Let me start by trying to describe my unholy, unhealthy obsession with custards. I love custards. I love them with a passion equal only to pork, and we have already discussed my love of the pig. Whenever I pick up a dessert menu, the first thing I look for is a custard. I have no idea what it is about them – there are certainly desserts that taste as good and in some ways better – but the combination of the taste and the texture just really work for me. Zabaglione, crème brulee, flan, you just can’t go wrong.

I could get into the history of it – custard has been around since the Middle Ages (which, by the way, happens to be the coolest period of time in history) and possibly longer – but the truth of it is, panna cotta isn’t really a custard. At least, not technically. It has more in common with Jell-O in terms of chemical structure, and there’s not a drop of egg involved. But, when made right, it has a texture and flavor to rival any crème anglaise.

I chose to balance mine – a vanilla panna cotta – with a dense, rich bittersweet flourless chocolate cake, baked in a sheet pan and cut into triangles with a child’s shapesorter block, because I’m MacGuyver in the kitchen, guys. To cut down the richness and add a hint of tart, I had Paris Hilton serve it.

….

Just kidding. I whipped together a sauce with the juice of two blood oranges. Recipes below!

Vanilla Panna Cotta

from Mark Bittman

You will need:
3 cups cream, or 1 1/2 cups cream and 1 1/2 cups half-and-half
1 package (1/4 ounce) unflavored gelatin
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup sugar

Pour 1 cup of the cream in a medium saucepan and sprinkle gelatin over, let sit for five minutes. After, cook over low heat, stirring, until gelatin dissolves completely. (I had to turn my heat up a little thanks to an electric range and altitude, and it took me a while to get it to dissolve completely.)

Add the rest of the cream and the sugar to your gelatin mixture and heat gently, just until the sugar dissolves. Add the vanilla and stir to combine. Pour mixture into 4 large or 6 small custard cups and chill until set, about 4 hours. If you want you can serve right in the cup, or you can unmold as I did. Use a knife and dip the container in hot water for a few seconds to help release.

Flourless Chocolate Cake

adapted from A Mingling of Tastes

You will need:

2/3 c plus 2 Tbsp sugar
2 Tbsp cocoa powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 stick (8 tablespoons) butter
9 oz quality semisweet or bittersweet chocolate, chopped
4 large eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract

I used Ghirardelli semi-sweet chocolate chips, and the flavor was just exactly where I wanted it to be. Bittersweet can have an edge to it that I, as a chocolate lover, really enjoy but my husband, who is a milk chocolate fan, doesn’t so much. This meets nicely in the middle.

Preheat the oven to 350 F and line an edged baking sheet with buttered parchment paper.  In a large bowl, combine the sugar, cocoa and salt. In a separate bowl or container, whisk the vanilla with the eggs and then add to the sugar mixture, stirring to combine.

In a medium saucepan, melt the butter over low heat. Add the chocolate and, stirring constantly, melt completely. Remove from heat and add to sugar mixture, whisking until combined – it should be thick and pretty smooth.

Pour batter into prepared pan and smooth into corners. You want it to be as even a thickness as you can. Bake for about 25 minutes – the top will be crusty, like a brownie, and the inside will be dense and thick. I let mine cool overnight before cutting and recommend the same to you. (the original, delicious sounding recipe at the source is a thicker, traditional cake baked in a 9” springform, if you aren’t interested in cutting out shapes.)

Blood Orange Sauce

Fruit sauces are  really easy to make. I happened to have blood oranges on hand – exactly two, in fact, so I made a blood orange sauce. It consists of bringing 2 Tbsp of sugar and the juice of two oranges to a boil and simmer until it reaches your desired thickness.

The thing with copycat recipes is you are never sure how close they’re going to get to the real thing. For instance, Food Network magazine had a copycat recipe for the OG’s salad dressing, which we all know is basically the best part of going there. I was all set to enjoy a delicious salad, my tastebuds were dancing with anticipation, then I took a bite and drowned in a deluge of disappointment. (raise your hand if you were embarrassed for me upon reading that!) It was good, don’t get me wrong, but when you are expecting a particular flavor and embark upon finding that flavor, when it doesn’t arrive it just feels a little cruel, that’s all.

I think with some tweaking this could be very close, but as it is, it’s delicious. I don’t think anyone would be too disappointed with the results and it’s moderately low-effort to achieve.

Lemon Cream Cake

For the cake itself, you have two options. One, buy yourself a box of white cake mix. I am not a snob about these things. If I want something to be foolproof and tasty, I go with the box because I cannot be trusted to bake well from scratch. Besides, Duncan Hines yellow butter cake with no frosting makes a delicious breakfast. Don’t judge me.

The second is to bake from scratch. I have struggled with this repeatedly, and the recipe I’m going to share with you is the closest I’ve come to how a cake should be. I overbaked it so it was dry, but that’s because I’m an amazing baker, not because the recipe is crap.

