Notes about Recipes in this book

• OG chocolate chip thick'ems

  • CaptainPantsless on January 06, 2025

    Delicious, but more like thiccccccccc’ems.

• Lala's mantecaditos

  • alysekstokes on March 20, 2025

    A lovely buttery, melt-in-the-mouth cookie.

• The lemon cookies

  • alysekstokes on March 20, 2025

    Absolutely delicious with the perfect chewy texture. I added some poppy seeds to my batch, and they were a hit!

  • arguewithatree on May 23, 2026

    Lovely actually lemony tasting treat. I added the king Arthur lemon juice powder as well which helped it sing

• Sorrel snickerdoodles

  • wrenangelone on February 18, 2025

    Very good texture; intriguing flavor combo that didn't 100% work for me. I'm glad I made them but not sure that I would make them again.

• Passion fruit half-moon cookies

  • EmilyR on July 07, 2025

    I love all things passion fruit, so I wanted to try this. The passion fruit flavor comes through, however I prefer Ina Garten’s cookie base more. A mishmash of the two recipes would be nice. These felt like they dried out a bit.

• Cashew brittle

  • jgreenheck on December 19, 2024

    Made this four times. #1 burnt; #2-3 over corrected and under cooked; -#4 got the temp right…but just okay.

• Guava lemon bars

  • Baltiville on October 17, 2024

    These are such a nice mildly sweet lemon bar, and has the memory of a fruit roll up flavor but not as sweet. Never have I ever used guava paste and excited there are a few recipes in this book that use the ingredient. Wonderful first bake from this joyful, fabulous chef. Paola is the real deal.

• Pineapple empanadilla

  • Lsblackburn1 on May 18, 2025

    I’m wondering if there’s a mistake in the filling directions. She calls for 2 cups pineapple and 2 cups sugar. This seemed like a lot but I went with it, following the recipe, and it was way too liquidy. I added more pineapple and cooked a lot longer and managed to get a filling. It was so sweet (obviously, I know!). The pastry was lovely - easy to work with. I rolled out 12 circles, made the empanadas and then baked at 350 for 25 minutes. They are yummy but I wish they weren’t so sweet.

• Plantain tarte Tatin

  • KateS27 on May 15, 2026

    This is tasty and a great way to use up plantains, but it was confusing when to add the brown sugar mixture since the directions say to do it twice. That said, it’s easy to pull together and fun to eat!

• Passion fruit & guava mascarpone tart

  • JuneHawk on April 28, 2025

    Part 1. As a lover of guava and passion fruit, I was so excited to make this tart. The final result was a let down though. First, the way the author has you put the tart crust in the tart pan is a disaster. It's warm dough and it falls apart. It's best to chill the dough after making it (before rolling), and then will after rolling and before put it in the pan. The latter is not always needed, but unless you're doing something like a graham cracker crust, chilling the dough before rolling it not really optional. The filling has way too much sugar and it completely obliterates the tartness of the passion fruit. All you get is sweet and nothing else, especially since the guava mascarpone cream is also very sweet. I'd try about 1/3 less sugar, to be honest. I wasn't a fan of the texture of the filling once set. It has A LOT of eggs (6 whole eggs plus 8 yolks) AND an entire envelope of gelatin. It's just too much. It also ends up being a bit gritty when it should be smooth.

  • JuneHawk on April 28, 2025

    Part 2. The recipe calls for 1/4 cup (25 grams) of lemon zest for the filling. That is an obscene amount, and then it gets strained out. I THINK this is to add tartness/zing back into the filling, buy this could be fixed, again, by using less sugar. The author says that you may not be able to fit all the filling in the tart and that's an understatement. I had over 1 cup of filling left. This recipe should have been scaled down a bit to be less wasteful in ingredients like eggs, butter, and passion fruit puree, which are pretty expensive. The guava mascarpone cream is delicious though!

• Morir soñado tres leche cake

  • Aubr3yy on March 06, 2026

    If you like tres leches cake and creamsicles, this is the cake for you :) I love how the flavors work together and the pop of orange really works for me! The directions make this cake very easy to make.

• Roasted apple & apple cider vinegar cake

  • Lsblackburn1 on October 02, 2025

    Very moist and delicious cake. My apples only needed about 15 minutes - sugar was burning. (I’m really wondering how well the recipes in this book were tested)

• Pineapple sumac upside-down cake

  • Lsblackburn1 on June 28, 2025

    So moist and delicious. My cake rose a lot in the oven so next time I’d put a baking sheet on the bottom rack to catch any overflow. It also needed about 50 minutes to get done. I’m not sure if I could really taste the sumac, but it was still a very nice version of a pineapple upside down cake!

• Two-ingredient creamy ice pops

  • kshell on May 20, 2025

    So easy, and good. Fudgsicle texture. Didn't need to strain. Note to self: makes 7 push-pops.