To my husband.  I waited a long time for you to come along, and you made my dreams come true.  My husband is actually pretty easy to shop for, something that can't be said about a lot of men.  I seem to find more than enough little goodies that I think he'd like.

I grew up in a household devoted to See's candy.  Since there is a store in the same shopping center as the grocery store, it's still too convenient to pop in there on occasion.  Everyone in the family has their favorite pieces, so we usually handpick our favorites together.  As good as See's is, in college I discovered Godiva.  I love dark chocolate the most, and to me, Godiva's dark has a little bit more of a darker, bitter note than See's, which I prefer.  I was actually going to go the Godiva store in the mall, pick up a few of my favorites, and take pictures for the blog, but since today was the first day of a 14-day weight loss challenge I'm working on, it seemed like a good idea to stay away from the chocolates.

I've spent the evening trolling the Godiva website drooling over my favorites.  In the past year, I've become a huge fan of bark.  It actually started with the peppermint bark from Williams Sonoma and continued with Godiva's Salted Cashew Caramel.  Now Godiva has Birthday Cake bark that taste exactly like a slice of cake covered in chocolate.  Love...

It seems like there are two definite camps when it comes to cupcakes: you either love them, or you hate them.  I am not ashamed to admit that I am a cupcake lover.  Cake, in general, is my favorite dessert mostly because I love frosting.  I was that kid at the birthday party who wanted the corner piece with all the icing flowers.  I still remember the day with horror that I discovered a cake with whipped cream frosting.  Why would you do that to me?


Cupcakes have the potential to have the perfect cake to frosting ratio.  When they don't, it's devastating.  But far worse is dry cake.  My second job ever (if you don't count working for my parents) was in a bakery where I learned all kinds of horrifying secrets for cutting corners vs. good quality.  Most bakeries freeze their cakes before icing them.  If you start with an already dry cake, freeze it, ice it, and let it defrost before selling it, you have a nice block of sawdust.


I found the best little independent cupcake shop in Old Town a few years ago.  I loved the place so much, I had them make my wedding cake (not a cupcake cake by the way).  Shortly after, the owner sold to another couple who had done a good job keeping the quality the same.  A few weeks ago, A and I stopped in to buy a few and were devastated to find that the quality had really changed.  Hoping it was just an off day, we went back and bought two more, but no, the cake tasted like it was from a mix, and it was very dry.


This really upset me.  When I get attached to things, I really have problems letting go (as my sister and mother can attest).  I remembered reading about a cupcake shop called Polkatots and went the very next day to pick some up.


Delicious cake, just the right amount of frosting, a really nice staff, and great cupcakes.  This is our new cupcake place for sure.

I was going through pictures on my computer and came across this picture of Pillsbury Cinnamon Rolls I had made one weekend for the family.  There is no easy breakfast that is more appreciated than these cinnamon rolls.  I've mentioned before that when I was growing up, my parents were always self-employed, and a large portion of our meals were centered around things that were quick and easy to prepare.  These cinnamon rolls were one of the things that I loved while I was growing up, and the kids still love them.  I do try to make things from scratch though because I don't want to overdue preservatives and processed foods, so I've been on the lookout for an easy cinnamon roll recipe that could replace these. I've tried using frozen bread dough, but I think it doesn't have the right texture and makes the rolls dry.


So I went to Pinterest for inspiration where I found a picture labeled Cinnabon Cinnamon Rolls.  Thinking it was too good to be true, I clicked through to the Food.com recipe and found that not only were these supposed to taste exactly like Cinnabon's, the dough could be prepared in the bread machine.


I literally threw these together just as we were sitting down to eat dinner.  An hour and a half later, I had a sweet dough that smelled and looked perfect.  I rolled it out, spread it with butter, dotted it with brown sugar and cinnamon, rolled and cut.


They only needed to bake for 10 minutes, and the icing was really easy to quickly mix as well.


Viola!  And they do taste just like Cinnabon.  Our weekend cinnamon roll dynamic has completely changed.

This post begins with a little bit of frustration.  Love it when I type out a post, swear that I hit the save button, walk away to do something, and come back to find no post.  Anywhere.  Okay - moving on.

When I was growing up, we used to go to this small restaurant sometimes in San Luis Obispo.  Of course, I can't remember the name of the restaurant, what street it was on, or even really what kind of food they served.  But I've remembered for years that this was the place to go to have chocolate soup.  Not chocolate pudding and not hot chocolate, chocolate soup was served warm in a soup bowl, had the consistency of a very thick potato soup (without the chunky things), and, to be honest, tasted just like a bowl of warm chocolate pudding.  Sometimes on cold nights, I almost break down and make chocolate pudding just to serve it warm before it congeals.

One night when the family went out to one of our favorite spots in Pasadena, Mi Piace, to my delight they had chocolate soup on the dessert menu.  After I ordered it, I worried that it would be nothing like what I remembered.  You know when you think about something from your childhood, and it bears no resemblance in adulthood?  When it arrived at the table, it was exactly as I remembered it.  Since then, I keep thinking about it even more than I did before.  So yesterday I went on a hunt for the recipe.  None of my cookbooks at home had anything vaguely similar, so I went to the old faithful FoodNetwork.com and found this recipe from George Duran.


Unfortunately, I only had semi-sweet chocolate in the house, so it wasn't as dark as I would have liked it, but it had the right flavor, texture and smooth creaminess.  Now that I know how to make it, this could be really dangerous.

I've already expressed my childish pleasure with surprise, grab-bag packages here.  The Popsugar Must Have Box is my favorite because of the great mix of beauty and lifestyle products which are in the box every month.  When I opened the November box a few weeks ago, I do have to admit that I was a little thrown when I saw this box of doughnut mix.  When I was a teenager, my mother had an electric doughnut machine, but I haven't seen one of those in ages.  The mix required very few ingredients which also made me wonder how good they could be.  The husband and I waited until after Thanksgiving to stop by Williams Sonoma to pick up a mini doughnut pan then came home to try the mix.


We were delighted with the resulting cinnamon cake treats.  The entire plateful were gone in no time.


Also in the Must Have Box were a trio of spices from La Boite two of which we sprinkled on for even more spicy goodness.  I was so impressed with the quality of the Stonewall Kitchen mix, I'm very excited to see that they have several different types of baking mixes for us to try all of them all natural with no additives which is to me how you can always tell something came from a mix and why I try not to use them.


Of course, the visit to Williams Sonoma to pick up the pan, resulted in several purchases of other food items which I'm sure I'll be posting soon.