnamon on top of it, and of course I had to try that too, and it was even more awesome! Anyways, I've decided to turn this awesomeness into cupcake form!

Pumpkin Ginger Cupcakes with Ginger Cream Cheese Frosting

Remember my last pumpkin cake post? Well I finally got myself a cupcake mold and a piping bag! Yay! Since it's still Fall, I wanted to make more pumpkin stuff! So like a few days ago over at My Baking Addiction, Jamie posted these cupcakes that sounded awesome! So that's what we have today, some awesome pumpkin ginger cupcakes.

Pumpkin Cake with Cream Cheese Glaze

Oh my god! It's that time of year again! That time of year when you walk into your grocery store, and it's stocked with pumpkins! Can you help but buy a ton of pumpkin (and pumpkin related groceries)? I think not! And if you can resist, there is something wrong with you, my friend. Last year around this time of year I made a pumpkin loaf with Iva. This time it's a cake instead of bread! Yay!

Glutinous Rice Balls

What is a glutinous rice ball? It's a chewy ball of dough that's filled with sweet sweet awesomeness. In Chinese they're called Tong Yuen (Cantonese) or I guess Tang Yuan (Mandarin). "Tong" means soup and "yuen" means round. You can read about them in this Wikipedia page.

White Cake with Lemon Curd and Cream Cheese Frosting

Following up on the lemon curd post, we're going to use it to make a cake! A delicious lemony cake!



I got the recipe off of Epicurious, which I made some adjustments to since their recipe was for a giant cake, and I am only making a small little itty bitty cake.

Lemon Curd

Finally! A post after an entire month! I'm sure you've been wondering what I've been up to, right? Well, I drove my little Honda Fit across country from Pittsburgh, PA back to San Francisco (with my two cats)! I reunited with Gandalf except now Gandalf and Megatron don't get along. My mom also fell in love with Gandalf (as well as Furious), and so Gandalf has become my mom's cat. So that's the update!



So what I have for today is this delicious lemon curd recipe from David Lebovitz. I've made this a couple of times, and it's always fantastic! Not a single change needs to be made. Before we start, I'm going to warn you that we're not going to use a double boiler, which I think is pretty freaking awesome. As David Lebovitz says, we're going to be dare-devils today.

Brownie Roll Out Cookies

I've been baking a lot lately. I don't know why but I find baking simple cookies a relaxing activity. So when Helen sent me this brownie roll-out cookie recipe from Smitten Kitchen, I felt like I had to make it right away...because I was um..."stressed out" and needed some relaxing.

Inside Out Reeses Peanut Butter Cup Cupcakes

So I baked these cupcakes for a very special person who loooooovvvvveeeees Reeses Peanut Butter Cups. They're cute little chocolate cupcakes filled with a chocolate custard and topped with a peanut butter and cream cheese frosting! They're absolutely amazing! And if you know me, I don't even like chocolate very much, much less something so decadent!

Brownie Cookies

First, a little back story. I bragged to someone that I knew the reason why brownies have that nice flaky crust on the top while cakes don't. I said that it's because of the unbeaten egg whites (just stirred in and not beaten) float to the top of the batter and created that nice flaky crust. I should have known better than to brag without any back up of experimental data because that someone actually went and did research on brownie flaky top crust and found this article from The Kitchn.

Swirly Chocolate (Chip) Cookies

So here's a cookie that's all swirly with chocolate swirls. I hope you noticed that label of "misadventure" because these were supposed to be chocolate chip cookies and not these swirly cookies! D:

Strawberry Bread Puding

I cleaned out my fridge last week, and found that I'd been hoarding bread. I had 3 of these bowls. That's a LOT of bread pudding. I made bread pudding over the holiday season, partially out of curiosity. That one was a different recipe (there are a bazillion) but the basic one is super simple.

Waffle Ice Cream Sandwich

In the previous post, I talked about candied bacon ice cream. Then that spawned this conversation:

Brendan: make the ice cream
and add chunks of egg in it
LeTran: cooked eggs? (commentary: I'm not stupid, ice cream has uncooked eggs in it)
Brendan: yup
and a bit of waffle
oh oh, nix the egg
and just put pieces of syrupy waffles with the bacon
orrr a bacon ice cream sandwich
LeTran: omg waffle ice cream sandwich
waffle bacon ice cream sandwich
Brendan: ohhhhh omg
that is a real good idea
no joking

...and so it began...

Misadventure: Strawberry Stuffed Ice Cream

Remember Brendan? I was having a little chat with Brendan about food...because there are only three things that I talk about 1. food, 2. cats, 3. dogs. I'm not well-rounded. I cannot hold an intelligent conversation about politics, history, geography, philosophy, literature, string theory, game theory, human behavior, etc. But I digress.

Brendan and I were talking about ice cream sandwiches. Who doesn't like ice cream sandwiches? Then Brendan had the brilliant idea of making ice cream sandwiches not with cookies, but with fruits instead. Talking with Brendan tickled my brain, so I started to think about stuffing fruits with ice cream. Basically, the conversation went something like this...okay, maybe not a bit, but exactly like this:

Brendan: i wonder if ice cream sandwiches would be good with fruit as the bread like mango ice cream inside slices of mango
me: too slippery
Brendan: or ice cream between wedges of banana
me: OR ice cream in hollowed out strawberries
Brendan: ooo, i like that one, and then it can be dipped in chocolate
me: yes!
Brendan: for extreme tastiness
me: and rolled in a bit a sea salt!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! akdjfaoier
Brendan: haha
me: just a tiny bit
Brendan: you're one of those salty choco people/

...and so that conversation gave fruit to this misadventure!

Smitten Kitchen Monkey Cake

This is not exactly a food post, but I have pictures of a cake, so it sorta count.

My friend's, Michael, little nephew is recently diagnosed with leukemia. I met the little guy 2 years ago and he was the coolest kid. He plays the violin and sings and generally is a very happy little guy. I was so sad when I hear the news and didn't really know what to do for him. So I baked him this cake.

Pumpkin Scone with Ginger Honey Glaze

We were having a pumpkin streak where we made pumpkin everything. Watch out for another pumpkin post in a little bit. So since I am poor, I subscribe to Poor Girl Gourmet and found this pumpkin scone recipe that sounded delicious! But let me tell you, it's not cheap.... unless you have everything. But who keeps candied ginger in their cupboard? Anyways, these were really good, especially the ginger honey glaze. It seriously taste like sweeten condensed milk. So awesome!