Vanilla Cake
adapted from Betty Crocker.
(this will make 3 9" rounds or 2 9" rounds and 12 cupcakes)
2 2/3 c. all-purpose flour
3 tsp. baking powder (2 for 3500+ ft)
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1 1/2 c. butter or margarine, softened
1 1/4 c. sugar
2/3 c. milk
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla
4 large eggs

Preheat oven to 350F. Grease (with shortening or butter, this is not an ideal application for pork fat) and flour your cake pans and/or line muffin pan with cupcake liners. In a separate bowl, mix together flour, baking powder, salt and baking soda. Whisks are great for this.

In another bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer, cream your butter and sugar together until fluffy. Turn speed down to medium and add in flour, milk, eggs and vanilla. Adding flour works best in sections because when it collides with the force of the beaters, it explodes into an hour of cleanup. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Keep beating for 2 more minutes and then section evenly into your pans.

Recipe says to bake 25-30 minutes. It may be high altitude but at 25 minutes, mine were overdone. I would start checking after 20 minutes. If a toothpick comes out clean, it’s done.Let sit for 10 minutes, then turn out of pan and let cool on a rack.

Lemon Cream
(adapted from Meemo’s Kitchen)
8 oz. cream cheese, softened
2 c. confectioner’s sugar
4 tsp. lemon juice
Zest of 1 lemon
1 c. heavy whipping cream

As stated, this requires two bowls. I am a chronic recipe follower so I did as mentioned and whipped the cream in a stand mixer and the cream cheese with a hand mixer, but I think in the future I’d whip the cream first and store it in another bowl, then use the stand mixer again to beat the cream cheese. Anyway.

Combine the cream cheese and the confectioner’s sugar with a mixer until smooth, then mix in the lemon juice and zest.

In another bowl, whip the heavy cream until stiff peaks form. Fold whipped cream gently into cream cheese mixture.

It’s – dare I say – a piece of cake from here on out. For the cake, be very generous with the frosting on your middle layer(s), throw on the top layer and frost until covered. For the cupcakes, apply however you’d like. I have a giant star-shaped piping tip I use with a ziploc to do mine.

Cool in the fridge for 3 hours before serving, and keep in the fridge after that as well. This is a cake best served cold. Enjoy!

So, one day when I was shopping at my mothership, the restaurant supply store, I saw this candy mold and knew that filled chocolates would be in my future. I only just now bought it and last night I made a test batch – because I have to learn to temper the chocolate, too, and I was made to understand there is a learning curve there – and this is the result. Guittard bittersweet couverture on the outside, San Francisco Chocolate Co milk chocolate ganache on the inside with a few drops of orange oil. The coating has the gloss and snap I was looking for which means my tempering was a success (at least on the top, I think I let it get too cool when I was doing the feet) but my ganache didn’t set up quite the way I would have liked, it was a bit too soft so when you bite into them, the shell snaps as it should but the ganache won’t support it so it just sort of squishes out.  Gonna have to use less cream next time.  Anyway, I am not proficient enough for a full report so I’ll just say I love the way these look and taste and I am looking forward to trying all sorts of variations.

Carrot cake is one of those great mysteries, like zucchini bread or pumpkin rolls, that does not taste like the ingredient for which it is named, and it’s probably because of this that it’s so tasty. After all, no matter how good some maple-glazed roasted carrots can be, they are not something I want for dessert.

Carrot cake is also one of those fine desserts that not only allow but encourage you to be delusional about what you’re shoving in your mouth in totally unacceptable portions because, hello! there are vegetables in it! Everyone knows that a vegetable-based dessert automatically negates any unhealthy qualities that, say, 2 cups of sugar or a cup of oil may contain, let alone a frosting based on entirely too many fats and sugar.

So, join me in my delusions (that giant slice you see? that was for me) and make a moist, delicious, totally 100% healthy (in my head) carrot cake that does not taste like carrots.

Honestly, since Deb from Smitten Kitchen already made and posted this recipe there is no need for me to do so, because I am pretty convinced she can do no culinary wrong, but maybe you’ll get something from my experience anyway.

Carrot Cake with Maple Cream Cheese frosting

Note: while her recipe is intended for cupcakes she helpfully included instructions for a layer cake, for which I am grateful since I fail so hard at cupcakes.

You will need:

2 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon ground ginger
2 cups sugar
1 1/4 cups canola oil
4 large eggs
3 cups grated peeled carrots
1 cups coarsely chopped walnuts (optional)
1/2 cup raisins (optional)

(frosting recipe follows cake recipe)

Preheat oven to 350°F.* Grab a bag of carrots from the refrigerator and stare at them, knowing that Deb recommends finely shredding them and yet also knowing that you have a perfectly good shredder plate for your food processor that would make quick work of the job. Have a moment of temporary insanity that demands you go with Deb’s recommendation. Spend next twenty years peeling and shredding with a hand-held fine grater enough carrots (about 6 large) to equal 3 cups.

(hyperbole note: it actually only took about 15 minutes and was not bad at all)

Once your carrots are a shredded orange mess, combine your flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger in a bowl and give it a whisk to mix it all together. Toss your sugar and obscene amount of canola oil in a separate bowl and whisk until the sugar is saturated. Add an egg at a time, whisking after each to get it all good and eggy. Is an egg an emulsifier? I can’t seem to keep these things straight.

