Fruit Tart

Making these is a process, it’s why they are often special ordered at bakeries or only offered a couple of days a week. The process, to me, is a pleasure and I love putting them together with love. Then again though, cooking and baking are always love in my kitchen. I hope you’ll take the time and go through the process of making this amazing tart. Filling it with in-season fruits of your choosing is always the best because it can be different every single time. Have fun with it ~ make it themed like Berry Good Day, Tropical Delight, …

Lemony Battered Fish

If you love the flavor of lemon, these this is definitely the recipe for you. The fish has a wonderfully crispy exterior and soft, flakey interior. I enjoy serving this with lemon butter tricolor rotini and broccoli with lemon wedges.

Toffee Crunch Chocolate Cookies

These cookies are SUPER rich and normally a 1/2 a cookie is all I need to be more than satiated. Their chewy goodness is out of this world. Let them cool so they harden up some, they’ll be super soft and easily breakable out of the oven. Coconut haters, I promise you absolutely cannot taste the coconut in these, it’s only there for the chewy texture, LOL I swear it’ll be ok cause guess what …. I don’t like coconut either.

Tamales

Being from California, Mexican food is a staple of our diet LOL. I learned how to make Tamales early on and every so often I get down on Christmas, gather everyone around, and have a Tamalada. I also make these from time to time during the year. While these may seem spicy by reading the ingredients, they’re not that bad after they cook down, the masa is added and they’re ready to eat. You can also remove the seeds from the dried peppers which will bring the spicy heat to near zero. The peppers used in this are all very …

Pecan Bars

These gooey, chewy, crunchy, soft Pecan Bars hit every note in texture and leave the mouth wanting more. These are truly a pecan lovers dream.

Berry Hand Pies

Berry hand pies are a great quick grab-and-go breakfast, a nice easy snack or an awesome dessert, especially warmed up with some ice cream. These are fairly simple to make and can be totally yours with your choice of berry and maybe adding a little spice like cinnamon, nutmeg, apple pie spice, pumpkin pie spice, etc.

Berry Chocolate Scones

I’m generally not a fan of scones but these are cake-like and can be switched up with the seasons or your tastes Scones (pronounced like gone) originate from the Scottish ‘bannock’, which is derived from the Gaelic for cake and made using a thin, round, flat combination of oats and wheat flour. As with all of my recipes, I want you to jump off and run with it. In these I used strawberries and milk chocolate chips but use whatever berry and chocolate you’d like, if using brown chocolate maybe add 1/4 to 1/2 tsp of cinnamon to really bring that …

Berry Chocolate Cookies

These Berry Chocolate Cookies are amazing because they vary so much depending on what you use, they can be tart from the berry and sweet from chocolate or sweet from the berry while being savory from the chocolate. Here I used Strawberry and White Chocolate but, I have also made these with raspberries, blueberries, and blackberries so have fun with these and make them your own 🙂 Just remember to chop down larger berries. You can also switch up the chocolate you want to use, not everyone likes white.

Strawberry Madeleines

Madeleines are small sponge cakes with distinct shell-like shapes and while there is no doubt they came from France, their actual origin story has many legends. All I know is they are light little delights of goodness. These can be made with so many different fruits, flavoring through extract, spices, and more. Play with these and have fun!!!!

Strawberry-Banana Bread

Living in FL we have an amazing growing season because the sun is usually shining. Beginning of March while much of the rest of the nation is still freezing, we’re rolling out the Strawberry Festival in Plant City which is attended by people from around the world. You can find more information on that here With an abundance of strawberries at my fingertips, I am always finding fun ways to play with them. Here I decided to take an old favorite, banana bread and sweeten it up. Strawberry Banana is all the rage so why not mix them in a …