Category: Desserts

Natalee’s Memorial Day Cupcakes

By: Hallee

My friend Natalee is a veterinarian living in Washington state with her husband and 2 awesome kids. Imported from Canada some years ago, she does things with cupcakes you just cannot believe.You can find her other amazing contributions to the blog here. I wrote her a couple of weeks ago and asked if she could do a cupcake for Memorial Day. I cannot tell you how thrilled I was when she decided to do something with Forget-Me-Nots. These flowers are traditional memorials for Canada’s Newfoundland’s war dead instead of the Flanders Poppies that are popular in America. These cupcakes are beautiful. She named them “Red, White, and Blueberry Cupcakes with Forget-Me-Nots.”

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“Team Jacob” Cupcakes

By: Hallee

A friend’s 8-year-old daughter asked for a “Jacob” cake. For Kaylee, I could have gone all abstract with bloodly feathers, apples, and stacks of books. For a bunch of second graders, I had to be a little more inventive. So, here’s what I came up with:

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Festive Tres Leches Cake

By: Hallee

A beautiful finish to any festive Cinco de Mayo celebration. Tres leches means three milk – so this translate to “Three Milk Cake.” This actually blends the idea of a three-milk cake from Latin American tradition with a rum cake from Puerto Rican tradition.

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Emergency Substitution: Sweetened Condensed Milk

By: Hallee

Sometimes when you find you didn’t have great planning and took advantage of a relatively well stocked pantry that didn’t end up being as well stocked as you thought, and when you’re baking a cake at 5:00 in the morning and you have two sleeping toddlers upstairs and a husband in Afghanistan, and it’s not really convenient to run to the store to grab that one pantry item you need right now, it’s nice to know that there is a possible emergency substitution. (heh) This happened to me. As I was making Tres Leches Cake for Cinco de Mayo, I went to put together my “three milks” and discovered I didn’t have any sweetened condensed milk. Normally, I would have just set the cake aside to do later, but the milk needs to be added to the cake while it’s still warm, and at 5AM, there was no way I could do it. So, I discovered a good sweetened condensed milk substitution. The cake tasted fantastic, so I’m calling this one a success.

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Resurrection Cookies

By: Hallee

I make this recipe with my kids every Easter eve. We enjoy the cookies the next morning with our eggs for breakfast the next morning. The kids can’t wait to open the oven door the next morning. I originally found the recipe here. I LOVE how I get to read the Bible with them as we make these cookies, how they get to have some application to apply to the story to help them retain what they’re reading and/or hearing. This is a beautiful hands-on tool to teach the resurrection of our Lord.

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Sesame Baklava (Baklavas Sousamenios)

By: Hallee

Serving this delightful and easy version of baklava – a layered sweet made with thin phyllo sheets – is an old custom on Christmas Eve in Thrace, and other areas of Greece. Made with olive oil, the pastry meets Greek Orthodox Lenten-type fasting guidelines, and it’s a delicious alternative to other versions of baklava, especially for those who avoid nuts.

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Shamrock Cupcakes

By: Hallee

These cupcakes are so much fun for the kids to make for St. Patrick’s Day. They’ll look festive decorating any holiday spread you put together for this festive and green day.

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Whole Wheat Vanilla Wafers

By: Hallee

I found this recipe on Heavenly Homemaker’s site. The only thing that I do differently is to use vanilla beans instead of vanilla extract. We have grown to love this recipe! Gregg has always loved a snack of vanilla wafers and peanut butter. I love that I found such a healthy recipe. I send a batch or two with every care package to Gregg, and use them when I make Banana Pudding and Mascarpone Cheesecake with Almond Crust.

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Mascarpone Cheesecake with Vanilla Almond Crust

By: Hallee

I derived this cheesecake from one I saw on a food show one time. I’m always afraid when I make cheesecake that it’s going to be heavy and dry when it comes out. That’s never happened to me – and this recipe especially is so moist, and so melt-in-your-mouth that during a dinner party Gregg and hosted with four other couples, when dessert was served and everyone took a bite, there was a collective silence, then moan of appreciation. It was amazing and those friends still talk about that dinner party.

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