Earl Grey Chocolate Lavender Banana Muffins with Caramel Gloss

  I've just finished up the latest series of the Great British Bake Off and having watched the last episode today after getting virtually no sleep last night, I gotta say--I bawled like a baby. Every single one of them was so endearing to me and even though I was vying for someone else most of the time (don't worry, no spoilers here!), the winner really did earn their spot. God I love that show.

Simple Mini Ice Cream Cake

For a long time in high school I prided myself on making just about everything I could from scratch. Whether it was pizza dough, ice cream, or even freaking chicken alfredo (noodles and all), I was pretty determined.

Just a Li'l Wedding Cake

  Emma and I didn't have the smoothest of sisterhoods. Remarkably different personalities and behavior traits when we were young caused a good amount of clashing—especially when we shared a room. Her walls were always painted black, mine had every color under the sun. She liked the dark light-blocking curtains, I liked lava lamps and was outside as soon as the sun was up. God, I bet she hated me for that.

Chocolate Stout Cake with Caramel Swiss Meringue Buttercream

  I'm tired. I got my wisdom teeth yanked, I work 6 days a week, and I helped my significant other with moving all the things last week. I have approximately zero social energies. Things have just been one thing after the other here, and this lil cake is right in the thick of it.

One-Bowl Cocoa Brownies

  It had been a bad day.  If I remember rightly, there was rain and cold and the dreariness of another schoolwork-filled day.

  Mid-afternoon, I shoved aside algebra and flipped onto my back, staring at the delicately painted ceiling of our family room.  Hands digging into the plush green carpet.

Salted Chocolate Peanut Butter Brownies

  I'm winding down fast, folks.  I love school, learning, and all that fun stuff--but the tail end of this semester is absolutely relentless with all of its decisions, expectations, and unpredictable happenings.  Caught in these situations, I tend to overeat and feel very numb.  Class notes are a thing of the past, and even scrolling through happy Pinterest things doesn't appeal to me.  I have projects on projects and I'm not doing anything.  Whoops.  Enter Spotted Cow and Gilmore Girls, and lots of sweet potato fries.

  But between these bouts I'm generally pretty productive.  Sunday night, for example, I spent on the 3rd floor of the library, and I mean literally cross-legged on the floor, studying until I couldn't physically see and the place was closing.  

  Balance, balance.

Malted Milk Rice Krispies

  FRIENDS.  I'm writing I'm writing I'm not writing a paper, I'm not writing because I have to, I'm not writing to be persuasive or grammatically correct or to utilize my critical thinking skills I'm just WRITING.  I'm writing because I want to talk to you and I want to wax poetic about things like rice krispy treats.

  I missed you.

Dark Chocolate Banana Breakfast Bars & 4 Years(!!)

  I'm in a pretty solid melancholic trance these days.  New Year's and Christmas, old face new faces, first semester at a new school finished with still no clear path in sight, the ups and downs involving matters of the heart.  I'll admit it, I'm pretty rocked.  I'm watching my parents build the house they've always wanted and will probably grow old in.  I'm watching my little sis navigate her life and take care of a dog that managed to steal my heart freshman year of college when I ran back home to meet her sweet puppy face.  My older sisters never cease to amaze me, watching their respective journeys over 2015 has been fantastic.  I'm so glad for them and who they are.

  And me?  Considering the fact that this time last year I was a hot mess living in my parent's mobile home looking for a job, daydreaming about hot desert suns, and having panic attacks while filling out my college transfer paperwork, I'd say I've come pretty damn far.

M&M Cookie Dough Ice Cream Cake

  It seems conflicting that while I am pushing myself and doing my darnedest I still feel more lost than ever.  It seems like poor timing that I should lose all interest in school during the time when I really need to be studying the most.  It seems unfair that I still have no specific direction and yet everyone keeps asking about how that's going.

  The life of an INFP am I righttttttt

Dairy-Free Double Chocolate Banana Cake

  "What are your academic interests?"

  "Career field you could see yourself in?"

  "Have a major lined up by the end of sophomore year."

  "Oh, Journalism, you must really love writing and the news."

  "When are you opening your own bakery?"

  "What's your passion?"

  "What makes you happy?"

  I wiped off my palms for the 10th time as my well-meaning temporary advisor guided me through the sign-up process.  The entire day was devoted to getting transfers acclimated, and all around me I felt the vibe of uncertainty pulsing as we all tried to navigate our way around a new system.  Every time I turned a corner in the Union, I felt more than saw the memory ghosts intent upon making the day harder than it already had it to be.  My hands shook and I dropped a lot of things.  I came out with too many papers and enough anxiety to fill a five-gallon bucket.

