Triple-Layer Chocolate Cake with Chocolate Ganache

My dad's birthday was coming up, and while I can get away with baking a fudgy brownie to satisfy my friends chocolate cravings on their bithdays, the situation remains different with my dad. He loves anything with good solid chocolate, (who do you think is the one who seeks out for my gharadelli chocolate chips and eats them all?!), and since hes my dad, why not spend a day of baking with chocolate, chocolate, and more chocolate for his birthday?

Ever since I was lucky enough to indulge into a gourgousely layered rich chocolate cake at a wedding lunchen, I was inspired to make one of these cubes of heaven myself. I didn't challenge myself to far, as far as finding interesting flavors to incporporate into the cake, finding challenge enough in baking a huge batch of devils food cake enough for 3 cakes , evening out each layer of cake, layering them on top of each other with home-made ganache, and why not make some chocolate leaves to top it all of!

I found a great guided recipe for the whole thing, which was self-explained very well, and as far as the cake, it tasted so good (with a hint of instant coffee added) that I'll definatly consider using the cake recipe to incorporate into others. The link from where I found the recipe (though I increased the serving size of the reipce) can be found right here: http://www.davidlebovitz.com/archives/2007/08/devils_food_cak.html

Below I posted my pictures of this decadent delightful chocolate cake through the steps I took in making it, but I must warn you, side affects may include extreme drooling and sudden intence chocolate craving...




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All you have to do to make chocolate leaves is spread a layer of melted chocolate onto clean leaves, and peel the chocoate of once its hardened. Use a little bit of the access melted chocolate as glue, to stick the leaves onto the cake.







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Toaster Smores

I had a handful of marshmallows leftover just sitting in my pantry, waiting for the heat of the sun to melt them all together. So before I could let that happen,what a shocker, I decided to use them. My aunt was over with her adorable little daughters, so I wanted to make them a mild mess free treat with the marshmellows. I was thinking about rice crispy treats, but that was before I remebered we had a box of graham crackers! And thus, the idea of fixing up some smores was born.
No time to head out in the woods and make yourself a campfire to roast up some marshmellows? No problem. Smores, meet the toaster oven...

Ingredients:
-Marshmallows
-Graham Crackers
-CHOCOLATE!

Directions:
1. Start of with laying out a row of even squares of graham crackers along a baking sheet lined with aluminium foil (the foil makes the cleanup easier)
2. Cut all the marshmallows halfway in half, and roll the cut open side in chocolate chips (mini chocolate chips would stick better) or tuck in a chocolate chunk.


3. Pinch the marhmallow closed, as closed as it can get, and then place onto a graham cracker.




4. After all the marshmallows are each comfortably placed onto a graham cracker, plop them into the toaster oven/oven at abot 200-300 F., and take them out as soon as the marhmallow starts browning to the toasty roasty consistency you want it to.

5. After you take them out of the oven, yes, you can indulge your mouth with one as soon as you take it out, just after you smoosh the second layer of graham cracker on top!




I wasn't planning on eating it, I promise...












...but it just wouldn't stop staring at me!

Rocky Road Brownies

My friend's birthday was coming up, and of course I had to bake her something. Whenever we go to this certain chocolate store in a shopping center, she always samples their rocky road, and so I knew I had to bake her something with rocky road in it. And what goes better with anything than a nice chocolaty brownie? And so, I went into the kitchen to bake some rocky road brownies.

The good thing about these brownies, is that you can pretty much use any brownie recipe you like. Just be sure not to use an overly fudgy recipe, or else the brownies will be too heavy with everything going on.
Here is a link to a website which gives you a huge variety of brownie recipes to search from, to find one that is the chocolaty consistency and flavor you want: http://browniepower.com/

Halfway through the brownies cooking process, I took them out to put a layer of marshmallows, chocolate chips/chunks, and walnuts.

As far as putting mini marshmallows vs. chunks of big marshmallowa goes, the cut up marshmallows melt all over the top, while the mini marshmallows keep their shape better. To me it didn't matter, but all I had was big marshmallows on hand which i quarted up, so I used those.


