Bluebonnet Baker

On Saturday, my nephew David turns 5. Five years ago, my husband and I had just disembarked from a cruise ship, and barely made it through customs (where cell phones are not allowed) when my phone began to ring. I answered it to hear both my mother’s tears, and Davey’s first cries too. There I stood, in the middle of a sidewalk at New York City’s cruise pier, crying my eyes out.

Four months later, I met Davey for the first time. We gathered at Canyon Lake, Texas, a place that my sister and I spent the majority of our childhood summers, spring breaks, and long weekends. Chellee and Jeremy walked out of their cabin, and put a little baby wearing only a diaper into my arms. He promptly threw up on me.

Just a week ago I stood in this beautiful Walnut orchard as a guest of the California Walnut Board and learned all of the hard work, blood, sweat, and tears that goes into growing 99% of our nation’s walnuts in the tiny farming communities surrounding Sacramento. I can’t tell you how beautiful it was. I …

Today is Mother’s Day. I am not yet a mother, but three women who have shown me how it’s done leave me no doubt that I will be a strong one when the time comes. And when I falter, they will be there to support me.

Who am I talking about? My mother, my nanny, and my sister. Today, my post is about them. They are three of the most precious women in my life, for a myriad of reasons. I hope by the end of this post, they know how just how precious.

Hummingbird Cake is one of those recipes that’s uniquely Southern, and found nearly every springtime at someone’s baby shower, wedding, or barbecue.

Rumor has it the cake’s name comes from its over-the-top sweetness – so sweet that there’s no way a hummingbird could resist it’s sugary lure.

Personally, it reminds me a lot of carrot cake, but instead of getting its sweetness from carrots, it gets it from fresh pineapple, ripe bananas, and warmly roasted walnuts. They’re each equal stars of this show.

You might be looking at that photo and thinking to yourself, “Amber, that’s just another chocolate chip walnut cookie. Yum, but, come on! It’s been done!”. Well, my friend, you’d be right, except that that right there is a Levain Bakery chocolate chip walnut cookie, that I made at home.

The Levain Bakery is famous in this area, and honestly, beyond. It’s been the subject of New York Times articles, Food Network Shows, and many a food blogger discussion.

These cookies, they’re special. They’ve got weight. They’ve got this outer.. shell, for lack of a better word. When you bite into the cookie, the outer layer has a crunch to it, a bite. But it’s ever so slight, and gives way immediately to a texture somewhere between cake and chewy that I thought I’d never be able to duplicate.

It’s no secret that New York City is filled with delightful, delectable, delicious restaurants. I’ve had many good, many great meals in the City that are worth the buzz that’s spoken about them. None have been so memorable to me as the two meals I’ve shared at Hundred Acres. We first wandered into Hundred Acres …

If you’re like me, Easter snuck up on you this year, despite it being late this April. April’s always a big month for me to remember stuff. First, my brother in law, David, has his birthday. He was born on April 4th, at 4:44 p.m. No really! To say 4 is his lucky number is, …

Earth Day is about celebrating the planet that we live on. The Nature Conservancy came up with the idea of having a Picnic for the Planet. They’re encouraging communities around the globe to come together and enjoy the great outdoors, good food, and each other and celebrate the beauty that is Nature this Earth Day. …

Today, Green Mountain Coffee is featuring my recipe for Wild Mountain Blueberry Coffee Pound Cake with Blueberry Coffee White Chocolate drizzle sauce. It’s a mouthful in more than one way, and OH so delicious.

Would you like to win Wild Mountain Blueberry coffee to go in the recipe?

You might be asking yourself, what the heck is a cascarone (Cask-ca-roe-neh)? A cascarone is a hollowed egg that has been dyed and filled with confetti, and then resealed using tissue paper. What is the purpose of cascarones, you might now ask yourself. In South Texas and Mexico, cascarones are as synonymous with Easter as dyed hard boiled eggs are in the rest of North America.

In doing research for this pots, I found that cascarones have actually been around hundreds of years, maybe even thousands. Some people believe they even started in Roman times. The egg symbolizes fertility, which is what Spring is all about. No matter which era we’re talking about, to have a cascarone broken on top of your head (covering you in confetti) is meant to be a sign of good will and good fortune for the rest of the year.

Plus, it’s really fun to break eggs on top of your friends’ heads and cover them in brightly colored confetti!