Miniature King Cakes A La Mode with Bourbon Creole Cream Cheese Ice Cream

Miniature King Cakes A La Mode with Bourbon Creole Cream Cheese Ice Cream

Beau

There's always a reason to eat in this damn city.  Most people in the country are trying to work off the holiday pounds or are just getting back into a normal life routine, but in New Orleans today, we're celebrating Twelfth Night, which marks the end of Christmas and the beginning of Carnival. Which means king cake. And more booze. Oh, dear.  

Of all the "party" holidays, Mardi Gras is hands down my favorite.  On Halloween there's too much pressure to find the perfect costume and mine usually sucks.  On New Year's Eve you're expected to do something amazing with all of your closest friends that will set off the New Year right, but I mostly find myself celebrating by finishing my second bottle of wine and watching fireworks with whoever didn't go home for the holidays.   Which is super fun, but not quite *watching the ball drop in NYC while being fed caviar from David Beckham himself* fun.  

Mardi Gras is different, though.  You don't have ...

Pistachio Fig Ice Cream Sandwiches

Pistachio Fig Ice Cream Sandwiches

Beau
Probably Baking

I put butter in ice cream because I simultaneously hate & love myself.  It's complicated.

This week I finished my second-to-last EVER semester of college and I *finally* learned how to tie a neck tie.  So, in honor of getting one step closer to being an unemployed, poor and probably sad college graduate who can look cute in a tie,I get to eat as many of these buttery-pistachio-cold-figgy things as I want, damn it.  I'll need the extra calories for this long, cold New Orleans winter, anyway (just kidding its hot and muggy outside right now and its really messing up my Christmas spirit).

I chose to put figs in this ice cream because they are a Christmas thing, but it wasn't until literally yesterday that I looked into why they are a Christmas thing. They're in season in the summer, but it's December. I don't know, its just weird.  Yes, I know the song that goes "something, something, figgy pudding" is like a Christmas anthem but I wanted to know WHY. Well, surprise, surprise... 

Chocolate Chip Grand Marnier Cake with Goat Cheese Buttercream

Chocolate Chip Grand Marnier Cake with Goat Cheese Buttercream

Beau
Probably Baking

 This is one of those cakes you should bring to a party and casually place in front of everyone and say something like "Oh, it was easy, I do this stuff all the time *hair flip*."  I would go into grand detail about why this cake made me so happy, but I think the title kind of sums it up.  For those of you who aren't familiar with Grand Marnier, its the fancy orange liqueur that gets put into your top shelf margarita when you have the extra cash to spend on getting drunk in style.  It goes shockingly well with the goat cheese buttercream, which may or may not be the real star...

Sweet Corn + Butterscotch Cookies

Sweet Corn + Butterscotch Cookies

Beau
Probably Baking

I'm all about the standard Thanksgiving fare.  Give me turkey and gravy, different kinds of stuffing, cranberry sauce, etc.  I love it all, and will eat it until I feel adequately gluttonous.  This year, though, I thought it would be fun to mix things up a bit. These cookies were my attempt at doing so.  No one cried, or yelled, or told me I wasn't American because I put corn into a cookie.  There were no screams of "socialist!" or comments about how my liberal views of appropriate tThanksgiving cuisine were ruining traditional family values.  So, that was cool.  

Quick profile of these cookies...

White Chocolate & Peanut Butter Pie (GF)

White Chocolate & Peanut Butter Pie (GF)

Beau
Probably Baking

It's now the week of Thanksgiving and I have hardly had any time to plan what I'm making for my family's thing and Matt's family's thing because school has just been completely life-absorbing and every day feels like my soul is being sucked out - dementor style - by my professors.  So, in need of something both easy-to-make and calorically substantial enough to warm my numb heart, I made a peanut butter pie! Seriously, the words bring a smile to my face. Peanut. Butter. Pie.

