Frosted Reese's Brown Butter Blondies

Are there any foods that remind you of home? Sometimes the things that remind you most fiercely of home are surprising. When I was studying abroad in London last spring, I suffered very few bouts of homesickness. But one of my strongest ones happened around Valentine's day, when I couldn't get my hands on a bag of heart-shaped Reese's.

The British are wonderful people and - reputation aside - generally have excellent taste in sweets. But they just don't share our American passion for the chocolate peanut butter cup. (Yet.)

Before then, I never would have said those seasonal Reese's meant all that much to me. But not being able to buy any, even though it was something so simple I'd never given a second thought to before, really got me. It's the little things, I've learned from living abroad twice now, that remind you how far from home you really are.

Home is where the heart is...and where the heart-shaped chocolate is.

Giant Cinnamon Rolls

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"It is a truth universally acknowledged that a warm, gooey, homemade cinnamon roll will turn even the most average of mornings into a special occasion." - Jane Austen, Pride & Prejudice (early draft, probably)

But seriously. Is there anything more satisfying than sinking your teeth into a warm, gooey, gigantic cinnamon roll? Ok, there probably is. But cinnamon rolls have got to be toward the top of the list. Top 10, at least.

Remember those mornings in your childhood when your mom would bake cinnamon rolls as a surprise and you would wake up to the smell wafting up to your bedroom, the spicy cinnamon tickling your nose and the cozy fragrance of freshly baked dough coaxing you awake? And how you would follow the smell down to the kitchen, see those cinnamon rolls sitting on the counter, dripping with sticky sweet icing, and just know it was going to be a special day, even if it was just a regular Saturday? Heaven.

Strawberry Cookie Dough Ice Cream

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I go to a small school. But what we lack in size, we make up for in quality. Of academics, of campus culture, campus aesthetics, extracurricular programs, etc...sure, of course. But also: food. Our cafeteria boasts being ranked as one of the best college cafeterias in the country. And I can tell you from experience - both in our cafeteria and in the cafeterias of other schools I've visited - that it deserves it. 

My school is great for a lot of reasons, but one of the biggest ones for me is the cookie dough ice cream served in our campus coffee shop cum cafe. (I'm only exaggerating a little.) Seriously, I have never tasted better. Not even Ben and Jerry's. I easily polish off one of their over-the-top (literally, towering over the top of the cup), pint-size servings on a regular basis during the school year, usually either leering over my laptop in the library or lounging in front of a romcom with my friends for a well-deserved mental break/studying reward. 

Suffice to say, I have a weakness for cookie dough ice cream. And what was once merely a physical weakness has now been compounded by becoming sentimental as well. (I can just see my friends and I at our 10-year reunion, reminiscing not over professors or freshman corridors, but that dang cookie dough ice cream.) So when I first saw a recipe for strawberry cookie dough ice cream, I knew I had to try it. It's taken me over a year to actually get around to it, but hey, better late than never, right?

Flourless Chocolate Cupcakes

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Recently, my mom had to go to a business meeting and needed to bring refreshments, preferably of the sweet variety. I, of course, was commissioned to make these for her. My mind immediately started coming up with lavish ideas, but all of these were ruined when I learned that one of the people attending this meeting needed them to be gluten free. No, they did not have an allergy they decided to go gluten free for a couple of months to see how it would work as a diet or whatever. I do not under stand this- why would you willingly not eat gluten? No bread? No cupcakeS? No brownies? No cookies? No croissants? I would not be able to do it.