Chocolate

Daring Bakers: Meringue Coffee Cake

Finally.  I have missed more than one of the Daring Bakers challenges in the last few months.  I am glad that I got back on track with this one!

The March 2011 Daring Baker’s Challenge was hosted by Ria of Ria’s Collection and Jamie of Life’s a Feast. Ria and Jamie challenged The Daring Bakers to bake a yeasted Meringue Coffee Cake.

I managed to get the coffee cake made this week despite the fact that my son has not been a fan of napping for more than 30 minutes at a time.  At the moment I am trying to get this post written before he wakes up!  So, forgive me if this one is short and sweet.

The dough wasn’t too difficult to put together, but even after an hour and a half rise it hadn’t really doubled in bulk.  I do not have a great relationship with yeast.  I added 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon and 3/4 teaspoon of cardamom to the flour mixture.

The filling.  Oh my goodness.  The filling.  How can you argue with this?  Sweet meringue, chopped pecans, cinnamon sugar and chocolate chips.  I did one ring with chocolate, and one without.  I prefer the one without if I’m enjoying this for breakfast.  I found that the chocolate hides the other flavors too much.

Rolling this up was easy, but when I went to form the ring I couldn’t get the edges to completely seal together.  I also didn’t have much filling on the edges, so a section of my ring was just bread…which still tasted delicious.

After baking, the meringue puffed out of the vents and got nice and brown.  It is so lovely!  I couldn’t resist breaking off a piece of it to enjoy.  Yummy.

I made the coffee cakes the day before and sent half of each one to work with Ben the next morning.  I was worried that it wouldn’t stay fresh overnight, but I had a piece the next afternoon and it was quite good.

Here is the link to the recipe.  I am too pressed for time to put the recipe on this post!  Ok, now off to get the kitchen cleaned before the little man wakes!  Enjoy!

Fudgy Chocolate & Peanut Cookies

There was a time in my life that I would have turned my nose up at a cookie recipe that used a cake mix.  Times have changed.

Like many of my baked goods these days, this one was an attempt to use things I had on hand.  I had a cake mix, a jar of peanuts, and chocolate chips.  So, I made these cookies.  And they are not bad.

These cookies taste like a cake mix, and that’s OK with me.  I happen to like that flavor every now and then.  The mix I had already had some little chips in it, so add a few more chocolate chips if your mix does not.  I used half butter and half margarine since I had half sticks of both in the fridge.  These were crazy delicious while still warm and gooey in the middle.  They weren’t quite as good the next day for some reason.  Just pop one…or two…or five in the microwave for 5-10 seconds to warm them up, and enjoy with a cold glass of milk. Mmmmm…

Switch the chips for whatever you want.  Use different nuts.  Whatever. Enjoy!

Fudgy Chocolate & Peanut Cookies

Ingredients

  • 1 box chocolate cake mi
  • 1 stick (1/2 cup) butter or margarine
  • 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • 1 1/2 cups salted peanuts
  • 1/2 cup chocolate chips
  • 1 cup peanut butter chips

Directions

  1. Beat butter or margarine until smooth.  Beat in cake mix, then oil, eggs and vanilla until smooth.
  2. Stir in peanuts, and chips.
  3. Bake cookies at 350°F for 9-12 minutes.

Oreo Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies

There are no words.  Just salivation.

Baking Bites (link here) does a post called “Bites from Other Blogs” where she  introduces you to new food blogs and recipes.  This one caught my eye, and thanks to always buying more than I need I had a fresh box of OREOS in the pantry!  It was fate, my friends, fate.

The recipe came from picky-palate.com and I will be forever thankful to both blogs for introducing me to this cookie!  Bless you, Jenny!  I am now subscribed to your blog : )

The only change I made was to use part of a bag of chocolate chips, some Heath bar bits, and some chopped semi-sweet chocolate to make the full 10 ounces.  I liked the combination of chips, chunks and bits of toffee.  It makes these cookies even better, in my opinion anyway.  These are so evil.  I recommend bringing somewhere to pawn them off on other people so that you are not tempted to eat them all yourself!

