Jolene's Recipe Journal

Eclairs are my absolute favorite sweet treat.  Beautiful choux dough, delicious pastry cream, and decadent chocolate on top.   

  Today is the last day of Brunch Week, and what an awesome week it's been!  I'm wrapping things up with a cocktail, because I sure could use one (or two)!  I surveyed our supply of alcohol, and right now we are overrun with vodka.  We had a great crop of blackberries last year, and I stockpiled some of them in the freezer, so I pulled them out to defrost.

  Browsing through my Gram's recipe box for inspiration for #BrunchWeek and there was a card for blondies.   I've eaten plenty of blondies in my time, but have never made them myself. These were interesting to me because it starts with melting butter with brown sugar. 

This post is sponsored in conjunction with #BrunchWeek. I received product samples from sponsor companies to aid in the creation of the Brunchweek recipes. All opinions are mine alone. I hope you are enjoying Brunch Week as much as I am! When my supply of Dixie Crystals light brown sugar arrived, I started a list of possible things to bake.  We are big fans of bacon coated with brown sugar and baked, and I wanted to capture that flavor and combine it with a favorite dessert of ours, palmiers or elephant ears. 

I'm so excited to be participating in #BrunchWeek 2019 hosted by Love and Confections and A Kitchen Hoor's Adventures ! This is the 7th year of #BrunchWeek and we have 35 bloggers from around the country sharing over 140 of their best Brunch recipes. We have so many delicious recipes for you to enjoy throughout the week including cocktails, appetizers, casseroles, cinnamon rolls, breakfast pizzas, coffee cakes, plenty of desserts, and more!

I am an avid fan of coffee.  I have been for years. My social media was covered with posts about coffee= life. I couldn't start the day without it.   Then I gave it up.  GASP! Horror! It wasn't because of the coffee itself, I realized that I was adding so many other things to it to make it drinkable that it wasn't really coffee that I loved at all, but flavored syrups and sugar and creamer.

It's always a happy mail day when my Taste of Home Special Delivery Box arrives! The Spring box was particularly well-timed because we'd been having a stretch of cold, rainy weather, and it was an instant mood booster.