My great-grandmother used to make tapioca pudding  for me when I was a little girl.  Put a bowl of yummy tapioca pudding in front of me, and it's instant comfort - childhood memories in a bowl. It doesn't get any sweeter than that. This recipe for tapioca pudding at Simply Recipes is very close to the tapioca pudding I remember my great-grandmother making for me. Thanks, Elise, for bringing back the memories.

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I've been on a chocolate kick lately, which is odd because I'm usually more of a vanilla girl. So when I saw these Champagne Brownies (they're glazed with a champagne jelly!) on Lovescool, I knew I had to have them. Lordy, even her bowl of batter looks good. Now, if only I can get  Kelli to send me a batch. 

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I love citrus in desserts: lemon meringue and key lime pies; lemon bars, lime sherbet. So when I saw these Lime Curd Thumbprint cookies over at Baking Bites, I knew I'd found a heavenly perfect mix of tart-sweet dessert goodness and moderation. With these yummy morsels on hand, I could satisfy my craving for tart desserts without going overboard. Unless, that is, I eat one and find I can't stop, and next thing you know I've scarfed a plateful.

Continue reading Food Porn: Lime Curd Cookies

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Nothing says childhood to me like Krispy Treats, and this lovely picture and recipe from chan at she who eats nearly made me swoon. At school bake sales and Brownie meetings, they were always the most popular item. In lunchboxes, a stash of homemade Krispy Treats was prime trading material, worth at least two, maybe even three cookies each. I think they were even the first thing I learned to cook by myself. Not haute cuisine, perhaps, but few things in life can equal that "ahhhhh" sensation when you sink your teeth into a hunch of crispy rice cereal, melted marshmallows and butter.

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I've been on a bit of a ginger kick lately, and, like any good Seattle resident, I love a good scone with my latte (and no, I do not classify the hockey pucks sold at Starbucks as "good scones", for the record). So when I found these tasty-looking Ginger Scones over at she who eats - made with crystallized ginger, no less - I thought to myself, man, I gotta get chika to make me a batch of those and send me a care package of them! They would go so well with a nice soy latte, but I'm too lazy busy to make them myself right now.

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Chandra over at Lick the Spoon thinks she's stumbled upon the Holy Grail of Brownies, and judging from her brownie rant, she seems to know her way around a pan of brownies. Her complaints against most brownie recipes are many: either they are too soft, too cardboardy, too chewy, too coyingly sweet. But she seems to have found her brownie match - a meaningful brownie, in Chan's own words - in Nigella's Brownies, and she very sweetly shares the recipes with the rest of us brownie lovers out here. I'm not quite as picky about my brownies as Chandra is, but even I have to admit, this brownie does look like a pretty darn perfect specimen.

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Maybe you like macaroons, maybe you don't, but if you don't like them, I'll bet you've never had these freshly made macaroons from Lindt and Sprüngli in Zurich, Switzerland. I've never had them either, and the chances I'll get to taste them from Seattle are pretty slim, especially as the packaging says they are best eaten immediately. Fortunately for us, we can live vicariously through Kelli at Lovescool, who's in Zurich and bought a box of the tasty little confections, called Luxemburgerli by the locals, which come in citron, mocha, chocolate, vanilla, and many other flavors. Wonder if there are any good deals on weekend flights to Switzerland? Interested in making your own? Check out this post for more macaroon madness.

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Oh, get your minds out of the gutter. We did not choose these cupcakes from All Cupcakes, All the Time because of their resemblance to anything remotely sexual. No, we did not. Well, okay, maybe we did, but they look like they'd taste great, too, don't they? Vanilla cupcakes, milk chocolate frosting, and a perfect cherry to top it off. Good stuff, yes indeed. We just won't give too much thought to how maraschino cherries are made, though, mmmkay?

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Over at my little kitchen, Cathy has a little thing called Mondays with Maita, where she and some friends cook recipes from Maida Heatter's Book of Great Cookies. This week's pick was Greenwich Village Brownies, pictured above, which Cathy describes as "over the top". Hey, in my book, any brownie recipe that calls for 3 cups of sugar plus corn syrup, and six ounces of melted chocolate, is bound to be a winner. A plate of these, some nice mugs of steamed vanilla milk, and a great movie in the DVD player? Sounds like a great date night to me.

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Remember Rolos? Those succulent milk chocolate candies with the gooey caramel centers? When I was a kid, we used to negotiate Halloween candy trades, and Rolos were definitely in the top trading tier along with the little Snickers and Milky Way bars. Joe over at Culinary in the Desert posted this pic of a little cookie adventure he embarked on - chocolate cookies wrapped around Rolo candies. Just look at the caramel oozing out of that open cookie. Can't you just taste it? Try it with Joe's recipe, or use your own fave recipe and see how it comes out.

