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Spring has arrived, and now it’s time to put fruit in all my desserts! Starting off real strong with these mini key lime cheesecakes. They are bursting with citrusy goodness and a nice buttery crust. Bonus- you don’t have to juice 26 tiny limes to make these yummy babies happen either, thanks to some lime Jell-o. These are pretty much perfect additions to any spring events and are so easy to make…at only 133 calories a pop, they’re a guilt-free, amazing dessert option. It’s party lime!

Recipe and Instructions

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The vast majority of us have spent the last few days with absolutely no idea what time it is, just experiencing the vague notion that the current time can’t be the right time, can it? Nothing like daylight savings time to absolutely wreck your circadian rhythm if you’re over the age of well, 20. I’ve decided that the only benefit to never knowing what time it is is that this means it’s never the wrong time for cake. Is it breakfast or is it 12:30? No clue, have cake. I am getting ready for dinner or bed? No clue, have cake. Will this feeling of existential dread ever end? No clue, have cake. I feel like DST happens around St. Patrick’s Day every year so that when the holiday finally rolls around, we’re all a bit delirious and totally ready for stiff drinks. Is this big liquor’s way of capitalizing on the holiday like the chocolate and flower industries do for Valentines? I could be mistaken, but I do know for certain a stiff drink pairs really well with a boozy cake…

I’ve made many a Baileys chocolate cake, but this year, I wanted to try making a Baileys yellow cake for St. Patrick’s Day. Good news, everyone: it’s magically delicious! I’ve decided Baileys can do no wrong; it makes every baked good so soft, and it has such a smooth aftertaste that you no longer care how annoying daylight savings time is because you’ve finally found some delicious, unrelenting happiness. Bonus points? It’s only 264 calories a slice, so you can totally pair it with a Guinness or, my personal favorite, more Baileys.

I’m actually running dangerously low on baking Baileys this month, and I’d hate to have to tap into the drinking reserves. To make this incredibly delish yellow cake, you need:

• 1 box of gluten free yellow cake mix (or regular yellow cake mix if not gluten free)
• 3 eggs
• 83 grams (1/3 cup) unsweetened applesauce
• 1/2 cup skim or fat free milk
• 1/2 cup Baileys Deliciously Light (or regular, or another fun flavor like salted caramel)

Preheat your oven to 350 and prepare three 6-inch round cake pans with cooking spray and bake even strips. Add all cake ingredients into a stand mixer, blending on low for one minute before switching to medium high for two minutes. Pour batter evenly into each pan and bake for 30-35 minutes. A toothpick should come out of the center of the cake clean. Let rest in the pan for 10 minutes before turning out to cool completely on a cooling rack before frosting.

What do we top a Baileys yellow cake with? More Baileys, of course. To make the frosting, you’ll need:

• 225 grams (8 ounces) of 1/3 the fat cream cheese, softened
• 226 grams (1 cup) of fat free Greek yogurt, strained overnight to remove moisture
• 16 ounces (4 cups) Lakanto powdered monkfruit or regular powdered sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/4 tsp citric acid (helps balance out the sweetness)
• 1-2 TBS Baileys
• This adorable cake topper
• These amazing sprinkles
• Kelly green or leaf green gel dye
• A few tablespoons of Cool Whip

Whip the cream cheese and yogurt with a paddle attachment in your stand mixer until fluffy, about three minutes. Add in half the monkfruit, citric acid, one tablespoon of Baileys, and the extract. Blend well, then scrape the bowl before adding the remaining monkfruit, green gel dye, and one more tablespoon of Baileys. To assemble, you just need to slather a layer of buttercream on top of a cooled cake layer, then add another layer (I always place them face down so the smooth surface on the bottom of the cake is now on top), then place the final layer on top. Then coat the whole cake in frosting.

This truly could be none more green. At this point, I chilled my cake in the freezer for 30 minutes before smoothing out any lumps or bumps with a plain Viva paper towel. Then I prepared to make a giant, sprinkle-laden mess in my kitchen.

I will not stop with festive holiday puns, so you’re just going to have to get clover it. I like to take a large baking sheet with a rim, placing my cake right in the middle. Then I pour some sprinkles into a bowl so that it is easy for me to grab a handful. Then I just take said handful and pour it carefully on the bottom of the cake to create a sprinkle border, pressing in gently to adhere the sprinkles.

