Most of the time I like no fuss desserts: A bar piece of chocolate, 5 a spoonful of peanut butter, leftover frosting eaten with a spoon—you know, something simple. But once and a while I like making something unique with complimenting flavors and textures, the sort of thing you’d buy at a bakery. These were surprisingly simple for how impressive they came out. The cookie crust could be eaten on its own and really brings the dessert to a new level. It’s more rich than it is sweet. And since it’s raw and mini, you can eat about 5 and feel good about it, or at least think that.

Mini Raw Cheesecake With Chocolate Shortbread Crust

Ingredients(Makes 7 mini cheesecakes)

For the crust:

• 3 Tablespoons almond butter
• 3 Tablespoons coconut butter, semi-softened
• 1 Tablespoon agave nectar
• 3 Tablespoons cocoa powder

For the filling:

• 1 1/4 cups cashews, soaked in water for 3-4 hours
• 1/4 cup coconut oil
• 4 Tablespoons agave nectar
• 1 teaspoon lemon juice
• 1/4 teaspoon salt

• Optional: Fruit, nuts, or chocolate shavings for topping

Line a cupcake tray with paper liners. Make the crust by mixing together all of the crust ingredients and separating it into 7 equal portions. Flatten each into a disk and place it into the bottom of the paper liners. Refrigerate the chocolate bases while making the filling.

To make the filling, drain the cashews from their water. Add all the ingredients into a food processor and blend until smooth.

Scoop the filling evenly into the paper liners and level each. Place them in the refrigerator to harden until ready to be served.

I think I’ll have another.

After I baked this cake recipe for my birthday, the cake looked good but a little plain so I decided to throw together something for the top. I love the pairing of raspberries with chocolate so I decided to make a raspberry chocolate sauce to go on top. I had no clue how it would turn out but I’m happy to report it was perfect. Heated, the sauce is easy to work with and at room temperature it hardened to a semi-soft, fudge consistency which was easy to cut through. It was great on cake but would be good over ice cream, too.

Raspberry Fudge Sauce

Ingredients:

• 2/3 cup fresh or frozen raspberries
• 1/3 cup chocolate chips
• 1 1/2 Tablespoons maple syrup(or any liquid sweetener)
• 1 Tablespoon butter
• 1/4 teaspoon salt

Heat the raspberries over low heat in a sauce pan until they’ve reduced to about half their volume and cooked down to a sauce.

Toss in the chocolate chips, butter, maple syrup, and salt and mix until the butter and chocolate chips have melted. Frost or scoop over ice cream while the sauce is still warm and liquid.

I should have made extra to eat with a spoon; one year older, still not wise enough.

Things have gotten a little crazy around here. I have this week to wrap up all of my midterms while preparing to fly to DC on Friday for the National Marathon and let’s just say I’m starting to lose it. This recipe is proof of that.

Popchips asked me if I’d like to take part in their Munch Madness recipe contest and I happily agreed. I know nothing about basketball, as proved by the fact that I’m dead last in my brackets group, but I know a whole lot about cooking and eating. I’m not sure what convinced me potato chips, chocolate, and peanut butter would all go together—I guess you have to be a bit mad—but they do, and these are deliciously addicting!  A perfect way to wow and alarm your guests.

Peanut Butter And Potato Chip Truffles

Ingredients(Makes 12 truffles):

• 6 Tablespoons natural peanut butter
• 2 Tablespoons butter, softened
• 1 cup confectioners sugar
• 1/2 cup crushed original popchip crumbs + more for dusting(or any other salty treat)
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 8oz chocolate chips

Mix together the peanut butter, butter, and confectioners sugar. Once mixed, add in the popchip crumbs and fold in until evenly distributed.

Roll the dough into 12 balls and place them on a baking tray. Freeze for 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, melt the chocolate chips. Once ready, individually roll the peanut butter balls in the chocolate until they’re completely covered. Put them back on the baking tray and top with a little popchip crumbs.

I know these sound crazy. I know I am crazy. But my taste buds aren’t crazy, and these are gooood.

If you happen to agree, please go to the Munch Madness photo album on popchip’s fan page and “like” the photo of my recipe. That would be great! And Happy March Madness! I’m sure no matter who you chose to win you’re probably doing better than I am.

If the only wedding marked on your calendar is the royal wedding, you might need a brownie.

If your boss of 5 years called you the wrong name this week, you might need a brownie.

If the last Saturday night you spent out was under a different president, you might need a brownie.

If your goal is to make it through a St. Patrick’s day parade sober, you might need a brownie.

If you’re a warlock who just got fired from his multi-million dollar contract, you might need a brownie.

If you’re paler than a polar bear after the long cold winter, you might need a brownie.

If it’s that time of month, you definitely need a brownie.

If you’ve only got one brownie left, you might need to make more.

Question: How do you make coconut blondies even better? Answer: You give them an awesome and delicious frosting.

I know I said these are so good that they don’t need any frosting, but really, what doesn’t frosting make better? I was reading in this NY Times article on coconut oil that it makes a great, smooth vegan frosting so I wanted to try it out. If you don’t have coconut oil, room-temperature non-hydrogenated shortening would also work well in this recipe.

The flavor reminds me of a lemon slurpee or an Italian ice. It’s really sweet and refreshing. It goes perfectly with the coconut, but would also work with any vanilla cake. And it takes about a minute to come together! You can’t beat that.

Lemon Drop Frosting

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup coconut oil
• 2 cups powdered sugar
• 2 Tablespoons lemon juice

Start by mixing room-temperature coconut oil and lemon juice. If your coconut oil is too hard to begin with, gently heat it to the point where it’s semi-soft.

Gently sift in the sugar and continue folding until the frosting starts to come together.

Once the mixture’s homogenous and starts sticking to itself, it’s done.

The frosting should be rather soft and easy to spread.

Don’t worry if you eat more than you frost with; that’s completely normal. It’s also completely normal to pick off the frosting with a fork and eat it after you’ve frosted the blondies. These things happen.