Another year has passed and it’s time to go over the posts that stand out to me above the rest.  I hope you enjoy this little recap, and I hope your 2023 was memorable and 2024 is even better for all of us. Ottolenghi’s Brownie Cake I seriously need to make this decadent cake/brownie/pan of totally delicious goodness again.  It was gone in the blink of an eye, and I need more in my life ASAP! Butter Tart Bars I love a bar!  Who doesn’t?  They are fun and shareable, and these bars have a crunchy shortbread crust and a gooey filling with raisins and pecans.  It’s like ..read more

This Sunday would have been my maternal grandfather aka Papa’s birthday.  I’ve been thinking about him a lot lately.  He died when I was twelve and I only saw him a few times a year when he was alive, so I wish I had tons of memories with him, but I simply do not.  It makes me sad I couldn’t hear more stories about his life and learn about cooking from him.  But I do my best to keep his memory alive, and I know he’s watching over me. Mom tells me about Papa too.  She tells me about how he loved to cook, using all kinds of herbs and spices.  Mom has also told me a ..read more

So, I missed my blogiversary by a couple weeks.  How on earth did that happen?  I’ve been doing this for quite some time given this is my eleventh blogiversary, so there are really no excuses.  Eleven is even my favorite number.  I suppose I own my blog and all the readers that have been here from the start or have joined the journey along the way an apology. But this celebration is also better late than never. If you asked me eleven years ago if I would still be blogging, I don’t know what my answer would have been.  Probably, yes, I guess.  I also probably wou ..read more

Sure I have spring fever, but I also have Spring Baking Championship Fever.  This year’s contestants are some of the most talented I have seen on any of the baking shows.  They make me want to seriously up my baking game, even though I’m not sure I’ll ever come close to the masterpieces they create week after week. Though I have liked all the hosts and judges that have been on the show over the years, Molly Yeh is basically a ray of sunshine on my television, and I will take alllllll the sunshine I can get at all the times.  I mean I did move to the sunshine state for a reason ..read more

It’s my tenth blogiversary.  That’s right, I’ve been blogging here on Pies and Plots for a decade.  In that time, I’ve baked so many tasty things, some I probably don’t even remember, tried some awesome (and not so awesome) restaurants, seen crazy good concerts, and been to some one of a kind events. I have grown and changed as a writer and person.  I had a book published.  I broke out of a decades long travel drought.  I moved from Michigan to Florida. Some days I feel like an entirely different person than I was a decade ago. Other days I would swear I am the same ..read more

Spring and summer fruit has been screaming my name.  As usual my eyes are bigger than my stomach, and I always have leftover fruit, and I have to bake with it. That’s right, I have to bake with it.  It’s a total accident I have extra fruit hanging around. I drift in and out of baking sometimes, and lately I have been ALL IN.  it’s fun and relaxing and a break from everything else. Plus, I end up with something like this pie.  Pie is never a bad thing, not that cake or cookies or brownies are either.  Oooooohhhh, brownies, but that’s a post and a bake for another day ..read more

It’s Pi Day!  So we had to celebrate, given that this blog is called Pies and Plots.  Also given that we have to take the celebrations we can get.  And um, I kind of missed my ninth blogiversary about a month ago, so we have all kinds of reasons to take a few minutes to celebrate. Especially if it involves this pie. It’s funny, I named my blog Pies and Plots because I wanted something alliterative (hello writer brain) that expressed my love of both writing and baking.  But I don’t make a lot of pie recipes to share on here.  I love pie.  Oh, how I love pie, but ..read more

After so many years of blogging, I have made a lot of recipes.  More than I can even remember a lot of the time.  Yes, I have in fact searched my own blog for something and come across a recipe I completely and totally forgot about. I’ve also searched my freezer and had the same result, but that’s another story entirely. Despite all I’ve made, I am in no way under the impression I’ve made anywhere close to all there is to be made.  There are always new and exciting flavor combinations and techniques to play around with.  The food world is one of never ending creative oppo ..read more

Aka coffee spice and everything nice pie It’s my eighth blogiversary.  Like how is that possible???  First I turn thirty this year and now I realize I’ve been blogging for eight years.  I’m kinda not okay with this. It’s been quite a journey blogging.  When I look back on some of those old posts, the pictures, the words, I see how much I have really grown.  I’m a better baker and photographer, and I’ve matured a lot.  I’ve become comfortable in my own skin and my little space here on the internet, even if it still hasn’t really grown as much as I would like … or as much as I have myself ..read more

You’ve probably noticed I post a lot of fruit recipes around here.  I love fruit whether I’m eating it raw as a snack or putting it into a salad or baking with it.  I don’t discriminate, but I mean come on, fruit baked into a dessert is kind of my favorite. You might also have noticed that I have never posted a recipe with raspberries.  Because I used to have a sensitivity to them.  But I don’t any more.  It’s crazy how bodies change, like how I didn’t used to be allergic to chocolate but now I am. It’s also crazy how brains change because I don’t know how I worked ..read more