Oreo Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies
  • 2 sticks softened butter
  • 3/4 Cup packed light brown sugar
  • 1 Cup granulated sugar
  • 2 large eggs
  • 1 Tablespoon pure vanilla
  • 3 1/2 Cups all purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 10 oz bag chocolate chips
  • 24 Oreo Cookies
  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.   In a stand or electric mixer cream butter and sugars until well combined.  Add in eggs and vanilla until well combined.
  2. In a separate bowl mix the flour, salt and baking soda.  Slowly add to wet ingredients along with chocolate chips until just combined.
  3. Using a cookie scoop take one scoop of cookie dough and place on top of an Oreo Cookie.  Take another scoop of dough and place on bottom of Oreo Cookie.  Seal edges together by pressing and cupping in hand until Oreo Cookie is enclosed with dough.
  4. Place onto a parchment or silpat lined baking sheet and bake cookies 9-13 minutes or until cookies are baked to your liking.
  5. Let cool for 5 minutes before transferring to cooling rack.

Frosted Cocoa Brownies

Oh my.  These are decadent.  I wish I hadn’t made a full recipe because now they’re calling to me from the kitchen, “Carrie, it’s just one more little piece of goodness.  No one will even notice that you ate me…except your jeans!  Mwahaha!”  I hate you evil brownies.

Desserts with which you have a love-hate relationship are usually the best ones.  This brownie recipe will be one that I will make again.  Simple ingredients.  Easy preparation.  Sinfully good.  And while I ate more than one for dessert, a normal person with a healthy relationship with sweets really only needs one to be satisfied.

I found this recipe on Tasty Kitchen, the recipe sharing site from the Pioneer Woman.  Here is the link to the site.  I’ve enjoyed searching through all the recipes, but have yet to submit any of my own.  There are already so many recipes with a pretty great variety that I don’t know if I will.  One of the things I like about sites like these is that real people made the recipes and so they are usually pretty easy and tasty.  Thank you, Tasty Kitchen!

On the site these brownies are called “Are We in Heaven?  No…It’s Just the Brownies.” which is what made me take a second look at this recipe.  I thought it was funny.  Would I say that these brownies are like being in heaven?  No.  Nothing on this earth is going to be that good.  But they are incredibly good.

The brownie is fudgy.  The frosting is pretty sweet, so a thin layer is all you need. (more…)

Oreo Cheesecake

When I saw this recipe I thought that there was no possible way that this dessert could turn out poorly.  Oreos, butter, heavy cream, sugar, cream cheese, and chocolate…no possible way.  I was right.  This thing is dang good.

In fact, the only problem I encountered in making this cheesecake is that my pan wasn’t deep enough to add the sour cream layer on top of the cheesecake, and without this layer the cheesecake had a visibly cracked top.  But that issue was hidden by the chocolate ganache layer.

In the past I have been known to cut corners in the time department.  I have very little patience.  I don’t allow things to set up or chill completely, usually because I have not given myself enough time to complete the dessert.  I gave myself plenty of time for this cheesecake, and my planning and patience paid off.  The cake cut nicely and had a terrific creamy texture.  So, give the cake the time is deserves to set in the oven, chill in the fridge overnight, and chill with the chocolate layer as well.

This recipe is from allrecipes.com.  Here is the link to the recipe.  I left out the sour cream layer completely, but other than that I did not make any changes.  You will need one package of Oreos…unless you plan to snack on them along the way.  I crushed them in the food processor, which is tons easier than banging them in a plastic bag that inevitably breaks and creates quite a mess.

Cheesecake alone is decadent, but this one is especially so thanks to the Oreo crust, the layer of Oreo in the middle and the lovely chocolate top.  This was a hit at the Christmas party I took it to.  You will not be sorry if you take the time to make this!  Enjoy. (more…)

Peanut Butter Chocolate Bars

Oh.  My.  Good.  Gracious.  These things are crazy good.  And they came about all because of one lonely jar of chunky natural peanut butter that had been stashed in the back of my pantry for a while.  He was reaching the end of his shelf life on November 8, 2010.  I bet this jar of peanutty goodness never even dreamed of being used in something so wonderful.  He thought maybe he was destined to be the star player in a few PB & J’s or maybe to be spread on some celery.  I had much bigger plans for him.

