Chocolate Tahini Spread

When you're not feeling the store and have extra tahini on hand this recipe is a lovely solution to a craving for Nutella! Not at all the same, but still quite delicious and well worth a try! I've mostly followed Brunch and Batter's recipe - which about half fills a jam jar for me - but feel free to check out the original if you want some coffee flavour on top of the chocolate!

Banana Pecan Muffins and Half Loaf

This recipe is based on my cardamom banana bread recipe, with minor modifications. If you're wanting to just make a loaf of banana pecan bread, then follow the baking instructions on the original recipe. 

Craisin Bread Pudding

This is an adaptation of my main bread pudding recipe to use up (and celebrate!) the craisin. (Also, to use up all those pesky heels from loaves of toast bread that so few people want to eat.) It makes for a lovely dessert or breakfast or midnight snack, and is a nice twist on a familiar classic. I hope you like it as much as we do!

Easy Bread Pudding

Bread pudding is an old favorite and a great way to use up leftover or old bread. I make this particular recipe when my freezer's filling up with toast bread heels - it's so much nicer having that space taken up with bread pudding instead! This recipe is loosely based on Ellen Marie's original recipe, with tweaks to maximize my enjoyment of the end product. Feel free to give it a try or to follow the original recipe, to each their own!

Easy Brownies

This is largely the Gimme Delicious recipe, but obviously with adjustments to better fit my family's tastes. Try this out, try out the original, do as you feel led - there are very few wrong ways to get your chocolate fix!

Cinnamon Honey Cake

This recipe is largely based on Arman Liew's excellent recipe, but with a couple of additions to spice up the end result. This honey-forward dessert brings back warm memories from three continents for me, I hope it brings similarly warm feelings to you if you give it a try!

Cardamom Banana Bread

Once upon a time I lived where my books live, including the dear booklet of family recipes my paternal grandma helped make before she passed. I'm hoping one day to share that recipe here, but until that's possible I've been using my adaptation of Olga's great recipe. My main changes have been to make the recipe more aromatic and fragrant with the addition of the cardamom and orange blossom water, but the original is definitely worth a try too if you don't like either of those. Whatever you do, enjoy!

Cardamom Mug Cake

I'm not sure how I'm jumping on board this trend train so late, but here I am! My husband is away, but my cravings are not, so mug cakes have answered my need for a dessert without a bunch of tempting leftovers! This recipe is for my favorite version (so far!), but it's beautifully flexible - you could easily sub in cinnamon for the cardamom and coconut milk for the milk to get a very different, delicious cake! If you're late to the mug cake phenomenon, definitely give it a try!

Banana Pecan Muffins

This is a great, versatile recipe largely based on Sally McKenny's lovely recipe. I've tweaked the spicing to better fit my personal preferences, and also made it easier to make vegan when needful. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!

Spiced Chocolate Peanut Butter No Bakes

 This recipe is another old favorite that I'm putting up so that I don't have to wonder about exact measurements if the original recipe ever gets taken down. I hope you enjoy this as much as I have over the years!

Coconut Rice Pudding

I've been playing around with rice pudding recipes, and so far this is my favorite! It is largely this recipe with a few additions. I hope you like it as much as I do!

Easy Pumpkin Pie

This is a quick and easy pumpkin pie recipe based on this recipe. (I added a couple of things based on my own preferences!) This does not include directions for the pie crust - I've got a family recipe I'm not allowed to share for that! (And to be entirely honest, when I'm in North America I go the easy route and just buy pre-made crusts! Quick 'n easy!)

Syrnaya Paskha

This is my favorite Paschal recipe! As much as I enjoy kulich, kulich without syrnaya paskha ("cheesy pascha" in Russian) is just not that exciting. Like my kulich recipe, I've been making this so long that I've forgotten who I inherited this recipe from. (If it was you, dear reader, then remind me!) This makes plenty of syrnaya paskha - if you're not gifting any you might consider halving the recipe. This is an unabashedly americanized recipe and makes a sweet, creamy spread. Traditional Eastern European syrnaya paskha is made with творог or farmer's cheese and isn't quite as creamy or sweet (although I have cut the sugar if I'm remembering correctly).

Egg Custard

A quick and easy recipe for a lovely little dessert for two! (Adapted from this recipe.)

Ground Cherry Compote

I recently moved halfway around the world and find myself almost surrounded by mounds of ground cherries being sold by street vendors. Whether it's the roadside outside my apartment complex or the corner near work massive piles of ground cherries abound. I've been enjoying snacking on them, but once I figured out what they were called I started wondering what else I could do with them. (BTW, it's more like 'what aren't they called' - physalis peruviana or ground cherries are also known as Cape gooseberries, Peruvian cherries, and golden berries, among other things.)

Kulich

If you've been to Pascha in Russia, then you've probably seen the dozens and dozens of kulichi in baskets waiting to be blessed on the holiday. They're a standard part of every Pascha basket and Bright Week meal, and are pleasantly versatile, working well when fresh and slathered in syrnaya paskha and when older, toasted, and eaten with butter, jam, or another spread.

Apple Cake with Caramel Sauce

Okay, so here's the deal: I'm not a big fan of baked apples. Apple pie? Meh. Apple crumble? Pass the crumble please! All the same, when I was looking for a dessert to make for Sunday lunch at church this weekend I ran across an apple cake recipe that made me hungry. (I think it's the repressed American inside me - he just can't help wanting to be free now and again ;-).) Halfway through the baking process I started wondering what kind of a horrible mistake I'd made - apples? In a cake??? But this cake is the real deal! I can no longer say I hate baked apple products, 'cause this was amazing. Especially with the caramel sauce, but even without it!

Ginger Cookies

It's funny how the change of seasons can bring about a change in tastes and desires. Fall comes and I crave all things pumpkin, and then American Thanksgiving comes and goes and suddenly all I can think about are these ginger cookies :-). And since the Advent Fast gets going shortly after Thanksgiving, having a vegan recipe is a must! This is a tweaked version of a recipe that can be found here.

Pumpkin Cheesecake Bars

This is a variation on a theme - Sophia's cheesecake - that grew out of my extreme disappointment in a pumpkin dessert recipe I tried out a bit ago. (Trust me, this is way better than that was - I'm still surprised anyone I served them to ate them!) I've since done two or three experimental batches, and I think this is the final version of this recipe. If it's not, however, I'll be sure to post any future adjustments I make!

Pumpkin Masala Pie

When I originally planned my menu for this year's Canadian Thanksgiving dinner I had thought to just make straight up pumpkin pie for dessert. As I was making the first pie, however, I realized that a lot of the spices for the regular pie were the same as what's in the tea masala I brought with me from eastern Africa when I moved to the States after high school. That led to my second pie, the pumpkin masala one! I may be modifying the recipe later depending on how the pie actually tastes tomorrow night, but my sampling of the batter makes me think that this will be a keeper! (And perhaps something to pull out in the future for St. Thomas' main feast day since it falls in mid-October!)