bassmatii

Champagne Chocolate Truffles! So easy, yet so impressive. Made with just dark chocolate, cream, and CHAMPAGNE! Add gold leaf on top if you're feeling fancy. These truffles have a deep chocolatey flavor with a little bit of background tanginess from the champagne. Their texture is firm but just as creamy and melt-in-your-mouth as you could hope for. Despite my love for making and eating truffles, I don’t really love rolling them into little balls. It’s just one of those kitchen tasks that I try to avoid (we all have them, right?). So instead of making truffle balls, I make my truffles slightly firmer in texture and then slice them into cubes. They lose the roly-poly truffle look, but something about the neat edges feels so festive to me. ⇆ I also use edible gold leaf on these champagne truffles, which ups the fanciness factor considerably. But even if you skip that extra gilding, these truffles, dusted simply in cocoa, are still impressive and most importantly, delicious. Edible gol

A classic Mai Tai is creamy, nutty, and crazy delicious! Made with two kinds of rum, lime juice, a sweet almond syrup, and orange liqueur, it's set to become your new go-to cocktail. If you order a Mai Tai at a bar these days, chances are you’ll get a very fruity and heavily sugared drink. But the original Mai Tai wasn’t like that. The classic Mai Tai is rich, creamy, deliciously balanced, and just a little bit nutty. THE TRADITIONAL INGREDIENTS FOR A MAI TAI Nutty, you say? That’s right. If you’re going to make a proper Mai Tai, the essential ingredient is  orgeat  (pronounced  ohr-zsa , like Zsa Zsa Gabor), a sweet almond syrup made from almonds, sugar, and orange blossom water. The Mai Tai belongs to the family of drinks called  sours , which are made with a base spirit, a sweetener, and citrus. A lot of classic drinks are based on the sour, like the vodka sour, the whiskey sour, and the margarita, which is a tequila sour. ⇆ The traditional Mai Tai is a rum sour (also called a d

This is absolutely the best homemade apple pie you'll ever make! It has a flaky, buttery crust and a tender, lightly-spiced apple pie filling. Use a combination of apples for best flavor, and bake until the top is golden and the filling is bubbly! Here is our favorite apple pie recipe, with an easy, no-fail, buttery, flaky homemade pie crust, and a filling with a mix of different types of apples, spices, vanilla, and a splash of brandy. This apple pie is my family’s most requested pie during the holidays. I usually make two of them so we can enjoy one for leftovers. Nothing better than pie for breakfast, right? WHAT ARE THE BEST APPLES FOR APPLE PIE? It’s best to use a mix of different types of apples in your pie. Some apple varieties cook up faster than others. Some cook up firm, some more soft; some apples are more tart, some more sweet. ⇆ By combining them, you’ll get a more complex, deeper flavor. Look for a combination of tart and sweet apples, and a combination of apples that