Then, it is easy to pour the sprinkles that completely missed the cake and are just partying together all over the baking sheet back into the bowl, and the bowl back into the bag the sprinkles came in. Because in this house, no sprinkle gets left behind. I absolutely love the various sizes, matte sprinkles, shiny sprinkles, and shapes in this mix. I am what is referred to in the baking community (or should be) a “sprinkle snob.” Your traditional nonpareils are too basic for me.

I wanted to do a gold drip on top of this cake, but I ran out of gold luster, so instead I just sadly relented while placing the happiest, smiley-est cake topper on top of my cake. It mocked me so, but I’m a clover not a fighter, so I let it smugly smile at me with a look that said, “We would have remembered to order more luster dust in February, but that’s okay.”

I simply plopped a few tablespoons of Cool Whip into a piping bag with a #12 round tip and piped little mounds of clouds in front, on the side, and behind the topper to cover up any gaps. And voilà, you’ve got a very boozy cake that deceptively looks safe for children but totally is not. I just now realized this, but you can 100% clean that rainbow cake topper off to use for a less-boozy, child-appropriate cake after one of the biggest drinking holidays has passed. I am not a parent, but I do imagine the joy of not having to share cake with your children because it’s full of alcohol is one of those rare moments that makes parenting worth it?

Look, the bottom line is this cake is absolutely perfect for St. Patrick’s Day parties…it simply shamrocks (I know, such a clover girl I am). I have yet to meet a baked good that wasn’t improved with the addition of Baileys, that’s all I’m saying. The citric acid in the frosting keeps it from being overly sweet and really allows the Baileys flavor to take center stage. And that yellow cake? Well, we may have painted her green, but danged it she doesn’t taste like the ultimate, buttery, soft yellow sponge to ever exist. Get the paddy started with this cake to properly celebrate Saint Patrick’s Day this week! Trust me, your friends will 100% put up with every terrible holiday pun you can think of if you offer them a slice of boozy cake so good, you lose all concept of time (or is that the daylight savings kicking in again?). Til next time, my fellow eaters!

Recipe and Instructions

Score some major brownie points at your St. Patrick’s Day party with a batch of chocolatey, boozy, mint brownies. Given that they’re full of creme de menthe, Andes mint chips, and all sorts of chocolate, they’re actually incredibly macro friendly and low cal…so you can celebrate the holiday with something magically delicious that isn’t a bowl of Lucky Charms. If mint chocolate is one of your OG, favorite flavor combos, you absolutely have to whip up a batch of these! They are so soft and decadent with that nice, tingly mint sensation that it’s like instant therapy in a bite.

I have an affinity for boozy baking, and this always ramps up in March thanks to Saint Patrick’s Day. I am regularly trying to fill all baked goods with Baileys, Guinness, creme de menthe…ya know, just trying to pour the luck of the Irish into every bite. Well, March has arrived, and I’m ready to shamrock and roll! I make no apologies for these terrible puns, and instead offer you a no-bake Baileys chocolate pie recipe for your troubles. With a grand total of 6 ingredients, this is insanely easy and fast to whip up. It is 100% the pot of gold waiting at the end of the rainbow. Can a slice get you tipsy? Yes. Do you have to share? Optional. Just guard the fridge so a leprechaun doesn’t take off with this pie because it is dangerously delicious.

I love alliteration almost as much as I love these very berry blondie bars…they are soft, sweet, sour, and everything you could ever need in a secretly healthy treat with a whopping 12 grams of protein per serving. A berry delicious miracle! They are also gluten free and can be made vegan/dairy free if you substitute vegan yogurt and plant-based milk. I just want everyone in the world to try this recipe because it is absolutely phenomenal!

Recipe and Instructions

Mardi Gras is just around the corner, and I gotta say, this is really the only time of the year I miss living in the south because boy do they know how to celebrate properly. I had never even heard of King Cake until my 30s when we moved to Florida…but the first time I had some, I was immediately hooked. A cinnamon roll/cake hybrid? Truly, the king of cakes for sure. But since I had to go gluten free back in 2019, I have had nary a slice. I decided to make Mardi Gras magic happen and came up with a recipe for gluten free King Cake mini cheesecakes. This way you can throw beads with one hand while eating dessert with the other. These beautiful little babies are bursting with cinnamon sugar swirls and a soft, pillowy cheesecake.

