This rich, chewy chocolate cookie is the brainchild of French pastry chef Francois Payard, who based his creation on the French macaron. Combining little more than egg whites cocoa and sugar, this confection is crisp on the outside and fudgy-chewy in the middle. It delivers all the flavor of a brownie, but with a lighter and more delicate feel. And because the recipe includes no wheat flour, dairy or egg yolks, these cookies are gluten-free, dairy-free and Passover-friendly. Don't worry, though, you won't feel like you're missing anything at all if you make these delicious treats.

NOTE: We adapted the original recipe, which we found in Food 52's book, Genius Desserts, to use pecans instead of walnuts. You can certainly substitute walnuts if that's what you prefer or have on hand.  This recipe makes about 16, 3-inch cookies. 

As Mary Berry used to say on the British baking show, these are "scrummy." Soft but not cakey, they are sweet with hints of tartness and salt. In our view, perfection. We love oatmeal cookies and often try new recipes. This recipe, adapted from one by Julesong on Genius Kitchen, is a keeper.

We used toasted pecans in this recipe - the toasting lends an extra dimension to the flavor. You can use untoasted pecans or another nut if you choose. Or leave them out all together. In fact, you can adapt this recipe to use raisins or regular chocolate if you prefer. Do use regular rolled oats in the recipe. It gives the cookies a looser dough that bakes up chewy, not cakey.

These are easy to make gluten-free as well. Just sub out the all-purpose flour with your favorite GF mix.

Makes about 24 medium or 36 small cookies. Keeps for several days on your counter or a month or so in your freezer (well-wrapped in both cases). Enjoy!

Need a healthy-ish chocolate treat? These chocolate zucchini cupcakes fill the bill admirably - and without totally derailing your vow to eat your veggies. Made with shredded zucchini and fat-free yogurt, these are sure to please even your pickiest eater.

Best of all, there's no need to drain and squeeze out the moisture in these babies. We want the moisture here. We shredded a 6-inch zucchini with the large size shredding disk in our food processor and had a bit to spare. We let it sit as we made the cupcake batter. Then we shook off any extra moisture that had accumulated at the bottom. You can shred with a finer size in your processor or on your box grater if you're truly trying to hide the veg from your family.

This recipe is adapted from a King Arthur Flour cake. We've changed the method of combining the ingredients significantly, and they work great with your mixer and SideSwipe beater. (naturally)

This recipe makes 12 good-size cupcakes. Let them cool completely for best flavor. They're even better the second day. If you like, you can drizzle them with melted chocolate chips or a cream cheese glaze. We made a glaze using about 1 ounce of warm cream cheese, 1/3 cup of powdered sugar, a couple of drops of vanilla extract and a 1/2 teaspoon of milk. You can play around with the ingredients to get an amount and consistency that you like. You will need very little it you want to do the drizzle as shown in the photo. 

These buttery, jammy, crunchy and crumbly bars are one of the easiest recipes we've featured here. You probably already have the ingredients in your kitchen...so why don't you make some today?

Perfect for a casual dessert, afternoon snack or dare we say breakfast, these simple to make bars can use any kind of jam you have on hand. We used a combination of peach and strawberry so we could clean out our jars :). Feel free to do the same or even make your own jam if you're so inclined.

A stand mixer is not required for this recipe, but we found it was helpful in getting all the ingredients incorporated. Plus, we try to make all our recipes using SideSwipe to show how well it works!

This recipe, which can easily be made gluten-free, is from Brian Hart Hoffman's Bake from Scratch, volume 1. Yields about 16 square servings. (our photos picture 1/9 size servings)
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