Baking with Olive Oil Baking doesn’t always have to be super-sweet, even when there are sweet components. These Goat Cheese Raspberry Muffins with Walnuts & Olive Oil are a perfect example. They include brown sugar, orange zest and raspberries, but these ingredients are balanced with olive oil, white whole-wheat flour, goat cheese and walnuts. These just might […]

About Dede Wilson
Dede is the founder of Bakepedia. She was a Contributing Editor to Bon Appétit magazine for 15 years and the author of 14 books including the best-selling A Baker’s Field Guide to Christmas Cookies, The Wedding Cake Book, Wedding Cakes You Can Make, and Cake Balls. She was a Special Contributor to TheDailyMeal.com, the fastest growing food site on the web, where she specializes in holiday dessert content. Dede hosted two nationally syndicated public television series, has presented food segments on national television shows such as TODAY and Dr. Oz and has appeared on CNN, Food Network, HGTV, FOX News, The Weather Channel and the Discovery Channel. She has worked professionally for more than 30 years as a restaurant chef, bakery owner, caterer, recipe developer, radio talk-show host, frequent television guest, and corporate spokesperson for companies such as KitchenAid, Reynold’s Wrap and Driscoll’s.Author Archive | Dede Wilson

Matcha Chocolate Chip Meringues
No, your monitor isn’t playing tricks on you. These Matcha Chocolate Chip Meringues are indeed a very pale green. Matcha is ground green tea and it lends the color to these cookies as well as a pleasantly bitter and vegetal flavor. I also happen to love it with chocolate. Here it is paired with semisweet […]

Matcha Vacherin
Matcha Desserts Sometimes an ingredient grabs our attention and we want to use it in every and any way possible. Such is the case with matcha. We love this classic Japanese beverage prepared the traditional way as a frothy hot tea, but we have also come to love it in baked goods. The slightly bitter, vegetal […]

Classic Pound Cake
The Classic Pound Cake with No Leaveners Why do we have the word “classic” in the title? Because we want to make a point about leaveners. A true, old-fashioned pound cake is leavened by the eggs and does not contain baking powder or soda and that is what you will find in our recipe here. […]

Caramel Buttercream Tutorial
Troubleshooting Caramel Buttercream Do not confuse this with caramel frostings and icings, which develop a hard crust and act as more of a glaze. While all of these recipes share a rich caramel flavor, this one is a true caramel buttercream. Incredibly silky smooth but with that burnt sugar flavor we caramel fanatics crave. I admit […]

Banana Cake with Caramel Buttercream
Two-Layer Caramel Frosted Banana Cake Turns out that banana bread was the most searched for recipe on the Internet for 2014. No one seems to know why but we agree that it is a must-have basic for every baker’s repertoire and for banana lovers. This is a banana cake – a little richer, a little […]

Bacon Raisin Oatmeal Cookies
Bacon in Your Oatmeal Cookies? Oh Yes. I have a thing about oatmeal cookies. They must be chewy. Must. I can enjoy a crispy cookie that contains oatmeal – oatmeal lace cookies come to mind – but to me those are a buttery, crispy cookie that happens to contain oatmeal. When I hear or read […]

Bacon, Fruit & Nut Chocolate Bark
The Easiest Way to Combine Salty, Meaty Bacon & Chocolate Chocolate bark is simply chocolate – your choice of dark, milk or white – gussied up with some sort of mix-in. Molded in slabs and then broken into random pieces, the hunks are supposed to resemble real bark, hence the name. Almond bark and other […]

Caramel Pots de Crème
Burnt Sugar Sophistication Of all the creamy, smooth pudding-like desserts pots de crème are my favorite. I’m talking about baked custards and stove-top cornstarch based puddings, rich crème brulées and chilled panna cottas. You can read All About Pots de Crème, Panna Cottas, Custards and Puddings for more about the similarities and differences. Pots de […]

Lemon Bars
Classic Lemon Bars Lemon Bars are a classic that we return to again and again. They are one of those baked goods that seem to have always been around. But of course they do have an origination –everything does. The problem is, that with so many things in culinary history, we don’t have a truly […]

Dad’s Black Cocoa Bundt with Butter Whiskey Glaze
A Bundt Cake Featuring Black Cocoa We love Bundt cakes here in the Test Kitchen and we are trying to bring them back into favor. There is something simple but delectable about the proportion of cake (a lot of it) to a bit of glaze or frosting. This recipe from the Baked boys, Matt Lewis […]

S’mores Marshmallow Treats
Campfire Flavor from the Broiler The assemblage of flavors that creates S’Mores is well known – a combo of graham crackers, chocolate and marshmallows. I wanted to make S’mores Marshmallow Treats so I knew I would start with Golden Graham cereal, which has that whole-wheat graham flavor. The chocolate would come in the form of […]

Cappuccino Rice Krispie Treats
Sophisticated Rice Krispie Treats? Yes! These Cappuccino Crispy Treats are an adult riff on the classic Rice Krispie Treat marshmallow cereal bar. When I was a kid they only showed up at bake sales. Not sure why. They are very easy to make and were always quite popular. These days I see them in delis and […]

Kix Marshmallow Treat Balls
Fruity, Fun Kix Balls There are boxes of cereal all over the Test Kitchen. Having not strolled down that aisle for a while let’s just say I was inspired. Kix caught my eye because they are colorful and fruity and their tiny spherical shape made me think of making these into balls as opposed to squares – […]

Spiced Hot Chocolate aka Love Brew
Hot Chocolate as Aphrodisiac Mmmm hot chocolate. Admittedly there are many versions and depending on our mood we might opt for one over another. Some are thick with heavy cream; some are even made with water, which while thinner allows the chocolate flavors to really pop. This recipe is about accentuating chocolate’s aphrodisiac properties by […]

Liqueur Infused Chocolate Dipped Strawberries
Chocolate Dipped Strawberries with Liqueur This is not a new concept. For that matter, neither is apple pie, and yet there are reasons why some desserts become classics and this is a great example. Juicy strawberries enhanced with an injection – yes, an injection! – of a liqueur and then a dip in chocolate. I […]

Pomegranate Meringues with Honey
Pomegranates and Honey for an Aphrodisiac Dessert This is a romantic recipe – how could it not be when it contains several aphrodisiacs? Red is the color of passion and visually stimulating and the word aphrodisiac originated with Aphrodite the Greek goddess of love; she is credited with planting the first pomegranate tree – possibly […]

Mendiants
Chocolate, Fruit & Nut Discs These are simply bite-sized discs of chocolate topped with fruits and nuts. The French word “mendiant” refers to both beggars as well as those of monastic persuasion. Classically there are four toppings on top of the chocolate disc representing four mendicant orders. The colors of the items are said to […]