It’s about once per year that I make something “Red Velvet-y”. OK, maybe twice per year. That usually coincides with my best friend’s birthday, because she is crazy for red velvet anything. This year, I went with Red Velvet and Vanilla Marbled Cupcakes, Double Vanilla Frosting with festive sprinkles. Recipe makes a ton of cupcakes (like 25 or so) so if you need to feed a crowd, here you go!
This is my 4th attempt at making these Mixed Berry Cheesecake Crumble Bars. Well, first they started out as Strawberry Shortcake Cream Cheese Bar (disaster). Then I tried Raspberries. Not much better. Switched to mixed berries and the rest of the recipe (the cream cheese, the eggs, the Greek yogurt) got a complete overhaul. It wasn’t really about the berries, it was always about the ratios of the ingredients and the technique, times and cooling in between. When I finally got it right, these are perfection. And now the berry types won’t matter either. I might try it as a cheese cake pie variation later this week too. Proud of myself for finally figuring it out.
I am the queen of crazy flavor combinations, right? But even this one seemed a little crazy to me. Last weekend, I found some Divina’s Apricot Chili Rosemary Spread. Not exactly a sweet jam. In fact, it has a bit of a kick mixed in with the apricots. But I decided to make some of my ever-famous crumble bars, this time: Sweet/Savory Apricot Chili Rosemary Walnut Crumble Bars. It was an experiment. I totally didn’t think that it would work, but you know what? It works. I am not advocating eating this as dessert, but added to a charcuterie board with cheese, salami and olive and grapes, these crumble bars are a perfect addition. I was shocked. Totally surprised. Totally good.
As long time followers will know, every year (even through the pandemic) I go strawberry picking. I’ve actually been going strawberry picking every year since I was a little girl — my first real “commercial endeavor” so to speak, and my sister and I would always sell them from a stand on the end of the road and that would be our spending money for the rest of the summer. In the intervening decades, both my sister and I started making our own varieties of jams from the strawberry harvest and this year is no different. I made one variation that I make many of the years — a strawberry vanilla (very popular) and this year, also tried a Strawberry Honey Plum Jam, which is also delicious…. a little earthier but still very vibrant.