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When a dark chocolate cake recipe calls for 7 ounces of dark chocolate, a cup of sugar, and only a tablespoon of flour, it's bound to be ultra-rich, ultra-sinful, and ultra-delicious. Chockylit over at Cupcake Bakeshop made this lovely bit of chocolate heaven pictured above, and topped it off with real whipped cream and a cherry. The cake recipe came from Chocolate and Zucchini, so you know it's gotta be good.

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Talk about sinful desserts. Just look at the scrumptious icing topping this heavenly slab of Devil's Food Cake I found over at dessertfirst. That's marshmallow icing, kids. Moist, delicious, chocolate cake, frosted with creamy, sticky, marshmallow icing? Eat up, and confess your gluttonous sins to your priest later. This cake is from a restaurant called Chocolate Kiss Café in Quezon City, Phillipines. It would almost be worth the trip just to try a slice. If you happen to live near there, go eat some and then come back here and tell us about it. We'll settle for sinful eating vicariously, in a pinch.

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Here at Food Porn, we aren't just about stuff that's not healthy for you. Nosiree, not us. Sometimes we come across something that just looks sinful, even though it's really good for you. Take these succulent White Phoenix and Gold Peaches we found over at she who eats. Don't they just look like something you'd love to sink your teeth into? Chika ate some of these juicy peaches raw, and then she broiled some and served 'em up with kiwi coulis and mascarpone cheese. Sometimes, nature gives you something so delicious, it just doesn't need a whole lot to make it porntastic.

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If you love vanilla as much as I do, you're sure to love what 52 Cupcakes is baking this week: Magnolia Bakery Vanilla Cupcakes with Vanilla Buttercream Frosting. Cupcakes this pretty shouldn't have to wait for a birthday party or other special occasion. Just make a batch for the heck of it, and eat them all yourself with a nice pot of tea. Oh, sure, you can share them with other people too. If you really, really want to. But if you eat them all yourself, no one here at Slashfood will tattle on you.

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We love banana bread and we love pound cake, so it stands to reason that this Banana Pound Cake I found over at Sweetnicks will be a surefire hit around my house. Just look at it, in all its banana glory, dripping with a confectioners' sugar glaze. Of course, with ingredients like butter, sour cream and three CUPS of sugar (not counting the glaze) it's not exactly a low-cal treat, but hey, this is Food Porn, folks. Who cares what's good for you? We care about what looks and tastes sinfully good.

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I don't know what exactly makes these cookies from Sweetnicks a favorite in Minnesota, but any cookie that combines white chocolate chips, pecans and toffee bits is a winner in my book. My eight-year-old daughter, who wants to be a chef when she grows up (or maybe an actress or architect, she isn't quite sure) has been wanting to bake some cookies, and this looks like a great recipe for her to try. If they don't turn out, I'm sure the squirrels will eat them. She's a good cook, though, so chances are we'll devour them before the squirrels get a shot at them.

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Back before I cut sugar (mostly) out of my diet, I used to love peanut brittle. That crunchy-sweet treat is threateningly addictive, though, so when I run into brittle these days, I bravely turn my head the other way so as to avoid being sucked into to having "just one little taste". Then I found these yummy looking Peanut Brittle Bars over on Baking Bites. Nic says they're more like shortbread than brittle, but with a similar taste. Well, that's just great. I love shortbread, too. Guess I'll have to admire from afar, or maybe make a huge batch to give away in cookie-and-fudge boxes at Christmas.

Continue reading Food Porn: Peanut Brittle Bars

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 I love marinated roasted peppers. They are so versatile and add such a tasty kick to pasta dishes, salad, pizza and other veggies. Yum. I've never tried to make my own, but words to eat by details how to make marinated roasted peppers in a way that makes it sound so easy, I couldn't possibly mess it up. I wonder if my end result will look as foodpornerrific as this picture from her site, though?

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These cupcakes from Cupcake Bakeshop have the longest name I've ever seen for something so small: Peanut Butter-Banana Chocolate Cupcakes with Caramel Glaze and Carmelized Banana Disk. That's quite a mouthful, but then again, these gorgeous cupcakes with a peanut-butter-and-brown-sugar filling look rich enough to live up to their name. And site owner Chockylit even provides you with step-by-step instructions with lovely photos to guide you along your way. Or, if you're lazy like me, you can just drool over the images and then drive to the bakery.

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Look, just look at these succulent cream puffs from A Blithe Palate. Light and delicate, filled with pastry cream, and topped with a dollop of rich chocolate...mmmmm. She tells you how to make your puffs to perfection, how to make your filling, how to fill the little puffs when you're done. You can even use the recipe to make eclairs, which are basically elongated puffs. I want to make some, but then I want to give (most of) them away, because they aren't as healthy as baby carrots. They look ever so much more sexy than carrots and dip, though.

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