Lynn April (Fresh April Flours)

Though there’s never a bad time for orange (in my opinion), this orange cake recipe usually makes me think of spring, so let’s bring on the sunshine, shall we? Butter + sugar is a pretty standard start to a cake, but I add in the orange marmalade here to help bring out ultra orange flavor. Each bite of this orange creamsicle cake is filled with a burst of orange flavor, a soft, moist crumb, and surrounded by luscious cream cheese frosting that adds just the perfect amount of additional orange flavor to categorize this cake as “dreamy.” It’s perfect for spring or summer, but let’s be honest, there really is never a bad time for orange, especially when it comes in the form of cake that reminds you of that childhood popsicle you could never get enough of.

I stewed for many years over whether or not to share my beloved recipe for carrot walnut cake with my readers (and the rest of the internet) because I worked so hard to achieve perfection (a bold statement, I know). This will insure that you have some very small and fine carrot bits that will get themselves into every nook and cranny of your carrot walnut cake. One self-proclaimed non-carrot cake lover even hesitated to take a piece, but I asked her to just try it and see if maybe it was other carrot cakes n’t like and whether or not my very best carrot walnut cake recipe to ever exist was the missing piece.

If you’ve made my homemade whipped cream, you can totally do this, because we’re essentially creating chocolate whipped cream, though it’s a bit heavier than classic whipped cream We topped with homemade whipped cream (bonus points: 1 carton of heavy whipping cream can make one batch of this easy chocolate mousse recipe and another of homemade whipped cream) and shaved chocolate, but this would also be great with fresh berries, extra chocolate sauce, homemade caramel sauce, whatever your chocolate loving heart desires. I believe there is a time and place for real, traditional, cooked mousse, and that time will come in a few weeks (the place is here at Fresh April Flours!!), but for now, let’s do this easy peasy style. Plus, when you find yourself with an easy recipe of chocolate mousse (much like an easy recipe of small batch chocolate chip cookies), it’s hard to resist the urge to make it ASAP.

These easy oven baked candied almonds are flavored with vanilla and cinnamon for a sweet, salty, and crunchy exterior, perfect for topping salads or ice cream sundaes or simply snacking. No joke, ya’ll– one pound of these sugar coated almonds, delightfully spiced with vanilla and cinnamon and just begging to be eaten, lasted about 30 hours in our house. You only need a few ingredients here: a pound of whole raw almonds, some granulated sugar, an egg white (which acts as the binder for the coating), a little salt, and the stars of the show– the cinnamon and vanilla. While we ate the entire batch of these straight up, these vanilla cinnamon candied almonds would be fantastic on a salad, on top of a brownie or ice cream sundae, or on top of yogurt.