Chocolate Chip Bourbon Blondies

I sometimes forget how wonderful blondies are. In the bar cookies category, they are frequently over-shadowed by their showier relatives, the brownie family, and don’t get much attention. But a

good blondie is a wonderful thing – moist, chewy, and loaded with nuts and chocolate chips. They are more subtle than brownies, with the same deep caramelized brown sugar flavor that you find in 

classic chocolate chip cookies. A shot of bourbon really perks them up, as does the addition of toasted walnuts and good quality chocolate chips (I love Ghirardelli’s 60% cacao morsels, which are 

available in many supermarkets).  If you want to bump up the chocolate factor even more, you could glaze them with a little ganache, or just increase the morsels to ¾ cup. But that might be moving too close to the neighbors, those spotlight-hogging Brownies.

Flourless Chocolate Cake with Caramel Whipped Cream

I’m ready for a new year – 2012 had more than its share of bad stuff in it and it’s time to move on. Lots of folks start off the new year with a diet, but diets don’t seem to take with me. I find I’m

 better off eating normal food and just cutting down on my portions. Eating rice cakes with cottage cheese on top just makes me sad. So, in the spirit of eating real (read: indulgent) food, here’s 

an ideal recipe: a really rich flourless chocolate cake, a small sliver of which is guaranteed to satisfy anyone with a hankering for something chocolaty. I serve it here with a Caramel Whipped

 Cream, which is basically a caramel sauce combined with softly whipped cream and then whipped to firm peaks. The cake is an adaptation of one that appeared in The Cake Book, my Chocolate Valentine Cake, which is baked in a heart-shaped pan. And that’s appropriate, because you’re going to love it. Happy New Year!!