A sweet farewell (but not goodbye)...

I’m dedicating this post to my sister Rachel who, after 23 years of living at home (with the exception of college), is spreading her wings and moving to Tel Aviv on Sunday for 5 months of self-reflection. For nearly 20 years my sister has been my best friend – from playing with Barbies as children to indulging in fashion documentaries and biopics as we’re doing tonight (Coco Before Chanel, anyone?) we’ve always managed to keep each other entertained. She is by far my favorite shopping buddy, work-out partner (she’s currently trying to whip my abs into submission-too bad there’s too much delicious food derailing me from her plot!), and of course-dining companion. There is no one else who understands the giddy anticipation as we await Thursday Mac N’ Cheese night at the deli down the street, the excitement as we order both types of cheesy goodness with a side of fries, and the disappointment when it fails to live up to our expectations. She and I could travel the world trying to find the most perfect chocolate chip cookies, or be completely content making our own (ok, I’m the only one doing the making-but she’s a great consumer) and noshing on the leftover dough while we eagerly await their completion. So, Rach-this post is all for you. For the next five months, and the few days before you go, everything I bake you can think of as being inspired by you.

So, per Rachel’s request I baked an unreasonable amount of treats for her going away “party” she had on Saturday. Though it wasn’t much of a party the desserts sure were delicious and we had a great time playing scrabble until the wee hours of the morning. The refreshments consisted of red velvet cupcakes with my cream cheese frosting and peanut butter bars. For the cupcakes I used a recipe from a book given to me by my brother-The Golden Book of Baking (it’s fantastic-buy it!) and the peanut butter bar recipe was given to me by Rachel’s boyfriend, Dave whose grandmother had given it to him. Because the peanut butter bars truly a treasure and one of the best recipes I’ve ever used, I’m going to post the recipe to those. They are ridiculously simple almost to the point where you want to make them everyday-but restrain yourself! Dave also took incredible photos of all of these sweets, and made them look truly magnificent.

All of the desserts together.

Red velvet cupcake.

Peanut butter bars.

Peanut butter bars:
Ingredients-
½ cup white sugar
½ cup light corn syrup
1 ½ cups of peanut butter (12 oz jar)
4 cups of corn flakes (Yup, you read right-CORN FLAKES!)
½ cup milk chocolate chips

Mix peanut butter, sugar and corn syrup in saucepan well and cook on medium heat for about 10 mins. Remove from heat and mix in corn flakes until well distributed.
Grease an 11x7 pan and pour in mixture, evenly spreading it to completely cover the surface. Add chocolate chips on top and put in oven on low heat until chocolate chips are slightly melted (about 2 minutes)! Cool and cut into small squares about ¼ the size of a typical brownie.

~

Rach, there's no friend like a sister-and certainly no sister that could compare to you. I know you'll have the best time in Israel and find exactly what it is you've been craving. For all the things I admire you for this is just one more to add to the list.