Tahini Millionaire Bars

Before I share the recipe for these absolutely amazing Tahini Millionaire Bars, I first wanted to describe what a traditional Millionaire Bar is. Millionaire Bars, or Millionaire Shortbread, are layered bars consisting of shortbread, caramel, and chocolate.

I love making millionaire bars as a make ahead dessert for parties.

Recently, I was experimenting with the concept of millionaire bars, but wanted to try to incorporate a new flavor into the mix – tahini!

Tahini is made from ground sesame seeds and has a consistency a bit thinner than peanut butter. The nutty flavor works great with chocolate and caramel!

This recipe for Tahini Millionaire Bars also uses almond flour to bring out even more nuttiness, so these bars are also gluten free!

Ingredients:

Almond Flour Crust:

  • 3 cups almond flour
  • ½ teaspoon salt
  • 1 cup unsalted butter, softened
  • 1 cup light brown sugar, packed
  • 1 large egg yolk
  • 1 teaspoon almond extract

Tahini Caramel:

  • 1 (14 oz) can sweetened condensed milk
  • 2 cups sugar
  • 1/3 cup corn syrup
  • ¼ tsp cream of tartar
  • ½ cup tahini paste
  • 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
  • ½ teaspoon salt

Chocolate Ganache:

  • 1 (12 oz) bags semisweet chocolate chips
  • 3/4 cup heavy cream
  • Sea salt, for sprinkling

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Star Anise Snickerdoodles

Boy did I start my cookie baking late this year! I can’t believe Christmas is just days away. I was recently sent a beautiful carved cinnamon bark box with 3 oz of Vietnam cinnamon by World Vision so I wanted to make a cookie recipe that would feature cinnamon, so I had to make snickerdoodles! This recipe for Star Anise Snickerdoodles from Cooking Light adds ground star anise to traditional sugar cookies for a subtle different take on the classic.

World Vision is a Gift Catalog that allows you to give a truly meaningful gift this holiday season.  The catalog is filled with items for every budget ($16 to $39,000) that help children and families in need worldwide. The World Vision Gift Catalog offers an alternative (or addition to) traditional holiday gift giving. You can choose a gift for these families that fits your financial abilities and personal tastes. For example, a gardener may enjoy giving hybrid or drought-resistant seeds to a farmer with a donation of just $17 to help one family.

With a financial contribution, the gift giver can select one of 36 items that you will get while helping a person in need. The cinnamon used in this recipe comes with a donation of $85. The wonderful people at World Vision Gift Catalog have offered to give another Prosperity Cinnamon Box away to a lucky reader!

More after the recipe …

Ingredients:

  • 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground star anise (about 2 pods)
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
  • 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
  • 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar, divided
  • 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1 large egg
  • 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

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Vegan Dark Chocolate Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Frosting

I made these Vegan Dark Chocolate Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Frosting for a lovely vegan bride-to-be for her bridal shower this weekend. I’m not going to lie, I was going to do a test run of these, and if I didn’t like them, she was getting normal egg-filled, buttercream-topped cupcakes. But. These are good. Really really good.

So when I did my test run, I passed them around to friends and family and conveniently left the word “vegan” out of the description until after they tasted the cupcakes. My “test subjects” didn’t seem too upset with my experiment, many went for seconds!

These cupcakes use dark chocolate (versus milk chocolate), and have no eggs, butter, or milk. And they are still super fluffy and moist. The best part, most of the ingredients are probably either in your pantry or really easy to find!

Ingredients (makes 2 dozen) adapted from the Curvy Carrot:

Dark Chocolate Cupcakes:

  • 2 cups all purpose flour
  • 1 1/2 cups sugar
  • 1 tablespoon cream of tartar
  • 2 teaspoons baking soda
  • 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
  • 3/4 cup dark chocolate cocoa powder
  • 2 oz vegan dark chocolate, finely chopped
  • 3/4 cup sunflower oil
  • 1 1/4 cups vanilla almond milk
  • 3/4 cup cinnamon applesauce
  • 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
  • 1 tablespoon cider vinegar

Peanut Butter Frosting:

  • 1 cup creamy peanut butter
  • 1/2 cup vegan margarine
  • 2 cups powdered sugar
  • 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 3 tablespoons vanilla almond milk

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