Chocolate-Flecked Orange-Scented Madeleines

Is there anything dreamier than a tasty little treat that is somewhere between a buttery cookie and a tender cake, scented with a whisper of citrus, and sweetly freckled with tiny bits of bold dark and creamy milk chocolate? To get the recipe for these delicious Chocolate-Flecked Orange-Scented Madeleines, visit my latest Font Feast post on Ciera Design!

Chocolate Surprise Cookies (and a little interview!)

We have a really delicious cookie bakery in town called, creatively enough, Cookies Cookies. They make the best cookies, the kind that are as big as your hand and perfectly chewy: sugar cookies covered in sweet, white frosting and colored sprinkles, cinnamon and sugar snickerdoodles, oatmeal raisin, and soft, frosted gingersnaps. But our favorite kind of cookie is the Chocolate Surprise Cookie, a rich, chocolate cookie whose delicious fudge frosting is hiding a luscious, gooey marshmallow underneath. I finally figured out how to make them at home, so we can eat them whenever we want to! You can find the full recipe and more photos on my latest post for Best Friends For Frosting!

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And in other parts of the world wide web, my sweet and talented friend Joy featured me in the Bright Lights series on her lovely blog, Frock Files. Ever wanted to know how I met my husband, or what kind of perfume I wear? Wonder no more! Head over to Frock Files and check out the interview!

Hot Fudge Milkshakes

I have always really loved going to Disneyland. I grew up in Las Vegas, and we made annual pilgrimages to the magic kingdom; if we were really lucky, we went more than once in the same year. I love the rides and the atmosphere, the landscaping and faux architecture, and of course, the food. I have a mental checklist of foods I must eat while at the park, and I'll miss out on rides and make my family wait around on the crowded sidewalk just so I can get a Dole Whip float or teriyaki beef skewer. We took our little family to Disneyland last November over Thanksgiving break, and I discovered a new must-have treat: The Nob Hill Chill. I knew when I ordered it that it was going to be good: I figured the people at the Ghirardelli ice cream shop in California Adventure would know a thing or two about chocolate shakes. But this went above and beyond my expectations, and is hands-down the best, most delicious chocolate milkshake I've ever had!! And, with a little homemade hot fudge sauce, it's a breeze to recreate at home--the Happiest Place on Earth.

The Hello Social: A Recap!

It has been almost a month since I got home from Alt Summit, and it has taken me this long to recover! So many talented people to meet, so much knowledge to absorb, so many parties to attend! As you know, Lexy from The Proper Pinwheel and I threw one heck of a bash to start things off--The Hello Social. It went off without a hitch, and to call it a smashing success is almost putting it lightly. Those of you who were able to attend know how fantastic it was! For those that couldn't make it, here's a little recap, Instagram style!

Everything about the Hello Social was amazing, from the food to the decor to the lovely space at West Elm!
Left to Right, Top to Bottom: gorgeous wooden utensils courtesy of Sucre Shop; one of many enormous party balloons, complete with fringy tassles, from Geronimo Balloons; pom pom garland by me; flavored syrups for the hot chocolate bar; Vanilla Mint, Bolivian Bittersweet, Belgian Milk Chocolate, and Spiced Ginger Hot Chocolate Sticks from The Ticket Kitchen; pastries from Les Madeleines; the West Elm at City Creek, looking stunning; chalkboard name tags from Lexy; the crowded-and-gorgeous West Elm

Every party-goer got an awesome swag bag stuffed with cool items from our sponsors!
Left to Right, Top to Bottom: discount cards from Vintage Confections, a darling letterpressed print from Foxtrot Press, and a vintage postcard from Sarah Fritzler; Hello totes from Whimsy Bags; washi tape from Wishy Washi Tape, passes to The Vintage Whites Market next month, and Hi stickers from Em Dash Paper Co (formerly Sparrow Nest Script); Sarah's postcards; wooden Hello sign from Say Hello and heart print from Caravan Shoppe; Foxtrot Press print and Hello pencil

Smilebooth played a huge part at Alt Summit; they were at some cool party or some groovy lounge snapping fun photos for three straight days. And we were thrilled that they kicked off their Alt Summit 2013 experience with a stop at the Hello Social! You can see all of the Hello Social Smilebooth photos on West Elm City Creek's Facebook page.

