[Things We Adore Sunday]

1. My Milk Toof. Nothing else exists to me at the present moment.

I MUST own the book.

2. Banana Cream Pie. I'm workin' hard to perfect it myself. May never get to Tartine levels, but I can try so many times that everyone I know and love is sick of taste-testing my prototypes.

Photo via The Selby

3. Yoga. It saved me last week as the stress mounted.

Image via Healthy Yoga

4. Gay Pride Week all over the world, and especially in San Francisco. This city is always open and fun, but this weekend has special significance. I had a great time celebrating openness and equality!

Okay, now back to dealing with the stress in concrete ways, like by making a cake.

[Food + Drink Wednesday] Baby Pecan Pies

A sneak preview of my latest loves: the miniature pecan pie, or as my southern mother refers to them, Pecan Tassies. These pack the pecan pie crunch and gooey sweetness but won't have the same jittery, sugar-high effect because they're portion-controlled. To be fair, I don't really know anything about dieting and self-control myself, but I imagine these won't throw off your entire day like a whole big slice of pecan pie would (with heavy whipping cream on top, and maybe some buttermilk baked into the pie mix, and possibly even a stick of butter and cream cheese in the crust). 

My recipe is simple and only contains the following ingredients: White Lily flour from Tennessee (only the best for my babies), a bit of shortening, a bit of butter, an egg, raw pecans, not too much brown sugar, and some salt. That's it.

Of course, I tried more than one recipe to get this adorable end result. Also, I fully intend to make a whole wheat version that may not work out so well. Though, most notably, I tried a recipe with a cream cheese crust, a la Paula Deen. I almost suffocated while eating them. So good, but so so wrong. Gotta balance the sweetness of the middle with the saltiness of the crust, my friend. Life - and baking - are all about equilibrium. They also just looked funny. Too much fat in the dough made them too flaky.

Epic Fail... I gave these away at work. Hey, they still tasted good!

More to come on my southern baking adventures. Next up: mini seasonal cobblers and individual banana puddings. I'll be launching a new blog soon (yes, my third since coming home from NZ. leave me alone.).