chocolate shells

I always see these fancy chocolate cups/shells at bakeries filled with fruits & creams that look SO good! so when I saw these dessert molds at Michael's, I had to give it a try. I used vanilla mousse for the filling, (which was the boxed kind) berries and shaved chocolate for the top, all inside a mint chocolate shell. A tip for using  the chocolate molds: mine kept breaking at first when I'd take them out so make sure you add a good amount of chocolate to each one so it's nice & thick! 

I'm a big red velvet cake fan and when I saw this recipe that incorporated it into crepes, I was eager to make it...the filling was my favorite part though, I never thought cream cheese and ricotta cheese with lots of sugar would taste as delicious as it does!

I love when my room is perfectly spotless with nothing laying around. keeping it simple makes it much more comfortable too with just a few things that add that pop of color (Native American rug, wall art)

hash browns aren't much of a "picture pretty" food but these were delicious. (Paula Deen's recipe)

home-made sugar cookies topped with sweet frosting and sprinkled peppermint candy bits...what more can you ask for? :)

very berry chocolate cake

I'm more of a vanilla than chocolate person but lately I've had this random craving for a very moist and sweet chocolate cake so I decided to give it a try & bake one. Most of my cake recipes are taken from Martha Stewart since hers never disappoint me and I was so pleased with this one too! It's a two layer cake with a raspberry jam filling, creamy chocolate icing, and topped with juicy strawberries.

* get the recipe here!

pretty cakes

simple yet elegant.

these cakes are a work of art, i love the detail.

my cousin's birthday is today so I did my best to make a home-made cake and gave it a try! it was my first time so obviously it didn't look exactly the way I planned. however it tasted great + nothing burned haha. the only thing I would probably fix next time is the icing because it wasn't thick enough. in the end she loved it as well as the painting I made her <3

recipes--> for the cake + frosting

during the long, summer days I like to spend time baking and making new things. however school starts next week so I will barely have any time to which sucks because I love to bake haha :) these are a few things I made this summer break:

lemon cake & lemon frosting, with a filling of blackberry preserves.

rainbow cupcakes topped with cream cheese frosting. this is one of the coolest cupcake ideas, props to whoever invented them!

if i knew how simple it would be to make funnel cake, i'd probably try to so long ago. they taste just as good as the ones at the carnival too! [recipe]

this was a cake I made for my little sister, instructions found on betty crocker's website.

chocolate chip muffins, nothing can beat those. [recipe]

I needed something to satisfy my chocolate cravings and these little, moist and delectable chocolate sandwich cookies really did the job! (they're like Oreos but better) the recipe also makes plenty of cookies so they'll last for awhile. the only down side is that it takes a couple hours of refrigerating and freezing the dough till the cookies can finally be baked.

they look a lot like macarons, dontcha think?

you know something is good when you turn around and their all gone! I was surprised because my cookies don't always come out right but that didn't happen this time. they were soft and crunchy, melted in my mouth, and the sweet icing completed the taste!

Crushed Mints

With candy canes filling the aisles of stores, I wanted to bake something using them so I made peppermint bark. This was my first time yet it was the easiest thing i've ever baked! All you actually do is melt chocolate (white + dark) and let it harden. It tasted pretty delicious as well + would make a really nice + easy gift!

Recipe