What's a party without door prizes?? We had some truly generous sponsors give away incredible prizes to a few lucky party-goers!
Left to Right, Top to Bottom: Hello pillow cover from Michelle Dwight Designs; 1 of 3 Cricut Machines from Provo Craft; an 8x10 Hello Print from Amy Sullivan; a few luxury DIY surprise boxes from For the Makers; a baguette pan from The Little French Bakery; (not pictured: limited edition totes from West Elm Salt Lake City, and a Hello sweatshirt from yours truly)

We had a veritable army of ultra-talented graphic designers working with us on all of the digital and printed materials; we could not have pulled off such a fantastic event without their lovely work!
Left to Right: digital fliers and all coordinating materials by Sarah Fritzler; Big Thanks swag bag card by Sarah Khandjian; Party Starting Conversation Challenge card and temporary tattoos by Kristie Garner

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A huge, huge, HUGE thank you to everyone we worked with on the Hello Social: our graphic designers, our sponsors, Smilebooth, and most of all, West Elm--they helped all of our crazy ideas come together in amazing ways!

See you all in 2014!

Chocolate Lush

When I asked my friend Kristan if she had a recipe for Chocolate Lush, she laughed. "Yes," she said, "but I don't call it that. I call it Robert Redford." When I described this dessert to my sister, she said, "Oh, I've had that before, but it was called Tom Brady." The little teenage girls I served it to giggled when I told them it's many names; they decided to call it One Direction. My friend Sandi refers to it as George Michael, and I think Channing Tatum is a particularly tasty name for this delicious dessert! It has layers of buttery pecan shortbread, tangy sweetened cream cheese, rich chocolate pudding, and fluffy Cool Whip--and by any name, it is scrumptious!

Using My HP SpectreOne

A few weeks ago, I gave you guys my top 5 reason for loving the new HP SpectreOne AiO: it's a wireless all-in-one, it's a breeze to set up, it has a sleek design, it's super fast, and it comes with great programs already loaded onto it. Like Adobe Photoshop Elements, my favorite easy-to-use photo editing program. Adobe PSE is what I've been using for the past year to edit all of the photos for my blog, as well as our family and vacation photos, so I was thrilled to find out that my new HP desktop came with an even newer version of Elements than the one I was using on my other computer. As soon as I took the computer out of the box, plugged it in, and turned it on, I started uploading and editing photos for the Experience Board I made for HP at Alt Summit, and for Lulu the Baker blog posts. In the picture above, I'm actually editing a photo of Oreo Truffles for the blog post I published on Wednesday!

The HP SpectreOne AiO also comes with Adobe Premiere Elements, which is just like Photoshop Elements, but instead of pictures, you can easily edit movies and videos!! I'm so excited to keep exploring this amazing computer!

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I wrote this review as part of a brand ambassador program with HP. I received the HP SpectreONE AiO as compensation for my participation in the program. All opinions are my own.

Recipe Redux: Oreo Truffles

I've been so excited to re-post the recipe for these yummy Oreo Truffles from a few years ago that I haven't bothered to come up with any clever little story about them. But here's what I do know: they are really good in that, "Oh, these must be soooo bad for me!" kind of way; they only have 3 ingredients (not counting sprinkles, but since when do sprinkles count as bona fide ingredients?), so they are really easy too; and if you make them for your friends and family, they will luuuuurv you forever. Like, forever forever.

Washi Tape Heart Garland

With Valentine's Day just around the corner, I had given up hope of making any kind of cute Valentine's decor this year. Somehow, holidays and important occasions always have a way of sneaking up on me! But as I was laying on the couch watch The Amazing Spiderman on Friday night, this super quick, super easy, super adorable washi tape heart garland popped into my head. Yes, that's what I do when watching blockbusters--brainstorm! With just a handful of common craft supplies and about 15 minutes, you can make this sweet little bit of Valentine's decor that is cute enough to stay up all year!

Classroom Valentines from Minted

My favorite part of Valentine's Day has always been the elementary school Valentine swap! When I was little, I loved when we got to make giant, heart-shaped paper envelopes or shoe-boxes covered with tissue paper and stickers for our classmates to stuff little tokens of friendship into. I loved opening each little envelope and each cute, store-bought valentine folded in half and sealed with a shiny, red heart sticker. I loved hunting for conversation hearts and heart-shaped cherry suckers and red hots and those puffy chocolate hearts filled with peanut butter.

