Anyone who has ever been left alone with 24 chocolate cupcakes knows: Baking is really dangerous. To survive that level of sweet, delicious temptation, you either need superhuman self-control or a houseful of guests — or recipes that make four cupcakes, instead of two dozen.
That was Texas blogger Christina Lane’s solution: downsized desserts. The result is a cookbook dubbed “Sweet & Simple: Dessert for Two” (Countryman Press, $28) with recipes for nearly 100 decadent sweets, from a 6-inch Black Forest Cake to cupcake quartets and mini raspberry pies. Loaf pans are used for brownies, muffin tins for mini pies and ramekins for baking individual molten chocolate cakes. It’s brilliant.
We can’t exactly call these decadent desserts diet-conscious — mmm, butter, chocolate, sugar — but they’re portion aware. Besides, how much trouble can you get into when there are only two Little Brownie Pots?
