ericasweettooth.com

My intention was to get this post up before Halloween since Reese’s Pieces colors go very well with Halloween themes, but luckily peanut butter never goes out of style and we’re still rocking yellow, orange, and brown for the month of November too! The layers you see are boxed dark chocolate brownies topped with peanut butter cheesecake made with peanut butter cups, a chocolate-peanut butter swirl, and crushed Reese’s Pieces on top. Cheesecake brownies are a lot easier in my opinion than taking on the task of making a whole cheesecake, plus the ridiculous-ness of the layers makes them just extravagant enough for a birthday celebration! The reason I added “take 2” to the title of this blog post is that I actually have made peanut butter cheesecake brownies before.

It’s so fun to combine my passion for baking with my passion for my profession as a pediatric dentist and small business owner, and I’m happy to share the summery love! Bake for 8-10 minutes, allow them to cool for 5 minutes on the pan, then transfer to a wire wrack and allow cookies to completely cool before decorating. Mix together the sugar, meringue powder, water, and vanilla in an electric mixer until smooth (about 2 minutes). Outline the cookies with the green, wait a few minutes and then add the white line.

It seems like over the past few years bachelorette parties have evolved to be much more than just a weekend out in NYC that I had 5 years ago. For my friend Pamela’s bachelorette party in Vegas last month, we had a packed itinerary for the weekend, coordinated outfits, several hashtags, and even an overall theme for the weekend: unicorns! I could have tried to figure out how to make these a bit more risqué for a bachelorette party, but I was enamored with how cute they were, so I decided to just keep them PG (I’ll save my phallic-shaped baking endeavors for another time). The flowers could be made from store-bought colored fondant instead of royal icing if you wanted to keep things simple (they sell little cutters and fondant isn’t too different than play-doh).

Maybe it’s because biscotti is Italian and has European flair to it, but it’s always been a cookie to me that seems inherently chic. It’s not overwhelmingly sweet like many American desserts, and since it’s usually served with coffee, I think it can even be appropriate for breakfast. The first time I made this biscotti was for Mother’s Day for my Mom who’s a huge Almond Joy fan. If there’s an Almond Joy lover in your life that you want to impress with a more “elevated” cookie, you should give these a try!