Once your sugar mixture has been thoroughly eggified, add your flour mixture and stir it until all the flour has been incorporated. I have helpfully included a photo that will show you what this process looks like, just in case:

At this point, feel free to stir in your carrots, though I should warn you that if you choose not to add carrots you are no longer actually making carrot cake. "But Alicia," you might wonder, "what kind of cake would it be if I didn’t add carrots?" I think it would just be cake, and if you don’t like carrots why the hell are you making this recipe? Let’s move on.

With the carrots in the mix, and the raisins and nuts if you chose to use them (I did, but I used pecans because they are delicious – are you a pee-can or peh-cahn person? inquiring minds…) you will have a bowl of glorious mess that vaguely resembles a substance you might find somewhere unsavory, like a fraternity bathroom after a party. I am unfortunately not exaggerating.

I know. I wish I was wrong, too. I made the layer cake so play along with me. Grease up two 9" round cake pans with butter (I used margarine, mostly because I was too lazy to unwrap another stick of butter) , line the bottoms with a round of wax paper, butter the paper and shake some flour around to coat it all. Tap out the excess. Fill the rounds with an equal amount of batter.

If you are ridiculous like me, you actually weighed out equal portions (2 lbs, 4 oz if you must know). If you are a less ridiculous person, you could eyeball it to a reasonable guess. Pop it in the oven for 40 minutes or so, stick a tester in the center to see if it’s done and if it is, take it out of the oven.

Let it cool in the pan for 15 minutes, then remove from pans to cool completely. You really don’t want to frost a warm cake, no matter how tempting it may be. Plus, you’ll want to even out at least one side for frosting and layering and that’s a lot easier with a cooled cake. I took too many pictures to make up for my lack of earlier prep work, so have an additional cake photo after it has been removed from the pans.

I’m sorry. I just didn’t want it to go to waste, you know? Anyway, it’s time to make the frosting.

You will need:

Two (8-ounce) packages cream cheese, softened
1 stick unsalted butter, room temperature
2 cups confectioners’ sugar
1/4 cup pure maple syrup

Do you remember how on tests they’d always start out by saying read all the directions or questions before answering, and there would be some trick at the end so if you didn’t read it all first you’d get to the last question and it would be some instruction designed to trip you up, like instead of filling in the circles you were supposed to underline them? This is kind of like that, because if you didn’t read this part you now have to wait until your cream cheese and butter have softened to make the frosting. Unintentional fail on my part and I apologize for it. But for the rest of you, here are two ways to move forward.

Deb’s recipe says to combine all four ingredients on medium speed in a stand mixer. I did this, starting on the lowest speed because have you ever tried throwing some confectioners’ sugar in a stand mixer on medium speed? Your kitchen ends up looking like the aftermath of a wild night at Lindsay Lohan’s house. I think there’s still sugar in the joints of my cabinetry. After a few minutes, it all comes together and it’s fine that way.

I do think, however, that beating the cream cheese and butter together first and then gradually adding the powdered sugar and syrup would give you better control of the texture. This is a very creamy frosting, and if you’re used to buttercream it might throw you off (it threw me off, as I will explain in a bit) even after you let it "set up" in the fridge. I also wonder how this would be if you only used 1 8 oz block of cream cheese, or even 12 oz total and used 4 or so ounces of heavy cream instead and whipped the crap out of all of it if it wouldn’t have an even better taste and consistency. Or maybe even some pudding. Just some random thoughts there.

Anyway, so make your frosting and throw it in the fridge for 20 minutes or so to set up. Kill some time by not letting that leftover beater frosting go to waste and put it to good use on a nearby sugar cookie.

After you finish your cookie, it’s time to level off one of your cakes for layering. Precise people will likely have a tool for this such as this. Alton Brown fans may remember that his version was made with a hacksaw blade, if I recall correctly. While I no doubt will own such a thing at some point in my future, I went with the imprecise method of the eyeballed bread knife leveling. No one in this house cares if my cake is lopsided except me, so it works for us as I can cope with it. For now.

It looks OK, right? It doesn’t even matter anyway because I’m flipping it over and frosting the bottom. I am under the distinct impression that this is not the correct way to frost a cake, but I don’t give a damn.

I did however give enough of a damn to line the bottom of my platter with waxed paper though. This will let me make a mess while I frost the cake without letting me get frosting all over the plate. Note that this is not a single sheet, but four strips of paper that can be easily slid out from underneath the cake for that clean, fresh look.

So, being a genius, I decide to not be as impatient as I normally am by trying a crumb coat. Now, with a buttercream frosting the crumb coat will give you a smoother finish for the rest of your frosting – it’s a thin layer slathered on and allowed to set so as to keep crumbs in check and provide a smooth surface for the final layer and any decorating. As it turns out, this cream cheese frosting does not set like a buttercream so I basically wasted an hour waiting for it to harden a little when it had no intention of doing so.