Now that my kids are in school, I still look forward to the classroom Valentine swap, but now my favorite part isn't the candy or the handmade mailboxes, it's the cute Valentines! I've tried my hand at making them for my kids in the past, but they always turn out just a little less cute than I envisioned, and they inevitably take mommy all day to put together! Luckily, Minted, my favorite place to buy family Christmas cards (and other good stuff), has adorable classroom Valentines this year! I let my kids look through the website and pick their favorites, then we customized them with their names and a cute picture, and they magically appeared on our doorstep a few days later. Here's what we came up with:

Flourless Chocolate Cake with Salted Caramel Sauce

In December, just a few days before Christmas, we said good-bye to our dear friends Marcelle and Dave as they packed up their family and headed down to Los Angeles for a new job. So many of our first memories in this town feature them prominently: they showed up late one summer evening to help us lay sod in our backyard because we desperately needed a hand and didn't know anyone in our neighborhood; when they didn't get chosen in the community garden lottery, we "rented" one of the raised beds in our backyard to them, and they grew lots and lots of radishes; Marcelle and I met at the sweet, family-owned blueberry farm 30 minutes away, babies and toddlers in tow, to pick gallons of juicy berries one July; I have a sheet of paper torn from a yellow legal pad with directions for canning whole tomatoes that Marcelle wrote for me one Indian Summer day in October when we picked every last tomato from my yard, and bottled dozens of quarts of beautiful, pinky-red Brandywines.

We have been blessed to share many, many memorable meals with them. At our last dinner together, mere days before they left, I made this flourless chocolate cake with salted caramel sauce for dessert in their honor; I had never had a flourless chocolate cake before I met Dave and Marcelle, and Marcelle was always trying out new recipes in search of the perfect one! I happen to think this recipe makes a flourless chocolate cake that is practically perfect in every way: thick and fudgy and creamy and smooth. It tastes like hot fudge sauce, which is high praise in my book! It was the perfect end to our farewell dinner--one more sweet memory with friends.

Airheads Conversation Hearts

I have loved candy for basically my whole life. The story goes that when I was a toddler, I used to cry and try to lunge out of the shopping cart when my mom wheeled me past the candy aisle at the grocery store. Naturally, being a candy-aholic, I really look forward to all of the candy-centered holidays--like Valentine's Day! These not-so-little Airheads Conversation Hearts might be one of my favorite projects ever; they're easy to make and oh-so-cute! And yes, being made out of candy, they are delicious too!

A Ticket Kitchen Give-Away!

The give-away is now closed, and the winner is being contacted. Thanks for visiting, everybody!

So folks, it seems that just like that, *insert snap here*, January is over. And with it goes the Month of Citrus here on Lulu the Baker. I was beginning to think that I hadn't really done our Month of Citrus justice, but when I went back through the posts from earlier this month, there are lots of wonderful recipes and projects featuring tart and tangy citrus fruits. You can find them all, plus lots of citrus-related posts from yesteryear, by clicking HERE.

And now, without further ado, the theme for February is...

To kick off this month-long celebration of chocolatey goodness, I'm delighted to be partnering with The Ticket Kitchen to offer one very lucky reader a most-delicious chocolate experience. AmberLee, the lovely and generous founder of The Ticket Kitchen, carefully hand-crafts small batches of gourmet chocolate in tempting flavors like Spiced Ginger, Salted Caramel, and Bolivian Bittersweet, ready to be stirred into mugs of steaming milk to make absolutely amazing hot chocolate. AmberLee's chocolate Ticket Sticks were the star of the hot chocolate bar at the Hello Social in Salt Lake City last week, and every party-goer raved about the cute packaging and delicious flavor.

The Ticket Kitchen is generously offering the winner of this month's give-away a Ticket Kitchen Variety Entertainment Pack, a sweet little box filled with 4 Salted Caramel Ticket Sticks, 4 Belgian Milk Chocolate Ticket Sticks, and 4 French Dark Truffle Ticket Sticks--that's enough for 12 steaming mugs of mouth-watering, gourmet hot chocolate!

To enter, simply visit The Ticket Kitchen, and leave a comment on this post telling me which of their flavors of gourmet chocolate sounds the most tempting to you. The give-away will be open until Tuesday, February 5th at midnight. I'll randomly choose a winner and contact them by email* on Wednesday morning. The winner will have 24 hours to respond, after which time, if I haven't heard back, I'll choose another winner. Good luck everybody, and thanks to The Ticket Kitchen for being so darn awesome!

*If you are the winner and I can't find your email address anywhere, I'll choose another winner immediately. Do yourself a favor and either link your profile to your blog or email, or include your email address in your comment on this post.

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I was not in any way compensated for this post. I didn't even get any free chocolate for it! I just love AmberLee, I love The Ticket Kitchen, and I love you, readers. And that's the truth. xoxo