Sweet and Salty Pretzel Peanut Bars

These yummy bars are a sweet and salty version of the seven layer bars I grew up with. They are almost ridiculously easy to make and, aside from the cooling time, super fast too!  My only regret is that I only got one because I made them to send to my daughter to snack on during final exam week in college.  I've even been asked a couple of times by my son and husband if I sent all of them because they wanted another, so I will definitely have to make them again.

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Key Lime and Biscoff Ice Cream

It seems my husband has developed a bit of an obsession with ice cream.  Ok, so we've only made two flavors, but he has many ideas and plans, so expect to see more over the next few warm weather months.  This one, in concept, was my idea, but he made it.  Thankfully, he is quite a good cook and enjoys helping me out.  It has been a bit extremely busy at school lately with end-of-the year 'stuff' going on, so I was very happy he agreed to make this ice cream for me.  We made it just because, but it would also make a great Mothers' Day recipe.  

My inspiration for this ice cream was this recipe from Southern Living Magazine.  Southern Living's recipe is for lemon, but I wanted key lime.  And, have you ever noticed how Biscoff cookies taste kind of like graham crackers.  Actually, they have a little more crunch and are a little sweeter than graham crackers and may even taste more like graham cracker crust than just plain graham crackers do.  So, I used Biscoff cookies instead of graham crackers.  The result was a delightfully tart ice cream that really does taste very much like key lime pie.  The cookies add a sweet crunch that is a wonderful foil for the tartness.  I must warn you though, the tartness gives the ice cream the illusion of being less caloric than it really is, so overeating might be a bit of a danger.

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Strawberry Bars for National Strawberry Month

May is National Strawberry Month, and I have been wanting to try this idea for a while, so it seemed like the perfect time.  They are similar to the ever popular lemon bar, but with strawberries. And, I don't mean strawberries and lemons, I mean just strawberries.  Every recipe I have seen was a strawberry-lemon combination, which I am sure is delicious too, but I wanted just strawberries this time, so I came up with my own recipe from a combination of several others.  They are actually the color of the ones in the picture - kind of lavender-pink, so if you want really pink ones, you might want to add a little food coloring.

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Basic Yellow Cake

I have been searching for the perfect yellow cake for a long time to make for birthdays, weddings, etc.  This might be it.  I found the recipe at Smitten Kitchen.  It has a good flavor, and possibly more importantly, it is moist.  I never have trouble with other flavors of cake being moist, but yellow just never seems to be quite moist enough.  The cake was also incredibly easy to work with.  I used two eight inch pans, which meant I had really thick layers, so I torted them.  This was definitely the easiest cake to torte I have every made.  And, if that wasn't enough to make you try it, the fact that it iced so easily might do it.  I almost think I could have forgone the crumb coat.  All that being said, I am not one hundred percent sure this is the one, so I will continue to try more recipes, and keep you updated on the progress.

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White Chocolate Candy Cane Cheesecake

This cheesecake is absolutely wonderful!  If you are looking for something to do with your leftover candy canes, this is it.  The peppermint flavor is wonderfully muted by the white chocolate, and this is without a doubt the creamiest cheesecake I have every eaten.  The original recipe, given to me by my late mother-in-law, was for a raspberry white chocolate cheesecake (also wonderful), and I have adapted it here for Christmas using candy canes.  I have no idea where she got the original recipe, so unfortunately I can't give anyone credit there, so if anyone knows where it came from, please let me know.

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