Spring break has already come and gone, in the blink of an eye. I spent mine at home in San Diego, with a brief stint in San Francisco.

San Francisco is amazing. I’ve been a few times, but I hadn’t spent time actually in the city exploring in a while, and oh man. It’s incredible! The food is just ridiculous. I could’ve spent hours in the ferry building, trying things from each of the amazing stores. I, of course, visited a ton of bakeries on my visit.

First stop was a place called Craftsman & Wolves. It’s gorgeous, so unique and interesting inside. I was meeting with another food blogger (Nicole over at Bowl Licking) and we tried some amazing stuff, including a cheddar and bacon muffin stuffed with an egg called the Rebel Within, a passionfruit sesame croissant which was ridiculous, and my favorite, a Carrot Cocoa Muffin, which I am determined to recreate since it’s not readily available to me. If you’re from the area or visiting: highly recommended!

Next was the famous Tartine. Lemme just say: lives up to the reputation. We got a pain a chocolat, a plain croissant, a lemon bar and a ham and cheese croissant. My favorite was the ham and cheese croissant, though it definitely had an edge up because it was fresh out the oven. Best croissant I’ve ever had in the US, easily.

Finally, we went to this incredible bean to bar chocolate store called Dandelion. Besides just that the chocolate tastes incredible, in the store you can watch each of the processes of making the chocolate. They literally turn it from the cocoa bean to the chocolate bar right there in front of you! And the chocolate is absolutely delicious, all made with cocoa beans from small farms around the world. Of course, we had to get one of their incredible pastries. We chose the chocolate caramel pecan tart. It had a dark chocolate shortbread crust, filled with a mix of caramel, pecans, and dark big chocolate chunks. It was SO GOOD. Seriously. One of the best chocolate desserts I’ve ever had.

We had some other incredible meals, but those were definitely the stand outs! It was a wonderful food filled week :)

Before San Francisco though, I was baking a ton at home! One of the stand outs from that was this cake, which was devoured more quickly than I care to admit, and that was after my dad and I refused to give out very much because we wanted it all for ourselves! It tastes homemade in the best way possible.

It’s ultra-moist from the bananas, with amazing flavor from both the brown butter and the banana. It’s rich and perfectly complemented by the deep, dark, silky chocolate ganache. The rainbow sprinkles add a fun touch! Ditch the banana bread next time you have overripe bananas and try this. It’s wonderful.

Enjoy!!