• Black Forest Pound Cake

    You know what a grown-up dessert is, don’t you?  My desserts get that label simply when my kids won’t eat them – usually because they aren’t sweet enough, or they have nuts or unfamiliar ingredients.  (Or booze, but that’s captain obvious, right?) This one is a grown-up dessert.  The chocolate is dark, it’s rich but light, and the sweetness comes from the whipped cream and cherry sauce. My kids did the “we’re gonna act like we like this so we don’t hurt your feelings” face…

  • Spinach Queso Dip

    So, let’s talk football. My family is obsessed. College football on Saturday, NFL on Sunday, Monday and even Thursday sometimes. High school football on Friday nights, fantasy football leagues everywhere I turn, and pick-up games of catch before and after Sunday dinner. Now, I like football as much as the next person (ok, well maybe a *tiny* bit less), but I have to say that I get more excited about the football parties and the tailgating than I do the actual games. And right at…

  • Charred Poblano White Chicken Chili

    I had a heck of a time naming this recipe for you, because – I don’t know.  This feels like a soup to me, but “White Chicken Chili Soup” sounds funny to me.  It’s one teeny-tiny step away from a Rachael Ray made up word, like “stoup” or “sammie” or something equally annoying. Disclaimer:  I love Rachael Ray, but I CAN’T DEAL with the made up words.  All of the time.   WHY, RACHAEL, WHY ALL OF THE PRETEND WORDS?  I know it’s a combo…

  • Fall Roundup

    My head is literally swimming with pumpkin and apple recipes.  I actually made a list of all of the fall baking I wanted to get up on Lemon Sugar before autumn slips away, and it’s kind of ridiculous.  There are 42 items. How in the world will I ever narrow that down?  I won’t.  You all are going to gain 75 pounds before Thanksgiving.  I apologize.  Really. It’s funny, because I keep rationalizing to myself that pumpkin is a healthy baking alternative, so these recipes aren’t…

  • Cinnamon Rolls

    Ahhh…cinnamon rolls.  I’m not sure that there’s anything better than a really good cinnamon roll, but in my opinion a good one is really hard to find, and a good recipe is even harder to find.  My biggest problem with most cinnamon roll recipes is that the bread part of the roll is usually bland, and the only cinnamon flavor you get comes from the filling itself.  This recipe, however, has cinnamon in the dough itself, so the bread is flavorful too.  But, if I’m…

  • Skillet Apple Pie

    There is just something about good apple pie that makes me happy.  Obviously, it’s delicious, but there’s a lot of nostalgia that comes with it, too.  The smells of baking apples, cinnamon and buttery pie crust take me back to my childhood and for a moment, I’m back in my Mom’s kitchen, or in one of my Grandma’s.  My Grandma used to sprinkle the leftover pie crust with butter, sugar and cinnamon and bake it – I can remember fighting over those little bites of…

  • Chocolate Cake with Vanilla Butter Cream

    It was a year ago today that I first made this cake.  Well, not this cake exactly – I can’t remember the exact flavor combination, but it was a big, heavy three-layer cake with fluffy frosting and glitter sprinkles everywhere.

  • Samoa Sheet Cake

    So, first – let me tell you about my weekend.  Then we’ll get to this DELICIOUS Samoa Cake recipe. I took a couple of extra days off before the long Memorial Day weekend, mostly to prepare for my daughter’s birthday party and get the girls to and from dance recital and rehearsal, which this year fell on Thursday and Friday evening.  NBD.  Right? Yeah. So Thursday brought some (SCARY) severe weather to my part of the world, and of course that only happens when my…

  • Lemon Meringue Cupcakes

    This is officially my favorite cupcake ever.  If you’ve been reading Lemon Sugar for a while, you realize how strong this statement actually is…I’ve made a LOT of cupcakes in recent years.  There are a lot of contenders for the top spot, but I’m pretty sure that these just knocked the Fauxstess Cupcakes down a notch. Clearly, I love a good lemon cake, but something about this one – this combination of flavors – it’s just over the top perfection.   The cake is SO…

  • Chocolate Macarons with Espresso Ganache Filling

    Welcome to my most intimidating moment in the kitchen, the macaron.  I’ve been reading about these little puppies forever in foodie-land, and was SO discouraged by the directions that I put it off.  But, you know what?  They aren’t that hard.  In fact, I’d go so far as to say they’re pretty darn easy – you just have to follow the directions.  I would recommend a digital scale for these to measure the ingredients, although I just saw someone make them on the Food Network that…

  • Oatmeal Cake Cupcakes

    Today is my Dad’s Birthday!  The whole family is headed out to celebrate with an early dinner at one of his favorite restaurants.  And though I know we’ll have dessert at the restaurant, I couldn’t let his birthday go by without baking for him, could I?  =) Dad’s favorite cake is a recipe of his mom’s, her amazing Oatmeal Cake.  That cake is awesome, it’s a spicy, coarse-crumbed cake with an ooey-gooey boiled coconut frosting.  For some reason, it didn’t work as a cupcake.  I tried, but it…

  • Three Layer Oreo Bars

    So my life goes like this:  yesterday my husband was out with his buddies, so I had an evening to myself.  The girls went to bed at 8pm, and I marched right now the stairs, made a big glass of iced tea, bought the girliest-chick-flick ever, and pulled out my big stack of neglected magazines.  It was awesome…for about three minutes. Precisely three minutes into my chick-flick, my youngest daughter was calling from the top of the stairs.  It was “fundering” and she was scared.…