In order to use my natural peanut butter I just searched “desserts with natural peanut butter” in Google and after searching through a few cookie recipes I found this recipe on Joy the Baker.  Here is the link to the recipe.  I made minimal changes to the original.  Chunky instead of smooth peanut butter, regular brown sugar instead of dark, and semi-sweet chocolate chips instead of milk chocolate.

These taste like a dressed up Reese’s cup.  The peanut butter layer comes together easily in one pot.  The chocolate frosting is also incredibly simple to make and spreads nicely on the cooled bars.  This is an altogether simple and delicious bar that I will definitely be adding to my go-to recipe collection.  After frosting the bars I chilled them in the fridge which makes the quite easy to cut.  We ate them cold from the fridge and they were delicious, but letting them warm up a bit makes for a wonderful melt-in-your-mouth experience.  Enjoy! (more…)

Double Chocolate Marshmallow Chex Bars

Today I cleaned out my pantry and the cabinet that houses all of the medicine, vitamins, paper goods, cookie cutters, cake decorating gadgets, and some other random junk I own. It felt so good to throw some things away and get everything organized.

The most impressive things I tossed were a box of generic NyQuil from HEB that expired in 2007 and a pretty large container of Gatorade mix that also was “Best By” June of 2007. Why did we still have these things? We moved to Amarillo in 2008. Why did I not throw them both away when we moved?

Anyway, our pantry is not exactly spacious. A few items that I don’t use often had been tossed on top of a bunch of other things on the very top shelf. Out of sight, out of mind.  After cleaning everything out I couldn’t find another place for these items, and I couldn’t bear to put them back where they had been after I’d cleaned everything up. So, I made these cereal bars.

I used the rest of a box of Chex I’d needed to make Chex mix a while back and a bag of mini marshmallows. It was nice to get rid of those items, but I still have a few other items that I’ve got to use up to have a truly tidy pantry. Stay tuned for what’s coming next! I have some very interesting ideas.

Once I had mixed up these bars and pressed them into the pan I had some doubts about how they would taste.  I let them cool in the fridge for about an hour, then I sliced a small corner for myself.  Then I sliced a large hunk of this stuff for myself!  The Chex mix gives a different texture than Rice Krispies would, and the combination of white, milk chocolate and marshmallow is pretty addictive.  You could use any cereal, any combination or any flavor of baking chips and probably add any other tasty bits your heart desires and come up with something quite yummy.  So, run wild and go create goodness with cereal!

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Triple Hot Chocolate Cookies

This recipe is from the Tasty Kitchen blog, Pioneer Woman’s recipe sharing community.  I sometimes forget to look here for recipes, but thanks to my Google Reader I am reminded to check it out every now and then when there is a new post.  The site is organized well, and is easy and fun to search through.  If you haven’t checked it out, you should.  Here is the link to the recipe for these cookies.

These cookies have three kinds of chocolate, and that is never a bad idea.  To make these cookies chocolate, you mix in hot chocolate mix instead of cocoa which creates a lighter chocolate flavor and color.  I loved the combination of different kinds of chocolate and the subtle chocolate flavor in the cookies themselves.

I had three chunks of Callebaut chocolate left over from various things I’ve made, and so I chopped that up to get my white, milk and dark chocolate pieces instead of using chips.  This process seems to infuse every bite with soft chocolate since you end up with some shards of chocolate and some chunks when you chop a block of chocolate.  The shards melt into the cookie and don’t keep shape like a chip would, so the texture is different.  If I had the $$$ to buy this kind of quality chocolate for every baked good I would use it every time.  Although, a chocolate chip cookie isn’t quite the same without Nestle semi-sweets.  So, I guess there are exceptions.

The only other change I made was to use a smaller scoop.  I used an ice cream scoop roughly equal to golf ball size.  I baked them for 9 minutes, let them cool for about 4 minutes and then transferred them to a cooling rack.  They should look just a little too soft when you take them from the oven.  These are quite treat to enjoy while still warm with a glass of really cold milk.  But not to worry, they will not disappoint you if you eat them the next day.  Enjoy!

