Category: Desserts

Passion Fruit Meringue Cheesecake

Zoë François 2 Comments
Passion Fruit Meringue Cheesecake

This lovely Passion Fruit Meringue Cheesecake is a spin on a recipe from Wild Sweetness by Thalia Ho! It is a beautiful book. A book about baking and desserts, but it’s also about Thalia Ho’s artistic vision of the wild and beautiful world she occupies. I immediately went for her Lemon Meringue cheesecake, because I adore the flavor combination of tart and sweet, the creamy textures of cheesecake and meringue, you all know how I feel about a toasted meringue. I replaced the lemon in her recipe for passion fruit, which is also tart, but has a wonderful perfume quality to it. You can use the pulp with the seeds or strain the seeds out, that is up to you and how you like the texture of the cheesecake. I strained the seeds for the cheesecake itself, but then added a fresh passion fruit to the top for a sour note and texture. You can also find passion fruit puree.

See below for the recipe and a guide to buying passion fruit and puree.

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8 Tasty Blueberry Desserts

Zoë François Leave a comment
A white bowl of fresh blueberries

Blueberries are one of those ingredients that need nothing more than themselves to be special. The color adds natural drama and the sweet-tart flavor is a perfect feature for so many desserts, be it cheesecake, galette, cobbler or bars. I also love that you can have delicious blueberry desserts any time of year because frozen blueberries work so well in many different recipes. I always have them in my freezer, so even if it’s not peak summer, I can pull them out and make something incredible whenever I have a craving for blueberry desserts!

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Baking with Chocolate

Zoë François 1 Comment
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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Pumpkin Desserts

Zoë François Leave a comment
Pumpkin Pie with Toasted Marshmallows on top
Erin McDowell’s Pumpkin Pie from The Book On Pie with Homemade Toasted Marshmallows!

Are you like me and feel that every season is starting to creep into the last? What I mean is that every holiday season, official or unofficial, seems to be starting earlier and earlier. We’ve all seen those Christmas decorations showing up before Halloween, right? I don’t think this is a bad thing, especially when it comes to seasonal dessert flavors. A good example is pumpkin desserts. It’s a distinct flavor and one that is so distinctly tied to fall that its seasonality will always be at least somewhat baked in, but who doesn’t want to let pumpkin creep into more of their life? With that in mind, whether it’s early September or late February, here are some of my favorite pumpkin desserts to enjoy.

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