In my opinion (I'm always right), the beauty of peanut butter pie comes from the balance of flavors and texture.  It needs to be sweet and salty - silky smooth and crunchy - fluffy and rich - mess any of those up and you've just ruined my whole god damned day. And it was already ruined from the aforementioned soul-eating professors.  I feel like I ...

Apple Fritter Doughnut Holes with Caramel Glaze

Apple Fritter Doughnut Holes with Caramel Glaze

Beau
Probably Baking

My favorite doughnut is without a doubt the apple fritter.  I feel like I should capitalize its name to give it full due respect but that would be silly.  The apple fritters I grew up eating were weirdly crispy, but also gooey on the inside and bursting with heinously artificial apple flavoring, which tasted like canned apple pie filling was just dumped into the batter.  I loved them...

Black Forest Bacon Brownies

Black Forest Bacon Brownies

Beau
Probably Baking

Ok, I know, putting bacon on anything and everything possible is so 2012.  But look, I don't care, these are awesome.  

These brownies have the perfect balance of salty and sweet, as well as a gooey fudgey texture that really just makes them irresistible, like actually irresistible, like I ate seven of these. :/

Anyway, pitting the cherries is a real bitch but its worth it.  Canned cherries just won't cut it. They really won't.  Do what I did and set up your laptop in your kitchen with Scandal or How To Get Away With Murder (shout out to Shonda!! Love u!) and just start cutting these...

Candied Citrus Peels

Candied Citrus Peels

Beau

I'm all about easy ways to make food look way more elegant and refined than it really is. I mean, come on, it's half the work for twice the praise.  Candied citrus peels do just that.  People are always like "oooo, aaaaah" and what not but it's hella fricken easy and equally delicious.  

Also, if you ever make a cake and don't have the energy to do a perfect job of frosting it, just throw some of these on there and cover up any imperfections.  I ate too many of these today. Whatever...

Dark Chocolate + Stout Bread Pudding

Dark Chocolate + Stout Bread Pudding

Beau
Probably Baking

Bread + Chocolate + Beer 

I feel like that could be the title to my memoir.  "Bread + Chocolate + Beer: the Tragic Story of a Young Life Gone Terribly Awry."  But for realsies, this bread pudding is bomb.  It's super gooey, and when eaten warm it suddenly becomes the most satisfyingly comforting comfort foods of all time...

Sweet Potato + Pomegranate Cupcakes

Sweet Potato + Pomegranate Cupcakes

Beau
Probably Baking

Do y'all remember when pomegranates became a thing? Like there was definitely a year, I'm gonna make a stab and say it was 2007, when pomegranates arrived.  Suddenly, everyone was walking around drinking those weirdly curvy bottles of "Pom" and saying things like "it's a super food" and "have you heard of this thing called 'twitter'?"  Anyway, its been a while since then but I'm glad these little guys got their spot light cause otherwise  these cupcakes would probably have been made with cranberries and no offense to cranberries but they really aren't that hip...

Satsuma Soak Cake

Satsuma Soak Cake

Beau
Probably Baking

Y’all. Satsumas are in season and they are delicious and if you don’t know what they are read this and also I’m sorry for you.  The 411 is that they’re basically a small, easy-to-peel, super sweet, unnervingly juicy and addictive orange.  I feel like everyone in south Louisiana (besides me because whatever) has a memory of sitting under a grandmother or aunt’s satsuma tree in some picturesque southern backyard picking satsumas straight off the tree and laughing with their play friends as the juice dribbled down their chins and into their laps. Or something like that. 

Anyway, the above scene isn’t nearly as cute when I do it as a grown adult male so I’m over it and instead went to a supermarket (Whole Foods, because the farmers market is on Saturday morning and sometimes I do things on Friday night and can’t make it OK get off my case) and bought a 5 lb box for like $6, which it turns out is the perfect amount to make a bundt cake that needs to literally soak in the blood of these beauties.  If you aren’t able to locate...