peppermint pattycakes

. . .these are a variation of this recipe by, drum roll please, Martha Stewart. The original recipe calls for raspberry jam and cream-filled chocolate sandwich cookies. . . instead, these cupcakes are with peppermint patties and a mint marshmallow fluff frosting!  

The cupcakes were moist, rich chocolate with a gooey peppermint patty surprise inside. . . The frosting was tasty and sweet, yet tricky. . .  It permeated through the tops of the cupcakes and disappeared by the morning!  Oh well, your taste buds and stomach don't know the difference :)

Enjoy! 

these were created last summer with Darija 

what scones around, comes around

Cranberry Clementine Scones

Best scones I've ever made.

The recipe is, of course, from Martha Stewart. She usually has complex ingredients and procedures for her recipes, but this is simple, quick and so delicious!

The beauty of baking is that once you have the flour-baking-soda-baking-powder ratio set, you can pretty much add anything you fancy! Per usual, I sigi-fied the recipe. Rather than orange zest, I used the zest of one clementine plus the juice. Also, as a replacement for the plain buttermilk, I used low fat pomegranate kefir. This sly substitution helped create these beautifully moist, tangy, delectable, soft on the inside with a perfect exterior crisp - scones!

Sigi says: try various combinations... chocolate/clementine, blueberry/lemon, coconut/lemon, fresh cranberries, blueberries, apples/oats/cinnamon....

cupcake hour!

Bloody Mary Cupcakes

So here's the story. . . for Christmas last year I received a lovely gift from one of my best gals Darija. The gift was seemingly common - a book of cupcake recipes. . . yet with a twist (of lime!) - this book was full of "Intoxicated Cupcake" recipes.

  

The list of colorful, inventive, boozy recipes includes cupcakes mimicking flavors of our favorite happy hour delights... margarita, strawberry daiquiri, bellini, cosmo (just to name a few) ..... and of course, possibly the most enticing recipe - 

Blood Mary Cupcakes.

With every ingredient we added- tobasco sauce, celery salt, tomato soup. . . our curiosity grew. . . 

the cupcakes turned out super moist, sweet and spicy, almost a gingerbread meets pumpkin spice... definitely a unique cupcake! 

The only modifications we made: for the glaze, we ran out of vodka and used limoncello and added lime zest to the glaze AND as a colorful garnish. 

Enjoy! 

lime zest and sea salt as a garnish

fresh ground black pepper added a nice kick! 

orange you thirsty?

A hydrating treat: Watermelon-banana-orange-grape-flax seed smoothy 

No sugar. No fat. No more left. 

Blend all ingredients (cubed watermelon, one banana, one orange, a handful of grapes, a handful of flax seeds) with ice and a dash of orange juice and/or water!

Enjoy!