Recipe and Instructions

Looking for a cake to woo that special someone this Valentine’s Day? Or, more realistically, you just want to eat some cake but don’t want to spend the day in the kitchen making one? Yeah, I got you. This super simple raspberry bundt cake requires no pureeing of berries, no adding of various jams…you’ll be in and out of the kitchen in under an hour with a whole cake to call your own (or I guess, share, if you want to keep your Valentine happy). My mom bought me this amazing bundt pan for Christmas, and I’ve been dying to try it out. I was going for a two-toned look, but my red and pink dyes both got a lot darker while baking, so it just looks like a red cake until you cut into it. I recommend keeping half your batter white and dying the other half red to create more of a contrast for the two-toned look!

Recipe and Instructions

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Okay, so the cartoon/comic-style cake trend was all over the place in November and December, and has slowed down since the holidays, so I am extremely late to this party. But a cake where you don’t have to worry about precision accuracy, the cleanest of lines, and the smoothest of frostings? I’m in. So I may be late, but bitter late than never. I thought it would be funny to make a lemon cake and design it as a Valentine’s cartoon cake style because I am a bitter human being that doesn’t actually celebrate the holiday (the chocolate and floral industry can’t pull one over on me)…so a sour-flavored cake just rings true to how I feel about Hallmark’s attempts to make me a romantic. Also, my lovely coworkers gifted me with ALL. THE. SPRINKLES. for my birthday, including a large set of V. Day sprinkles, so I figured this was a pretty good use for them. I may hate Valentine’s Day, but damned if I don’t love a good cake sprinkle more than anything else.

If the Powerpuff Girls made a cake, this would be that cake. And Mojo Jojo would spend an entire episode trying to figure out how to steal it because it is DELICIOUS. It’s a Funfetti lemon cake because I wanted both a cartoony exterior and interior, and nothing says comic yum like a Funfetti cake. The lemon cream cheese frosting is also to die for; I used a bit of citric acid to make the frosting less sweet (think Sour Patch Kids meets Dunkaroo Dip- a 90s kid’s nostalgia factory, if you will). Basically, this cake is a lemony burst of flavor that makes my bitter little heart a titch less sour. Every time I open the fridge and see how cartoonish and ridiculous it looks sitting next to regular, real-life food, it’s delightful. And at only 259 calories a slice (10 slices total), you can squeeze the day (and not your waist)!

Okay, rationing eggs in this economy would probably be wise, but then I wouldn’t have cake, so here we are. For the lemon Funfetti cake, you need:

• 1 box of gluten free Funfetti cake mix (or regular Funfetti cake mix if not gluten free)
• 3 eggs (sorry, I know that’s like $50 worth of eggs today)
• 70 grams (1/3 cup) unsweetened applesauce
• 1 cup skim or fat free milk
• 1 tsp lemon extract

Preheat your oven to 350 and prepare three 6-inch round cake pans with cooking spray and bake even strips. Add all cake ingredients into a stand mixer, blending on low for one minute before switching to medium high for two minutes. Pour batter evenly into each pan and bake for 32-35 minutes. A toothpick should come out of the center of the cake clean. Let rest in the pan for 10 minutes before turning out to cool completely on a cooling rack before frosting.

Anything that says it can be used for cleaning and eating gives me pause, but I read that citric acid can balance out the super sweetness of frosting, so I had to try. I figured if it killed me, I’d go out eating cake, which, truly, seems appropriate. While your cakes cool, you can make the frosting. You’ll need:

• 225 grams (8 ounces) of 1/3 the fat cream cheese, softened
• 226 grams (1 cup) of fat free Greek yogurt, strained overnight to remove moisture
• 16 ounces (4 cups) Lakanto powdered monkfruit or regular powdered sugar
• 1 tsp lemon extract
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/8 tsp citric acid
• 1-2 TBS milk

Whip the cream cheese and yogurt with a paddle attachment in your stand mixer until fluffy, about three minutes. Add in half the monkfruit, citric acid, and both extracts. Blend well, then scrape the bowl before adding the remaining monkfruit and 1 TBS milk; if the frosting is too stiff, add another TBS milk. To assemble, you just need to slather a layer of buttercream on top of a cooled cake layer, then add another layer (I always place them face down so the smooth surface on the bottom of the cake is now on top), then place the final layer on top. Then coat the side (but not the top) of the cake with plain white frosting. Citric acid also makes frosting BLINDINGLY WHITE (like ‘my legs in the winter’ level of white), which again, gave me pause, because what is it going to do to my insides if it bleaches my frosting?

