Chocolate-Raspberry Linzer Cookies

A close-up of host Zoe Francois' Chocolate-Raspberry Linzer Cookies.

My next cookbook, Zoë Bakes Cookies, will feature about 100 recipes and I test my recipes over and over until they’re perfect. Enlisting my sons, Henri and Charlie, to be taste testers and incorporating their feedback makes my books even better. In season 3 episode 9 of Zoë Bakes on Magnolia Network Henri and Charlie join me in the kitchen to test a few of my cookie recipes and variations. You must tune in to see how it goes! In this episode I also visit a beautiful hazelnut farm and gather local nuts to try in my recipe. To learn more about Minnesota hazelnuts, visit the Organic Compound.

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17 Chocolate Desserts To Eat All Year

Hot Chocolate Cake | ZoeBakes by Zoë François
Hot Chocolate Cake

Chocolate desserts: decadent, rich, deep, sweet—there are so many ways to describe them. Chocolate is romantic, dramatic, purported to have healing properties, and is absolutely delicious. The wonderful flavor is representative of devotion and love. Chocolate can come in so many forms that even those who don’t consider themselves chocolate fanatics almost always find a chocolate treat to love. So to all the chocolate lovers’ out there—this list of chocolate desserts is for you.

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Baking with Chocolate

Peanut Butter Chocolate Cakettes on a wire cooling rack, drenched in chocolate ganache
Chocolate Peanut Butter Cakettes

Chocolate is romantic, dramatic, purported to have healing properties, and is absolutely delicious. The wonderful flavor is representative of devotion and love. Chocolate can come in so many forms that even those who don’t consider themselves chocolate fanatics almost always find a chocolate treat to love. Below you will find a primer on all things chocolate, so you can learn all the tips and tricks for baking with chocolate. When I set out to write Zoë Bakes Cakes the very first cake I put in its pages was my Devil’s food recipe, which is deep, dark, and full of cocoa. You’ll find cakes, pies, tarts, and many other chocolate desserts in this post.

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Bittersweet Chocolate Tart with Irish Cream

Bittersweet chocolate tart with shortbread crust and piped whipped cream with chocolate shavings.

By now I am sure you’re aware of my dear friend Sarah Kieffer of The Vanilla Bean Blog. If you’ve watched Zoë Bakes on Magnolia Network, you’ve seen us make her famous pan-banging cookies together. Sarah even photographed me doing the how-to photos in my latest cookbook, Zoë Bakes Cakes. We go way back.

So it makes me very excited to tell you about Sarah’s brand new cookbook, Baking for the Holidays! This book is so beautiful, but that’s what we’ve all come to expect from Sarah. It’s filled with more than 50 recipes for easy morning pastries, treats to serve at your holiday table, ideas for gifting (Caramel candies! Turtle bars! Peppermint bark!), and so many more recipes that will quickly become family traditions. She’s also a genius story teller and even included a section of music to bake to. You know how much I love dancing in the kitchen!

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Paleo Chocolate Chip Cookies (Vegan Too)

Paleo Chocolate Chip Cookies | ZoeBakes photo by Zoe Francois

It’s the perfect time for comfort food and these Paleo Chocolate Chip Cookies from Stephanie Meyer’s The 30-Minute Paleo Cookbook are the ultimate snack to satisfy. They are super decadent and rich with flavor because they are made with almond butter. The cookies, like everything Stephanie creates, is gluten-free, in fact, these have NO flour at all and can also be made vegan. Stephanie is a friend, a sista blogger and the master at batch cooking healthy meals. She is one of the most spectacular home cooks I know, and her recipes are always absolutely delicious. The recipes in the book just happen to be Paleo, so if you have dietary restrictions all of her recipes will work in your daily meal planning. 

Stephanie’s over-arching goal is to help people transform their health by cooking real food at home. Amen! The 30-Minute Paleo Cookbook is a great introduction to experimenting with fresh-food cooking and seeing how doable and delicious it is. Her Project Vibrancy Meals meal plans are a mapped-out system for making that happen most days of the week. The plans include menus, shopping lists, simple recipes, clean-up and storage instructions, and a community of supportive and knowledgeable people. I am a baker and not a cook, so her meal plans help me get actual food on the table, so my family has more than cake, pie, cookies, and bread! 😉

Find out more about her Project Vibrancy Meals This is the perfect time to be cooking great food for your family.

Here’s a link to give her Project Vibrancy Meals meal plan for FREE

One of the things my family likes most about her meal plans are the sauces she makes, so I’m so excited she created a book of just her Kickass Condiments: 20+ Little Recipes That Change Everything.

Stephanie kindly shared the recipe for her Paleo Chocolate Chip Cookies (you can also make them vegan) recipe below and I have a video of making the cookies on my @zoebakes Instagram account. 

Paleo Chocolate Chip Cookies | ZoeBakes photo by Zoe Francois Read More