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Blue Velvet Cake- Bettey Crocker

Baby Cakes: Hosting A Gender Reveal Party

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Here’s a fun and memorable way expectant parents are revealing the gender of their baby.

alexis+dave+wedding

SNEAK PEEK  | Our daughter Alexis got married last spring, and now she and her husband Dave (pictured here on their wedding day) are expecting a baby. Last week, they went for their 20-week ultrasound. This imaging technique is used five months into a pregnancy to determine whether a fetus is developing normally. At 20 weeks, it can also detect whether the baby is a boy or a girl—if the gender is visible, of course.

Lexi and Dave wanted to know the sex of their baby. And they wanted to share the experience of finding out what it is with members of their immediate family, so this past weekend we had what’s called a gender reveal party at our house.

Here’s what Lexi and Dave did to ensure the baby’s gender was kept under wraps (and unknown even to them) until the appropriate moment.

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Ice Cream Sliders

An Appetite for Easy: Sweet Ice Cream Sliders

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Could there be anything easier than making tiny ice cream sandwiches for dessert?

Ice Cream Sliders

 

 

EASY & DELISH | Most of us have snacked on hamburger sliders before, those meat filled mini burgers on tiny buns that are gone in two bites flat, but have you ever had an ice cream slider? I have. At a dinner party recently, our hostess brought out bowls filled with different flavours of ice cream and a sampler of cookies and invited us to build our own ice cream sliders for dessert. What a great idea! Read more

Sea Salt caramels- mymansbelly

How To Make Perfect Caramels In The Microwave

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Yes, it really is possible to make super yummy sea salt caramels in the microwave.

Sea Salt caramels- mymansbelly

 

EASY & DELISH | When my daughter got married last May, she asked her aunt and me to make chocolate bark and fleur de sel caramels for the wedding reception. The bark was no problem; I’d made it before, and nothing could be easier (CLICK HERE for our recipes). The caramels made me nervous. There’s kitchen science involved in producing caramels that are both soft and chewy.

So we put off making these paper-wrapped sweets until a few days before the wedding—then muddled through using a recipe we found on Epicurious.com (CLICK HERE to get it). Only after the big day did I learn that we could have saved ourselves both time and concern by making our candy in the microwave. Read more

Flourless Cloud Cake by Ri

Bake The Best Gluten Free Chocolate Cake

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This simple-to-make chocolate dessert topped with whipped cream is so rich you’ll be shocked to learn it’s gluten free.

Flourless Cloud Cake by Ri

EASY & ICONIC | Just when I’d thought there couldn’t possibly be another dessert recipe out there that was both dead easy—as in taking no time to make—and iconic—as in representing the absolute apex of a particular type of sweet—I run into Richard Sax’s indulgent chocolate cloud cake, a flourless treat so rich and satisfying that serious chocoholics will have little trouble choosing between it and sex. Read more

Make The Berry Best Dessert In Under 5

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Clafoutis is unquestionably the most delicious and fruity dessert you can make in less than five minutes.

Fresh berries (plate clipping path)

 

EASY & DELISH | Some people call French clafoutis (pronounced cla-FOU-tee) a pancake-like dessert, while others say it’s more flanlike. No matter how you describe it, if it’s made with any fruit besides black cherries, it’s technically not a clafoutis but a flaugnarde—though no one we know, including superstar cookbook author Donna Hay, whose recipe we’ve adapted here, uses that term. So we’ll continue to call our favourite summer dessert—the easiest/sweetest thing you’ll ever make—a mixed berry clafoutis too. Read more

Sweet Surprise

Inexpensive Tortes That Take The Cake

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If you’re in a rush or dessert from scratch isn’t your thing, one of these inexpensive frozen tortes will take the cake.

Sweet Surprise

 

EASY & DELISH |  Whenever I have a dinner party and, pressed for time, serve the attractive ready-made gluten-free dessert pictured here, my guests are often astonished to learn it was purchased at a home furnishings store. “No way,” was how one incredulous friend who knows my penchant for purchasing sweets put it recently. “I would have sworn you picked it up at some pricey little Euro-type bakery.” Read more

How To Ripen Fresh Bananas In 15 Minutes

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Who knew that if you needed to, you could ripen bananas this quickly.

Yellow Bananas- shutterstock

 

EASY & DELISH | Several weeks ago, I was invited to a dinner party and asked to supply dessert. I wanted to take along Caren McSherry’s no-brainer five-minute banana ice cream (CLICK HERE for the recipe) but did not have overripe bananas on hand, could not find any at the grocery store and lacked the (several days) time it takes to force-ripen fresh bananas in a brown bag.

I was explaining this predicament to my foodie friend Anne when she suggested I speed-ripen my bananas by popping them the oven. “This trick is so easy,” she told me. “And oven-ripened bananas taste just as sweet as ones that have been left to over ripen on their own. I love they way they look, too. Their transformation is so radical it makes me think of magic.”

Here’s how Anne ripens bananas, and what yellow bananas look like after they’ve been in the oven. Read more

Bacon Candy in a Cone - C. Rule

Pig Heaven: How To Make Bacon Candy

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Nothing is quicker than makin’ bacon candy, and nothing tastes as smoky and sweet. (RECIPE)

Bacon Candy in a Cone - C. RuleEASY & DELISH | Over the holidays, I had the good fortune to enjoy handcrafted confections from our top local candy makers—Thomas Haas, Chocolate Arts and Beta 5 included—and while all of this candy was a pleasure for my buds, none of it was remotely as memorable or addictive as the sweet bacon treats made by my dear friend Teresa Syrnyk. Read more

Fresh Strawberry and Pineapple Popsicles - iStock

All-Fruit Popsicles Are Easy & Quick to Make

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Make super fresh all-fruit popsicles from scratch in a few minutes flat.

Fresh Strawberry and Pineapple Popsicles - iStock

 

WASTE NOT | My favourite way to enjoy extra overripe fruit happens to be the most fun and easy: a quick whirr in the blender, and I’ve got the makings for nutritious fruit popsicles. All-fruit popsicles look (they’re typically textured) and taste nothing like the coloured sugar-water popsicles most of us are familiar with, and they are certainly healthier. You can buy expensive all-fruit popsicles at the grocery store, but why would you want to when they are so simple to make from scratch? Read more

Toasted coconut marshmallows - Laura Flowers

Marshmallows Are Super Easy To Make

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Gourmet marshmallows are sooo easy to make and sooo damn addictive.

Toasted coconut marshmallows - Laura Flowers

 

EASY & DELISH | Made-from-scratch marshmallows are having a moment. That’s the headline that jumped out at me last month in T, the New York Times style magazine. This may be what T’s editors think, but actually, among foodies, fresh-made marshmallows have been enjoying a moment since 2008, which is around the time Vancouver’s Butter Baked Goods began making and marketing its delectable gourmet marshmallows ($7.99 for 10) to an appreciative audience—and famous food bloggers like Deb Perelman of smittenkitchen.com could be found whipping up marshmallows and visually documenting the process on their websites. Read more