One of my favorite memories is the summer vacations my family would spend in Bear Lake (an amazing crystal blue lake that lays across the boarder of Utah and Idaho). We'd go with my whole extended family to our grandparents condo and spend the days playing in the lake and eating good food. One of the best things about Bear Lake was their amazing raspberries. We couldn't go without getting baskets of raspberries, famous raspberry shakes, and the best chocolate covered raspberries! In my mind a chocolate dipped raspberry is a thousand times better than a chocolate dipped strawberry. You can pop the whole thing in your mouth at once and its juicy and sweet - and you won't be able to stop eating them! So with these happy memories in mind and Valentines Day coming up, I thought this would be the perfect treat to celebrate the holiday, and its so easy. I don't even know if you can call this one a recipe, but all I know is that they're delicious!

Alright, so these are so easy to make and can be ready in no time at all. They are perfect for Valentines gifts for family, just pop a few in a cellophane bag with a pretty ribbon and you're done.

What you need:

6 oz. chopped Chocolate (semi-sweet or milk). Bear Lake always had milk, I did these with semi-sweet. I like them both ways!
1 pint Raspberries
Optional: white chocolate for drizzling or sprinkles for decorating. I just like them plain and simple.

The rest is really easy.

1. Melt your chocolate. Now this is probably the most technical part, since technically the chocolate needs to be tempered to maintain its pretty sheen. I use a really easy method that hasn't failed me yet. I learned this from Ina Garten, but lets be honest, that is where most all my food knowledge originates from!

2. Here's what you do. Put 4 of the 6 oz. of chocolate in the microwave and cook it in 30 second intervals until almost melted. It usually just takes me 2 intervals, for a total of 60 seconds. Then, add the last 2 oz. of chopped chocolate into the already melted chocolate and stir till everything is completely melted and combined. This ensures that the chocolate doesn't get too hot and end up drying with that ugly dusty grey color. This microwave method hasn't let me down yet!

3. Now, the raspberries. Wash them and make sure they are completely dry. I like to sometimes get organic raspberries so I don't have to worry about washing them as much, because you want the raspberries nice and dry so the chocolate will stick.

4. Now, for the dipping. I dip with a fork so I can lift the raspberry up and the chocolate can drain off. Then I set them on parchment paper to dry and just keep dipping. They dry really fast and are ready to eat in no time!

5. Storing. They will keep for a few hours just sitting out, or a couple days in the fridge....(but, I doubt they'll last that long!!)

Well it is finally March, which calls for a celebration! Spring is on it's way! I have been super behind putting this cake recipe up with more of Ella Newman's darling photo's, but i'm finally getting around to it! This cake is so delicious there is nothing better than the combination of raspberries and almond, it's a match made in heaven. For the base of this cake I used a great recipe from livforcake.com and it is oh so good, she knew what she was doing with this one. I just added some almond flavor and more raspberry and put my own little spin on it. It's hard to find a good white cake recipe and I think this is just that!

White Cake from livforcake

1 1/2 cups cake flour sifted

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

3 oz. room temperature butter

3/4 cups granulated sugar

1 large egg

1/2 cup milk

1 teaspoon vanilla (I add a tsp of almond extract as well)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Whisk all dry ingredients together in a small bowl and set aside. Cream butter, and sugar on medium high speed until pale and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add egg and vanilla, and almond if using, and mix until combined. Alternate adding flour mixture and milk to butter mixture, beginning and ending with flour. Divide batter evenly amongst your pans and bake for 25-30 minutes. You don't want to overcook because the cake dries out quickly so watch them closely. She baked them in three 4"x3" cake pans, I baked it in two pans one slightly bigger than 4"x3" and one slightly smaller, so it evened out. Just remember when you're thinking what pans you want to use this recipe doesn't make enough for 2 standard round pans.

Raspberry Buttercream

1 stick softened butter

2 cups powdered sugar (may need a little more or less)

2-4 tablespoons milk

3 tablespoons raspberry jam

1 teaspoon almond flavoring

red food coloring (optional)

To make your butter cream whip the softened butter in a stand mixer at medium speed. Slowly begin to add 1 cup of the powdered sugar until it is well combined, it will seem really thick. Add a couple tablespoons of milk and mix again, then add the last cup of powdered sugar. After mixing the sugar in you may need another tablespoon of milk. You want it to be thick but spreadable. Lastly, stir in the almond extract and raspberry jam. You can leave it as is, it will be a muted purple color, or you can add a drop of red food coloring to give it a more pink hue, which is what I did.

*** Here are my tips to go about frosting the cake, these steps will insure your cake looks flawless!

1. I put the cake in the freezer wrapped in plastic wrap for about an hour so it was nice and cold and didn't crumble when I cut or frost it.

2. I then sliced the 2 layers in half so I had a total of 4 layers. Slather raspberry jam in-between the layers before you stack the cake and frost it.

3. I started with a crumb coat, or in other words just a thin layer of frosting that holds all the crumbs in. After you apply this thin layer pop it in the fridge for 30 minutes to an hour so it can harden up.

4. Pull it out of the fridge and top with your final frosting layer, it can be a little on the thicker side so you don't scrape into the crumb coating. Finally top with raspberries and you're ready to celebrate!