Mint Chocolate Chip Meringues

  I think some of my earliest memories of pine needles come from the little fir grove on my grandparent's farm.  That grove used to seem huge to me.  The tall, curiously cloaked trees constantly dropping pine cones and covering the ground with their sleek leaves.  The shag carpet effect those dying needles created mesmerized me.  The way the light filtered through those trees was different, but I remember loving it.  It was always pretty there, no matter the time of year.

  While that grove was often my go to, other places on the farm also grabbed me.  The raspberry bushes, sunflowers, hammock, the back field where you could see all the land rolling out perfectly beneath you.  Living on a hilltop is not something to take for granted.

Salted Peanut Butter Cup Brown Butter Blondies

  Girl, where you at.

  I'm on doorsteps in nostalgic neighborhoods watching snow come down.  I'm in cafes in college towns.  I'm washing dishes and learning the art of making wraps and cappuccinos.  I've got my foot in my mouth about all the relationships going on in my life.  I'm wishing on the stars and walking the streets.  I'm browsing apartment listings with weary eyes.  I'm dissecting my feelings.  I'm dissing the drama.

  And I'm making blondies.  I'm keeping things simple where I have the power to do so.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Tart & 3 Years of Indigo

  There was laughter, maybe a bit of drizzle, a definite chill in the air, and I was full of energy.  Words and ideas and silly jokes tumbled out of my mouth, loosened with a little help from some liquids.  I considered the cracked sidewalk of the college campus I had walked just a short year before as a student, and I smiled at the few people present who knew both the student and non-student Ello.

  As they always seem to do in these situations, my suddenly quick feet took me more than a few yards ahead of the group, and I turned around to jog backwards and shoot them some sass.  While doing this, my attentions were suddenly captured by the remark of one equally tongue-loosened fellow.

  "I like it when you talk, Ello."

  Because I'm generally a pretty quiet girl, this made me incredibly happy.  Knowing that people not only heard my voice, but also appreciated it.

Greek Yogurt Nutella Brulée

  There might be something to those Wordless Wednesday posts.  I've sat here staring with a million and one thoughts running through my head, but I can't settle on one thread.  I'm passively watching the unraveling thoughts of my brain float around the room, past present and future all in one place.  Remembering, lingering, forgetting, planning.

  Isn't that what the transitional season of fall is for?  Adjusting from summer ventures to winter duties?  I dunno.

  But I do know that this season still gets me, every time.  People give spring too much credit, I think, giving it almost ethereal qualities.  I never feel that in the spring.  For as long as I can remember, the magic has always been in the colored leaves and cloudy skies of autumn.  This is the season where things really happen, and you can't help but feel everything around you. 

Ferrero Rocher Cake

  I left you with Black & White Cookies and then drove across the country real quick to get back home.  There were some long nightmare-ish hours in the dead of night on Kansas backroads, a faulty GPS took us off the interstate, a quick nap amongst semis, a venti Starbucks iced latte that I heartily regretted later, and then hugs.  So many hugs.  My entire family was shocked at the drastic change in skin tone (I was referred to as "cinnamon stick"), and I was throwing on sweatshirts from the sudden 30 degree drop in temperature.

  So weird.

Black and White Cookies & ALS Awareness

  I come to you today with cookies the size of your face and some disease awareness.

  In the midst of all these ice buckets and facebook videos, it's easy to lose track of what we're actually doing it all for.  ALS is a crippling and totally unfair disease, and this tearjerker video reminds us of that.

Classic Tiramisu

  It was only a matter of time before the real deal made it to my blog.  I harped on about tiramisu last year when I made these delightful little sandwiches, I've spent hours wrestling mascarpone to make a cupcake version, I've struggled with chocolate to make the perfect curl, piped ladyfingers, tried some crazy layering things, and eaten this dessert every time I'm at a good Italian restaurant.

Brown Butter Toasted Coconut Chocolate Chip Cookies

  "Why don't you go stay with Auntie Penny for awhile, run off to Phoenix!"

  I was sitting by a man-made lake in my college town, pouring my heart out to my oldest sister.  I wasn't happy, I was feeling unsettled, and the last thing I wanted to do was study for a biology exam.  I was quiet for a minute, what if?  What if I just did that?  School was driving me crazy, boys (or the lack thereof, at the time) were clouding my head, friends were falling apart and/or moving away, and even food was getting to be unappetizing.  This is coming from a girl who freaking lives for baking.