So I just slapped the rest of it on and patiently waited for dinner to come and go so that I could try it out. As it happens, folks, this is a damn fine cake that would be perfectly edible without the frosting, and in fact would make a really good breakfast loaf if you ask me. I may in fact try it that way next time, with a maple glaze instead of frosting and some oats and/or whole wheat flour for additional bulk. This frosting is not buttercream and being my father’s daughter (he makes delicious frosting) I am definitely partial to that texture, but this creamy stuff does go very well and the maple syrup adds just the right flavor to something that would otherwise be overly cream-cheesy. It’s also a fast, simple recipe – just imagine if you bought pre-shredded carrots, it would literally take an hour from start to finish. Try it out, let me know how it goes!

* high altitude note (4000 ft) – I added an additional tablespoon of flour and preheated the oven to 375, turning it back to 350 when the cakes were in the oven. Whether this was necessary, I have no idea, but I hate risking it with cake.

(slightly unrelated note: the next batch of posts are not being posted in the order in which they were created; I have a bunch of backlogged photos and mini-posts from Facebook of all places that I’m transporting here. )

Just look at those things. When I ran across Bakerella’s blog for the first time I sat and stared in awe at the completely adorable treats she manages to produce time and time again. In fact, you should go there right now and look at these Snow Globe Coca-Cola Cupcakes. As someone who consistently fails at cupcakes (I don’t know why, I really don’t) I just love looking at the edible art other people seem to be capable of creating.

Anyway, I believe it’s reasonable to say that her Cake Pops and subsequent Cake Bites have earned her a special place in the dessert world and the recipe is so easy it’s almost ridiculous, so I tried them out to give to friends who were gathering shortly before Valentine’s Day. What I greatly underestimated was the volume and the time involved in their creation.

There are three basic ingredients:

1 box of cake mix

1 tin of frosting

Candy melts and/or chocolate/almond bark

And one very useful tool:

Mini peanut butter cup candy mold

In my case, I had a box of white cake mix leftover from my when my Dad made my wedding cake, and I thought some cherry frosting would be festive considering the upcoming holiday. The trick to the cake balls is using the right ratio of cake to frosting, and I did it wrong. First you bake the cake and let it cool. Then you crumble it all up in a bowl, and add the frosting. It makes like a dough, but it’s cooked. Well, you should really add the frosting in segments and keep checking the texture, because I just dumped the whole tin in and I had a sticky, gloppy mess. I managed to make it work anyway by chucking it in the fridge for a few hours, because you have to roll the mixture into little balls and I am not kidding about the sticky, gloppy mess part.  Anyway.

Once mine were all rolled, I stuck them in the freezer while I melted the chocolate bark in the microwave. When it had melted, I used a spoon to transfer some into each cup mold – enough to hold the cake ball in place and take the shape of the cup. Once the cake balls were in, they went back into the freezer for a few minutes to set. 5 minutes or so later, I took them out of the freezer, gently wiggled them out of the molds, and repeated the process what felt like a million times.

Next up, I melted the white almond bark – I thought it would be cheaper than candy melts but it actually wasn’t, they are priced roughly the same. Holding the cake ball by the candy bottom, I dipped the tops into the bark and used a small spoon to fill in any missing spots

I only topped 6 at a time so that I could get the decorations on before the bark set. If you manage more than that, you are more awesome than I am.  Also, it should be noted that this recipe makes A METRIC BUTTLOAD so I hope you have an event or a lot of friends to give these to. Think I’m kidding? Let me show you another picture.

Yeah, I wasn’t. I think I had something like 55 of them. You may also notice that the Hershey’s Kissables I used as decoration on some of them, particularly the pale pink ones, make these look alarmingly breast-like. Now, there’s nothing wrong with boobs but I’ve never particularly wanted to eat one. Luckily Warren came home from work and pointed this out to me so that I could place the remainder at an angle instead.

Overall, I’m really happy with how they turned out and the idea is absolute genius, because they are so cute I could just hug them. I will say, whether it’s the cake balls themselves or the combination with the candy or the frosting I used, they were painfully sweet to me. The flavor under the sugar was nice, but I absolutely could not get beyond the sweetness. Can someone who has made them using the red velvet cake with the cream cheese frosting verify whether this is the expected result or if mine were just the wrong combo?

Though I am calling this recipe mine, it is comprised (like most recipes) of pieces of others. These shells actually belong to a recipe for Pecan Delights that my dad sent me 3 years ago, which are ridiculously tasty, but I’m the only one in this household who likes pecan pie. (it’s wrong, I tell you. Just wrong.)

Tart shells:
1 standard muffin tin
1 stick of butter
1 cup of flour
4 oz cream cheese
1 Tbsp. sugar
Pinch of salt (fyi, a pinch is generally 1/8 tsp)

Cream the cheese and butter until fluffy, then add the sugar, salt and flour.

Mix well and divide into 12 equal parts. Place each part inside muffin tin and conform to shape.

