• Chocolate raspberry rose cupcakes

    chocolate raspberry rose cupcakes

    I wanted to do something extra special for Valentine’s Day this year, and since I have become pretty enamored with rose water, I thought chocolate cupcakes with pink raspberry frosting that look, smell, and even taste a bit like roses would be perfect! Can you think of a better Valentine’s gift than a dozen homemade chocolate […]

  • Marine dress blues cookies

    marine dress blues cookies

    It’s almost the Marine Corps’ birthday, and that means birthday balls, special birthday messages… and, of course, baked goods. There’s always an epic cake at the birthday ball, of course, but I like to make something festive as well. In the past, I’ve made camouflage cookies and camo cupcakes, as well as “scarlet and gold” […]

  • Ombre Mermaid birthday cake

    ombre mermaid birthday cake

    Last year, I made myself a unicorn cake for my birthday. This year, I wanted something a little different. I thought about baking a hummingbird cake (one of my faves) or trying a new flavor… but then I realized that the perfect cake for a red-headed aquaholic like me was a mermaid cake. An ombre mermaid […]

  • The best pecan pie

    best pecan pie

    To really understand how important pecan pie is in my life, I need to tell you a story about the first time I went to Afghanistan, in 2008. As soon as I got off the plane at Kandahar Air Field, my friend Kelly (who was the public affairs officer for the unit I was embedding […]

  • Celebration sprinkle cookies

    celebration sprinkle cookies

    I have to apologize for not sharing these cookies with you sooner. They are amazing, and I was keeping them all to myself. Well, not totally to myself. I let my family eat some. These cookies are a much-more-delicious version of those rainbow sprinkle-covered cookies they have at bakeries–the kind that are so beautiful and […]

  • Pumpkin cupcakes

    Pumpkin Spice Cupcake recipe at Marshmallows and Margaritas - perfect for fall!

    Pumpkin spice lattes have arrived at Starbucks, apple picking pictures are popping up all over Instagram, and temperatures here in Bahrain have dipped into the double digits (it was 95 today), which can only mean one thing: It’s fall! Let’s break out the canned pumpkin, cinnamon, and nutmeg and make cupcakes. You don’t even need […]

  • How to make a unicorn cake – without fondant

    How to make a unicorn cake with no fondant

    You may have seen pictures of beautiful unicorn cakes floating around the Internet — the ones with lovely closed eyes and long lashes and swirly golden horns. I wanted to bake myself one for my birthday, but I didn’t want to have to use any fondant (or non-edible items), so I had to come up with […]

  • Sopapilla cheesecake bars

    Easy sopapilla cheesecake bars with cinnamon sugar and honey

    A few years ago, I was visiting Phoenix for work and had the chance to see my mom’s BFF. She reads the blog (hi, Beth!) and gave me a bunch of different recipes to try. One that immediately caught my eye was something called “sopapilla cheesecake,” and I meant to make it as soon as […]

  • Red velvet sandwich cookies

    red velvet heart sandwich cookies

    While I hate basically everything card companies and Hollywood studios serve to us as “romance,” I do have a soft spot for Valentine’s Day. I guess it’s all the red and pink hearts, plus the opportunity for adorable treats. This year, after I saw the super cute red heart cut-out cookies on the cover of Better Homes […]

  • Rainbows and unicorns

    unicorn and rainbow cookies

    I don’t know about you, but I could definitely use some good vibes right about now. And so, I present: unicorn and rainbow cookies. I tried some new-to-me methods when decorating these cookies, and some worked better than others. But really, how can you go wrong with unicorns and rainbows? Instead of using colored icing […]