  So, what if indeed?  I called my aunt the next night, working out some tentative details.  I went home that weekend and sprung the idea on my family.  And you know what?  For the first time in a long time, I got excited.  I got really excited.  I was taking a year off of school (I'd prefer forever, but we'll see), why not travel?  See some new terrain?  I've yet to get out of the Midwest, and while I love it dearly and it will always be home, I gotta get, man.  I just gotta get.

Braided Pear Nutella Bread

  I'm sitting at my kitchen table eating sour blueberries trying to figure out what words I should stick on this page.  I keep getting up every five minutes to pull a bored adolescent dog out of whatever she's not supposed to be doing.  It's like having a kid around here, she's glaring at me from the corner and dragging her toy bone across the wall in defiance.  Oh, I see you, little curmudgeon.

Peanut Butter Samoas Bars

  Props to my sister for those well-kept nails (you don't ever want to see mine).

  Ohoho yes I went there.  I so went there.

  But these didn't just happen.  First of all, new house, new oven.  New discoveries.  As in, gas stovetops are great, but for some reason the oven likes to brown the crap out of anything I put in there so that's just fine.

  Not fine.  Got some tweaking to do with that.

  So these were inspired by Diethood's awesome-looking gluten-free bars.  Those pictures man, they just got me.  Got me good.  Got me so good I didn't even read through the recipe, just started making them.  They're gluten-free, so what big whoop.  Much big whoop, actually.  The base is just egg and peanut butter baked together.  Like some funky unsweetened eggy custard.  That's fine if you're into that, but...not what I was led to expect.  I wanted creamy.  I wanted peanut butter.  I wanted Reese's and stuff.  Not eggs.

  So I brainstormed on a boring spring break day in the trailer kitchen.  I wanted something simplistic, with no fricken eggs and baking and messing with fussy oven stuff.  I recalled The Wannabe Chef's amazing little peanut butter bar recipe, and from there the ideas just kept flowing.

  The only unsound idea was the graham cracker crust.  It had good intentions, but it just isn't worth it.  It falls apart, doesn't stick to the peanut butter, and really doesn't do much for texture or taste.  So whatever, I'm ditching it for the recipe, and that makes it gluten-free anyway so everyone's happy.

  Look at 'em, just look.  They are beautifully messy.  My first contribution to the obnoxious amount of girl scout cookie recipes out there that there's probably some kind of online food blogger community for.  So proud.

  Also, much rich.  Little nutrition.  High calorie.  Very addict.  But enjoy.

  Also, please welcome the latest contribution to our family, and apparently my new kitchen helper.  We've had her for some amount of months now and she's already grown like crazy while I've been college-ing.  The face kills me every freaking time.  Finola is happy to meet you and would love to lick your face, but alas the computer screen separates her from you.  Done talking vicariously for dogs now, please make bars and eat them k bye.

  

Peanut Butter Samoas Bars
Yield: 16 bars

Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup peanut butter, runny or no-stir
• 7 tablespoons butter, divided
• 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
• 10 oz + 1/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips, divided
• 1 1/2 cups shredded sweetened coconut
• 7.5 ounces store-bought or homemade soft caramels
• 1 1/2 tablespoons milk
• A few pinches of salt

Directions:

In a large, microwaveable bowl, melt together the peanut butter and 6 tablespoons butter until completely liquid.  Remove from microwave and stir in powdered sugar.  Press the peanut butter mixture into an even layer in an 8x8 inch square pan.  Melt together the 10 ounces of chocolate chips and remaining tablespoon of butter and mix.  Pour over the peanut butter layer and place in the freezer (or fridge) while you make the topping.

In a medium pan over medium-low heat, toast the coconut, stirring frequently, until golden brown.  Place in a medium bowl and set aside.  In a double boiler (or a medium metal/glass bowl placed over a pot of simmering ((and only simmering, not boiling)) water), combine the caramels, milk, and salt and stir until melted and combined.  Pour the caramel mixture over the toasted coconut and stir to combine.

Immediately press the coconut/caramel mixture onto the peanut butter/chocolate layers, be sure to initially spread it in even chunks as it is quite sticky and will adhere to the still-warm chocolate.  Melt the remaining 1/4 cup of chocolate chips and drizzle over the top with a fork.  Place the finished product in the fridge to chill and set up thoroughly, at least 2 hours, or until the chocolate drizzle has hardened.  

Chisel into bars and allow to come to room temp before serving.  Be wary of portions, these are lovely, but rather rich.

Sources: inspired by Diethood, peanut butter chocolate bars from The Wannabe Chef, and samoas topping from Just a Taste