Bake at 350F for 15 minutes, reduce temperature to 250 and cook for 10-15 more minutes. Remove from oven and place on cooling rack. I let mine cool for very nearly half the day, as I wanted them at room temperature before filling, but a quick visit to the fridge would accomplish that much faster.

(for what it’s worth, my idea of 12 equal parts was to spoon up some and roll it into balls that looked roughly uniform. remember, though, that baking is a science and theoretically we should all be weighing each ball to make sure they are equal. i should also be drinking 8 glasses of water a day, exercising and spending less time on the internet though, so balls to that. Roughly uniform size it is!)

Deviating from the recipe, after I shaped the shells I used some egg white to wash the edges, because I like that glossy look on pastry dough. It’s personal preference though – if you want to do it, just put an egg white into a bowl, beat it a little, and brush it on with whatever you have handy that can perform the function of a pastry brush. In my case, it was a cheap paintbrush from an unopened package of watercolors. Hey, it worked for me.

Another thing worth noting is that since I’m adapting this recipe – the original bakes with a filling, and I just want the shells – mistakes were apt to be made and they were. You need to poke holes in the bottom of the shell with a fork and/or fill with pie weights/dried beans, otherwise the centers will puff like any puff pastry will when the steam can’t escape or isn’t weighted.

Blackberry sauce: (adapted from Mark Bittman’s fruit sauce recipe in How To Cook Everything, which I totally need to buy)
1 c blackberries
2 Tbsp butter
1/4 c sugar
1/8 tsp arrowroot powder

Melt butter and sugar over medium heat until syrupy but not browned.

Add in your berries and continue simmering for 2-3 minutes (I let mine simmer for closer to 5-8 with no harm done) or until berries are soft and juice has given way.

Smash berries with the back of a spoon or ladle into a fine mesh sieve to gey all the juicy goodness out and discard the remains. I deviated from the recipe here because I was unhappy with the thickness of the sauce. I knew refrigeration would give it a little more bulk but I was still afraid it would be too thin, and I think I was on target there.

I took about 1/4 cup of the juice out after it had cooled a bit and made a slurry with the 1/8 tsp of arrowroot powder (it’s a pure starch like cornstarch, but with a finer texture, more neutral flavor, and generally plays a bit nicer with food than cornstarch does – feel free to wiki it!) and added it back in, chucked it back over medium heat while whisking for a few minutes, and then took it back off to cool again. This gave me a more pleasing texture and thickness, but I still put it in the fridge for about 3 hours.

After everything was cooled to my satisfaction, I took the blackberry sauce out of the fridge and once again using those handy toddler spoons placed about 1/2 tsp of the sauce in each of the tart shells, spreading it around so that the surface was covered. Placed the shells on a plate, covered with foil, back into the fridge while I whipped up – quite literally, actually – the lemon cream.

Lemon cream: (adapted from The Love Bite)
Zest of 2 Meyer lemons
2 tsp lemon juice
8oz cream cheese
1 c confectioner’s sugar
1/4 c heavy whipping cream

(You’ll notice there are no process-of pics for the cream. Yeah, I was making dinner at the same time and, uh, forgot. You try multitasking at 7 months pregnant. My brain, it doesn’t work so good. )

In a stand or with a handheld mixer, whip the heavy cream, cream cheese and lemon zest until combined and fluffy. Add the confectioner’s sugar and whip to combine. Add the lemon juice and continue whipping for 2-3 minutes. Texture should be light and rich. Chill in the fridge for 2-3 hours for best results, or freeze for 20 minutes. Basically, you want it to be cold and a bit firm. Once your cream is appropriately chilled, grab your tarts, your cream and a ziploc bag/piping bag and tip and prepare for fun. If you’re using the piping bag you already know what to do, else you wouldn’t own a piping bag.

For the rest of us, there’s a Ziploc sandwich bag with the corner cut off – I cut mine at about 1/4". Add some cream in there (just a note, I had a ton left over, if you’re only making 12 consider halving the recipe), seal it up, cut off your corner, squeeze the air out from the top down, and pipe the cream onto the blackberry sauce however you see fit.

When you’re done, take a bite and see if you like it. If you do, have another. If you don’t, there are always friends, neighbors and relatives to foist them on. You could garnish with a little more zest, or with candied lemon peel, or a mint leaf, or any other type of thing, if you were so inclined.

Warren, my husband, really likes Reese’s Cups. He will stick a bag of the miniatures in the freezer and only have one or two at a time, so it lasts him about a hundred years. I have no idea how he can do this, as I would eat one or two every 12 minutes or so, give or take a few seconds. So anyway, with the economy being as it is and some adjustments to our budget and another baby on the way, we opted not to do any Valentine’s Day presents this year, and instead of paying the babysitter and going to dinner and a movie, we ordered a pizza and watched a movie we already had instead.

Unfortunately, I am unable to not give presents of some sort on holidays. It’s necessary that I find some way to show my appreciation or else SOMETHING TERRIBLE WILL HAPPEN, I am sure of it. So, I thought, I have a cup candy mold from making Cupcake Bites (a post yet to be written), I have a toddler so there’s bound to be peanut butter, what on earth should I do? I know, I’ll make peanut butter cups! Genius, I tell you, sheer genius.