Instead of wondering whether my intestines and stomach needed to prepare for bleaching, I gathered up some hot pink, red, and black gel dyes and rounded up the Valentine’s sprinkles. I divided my frosting into thirds, a larger heaping to dye hot pink, and two smaller heaps to dye black and red. I loaded my pink frosting into a piping bag with a #12 round tip, my black frosting into a piping bag with a #5 tip (I also had my #3 and #2 tips on hand to swap out), and my red frosting into a piping bag with a 2D tip (1M would also work). That little tool you see in the middle above is a grabber that works EXCELLENTLY to place sprinkles onto a cake; big ups to my boss for sending that in my birthday gift…it is truly my new favorite thing ever. It also works well to threaten husbands out of the kitchen and away from your bowl of frosting, FYI.

I topped my cake with a bit of pink frosting, smoothed, and then froze the whole thing for 20 minutes so my frosting would crust. I smoothed out any bumps on the cake with a plain Viva paper towel after this.

Then I came in with the pink frosting and #12 tip, and outlined “drips” down the side of the cake before filling in the outlines with more pink frosting. Then I smoothed out the pink to my liking; some texture makes it look more comical. I added in some black outlining on the top and the bottom around the cake. You don’t need to make a completely connected circle. Breaking it up a little into smaller sections of outlining adds to the cartoon effect.

Now, outline the drips with more black frosting. I added in a few “shadows” of overlapping black. Then I used my sprinkle grabber to put red hearts all over the side of the cake. I outlined these with a #3 tip in little sections; some went all around the hearts, others outlined in little chunks.

Once I finished outlining all the hearts, I took tiny pink heart sprinkles and placed them all over the rest of the background of the cake. The sprinkle grabber came in clutch here; if I do have a Valentine this year, it’s that sprinkler grabber…I am in looooove. Then I finished the cake off by drawing little red swirls with my 2D tip on the top of the cake. I froze this for 15 minutes before coming in with black frosting and a #2 tip to outline the waves on the swirls. I do have a quick video on my Instagram of the design process as well.

If any at point your frosting starts to get too soft, throw it in the freezer for 5-10 minutes to firm up. But truly, I had this cake decorated in about 10 minutes minus the breaks to freeze sections. It was so easy and SO much fun. I am glad I jumped on this trend before it completely disappeared. I like to think of myself as trend-aware, but I guess I’m slipping in my old age…

Look, I’m not one to heart-iculate my emotions, but I am so grateful my work fam sent me all these sprinkles to use for my bakes for my birthday a few weeks ago. I’ve got some stellar ideas coming up for another Valentine’s bake and some Mardi Gras bakes (we’re here to party mardi!). But right now, I’m just a girl, standing in front of a cake, asking it to let her eat it…because it is so zesty and delicious. Since it’s citrus-based, I’ve also been having it with breakfast. I am excelling at adulthood in my mid 30s, let me tell you. But trust me, if you had a slice, you’d be right there with me on Team Breakfast Cake. As far as I know, the citric acid hasn’t eaten a hole in my gut or bleached my internal organs, so I am definitely using this again to lessen the sweetness of buttercream frostings. I love a good science experiment that doesn’t end in near disaster. You know, like when Professor Utonium mixed sugar, spice, and everything nice but accidentally added in Chemical X and made the Powerpuff girls. Okay, we’ve gone full circle, so… Til next time, my fellow eaters!

Recipe and Instructions

Many moons ago, when I was a young girl and could still eat all of the gluten, I adored an Orange Milano cookie. The folks at Pepperidge Farm had a sheer moment of brilliance when they thought to combine orange and chocolate into the unsung hero of flavor mashups. We all know about the bliss of biting into a chocolate peanut butter cup or a scoop of chocolate mint ice cream…but do you know of the life-altering goodness of chocolate orange donuts? Because you should. So it’s a good thing I came up with a recipe for them. You’re welcome. Also, if someone could just eat an Orange Milano cookie in front of me for old time’s sake, I’d appreciate it. Stupid gluten.

Recipe and Instructions

A mouthful to say and an even better mouthful to eat–if you’ve got a leftover bottle of champagne hanging out from New Years and half a bag of cranberries taking up space in your freezer, you’re well on your way to one of the tastiest cheesecakes I’ve ever dreamed up. Follow the recipe below to make a show-stopping, mouth-watering cheesecake to give your dessert lovin’ self in 2023…it’s low calorie and high protein, so those resolutions still stick! You cran do it.

Recipe and Instructions