my perfect blueberry muffin

What an ambitious title I've got here! Over the years, there's one type of muffin that I could never get fed up of and that is my dearest blueberry muffin. Most probably overated, but I love them! I have tried different variations of this muffin, with oil, butter and lemon, but I don't think I've ever had my "perfect" blueberry muffin until now! I had one that I overused because my mom loved it, but I was getting fed up of that same old blueberry muffin. So I present you what I consider as my perfect blueberry muffin, at least for now.

hot cross buns

It really does feel like spring! Almost all of the snow has disappeared, the sun is setting later and it's finally Easter weekend! This is traditionally a very happy holiday, but unfortunately for me, April now means tax season. So long dear memories of April, and hello to my worst nightmare taxes! As my tax professor in University once said, there are only two certain things sure in life: death and taxes.

So for this special occasion (and because I couldn't get out of town for the long weekend because of our LOVELY tax season, don't you feel my love for tax?), I decided to bake hot cross buns.

hot cross buns

baked strawberry oatmeal

I can't believe I haven't baked anything with strawberries yet. It's one of those fruits that I just love to eat. I think I could eat it every day just like bananas and oatmeal. I present to you, the baked strawberry oatmeal. I'll admit that it looks terrible and not quite appetizing, but I like to think that it is its rustic charm.

 baked strawberry oatmeal

l'emprise de la gourmandise

After nearly half a year, I am still alive! Busy season didn't quite eat me up completely. I can't believe that it's soon already over. Here is a little snippet from my holiday baking. Unfortunately, I did not manage to take as many pictures as I wanted during the Christmas holidays.

mini carrot cupcake topped with cream cheese icing

And yes, you might have noticed that the blog name changed (thank you L for the AWESOME and AMAZING name, clearly only you can come up with something this eloquent ;). I actually received a message from the owner of Delices et Caprices, another food blogger. Although her (or him?) words were pretty short and blunt, I did have the same name as theirs. I clearly didn't do my homework by checking out if it existed before. So, to avoid any further confusion, I decided to change blog name which was a tedious task, but much easier thanks to L ;)

So I officially welcome you to "l'emprise de la gourmandise". Don't shy away from gluttony ;)

brownie cookies

S.

cinnamon pull apart bread

While blogging for the past few months, I realized certain patterns in my baking behaviour. First, I seem to love muffins. They are so quick and easy to make so no wonder. Second, I love cookies. And lastly, cinnamon always finds it way into whatever I bake. I decided to make something different today. It sort of feels like a baking slump where I need to try something more challenging or different, away from my cookies and muffins. This cinnamon pull apart bread has been on my "to bake" list for a while actually, even before I start blogging. I never had the time to actually make it and so here it is!

cinnamon pull apart bread

chocolate chip marshmallow cookies

Aside from all the scary Halloween stuff, this period of time reminds of me candies and chocolate (and everything sweet!). Post midterm deserves some more baking time! :) Especially with work coming up!! This time, I decided to make a different type of chocolate chip cookie.

the cookie that wished it could be s'more

pumpkin spiced applesauce muffins

After a zillion of hours watching this drama, I've fully gotten my dose of kdrama that I needed. Midterms were quite something this semester! It's especially hard to get back on track after summer vacations. I'm not yet in my "work" mode, but that's over with work coming up in less than a week! Anyhow, enough rambling and onto the baking! After receiving amazing pumpkin spice mix from Cars, I decided that I needed to make something with it, especially with all those pumpkin recipes out there. The only problem was that I didn't have canned pumpkin puree. So the closest thing I can get to pumpkin spice muffins was pumpkin spiced applesauce muffins.

spiced applesauce muffins