Guys, this turned out to be the easiest thing in the world. I looked at a few online recipes, decided none of them really worked for me and I might as well improvise, so I did and I call it a success. My success, let me share it with you.

• Ingredients:
• 1/2 bag milk chocolate chips
• 1/4 cup creamy peanut butter, plus 2 tablespoons
• 2 tablespoons confectioner’s sugar
• 1 sheet graham crackers, crushed fine

• Tools:
• A cup candy mold OR
• Paper baking cups OR
• Cupcake liners
• Microwave-safe bowl
• Spoon
• Ziploc sandwich bag

Four ingredients! That’s it! Awesome, I know. Anyway, moving on, I mentioned three potential methods just in case you don’t have a candy mold and don’t want to buy one, and though I made one batch for Warren the day before Valentine’s, I only made twelve so I had quite a bit of the peanut butter mixture left over. Thus, for the purposes of this sharing time, I made another batch today using all three methods. I have to say, the candy mold set me back a whopping $1.50 at a local craft store (Roberts, for you Utahns) and it was significantly easier to use and the end results look much cleaner from it, so if you even think you might enjoy these and make them again it would be worth it to try to locate one of your own. Let’s get started, shall we?

The measurements listed here will net you the following amounts:

• 12 miniature cups (candy mold)
• 10-12 cups (mini muffin cups)
• 6-8 cups (cupcake liners)

First, pour about 1/4 of the bag into a microwave-safe bowl and microwave for 1 minute. Add one tablespoon of peanut butter and stir to melt and combine. Microwave for another 15 seconds to achieve a slightly runny texture if needed.

Once your chocolate is melted and combined, spoon into molds (cups, etc), roughly 3/4 teaspoon per cup. If it doesn’t look like enough, add more. This will be the sides and the foundation of your cup so too much chocolate is better than not enough.

Once all your cups have chocolate in them, use the back of your spoon to squish it up the sides of the cup, all the way to the top if you’re using a candy mold, about halfway to the top if you’re using mini cups, and about 1/3 of the way up on a regular cupcake liner. Swirl the remaining chocolate around the bottom if any parts look too thin.

If you’re using a mold, chuck it in the freezer for 10 minutes or so or until chocolate is solid. If you’re using paper cups, put them on a plate, tray or baking sheet first or you’ll make an unholy mess in your freezer. While that’s going on, let’s mix your peanut butter filling. Since I already had some made, I didn’t take any pictures, but grab a bowl and put your 1/2 cup of peanut butter in there. To be perfectly honest, I have issues with putting things like peanut butter in measuring cups, so I used the back of a large spoon and just threw what looked to be around 1/2 cup* in there. I really don’t think you need to be too exacting with this.  Once your peanut butter is in the bowl, add your 1/4 cup confectioner’s sugar (or powdered sugar if that’s what you know it as) and your graham crackers. I should note I estimated the amount of sugar, too, since I just sprinkled in what looked to be around 1/4 cup*. I also added a pinch of kosher salt, just because I was trying to get something close to Reese’s and they have that faintly salty tang to balance out the sweetness. The graham crackers serve little to not purpose beyond textural -?” again, trying to copy those Reese’s cups. Stir to combine thoroughly, and then check the flavor/texture to see if it’s to your liking. If it is, throw it all in a ziploc sandwich bag and cut off a tip of one corner. Mine was around the size of a dime and worked like a charm. This is an easy, mess-free way of piping your filling into the cups. If you want to be fancy you could use a piping bag and tips but why bother? This way you just throw it away when you’re done.

(*I made a double batch)

By now your cups should be sufficiently chilled for filling. Remove them from the freezer, grab your ziploc and go to town.

You’re probably looking at about 1/2 tablespoon of filling per cup, but if you think that looks like too much, err on the side of caution. Don’t worry if it forms a peak, you’ll squish it down after you’ve got them all filled. This looks vaguely unappealing, doesn’t it? But it’s delicious, I swear, despite looking just a little bit like baby poop.

When your filling is all piped in, grab a spoon and smooth the peaks down, forming as flat a surface as possible. It’s totally fine if there’s a dip in the center, the idea is just to make sure there’s room for more chocolate on the top. If you happen to be like me and have a toddler in your household, no doubt you’ve got one or two plastic baby spoons hanging around. Those are so great for getting the chocolate on the sides of the cup and again for squishing down the peanut butter, they’re just the right size. But a regular spoon will do the job, too. Precision is not mandatory here.

Here’s where we repeat step one. I used the same bowl as before because, well, I’m lazy. Chuck another 1/4 of the bag of chocolate chips in the microwave for 60 seconds, add a tablespoon of peanut butter, stir to combine, give it another 15 if it isn’t runny enough. (an interesting sidenote, because of the oils in the peanut butter, it assists in smoothing and thinning the chocolate for coating. it also tastes amazing.) Now you’re going to spoon at least a teaspoon into each cup, adding more if you think it won’t cover. Err on the side of caution here – you can always add more chocolate if it needs it after you’ve done the smoothing, it’s significantly more difficult to try to remove it if you add too much.  Go ahead and smooth out your chocolate once you’ve added it all, and don’t worry if it’s not perfect. You can’t be expected to compete with a machine whose sole function is to stamp out chocolates. I suppose you could use a ruler or a pastry scraper on the candy molds to make them flat but I don’t actually own either of those things, so mine look homemade. I cry about it at night, I really do.

Now they go back in the freezer for another 15 minutes at the very least. I actually store mine in the freezer because, well, they’re just better when they’re cold, and the chocolate doesn’t melt as fast. Speaking of melting chocolate, we’re doing something of a shortcut here. Chocolate chips are tempered when you buy them, and they can go out of temper if you get them too hot, which won’t allow them to set and you’ll just have a mess of peanut butter and chocolate. When you’re microwaving, you want your chips to hold their shape but melt when stirred. This will keep your chocolate in temper and everyone is happy.  So anyway, once your cups have chilled sufficiently, bite into one and enjoy. You may notice that mine appears to not be filled with peanut butter, and you would get points for being observant. I ran out of peanut butter on the last big cup and threw some marshmallow creme in there instead. I suspect that with a little butter, a little honey and some toasted coconut, that would be something very tasty reminiscent of a Mallo Cup. Mmm. Mallo Cups.

And now this heavily pregnant woman is going to bed. Happy belated Valentine’s Day!

First, let me just say that if I had to list my top 10 favorite desserts, brownies would not be on it. It’s not that I dislike them, it’s that I’m so ambivalent. It’s a bit like chocolate cake for me, it’s just not something that excites me in any way. But my husband is a big brownie fan, and if I don’t make things he likes I will end up eating all of it and that is just a bad situation for everyone. So I have learned to tolerate the brownie in all of its forms, and I keep trying new recipes thinking hey, this may be the brownie to change my mind. It may be the enlightening brownie, the epiphany brownie, if you will.

Internet, this may be the epiphany brownie. If you harbor no hatred for marshmallow, pecans, sugar, chocolate or butter, you really, really need to try this brownie. The government might lie to you, but I certainly won’t.

First, get your ingredients together:

For the brownies:

6oz unsweetened chocolate, chopped

2 sticks unsalted butter

1 1/2 c. all purpose flour

1/3 c. cocoa powder (dutch processed, like most of you will probably already have in your cupboards)

1/2 tsp salt

3 c. sugar

5 large eggs

3/4 c pecans (honestly, I used a half cup because that was what was in the package, and they were just fine – also, this is totally optional, it will not affect the chemistry of the brownie if you hate nuts, just makes it less of a mississippi mud brownie and more of a…brownie.)

For the topping:

3/4 c. marshmallow creme/fluff/whatever they call it where you are

1/4 c. semisweet chocolate chips

2 tsp. vegetable oil

(for what it’s worth, I think you could use milk chocolate chips here and be just fine, and I’m also convinced a single teaspoon of oil would thin out the chocolate enough for drizzling, too. not only that, but if you hate marshmallows I think this would be a great place for a good rich buttercream (made with butter, not shortening!) spread very thin.)

First things first, let’s get that chocolate chopped. If you have the bars like I bought, terrific, grab a knife and make it look like this:

You might think, maybe I could chop mine in a more uniform fashion? Yes, you probably could. I’m not good at uniform chopping and I freely admit that I chopped mine with a dull knife on a wobbly board and a toddler underfoot, which are not the best conditions for concentration. But it’s all getting melted anyway, the idea behind chopping is that it allows the chocolate to melt at a steady pace, and as you can see, it’s chopped! Let’s move on.

Go ahead and preheat your oven to 325 degrees, with the rack set on the middle position. Grab a 13 x 9” baking dish and line it with aluminum foil with a little hanging over (so you can lift it out later) and spray with cooking spray.

Here is where the recipe calls for a double boiler setup to melt your chocolate and butter, like this:

And it works, but there are a few things I don’t like about this particular method. One, while my $5.99 Ikea double boiler insert here works like a charm in the right size pan, this pan is a bit large for it and so I had condensation not only along the the sides of the outside of the boiler, but it was building up on the inside as well. Condensation + melting chocolate – DANGER WILL ROBINSON, the two are just not meant to go together.

(breaking here for a second to say if you are unfamiliar with what exactly a double boiler is, it’s a small amount of water, half an inch in this case, in a pan set to a slight,steady simmer with another heatproof vessel ((a stainless steel bowl will work just as well if you have one)) set over it – but not touching the water – to allow for a dry, steady heat for melting delicate things like chocolate or heating dairy without scorching)

An episode of Good Eats that involved tempering chocolate had Alton melting chocolate with a heating pad sandwiched between two bowls. This is an ingenious idea and I may very well try it when I have two heatproof nesting bowls, but another alternative is the tried and true, ultra gourmet microwave method. Microwaving is the easiest of all of them, but it’s also a great way to burn your chocolate so make sure you take it slow and steady. I might even suggest melting the butter first and then stirring the chocolate in, maintaining the stirring until your chocolate is completely melted.

At any rate, your goal here is for your chocolate to look like this:

Smooth and glossy, but do yourself a favor and resist the urge to taste it. Unless you have a mirror nearby and you are watching your face while you do, because it’d be worth the expression. Unsweetened chocolate is just not delicious at all. If you choose the double boiler method, it should take you about 5-7 minutes total.

Take it off the heat and let it cool a bit while you combine the flour, cocoa and salt in a separate bowl. Feel free to whisk it if you’d like, I knew I’d be whisking the eggs and sugar shortly so I opted to just stir it around until it looked like this:

Once that’s done, in another bowl, whisk together your sugar and eggs. If I may make a suggestion? Add the 5 eggs in first and whisk to combine, add the sugar and then give it a thorough whisking. I put the sugar in first and made it unnecessarily hard on myself, so if you’re a masochist feel free to do it that way. I don’t think it matters so long as they are combined. Once it looks pretty uniform, whisk in your melted chocolate until again, thoroughly combined.

Now we get to add the flour. If you happen to have a bionic arm lying around, here’s a good time to put it to use. You’ll want to add the flour mixture in increments – I found three to be good and easy to keep track of. It is really, really important to make sure all of it is incorporated, so I recommend folding it in first, then stirring to combine, checking the bottom and sides to make sure no
streaks of flour are around. Repeat until you’ve got a thick, delicious batter and your arm leaves your body in protest. Fold in your pecans if you’ve chosen to use them and spread the whole mess into your prepared baking pan as evenly as you can.

Chuck it into the oven and bake until a toothpick comes out with a few wet crumbs. The recipe says about 35 minutes, in my oven it took 45, so you’ll want to start checking at 30 minutes and keep on in 5 or 10 minute intervals. The texture is intended to be dense, fudgy and moist, so overbaking is not your friend here. Set your pan on a wire rack to cool and get to work on the fun part:

Mmm. I can’t lie, I have a close-up of this on my hard drive in high res just because it was so fun to do and so pretty to look at. Here’s how you accomplish a similar result. Spoon the marshmallow cream over the brownies while they are still hot and let it sit for a few minutes to soften up and become spreadable. While that’s happening, you can go ahead and microwave the chocolate chips and the oil for about 30-40 seconds, stirring after to melt. If you have an offset spatula (best. thing. ever.) use it to spread the marshmallow cream evenly across the brownies. If you don’t, use a knife or spatula to do the same thing. Once you’ve got it looking the way you want it to, spoon up some of your melted chocolate and sling it back and forth over the top in whatever pattern pleases you most. Decorating is not my forte and so I have no advice for you other than that I started by drizzling off the end of the spoon and switched to a rapid slinging motion shortly after just because I liked the looks of it better. So it really is entirely up to you.

Let your incredible-looking masterpiece epiphany brownies cool, at the very least for 2 hours, then lift them out of the pan using the foil. Cut into squares and serve. (the recipe recommends 2” squares and I think that’s a reasonable guideline.) Makes about 18-24 brownies depending on how large you cut your squares.

Bon appetit!

Man, just looking at the picture makes me need to make them again, immediately.

These were posted over at the Livejournal community bakebakebake and since I didn’t want to make just any old cookie, I wanted to try them myself. They are, indeed, outrageous. I slightly modified the recipe and so I’ll share with you what I did.

Ingredients

Makes 2 dozen

• 8 ounces semisweet chocolate, roughly chopped
• 4 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 large eggs
• 3/4 cup packed light-brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 package (12 ounces) semisweet chocolate chunks *

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Heat chopped chocolate and butter in a microwave safe bowl in 20-second increments, stirring between each, until almost melted; do not overheat. In another bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt.
2. In a mixing bowl, beat eggs, brown sugar, and vanilla on high speed until light and fluffy. Reduce speed to low; beat in melted chocolate.Mix in flour mixture until just combined. Stir in chocolate chunks.
3. Drop heaping tablespoons of dough 2 to 3 inches apart onto baking sheets.* Bake, rotating sheets halfway through, until cookies are shiny and crackly yet soft in centers, 12 to 15 minutes. Cool on sheets 10 minutes; with a thin metal spatula, transfer to racks to cool completely.

* – I used 1/2 package semisweet chunks and 1/2 package white chocolate chunks to alleviate some of that chocolatey-ness. I mean, 20oz of semisweet is a LOT of the same chocolate flavor. These would also probably be incredible with peanut butter chips.

**- here again is where I adjusted slightly. I always seem to have trouble with my cookies going flat and rather than waste some pretty pricey ingredients on flat, unappealing looking cookies, I took a note from Alton Brown’s “The Chewy” cookie and chilled the dough, and then rather than dropping teaspoons, I made balls instead, cooking only 6 at a time. They cooked up as you see in the photo above so I’m saying my strategy is a successful one. Take that, cookies! I win again!