New blog - AllyVerbNoun

I've decided to expand my baking blog to lifestyle blog (including cooking, travel, photography, etc), and I've also decided to move from Blogger to Wordpress to host my blog. I'll be giving my recipes here a makeover on the new blog - check it out!

https://allyverbnoun.wordpress.com/

Bourbon Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

I'm not a fan of bourbon at all (too strong for my taste), but last week, I ended up getting a bottle to make a tasty-looking bourbon molasses pork recipe. It turned out great, but now I have this giant bottle of bourbon that I'm certainly not going to drink!

Lemon Ricotta Cookies

My new favorite weekly activity is going to the local farmer's market on Saturdays. This market sells the leftover "ugly" fruit and vegetables that groceries and restaurants have rejected. Usually this means incredible deals - whole boxes of fruit for a dollar, huge bunches of kale for a few bucks - so I've started to get all my produce from here. 

Chocolate Filled Donuts

The plan last week was to make donuts and then blog about them - except the donuts turned out...very funny looking. They were baked, not fried, and didn't have that nice golden color I was going for. In an attempt to add color, I used my kitchen torch on them. That didn't go over so well.

S'mores cookies

Last weekend, I had plans to go camping in Acadia National Park with the roommates. It was something that I was really looking forward to, but I somehow got terribly sick. It's summer and it was just a cold, but it left me barely able to get out of bed for days. So camping was definitely out.

Blueberry Cupcakes with Maple Frosting

The blog hiatus is over! It's been a pretty busy couple of months, and it was difficult to find time to fix up this blog. The recipe index was in dire need of re-organizing so it more visually appealing and easier to find older posts - it's finally done though! Check out "Recipe Index" above to look back through past recipes.

Blog on hiatus

Going on a break from blogging - combination of life things and my plan to overhaul my blog layout. Stay tuned!

Raspberry champagne cake

It's safe to say that spring is finally here! However, knowing Boston, I wouldn't be surprised if it suddenly started snowing next week. In the meantime, I'm hopeful that the nicer weather is here to stay!

Chocolate turtle cookies

I don't eat much in the way of sweets, but I do have a soft spot for all things caramel. One of my favorite candies are those turtle chocolates - you know, those little bundles of chocolate all wrapped up in caramel and pecans?

Mint chocolate chip ice cream sandwiches

Another month goes by, and I have myself another kitchen toy! This time, it's an ice cream machine. So far, I've already made a lemon-basil sorbet, a chai ice cream, and a Nutter Butter cookies 'n cream ice cream. By peak ice cream season, I should have a good base recipe down (and a fridge filled to the brim with ice cream).

Mini baked Alaskas

Recently, I rewarded myself with a new kitchen gadget - the torch! I'm a little fire-phobic myself, so this new toy made me a little apprehensive, but all the freshly toasted meringues and crème brûlées that I get from it make the fire all worth it. Now I want to light everything in the kitchen on fire.

Mocha macarons

One grad school habit that I haven't picked up on yet is drinking coffee. Never needed it in high school or college, and despite everyone insisting that it's a grad school necessity, I so far haven't needed it. I really never liked the taste of coffee - smells great, but the flavor doesn't seem to match up with the smell to me.

Melted ice cream cone cake

It's been awhile since my last blog post - grad school can really eat up your time! Blogging may have fallen by the wayside, but I've kept up the weekly baking to maintain my sanity.

Mexican Brownie Tequila Cupcakes

Happy Halloween everyone! October's been a crazy busy month, but what month isn't busy in grad school? Good thing this month ends with being able to dress up and bake adorable Halloween-themed cupcakes!

Butter and jam thumbprint cookies

So, I pretty much have fallen by behind in updating this blog, but I'm still baking every week!

Caramel apple cookies

Fall is finally (almost) here, which means it's time for all the fall baking spices and flavors! Apples, pumpkins, cinnamon, nutmeg - all my favorite ingredients to wok with!

Peach Pie Cupcakes

Facebook kindly reminded me this morning that I had been at MIT for a year now, showing me a picture of my roommate and I posing with the mascot, Tim the beaver. On one hand, it's kind of hard to believe that it's already been a year - it felt like the months flew by! On the other hand, I also somehow feel like I've been in Cambridge forever and that I'm definitely used to my life here now.

Strawberry macarons

Macarons are one of my favorite things to bake. Yes, they can be a little time consuming and require some planning, but there are so many different flavors and decorations that can be done with them! Today's flavor is strawberry!

Key Lime Pies

Baking in my new kitchen has been great, but while I've been making a lot of things, I haven't been as good about updating the blog with the recipes. July turned out to be a relatively busy month, between settling into the new house, traveling, lab, and just general life stuff.

Coconut macaroons

So life hasn't gotten any less busy since my last post - my roommates and I recently moved from the grad dorms into a real house! Packing everything up was a little hectic, but with the help of my generous friends, we managed to get everything out the door, into the car, and over to the new place.