Feast Your Eyes

The wafting smell of breakfast pastries baking in the oven is one of life's simplest pleasures – especially if that heavenly aroma is cinnamon-scented.

But why limit decadently gooey cinnamon rolls to the morning? The blog frites & fries offers up a solution -- all the flavors of a soft, chewy cinnamon roll infused into a cupcake.

The batter is a revised version of a butter cake recipe from Gourmet -- with the addition of cinnamon and golden brown sugar. After the cupcakes are baked, each is topped with a small dab of cream cheese frosting and a bite-sized chunk of cinnamon roll (sprinkles are so passé).

And if you want to eat these traditionally dessert-time treats for breakfast, we won't judge.

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Nothing on this plate is intensely complicated to make, yet everything has wonderfully layered and nuanced flavors. Soy-maple glaze gives a salty-sweet boost to mild tilapia, and a side of udon noodles keep the Asian riff going, especially when tossed with a spicy yuzu dressing. (Yuzu is a tangy, aromatic Japanese citrus fruit; you don't often see it fresh here in the U.S., but you can buy the bottled juice in Asian markets and some health food stores.)

The author used a recipe from Gourmet as his creative springboard but didn't worry about following the instructions to the letter. We encourage you to follow his lead whenever you encounter an interesting recipe: Play with flavor combinations, swap out ingredients, change the cooking method, experiment and explore. Make it your own.

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Luxurious and creamy, homemade hot cocoa is a step up from the instant powder we turn to so often during the winter months.

Inspired by a main character in a book who ordered hot chocolate at a ski chalet, the author of this recipe heated half and half until it started to boil then poured it over broken pieces of dark chocolate. Chocolate shavings top this decadent brew. While not as "instant" as its counterpart, the velvety texture of the chocolate mixed with the milk are well worth the wait.

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Meet the highly refined, French cousin of the ice cream sandwich: the profiterole.

Dainty round puffs of pâte à choux pastry are sliced in half for an ice or pastry cream filling, before being drizzled with a smooth chocolate sauce.

Choux pastry (we recommend this comprehensive recipe from "The Joy of Baking") is the same dough that brings us cream puffs, croquembouches, éclairs and the savory gougères. Multifunctional and scrumptious? That's something we can wholeheartedly endorse.

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For some reason, eggplant is often neglected by home cooks. Maybe because it's hard to get excited about it visually (dull brown when you want something bright green or red or orange), or because the texture and flavor can be unappealing if cooked incorrectly, or because it doesn't groove with the protein you took out to defrost, or just... because.

This dish is a game changer. It capitalizes on eggplant's plump shape, brings plenty of color into play, uses Middle Eastern ingredients to boost flavor and incorporates chopped eggplant flesh into the lamb stuffing, so texture isn't an issue. Deliciously clever.

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