white chocolate and raspberry dipped shortbread + FB cookie swap!

Happy December, everyone!

Nutcracker season is well on its way, with my first show having occurred just this afternoon. This means that I can officially declare that we are right in the thick of the holiday season. It also means that I have successfully survived tech week (a.k.a. I Can't Feel My Toes week), which, for those who don't know, means going straight to the theater from school and dancing until around 8 or 9 pm. Brutal, but so worth it in the end– the feeling you get standing in the wings with the Snow music just beginning, that perfect combination of nausea and adrenaline... it really isn't Christmas without Nutcracker.

OK, now about the cookies.

whole wheat sweet red bean buns

I've been feeling quite a bit of pressure lately, with college app deadlines creeping up and essay prompts untouched. While the best course of action here is probably getting some work done, I find that gifting myself a few hours to focus on something outside the realm of school!school!school! can do wonders for my productivity when I finally do sit down and write. In recent months, the kitchen has become my peaceful little refuge, where I can roll up my sleeves and move around and use my hands for something other than tapping on my keyboard. (Which, by the way, they are doing right now– do we need more muffins?

brown butter glazed applesauce spice cake

 Smells evoke very emotional responses in me. I have certain trigger scents– pumpkin pie, blown out birthday candles, cigarettes for example– that bring about particularly vivid images, feelings, and memories. AP Psychology tells me this is a programmed reaction to Pavlovian conditioning, but I like to think of it in a more romantic sense. Like, maybe the nostrils are the true windows to the soul or something, ya feel?

With this cake, the scent is the first thing that hits you. Just as the thing came out of the oven, I leaned in, took a deep breath and melted into a warm, blissful puddle on the kitchen floor... and that was before the brown butter icing came into play. This applesauce cake is everything that a fall dessert yearns to be: unbelievably plush and moist, rich with spices and apple flavor and accented with the sweet nuttiness of brown butter. It tastes like comfort and nostalgia and Frank Sinatra.

chocolate pudding mug cake

Now that September is due to arrive in four days, I have finally come to terms with the end of summer. Maybe it is because school started this week and something about the early mornings and new clothes and heart-wrenching terror when a teacher calls on me in class just gets my mind into autumn gear. As I said in one of my earlier posts, fall is actually my favorite season of the year and I am starting to get pretty worked up with the anticipation.

toasted coconut milk toast

Mmmmm those mornings. The ones where your eyes open to the sunlight streaming through the windows instead of that awful default alarm on your phone. Where you sigh into your pillow, turn on the other side, smile and close your eyes again just because you can. Those mornings when you get out of bed with a nest on your head and pillow-wrinkles indented into your face and it doesn't matter because you have nowhere to go. 

This recipe is for those mornings.

strawberry mushi-pan

August. The beginning of the end. The sun starts to set a little earlier, the first shades of brown set in on the trees and the local Target is flooded with parents carrying pencils and binders. Autumn is my favorite season of the year with its crisp air and warm fluffy sweaters, but couldn't it just wait a little?

Enter strawberry mushi-pan.