Recipe: Lemon and cream cheese muffins

I thought I already knew the best brownie recipe in the world, but Renée Kohlman, the blogger behind Sweet Sugar Bean, has proven me wrong. Her brownie, made with both dark chocolate and unsweetened cocoa powder, is subtle in taste and rich in texture. It's my new reigning champion.

The Saskatoon native knows what she's doing. Her chocolate chip cookie is chewy, loaded with dark chocolate chunks and topped with flaky sea salt; her double peanut butter and white chocolate chunk cookies are even better. Kohlman's first cookbook, All The Sweet Things, has more than 100 recipes for cookies, cakes, tarts, pies, pastries and more, and everything I made from it was spectacular.

Each recipe has a beautiful accompanying photograph, which is great. Every good cookbook is a coffee-table offering as well as a guide, after all, and seeing the results of every recipe makes it easier to decide where to delve in, particularly for inexperienced bakers.

There will be hits and misses depending on personal tastes, as there always are. But the book radiates real joy, the most important emotion in baking.

My advice is to start with the brownies and work up to the plum and nectarine hazelnut galette. At some point, embrace your inner kid and make the chocolate marshmallow pie. And if you're looking to serve mom breakfast in bed this weekend, these muffins should be a hit.