Flourless Chile Chocolate Cake Recipe

Please welcome Lynda from Taste Food Blog. Lynda is a Paris Cordon Bleu graduate. After her culinary journey all over Europe (France, Switzerland, Great Britain and Denmark), she came back to the US 17 years later with a Danish husband and two children.

I recently started following her blog. The photographs are stunning and I love her approach to classic French dishes, many of which I grew up eating. Today she's sharing her chile chocolate flourless cake, especially for Valentine's Day. Enjoy!

This month, I have the pleasure of guest-posting on Jackie's wonderful blog, Pham Fatale. When I discovered Pham Fatale, it immediately resonated with me. It shares a similar love for feeding friends and family, while influenced by an international family and life. Jackie's Vietnamese parents, Parisian upbringing and vegetarian, sweet-loving husband create a kaleidoscope of good eats which keep me coming back for more. And with Valentine's Day fast approaching, I can't think of a more perfect way to share a little blog (and chocolate) love with her readers than with this recipe.

Flourless chile-chocolate cake promises to add a little spice to your Valentine's Day. Laced with chipotle, cayenne and cinnamon, this dense fudgy cake has a naughty kick of smoke and heat cloaked in chocolate that's both surprising and exciting. Now that's a Valentine's cake.

Chocolate Raspberry Cookie Recipe (Heart-Shaped Cookies)

Yesterday, my husband's sister Lya (she's a high-schooler now) told me she was secretly in love with a boy when she was in fifth grade. For Valentine's Day, she was too shy to say anything so she gave him heart-shaped chocolate cookies and a sock monkey anonymously. The guy never knew it was from her. Now that she goes to an all-girl school, I told her we should find the boy and give him the same Valentine presents. She said: "No way!", plus she's totally moved on from her first school crush. Ahh kids!

Of course, we still baked the cookies. I made a few changes by flavoring the chocolate cookie dough with raspberry extract and covered the top with raspberry chocolate. I used Hershey's raspberry kisses, which are available in stores this Valentine season.

Sweet Peanut Nugget Recipe

If you're an Asian food aficionado and walk your way through the blogosphere, you've probably heard of Bee from RasaMalaysia.com. As we speak, Bee is in Malaysia with her adorable 15-month-old baby boy, visiting relatives, celebrating the Year of the Dragon. Since it's the Asian new year today, Bee is sharing with us her peanut nugget recipe from her cookbook, which has over 80 recipes perfect for the upcoming Lunar New Year. Dishes include classic dumplings and Cantonese dim sum, to classic Chinatown dishes such as egg tarts, Chow Mein, Beef Chow Fun, and American favorites such as Broccoli beef and Kung Pao Chicken. It also has comprehensive chapters about ingredients, techniques, and secret tips Bee learned from master Chinese chefs.

This decadent dessert is adapted from a classic Chinese recipe called “tang bu shuai”. Legend has it that in ancient China, the dessert would be served by the family of a single woman to the potential groom to signify the beginning of a sweet and happy marriage. I am not sure about the truth of this tale, but I am sure you will love this easy recipe that is both addictive and delicious.

Lemon Poppyseed Cookies

I'm delighted to have Joanne from Eats Well with Others share with us her delicious lemon poppyseed cookie recipe. Joanne is a busy gal; she's a med student in NYC, a marathoner (just like my brother-in-law) and is an avid (and extraordinarily talented) baker. I feel like I'm repeating myself a lot but I think I've told you on numerous occasions that our family loves sweets. In addition to this, we always have guests over, especially for tea time, so having Joanne guest-post a sweet treat seems doubly fitting!

Confession.

I used to be a Costco muffin inhaler.

Have you ever had one? They're big...huge, really...about the size of your face.

And they're strangely reminiscent of narcotic drugs in their addiction-inducing qualities. I mean, you KNOW you should only have half. But you have a pulse and therefore restraining yourself at all whatsoever is but a mere pipe dream. It's okay. We've all been there.

My favorite flavor was the lemon poppyseed.

It was infused with almond extract and was smothered in tangy sweet lemon glaze.

In fact, I may or may not have chosen which muffin I wanted based on the glaze:muffin top
ratio. Higher OBVIOUSLY being better.

(See ladies, muffin tops don't look good on anyone. Not even muffins.*)

*(Unless they have glaze on them.)

Anyway, eventually I grew up and realized just how much hydrogenated fat was in those muffins and how many miles it would take me to burn off just half of one. And so I gave them up. Cold turkey.

(By which I mean I moved out of my parents' house and had the muffins forcibly pried out of my hands upon exiting. Same thing.)

But a lemon poppyseed-less existence is really just too sad of a thought to entertain for even one second let alone an entire lifetime. Which is where these cookies come in.

They have all the same delicious lemon almond overtones of the muffins. (And the glaze. That heavenly glaze...) But without all the heft and heaviness.

Perfect for getting your Costco muffin fix or, if you weren't previously a lemon poppyseed "user", just for dipping into a warm cup of tea. Win/win no matter what your circumstance is.

Snickerdoodles: Cinnamon Sugar Cookies (+Giveaway)

Snickerdoodles are perfect during this holiday season. They're just as delicious as plain sugar cookies, but with a touch of freshly ground cinnamon. The cookie dough is rolled into small dough balls and then rolled in cinnamon sugar. Once they're nicely coated, the cookies are flattened, and when they're baked, a whimsical, crinkled cinnamon top is formed.

What makes this batch of cookies very special is the use of Bourbon Barrel Foods smoked salt, smoked sugar and pure vanilla extract. It turned out to be a marvelous choice as it added another dimension to the Christmas cookies.

If you want to try out this recipe, head over to BourbonBarrelFoods.com. Their products are some of the best new ingredients I’ve tried in a long time, and I highly recommend them for your sweet and savory cooking. And today only, you have a chance to win an assortment of Bourbon Barrel products by entering on the 25 Days of Giveaways page.

Make sure you're a fan of PhamFatale Facebook fan page and Bourbon Barrel Foods or follow @Phamfatalecom and tweet about this giveaway. To make it easy, you can just copy and paste this tweet if you’d like: "BBF Holiday Package #Giveaway from @Phamfatalecom and @BourbonBarrel: http://bit.ly/sp4V7y".