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Daring Bakers: Swiss Swirl Ice Cream Bombe

So many components to this dessert!  Two ice creams, hot fudge sauce, chocolate cake, whipped cream…and then there’s the assembly process.  Whew!  When I told Ben all the things I had to do, he said “Can you imagine having to do this when you were still teaching?”  Yes, I can imagine that.  I would have freaked out.  Probably like this scene from Julie & Julia.

Thankfully I saved myself, and Ben, from this potential freak out by spreading everything out over 5 days and having this thing ready to enjoy 3 days before the Daring Bakers reveal.  Having a lot of free time is such a luxury.

The July 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Sunita of Sunita’s world – life and food. Sunita challenged everyone to make an ice-cream filled Swiss roll that’s then used to make a bombe with hot fudge. Her recipe is based on an ice cream cake recipe from Taste of Home.

I must confess right now that I cannot attest to how good this ice cream treat is at present.  I haven’t yet cut into this impressive dessert and tasted it.  It is sitting in my freezer just waiting for me…calling to me, really.  I’m saving it for our 4th anniversary this Thursday.  I’ll make sure to amend this post once I get to try a slice as we celebrate 4 years of marital bliss!

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Peanut Butter Cheesecake Toffee Brownies

A few weeks ago I caught the end of Oprah while on the treadmill at the gym.  Her guests were the contestants of the 2010 Pillsbury Bake-Off, and at the end of the show they revealed the winner of the $1,000,000 grand prize.  This was the winning recipe, Mini Ice Cream Cookie Cups.

These little treats look delicious!  And I know they must taste good as well.  How could they not?  The ingredients have no option but to create perfect sugary wonder!  Sugar cookie dough made into cups, dipped in chocolate and nuts, a spoonful of fruit jam in the bottom, topped with ice cream and fresh raspberries on top.  My problem with this is that it won $1,000,000 dollars.  They are somewhat creative I guess, but very little of this recipe is homemade or imaginative.

Were there no better recipes than this in the contest?  Seriously?  Who judges this contest?  A 10 year old who just LOVES ice cream sundaes?  Am I being harsh?

I got on the Pillsbury website and decided to go on a mission to look at other recipes that were contenders in the 2010 Bake Off. These brownies were among the finalists, and while they do use a brownie mix, there is more to these brownies than just a dressed up mix topped with ice cream.  On top of the brownie layer is spread a layer of sweet cream cheese and peanut butter goodness.  To finish things off, a layer of melted chocolate  is spread over the brownies and then sprinkled with toffee pieces.

Without having made the cookie cups, I can’t say for sure that these are better or more worthy of the prize, but they are very tasty.  Enjoy in small portions with a glass of milk because they are rich and quite chocolate-y.

Peanut Butter Cheesecake Toffee Brownies

Courtesy of Pamela Shank

Ingredients

  • 1 box (19.5 oz) Brownie Mix
  • ½ cup Vegetable Oil
  • ¼ cup water
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 package (8 oz) cream cheese, softened
  • 1 can (14 oz) Sweetened Condensed Milk
  • ½ cup Peanut Butter
  • 1 bag (8 oz) toffee bits
  • 1 cup milk chocolate chips
  • 3 tablespoons whipping cream

Directions

1. Heat oven to 350°F. Lightly spray 13×9-inch pan with cooking spray.

2. In medium bowl, stir brownie mix, oil, water and eggs 50 strokes with spoon until smooth. Spread batter in pan; set aside.

3. In large bowl, beat cream cheese with electric mixer on medium speed until fluffy. Add milk and peanut butter; beat until smooth. Stir in 1 cup of the toffee bits. Spoon mixture over batter; spread evenly.

4. Bake 30 to 40 minutes or until cheesecake layer is set and edges are light golden brown. Cool on cooling rack 30 minutes. Refrigerate 40 minutes.

5. In small microwavable bowl, microwave chocolate chips and cream uncovered on High 40 to 60 seconds or until chips are melted; stir until smooth. Spread over cheesecake layer. Sprinkle with remaining toffee bits. Cool completely, about 1 hour. For brownies, cut into 6 rows by 6 rows. Store covered in refrigerator.