Spring in New Orleans is a wonderous time of the year. Ok. Alright. Anytime in New Orleans is pretty exciting...I mean we use any excuse to party, so we do it all year, but spring has it's own specialties that come in this post-Mardi Gras haze: Festival Season. Crawfish season. And another one of my favorites, strawberry season.

Now, this may come as a shock since I have such a sweet tooth, but as much as I love sweets, I'm not usually a fan of sweets that are just too sugary. I think that's why this is one of my favorite cookie recipes of all time. I love the less sweet tea-style cookies (thumbprint and shortbread cookies are my favs too) and cookies with a bit of salt in them (like my new favorite chocolate chunk cookies).

This recipe comes via Cook's Illustrated, and I don't have any suggestions for improvement, because more often than not their test kitchen is right on the money! If you've never had these before, Mexican wedding cookies go by many different names, all with a similar nutty flavor in a cookie that is so soft it just crumbles away in your mouth. This recipe has just a hint of salt, but combined with a powdered sugar coating they have that wonderful salty/sweet flavor that I can't get enough of.

It's a simple recipe and not very finicky, so it doesn't take a baking expert to get these to come out right. I made two batches yesterday to bring to Finn McCool's weekly cook the competition cooking contest during the Saints game and while the second definitely started with a better butter temperature and the texture of the dough was noticeably different, the end result was virtually the same. I'm always whipping up a few batches during the holidays and it wouldn't be Christmas without these and pralines strewn about the kitchen. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do!

Every year our friends have an annual St. Patrick's Day crawfish boil. I'm sure I've said it before, but it is truly one of the highlights of my year. I look forward to it so much, that if for some moronic reason I ever moved away from New Orleans, I think I'd make a point to fly in for this party every year. We're a partyin group and as much as I LOVE Halloween, Mardi Gras, and New Year's...the crawfish boil is something quite special.

I've had these Irish Car Bomb cupcakes from Smitten Kitchen on my list of things to make for what seems like ages, and what better excuse to make them than St. Patrick's Day? I swapped out the butter/powdered sugar frosting for a swiss buttercream and all of my little tasters were loving the creamy richness. My favorite part was by far the Jameson chocolate ganache filling and it really makes me want to explore more with filled cupcakes.

I've been dying for an excuse to make all the messes that go along with this cake and when Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito say "this is a slightly showy, purely holidayesque affair" the real translation is: you really don't want go through all the bowls in your kitchen just for any old day, so save this one for when you have the time off from work to take on a. the baking & assembly and b. the ginormous sink-full of dishes.

When the host of our little family dinner shindig hinted she'd like a log cake, but wasn't sure if she should ask knowing it would be quite an undertaking, I practically squealed in delight. I've always wanted to attempt a Bûche de Noël, and since my lovely mother gave me Baked Explorations for my birthday I've been absolutely salivating at the chance to make their cooler more distinctly "Baked" take on this classic.

So my friends and I annually overindulge ourselves in the bliss that comes every spring in New Orleans--Crawfish Season. What better accompaniment than an overindulgent, overambitious 7 layered chocolate cake? According to everyone in attendance, none! It was the hit of the party, which made me feel oh so much better about spending 2 weeks of planning and 1 week of production on this bad boy.

Complete with fondant crawfish popping out the pot and completely edible fixins including meringue mushrooms, marzipan potatoes and fondant lemons and even served on a newspaper wrapped board, I spared no expense in making sure all the details were accounted for, even if I did get a bit lazy and never made it around to making the ears of corn on the cob that were in the initial plan.

Here's how it all played out (yes go ahead and call me crazy now for even thinking I had any business trying to pull this off):

As much as I adore cake, I've never been particularly good at baking them or decorating them for that matter. My expertise is definitely more in the pastry and cheesecake area and my previous exploits in cake making for the most part have been a disaster. I've had an idea for my birthday cake swimming around in my head for a while, but since I was not so confident in my ability to actually make it happen, I decided to use Halloween and my dear friends as guinea pigs for some decoration and icing experimentation.

I had a vision of what my Nightmare Before Christmas cake should look like, but I was pretty undecided what it should taste like. My emphasis here was most definitely more on looks than taste, so I ended up modifying a cake mix (Gasp!) with some white chocolate and Kahlua to give it a little flavor, but that's about all. Here's what I ended up with: