Posts tagged ‘chocolate’

May 11

S'mores Cupcakes

It’s almost s’mores season! Of course, I wouldn’t restrict s’mores to any particular season, as they are enjoyed all year long, but it is about time to uncover the barbecues, start up some camp fires and enjoy summertime foods. I got myself in the s’mores spirit by microwaving myself one!

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It has been years, at least 15 years, since I’ve eaten one of these. Where have I been! This was so good and I’m using leftover ingredients from my s’mores cupcakes to make more s’mores.

I spent a while trying to decide how I wanted to build my s’mores cupcakes. I’ve seen it done so many different ways. I couldn’t decide between a graham cracker cake or a chocolate cake, or a chocolate graham cracker cake.

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I chose to toss out my ideas when I saw this recipe on the Martha Stewart website; it’s a recipe for chocolate graham cracker cupcakes and toasted marshmallow frosting from Trophy Cupcakes in Seattle. It has a graham cracker crust base, a layer of bittersweet chocolate, chocolate cake, and graham cracker crumbs and chopped bittersweet chocolate baked on top. The frosting is basically a marshmallowy 7-minute frosting.

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There had been comments on the recipe that it took a while to prepare; for me, I thought that the crushing of the graham crackers and chopping of the chocolate took the longest time. If you had a food processor or similar, unlike me, I’m sure it would make the task quicker.

The recipe calls for whole milk, but we only drink skim milk. So I searched for a quick substitute and ended up using a mix of skim milk and melted butter; 1 cup of skim milk, plus 2 teaspoons of melted butter. I used unsalted butter. It seemed to work fine. The cupcakes rose nicely, they have a very velvety sort of texture and are really moist.

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I used the very last bit of sugar in our cabinets to make the frosting, so I hoped that I wouldn’t ruin it. I haven’t made 7-minute frosting before, so I wasn’t familiar with the process. As I was whisking the egg whites, sugar and cream of tartar over a pan of simmering water, I noticed the mixture was very yellow and I thought for sure I had ruined it, but after 6 minutes under the care of the KitchenAid’s whisk it whipped up so perfect, so glossy and so white. It is a really beautiful marshmallowy frosting.

The recipe suggested using a kitchen blow torch to toast the frosting, but as I have no kitchen blow torch on hand, I put them under the broiler (on a low setting) in the oven for a few minutes (but moved the oven rack to the center of the oven). It didn’t toast them like a blow torch would, but it did give them a toasted appearance and crunch.

Unfortunately, I have heaps of frosting left and am not sure what to do with it. Egg whites don’t freeze well, I’ve heard, and I’m not sure how long it might keep in the refrigerator.

Anyway, these cupcakes taste so nice! I wouldn’t say they taste like the traditional s’mores sandwich, however. With the addition of bittersweet chocolate, instead of the traditional milk chocolate, I would consider this a grown-up’s s’mores cupcake!

Updated later: As there are egg whites in the frosting, it’s best to refrigerate your leftover cupcakes. Let them warm up to room temperature before enjoying, or give them a quick zap in the microwave; I put mine on defrost for 10 seconds and it warmed up the chocolate pieces to make them nice and gooey again. :)

May 9

3 Comments

Strawberries & Chocolate

Just one month ago, my mother-in-law, who lives in Australia, surprised us with an Easter cookie bouquet; she surprised us again yesterday by sending me a Mother’s Day gift – two boxes full of huge fresh strawberries and two jars of fudge dipping sauce!

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They were packaged nicely from Cherry Moon Farms. In each box were 16 strawberries, so 32 strawberries in all, and in each box was one jar of fudge dipping sauce.

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And when I said they were huge, I did mean that they were huge!

The fudge dipping sauce is an award-winning gourmet chocolate sauce from Fudge Fatale. It is a very nice sauce that is not too sweet and goes perfect with the strawberries. The sauce is spreadable at room temperature and needs a quick zap in the microwave to achieve a dipping consistency. It would also be nice over ice cream, I imagine!

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There are recipes on the Fudge Fatale webiste that are worth checking out as well. I have two jars of this sauce and will definitely have some leftover, so I hope to try out a couple of those recipes.

This was a very sweet and totally unexpected Mother’s Day gift! What sweet treats have you received or given for Mother’s Day this year?

May 4

8 Comments

Mint Oreo Truffles

This is my first go at Oreo truffles – it probably won’t be my last! I decided to use mint Oreos, after I couldn’t find strawberry Oreos (I thought they had quit making them, but I’ve seen people using them again recently).

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I cut the popular Oreo truffles recipe in half – you can find that recipe in this post – because a package of mint Oreos is smaller than a package of regular Oreos.

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I used 21 mint Oreos, 4-5 ounces cream cheese and 4 ounces Ghirardelli semisweet chocolate. I believe the extra cream cheese I added to the crumbled cookie mixture was a little too much – the truffles are gooier than they’re supposed to be (but that’s fine with me, they’re still very yummy!). Also, 4 ounces of the Ghirardelli chocolate wasn’t quite enough to coat all the truffles. I ended up with 20 truffles.

Apr 29

7 Comments

Macadamia Nut & Chocolate Chip Blondies

I’ve made blondies once before, Martha Stewart’s hazelnut blondies, and they didn’t turn out very well. I didn’t understand much about blondies at the time; for example, I didn’t realize they were supposed to be gooey in the middle, and therefore I baked the hazelnut blondies until the top was so crunchy it was impossible to cut with a knife!

Since then I have learned more about blondies, or so I thought, so I decided to attempt making them for a second time. I chose to try out a recipe for macadamia nut and chocolate chip blondies from Use Real Butter. As you may know, I’m not a huge fan of crunchy nuts in my cakes, cookies or brownies, but this recipe actually looked too good to pass up.

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I baked them for 28 minutes in an 8×8 pan. They looked fine from the outside (except the top was really shiny!?). But the inside was super, super gooey. So I had failed again. I checked the recipe, and I had done everything I was supposed to and added all the right amounts of ingredients, so I’m not sure why I get super, super gooey blondies. The photo of these blondies at Use Real Butter doesn’t appear to be anywhere near as gooey as mine turned out.

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I’ve came to the conclusion that perhaps I should have waited until the blondies were absolutely and completely cool before cutting and enjoying – maybe like 8 or so hours! As it was, I did let them cool before cutting, but the chocolate chips were still gooey; the batter in the very middle of the blondies was even gooier than the chocolate chips!

Okay, so all that aside, how do they taste? They taste great! I’d recommend them to anyone, as long as they can bake a proper blondie! :)

In closing, if anyone reading this has baked their share of blondies, what do you think I’m doing wrong!?

Apr 21

13 Comments

Dirt Cupcakes For Earth Day

I haven’t had unsalted butter in my refrigerator for two weeks now, which is why posts have been slow here. Everything I want to bake requires unsalted butter! People have given me suggestions – like baking something vegan, but it seems that vegan recipes always have another ingredient (or three) that I don’t have or can’t get at my local store.

So anyway, tomorrow is Earth Day. I saw these cupcakes, Dirt Cupcakes, from Bleeding Heart Bakery on Cupcakes Take The Cake and thought I’d try to replicate them (as much as I could) as they looked quite nice.

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They do look like a pile of dirt and mud! Actually, these are Martha Stewart’s one-bowl chocolate cupcakes, Hershey’s dark chocolate mousse frosting, and crumbs from one of the cupcakes.

For the cupcakes, I divided the recipe in half. The recipe says to fill the cupcake liners 1/3′s full, but I thought that this wouldn’t be enough, so I filled them closer to 2/3′s full – I got 12 cupcakes. I also used Hershey’s Special Dark dutch-processed cocoa. For the mousse, it isn’t really a frosting, but in this case I made it become a frosting. I divided this recipe in half as well and still had plenty of mousse leftover (the recipe didn’t mention this, but I used my stand mixer’s whisk attachment for creating the mousse). For the crumbs, I just simply crumbled one of the cupcakes up with my fingers.

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These are really nice cupcakes and very chocolatey. Since the frosting is comprised mostly of whipping cream, leftover cupcakes (and mousse, of course) will need to be stored in the refrigerator. However, after tasting one of these straight from the refrigerator, I am recommending that these cupcakes are best enjoyed immediately after frosting; they weren’t quite as nice after refrigeration (or maybe let them return to room temperature before eating – about 10 minutes, I’d imagine).

Happy Earth Day!

Apr 2

35 Comments

Homemade Peanut Butter Cups

I’ve always wanted to make my own chocolate and peanut butter cups. The recipes are so easy, I’m not sure why I’ve never gotten around to it until now.

They really took no time at all, in nearly 30 minutes I was already sinking my teeth into these oh-so-rich peanut butter cups.

I looked at a few recipes and skipped on most of them. Some of them used shortening, or called for ingredients I didn’t have. I used the recipe from Have Cake, Will Travel; they looked like the perfect ones.

My notes: I took the advice from Have Cake, Will Travel and added 2 tablespoons of peanut butter to the melted chocolate; I did not add extra salt; I melted the chocolate in a heavy-bottom saucepan rather than the microwave; I used regular sized cupcake liners, not minis, so mine are closer to Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups size; I used the freezer instead of the refrigerator to set up the chocolate on the bottom.

They are so delicious. They are better and richer than Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. Keep these stored in the refrigerator; they melt quickly.

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Due to the continued popularity of this post, I am going to finally post the recipe here instead of only linking to it! If you want to make these vegan, click through to the original recipe from Have Cake, Will Travel – link is below. If you want to make these mini, try adapting the recipe for a mini cupcake tin (I think I’ll do this the next time I make these).

If you like this recipe, be sure to check out my “gourmet” salted chocolate peanut butter cups, using Lindt’s sea salt chocolate bar!

Homemade Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups
Adapted from Have Cake, Will Travel
Makes 12

Ingredients:
*For the chocolate
1 1/2 cups (273g) chopped semisweet chocolate
2 tablespoons (32g) peanut butter
Pinch salt

*For the filling
12 tablespoons (or 3/4 cup) (192g) peanut butter
1/3 cup (64g) light brown sugar or powdered sugar
2 tablespoons (10g) graham cracker crumbs, optional
Pinch salt

Method
Prepare a standard muffin tin with 12 paper liners.

Combine chocolate, peanut butter and salt in a heavy-based saucepan over very low heat, or use a double-boiler, to melt the chocolate. Stir frequently. Remove from heat.

Place 2 teaspoons melted chocolate in each cupcake liner and carefully spread it with the back of a spoon at the bottom and only 1/4 of the way up the liner. Repeat with all 12 liners.

Place the chocolate-covered liners onto a plate in the fridge to firm up, for about 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, prepare the filling: Stir together peanut butter, sugar, optional crumbs, and salt.

The chocolate should be hard by now, so divide peanut butter paste into all 12 liners, about 1 heaping tablespoon (20g) per liner, pressing down gently to make sure the paste goes everywhere. Place in fridge to firm up, for about 20 minutes.

Top with 2 teaspoons melted chocolate, spreading carefully so that none of the peanut butter can be seen.

Let cups firm up in fridge for at least one hour before enjoying. Store in fridge or freezer.

Apr 1

7 Comments

Starbucks' Chocolate Cinnamon Bread

I found the recipe for Starbucks’ chocolate cinnamon bread by total accident. I hadn’t even seen this particular bread for sale at my local Starbucks. It sounded way too nice to pass up on, so I bookmarked it for later – I used the recipe from Baking Bites, who made a few changes to the original Starbucks recipe. The only thing I did differently from Baking Bites’ recipe was adding a pinch of ginger to the sugar blend topping.

I love all the ingredients in this bread – especially the combination of chocolate and cinnamon. The sugar blend on the top is fabulous as well – it’s a mix of sugar, cinnamon, cocoa powder, cloves and ginger.

In my opinion, there was too much of the sugar blend for just the top of the bread – if I was doing this again, I would have made the sugar blend first and coated the inside of the loaf pan with it, using leftovers for the top of the bread.

I used a silicone loaf pan for this bread, but I would highly recommended a normal metal or glass loaf pan. The silicone isn’t strong enough to support the loaf as it’s rising – it ended up with big bulging sides!

And most of the sugar blend fell off when I took it out of the loaf pan. I sprinkled as much as I could back onto the bread.

Now, I don’t understand why this is called a “bread” – it most certainly does not have the texture of a normal bread, barely even banana bread. The chocolate cinnamon bread is super moist, and has a crunchy top.

The chocolate taste is super strong, with a hint of spice. A slice of this loaf goes a long way, so while Starbucks may serve you a slice that is nearly 2-inches thick, I’m recommending to slice it a bit thinner (unless you’re really hungry!). It tastes amazing with a cup of freshly brewed coffee.

I think this bread, which I personally think is more like cake, would look very nice baked in mini loaf pans, or even muffin pans. The top of the bread remains flat, so don’t expect to get a nice dome out of this.

Sorry for all the photos, but I thought the bread looked very photogenic! :)

Mar 22

6 Comments

Chocolate Avocado Cupcakes

I had a very ripe avocado that I’ve had stored in the refrigerator for the past couple of days and was thinking of something to do with it. I really love avocados, so I thought I’d see if I could find a recipe for avocado cupcakes. Then I found the chocolate avocado cupcake recipe. Very interesting! I had to give it a go.

This recipe is not made with a mixer, but a food processor. I don’t have a food processor so I used our blender instead. The blending of all the wet ingredients made a very creamy and beautiful pale green mixture. This mixture is then whisked into the dry ingredients.

The cupcakes need to be baked a few minutes longer than the average cupcake baking time of 20 minutes, mine ended up around 27 minutes total. The tops of these cupcakes cracked, as you can see in the photo at the top of this post, and they were slightly crunchy. It looked more like a muffin, actually. The smell of these cupcakes baking was amazing, it was a rich chocolately smell blanketing the entire house!

The chocolate avocado cupcakes have an amazing soft, moist texture. This is what I like most about them. Can I taste avocado? No! I personally don’t care much for the taste of the cake itself, though it isn’t bad. I would definitely make these cupcakes again. They taste great with buttercream (and would probably taste nice with the glaze in the original recipe, but I didn’t have all the ingredients necessary to make that).

The buttercream frosting I used was my new favorite buttercream from Martha Stewart, recipe divided in half.

Mar 7

3 Comments

Ghirardelli Devil's Food Cake & Mocha Buttercream

Yesterday was my birthday, so I just had to bake a cake. It took a while for me to decide what kind of cake I wanted and I ended up with a couple of recipes inside of a Ghirardelli 100% Cocao baking bar (that’s an unsweetened chocolate baking bar, in case you weren’t sure). It was for a one-bowl devil’s food cake and mocha buttercream.

This was going to be a bit of a dare, however, as the recipe asked for shortening – 1) I don’t have any shortening because 2) I don’t like shortening. I had read many comments from people who always substitute butter for shortening with minimal or barely noticeable differences, so I took a chance and substituted unsalted butter for the shortening.

What I thought would happen though, ended up happening. The recipe tells you to sift a flour mixture into a large mixing bowl, then put all the wet ingredients on top of that and mix for 2 minutes. That’s a really strange way to make cake batter, in my opinion. I thought that the butter wouldn’t mix in thoroughly and would leave butter chunks in the batter. And, well, I was right.

I didn’t want to keep beating the batter so I wouldn’t overbeat it, so I poured it into a pan and sat it on the stove over gentle heat for just enough time to melt the butter. I kept thinking I should have went with a different recipe, because this one would end up a disaster and I would have wasted a whole bar of that 100% cocao!

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However, the cake ended up baking just fine, much to my surprise!

Note, number of candles not relative to my age (although some could argue that)

The buttercream was very strange to make as well, even though I did have all the required ingredients for that. The recipe says to melt a bar of 100% cocao. Then dissolve two teaspoons of instant coffee in 2 tablespoons of boiling water, and stir it into the melted chocolate. This turned the melted chocolate into a sticky clump of chocolate and my first thought was that this would not be able to mix into the frosting without clumping. And, well, I was right again.

I beat the frosting for quite a while (maybe two minutes?) at medium-high speed just to work out the clumps and this did actually work. It’s a very light and creamy buttercream with a strong mocha taste. I didn’t need to add all of the milk the recipe asked for, I left about 2 teaspoons (give or take) of the milk out. If I added more it would have been to wet to stick on the cake, I think!

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So, how did this cake end up, overall? First I will say that I will not be making this cake again, even with using shortening. I personally don’t think this cake tastes all that great, but it isn’t bad. I feel like I wasted my nice unsweetened chocolate on this cake, though.

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View printer-friendly PDF recipes here.

Feb 25

2 Comments

Bittersweet Chocolate Brownies

I have become a frequent visitor to TasteSpotting.com. There are so many different types of lovely and amazing food on the website, I just start drooling every time I go there! This was where I found the recipe for bittersweet chocolate brownies.

To start at the beginning, I received a couple of bars of Ghirardelli bittersweet chocolate in a chocolate haul I got for Valentine’s Day from my husband. I searched through my cookbooks and online to find a recipe using bittersweet chocolate, but most used semisweet. I began to crave brownies over the past couple of days and just today came across the recipe for bittersweet chocolate brownies (from Slow Like Honey), via TasteSpotting.com.

The baker, Amanda, at Slow Like Honey, claimed that these brownies were the best ever, and when I read that, I knew this was the recipe I would use my bittersweet chocolate for. They looked too tempting to pass by.

I did do a couple of things differently from the posted recipe, which is originally from Alice Medrich’s book Pure Dessert. I used a double boiler to melt the chocolate and butter, instead of sitting the bowl of chocolate and butter in simmering water and I used parchment paper to line the pan instead of aluminum foil. I think that my brownies are just a touch under-baked, although I went about 2-3 minutes over the recommended baking time, but I’d rather have under-baked brownies than over-baked brownies. I think my brownies are just extra gooey, but that makes them all the better, right?

Unfortunately, I don’t have any vanilla ice cream, or any ice cream at all for that matter, but I do think a scoop of vanilla ice cream would compliment a square of these brownies perfectly. They taste really nice, and I can assure you that I will definitely be making these again.

Feb 15

1 Comment

Valentine's Day Goodies

I got a huge surprise for Valentine’s Day from my husband; a chocolate stash.

I love the little Starbucks Chocolate Tasting Squares, they are so cute!

All those Ghirardelli bars will be used in the future to make cupcakes, brownies and/or cookies!

Now, on to our Valentine’s Day cupcakes. They did not turn out how I planned. I planned for nice, fluffy, high-rising chocolate chocolate chip cupcakes with cherry cream cheese frosting. But three things went wrong. 1) I forgot to put in the chocoalte chips!; 2) the cupcakes didn’t rise very much at all; 3) I wanted to use heart sprinkles, but didn’t have any. I think they didn’t rise because I cut the recipe into thirds and perhaps it messed up the properties of the baking soda and baking powder. I’m not sure. Anyhow, they still taste nice.

The recipe for the cupcake was Hershey’s Perfectly Chocolate Cake, and the cream cheese frosting recipe comes from How To Eat A Cupcake (and I also cut her recipe in half). I just added a tiny dollop of red gel food coloring, and approximately 3-4 tablespoons of chopped maraschino cherries to her recipe.