Dark chocolate caramel cookies

I'm pretty self-aware that I watch way too much TV, but as long as I do it while baking or folding laundry or something, it's totally justified. How else I'm supposed to pass the time while cookies bake?

Chocolate owl pops - and more at the baking party!

I turned 24 this weekend, and one of my birthday festivities included a baking party! I've wanted to host a baking party for awhile now and what better time to do it than my birthday?

Ninja Chai Cookies

I'm still working through all the baking toys I got for the holidays - there are just so many things to bake, yet so little time. To help with that issue, I'm combining different baking ideas into one recipe. For example,  I have these ninja cookie cutters that my sister got me for Christmas and I also wanted to make something chai flavored. The solution? CHAI NINJA COOKIES!

Red wine chocolate cupcakes

One of the great things about living in California is the proximity to all the wineries in Napa and Sonoma. On a recent wine tasting trip to Sonoma,  I sampled a delicious dessert wine at Cline Cellars paired with dark chocolate. I fell in love immediately. Unfortunately, the wine was a bit out of my price range, but the tasting experience inspired my next baking experiment: red wine in cupcakes!

Buttermilk mochi waffle sticks

Yep, it's another double-post baking day! While my coconut brownies were baking away in the oven, I played around with my new waffle maker. I stole won this waffle maker in a round of White Elephant with my lab group at work and have tested a few simple recipes on it so far, but nothing worth sharing yet. Until now.

Chocolate-Coconut Meringue Bars

And the obsession with meringue continues...today's recipe comes from another one of the books I brought from home: Cookies (The Little Guides Series). I remember flipping through these tasty-looking pages as a child, dreaming of the day where I would be old enough to make these cookies and desserts. Well, I guess that time has come and I'm starting with these yummy chocolate-coconut meringue bars!

Meringue cookie sandwich bites (green tea with red bean filling)

I believe that my new baking obsession is now meringue. Before I had my Kitchenaid mixer, I would shy away from recipes that required extensive whipping or beating. At the time, I only had my little six dollar hand mixer to use for mixing, so things like meringue seemed rather daunting. Now, I just throw everything into a bowl and let the Kitchenaid work its magic while I go do something else. People weren't kidding when they said that this mixer was going to change my life.

Chocolate Clouds (Meringue Cookies)

Part 2 of my New Year's Day baking! As I said in Part 1, the tiramisu cupcake recipe left me with 3 eggs worth of egg whites and I didn't want to waste them. The first thing I think of when I have egg whites is meringue, so I continued with that train of thought.

Tiramisu Cupcakes

2014 is here, so let the baking commence!