I was a big in a rush, because we were havving a mini surprise party for the birthday girl, and I needed to get there on time with the rocky road brownies, so I had to cut them up before they were fully cooled down. The brownie recipe I used was too fudgy so cutting them was a bit of a mess!

No worries though, because my mouth had a good time cleaning up the fallen fudgy pieces of the brownies!

I did however plop them into the fridge for a little bit, to speed up the cooling process, and then somewhat cut them in the best way I could...

Overall, these messy, nutty, marshmellow invested, chocolaty brownies, gave us and the super surprised birthday girl, at her surprise gathering a super duper fun time, filled with giggles, chocolatey lips, and very satisfied tummies!

Espresso Cookies with Chocolate Coating

I find myself baking a lot of cakes, and decided to go with cookies this week. I made up my own recipe, but it's just the ingredients for a basic cookie recipe, which i then added some ground coffee beans into it, for the extra flavor.

-1/2 cup butter (softened)
-1 egg
-1/2 cup white sugar
-1/4 cup light brown sugar
-1 1/2 cups all purpose white flour
-1/2 tsp salt
-1/2 tsp baking powder
-1/2 tsp vanilla extract
-1/2 tsp fresh coffee/espresso
-1 tsp ground coffee/espresso beans
-1/4 cup chocolate for melting

Directions:
1. Beat the butter and sugars together.
2. Once the butter and sugars are fully combined beat in the egg. Add the vanilla and fresh coffee/espresso
3. In a seperate bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, salt, and ground espresso/coffee beans. Pour the flour mixture into the butter mixture while mixing, until everything is combined 4. I put my batter into a ziplock bag, and snipped a whole at the bottom, to pipe out logs onto a greased baking sheet. I also tried cutting the edges of each cookie of, with a rigid/wavy edge cutter, to give the edges of each cookie a wavy design, but after they baked up, the design got to crips and didn't look to good
5. Bake at 325 F for 15-25 minutes or until the edges start to turn a golden brown color

Let the cookies completely cool before adding a layer of chocolate on them


Melt half of the chocolate in the microwave, and then stir in the other half of the (finely chopped)chocolate into the melted chocolate , until it's all melted in. (This is a trick I learned from Ina Garten, from food network, and this assures you to have shiny tempered melted chocolate)


Once your melted chocolate is ready, spread on an even layer of chocolate over all or half of each cookie. I used semi-sweet chocoolate, because that's what I had on hand, but you can use a more bitter/darker chocolate to go with the slightly bitter coffee/espreso flavor from the cookies.


Once the chocolate has hardened (in the fridge to make it go faster) on the cookies, sit down with a cup of milk, coffee or, of course, espresso while enjoying one of your freshly baked espresso cookies!

Chocolate Nutella Cake

As much as my brother enjoys what I bake, he's been complaining about how often I do, and how he never does. He is pretty young, but my grandma, my aunt, and I all love baking, so maybe it just runs in the family. He wanted to bake a chocolate cake with his own made up recipe, and I decided on helping him. He made a list of the basic ingredients he knew to put in the cake, and I added a few extras. The measurments were figured out along as we made up the cakes recipe, but overall, the texture and flavor of the cake was pretty good.

Chocolate Nutella Cake
-3 eggs
-1/4 cup dark brown sugar
-1/4 cup white sugar
-1/2 cup oil
-1 tsp. coffee
-1 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
-1/4 cup milk
-1 1/4 cup white AP flour
-1/2 tsp. salt
-2 tsp. baking powder
-1 tsp. cocoa powder
-1 tsp. Orange Juice (optional)
-1/3 cup chocolate chips
-1/3 cup chopped hazelnuts (I didn't have any on hand ): )
-1/4 cup AP flour
-1/4 cup-1/2 cup nutella (based on how fudgy you want your cake)
-Melted Chocolate and Sprinkles to decorate (optional)

Directions:
1. In a large bowl, beat together the eggs, sugars, and oil.
2. Add in the coffee and vanilla and beat until all combined. Add 1/4 cup of nutella, or 1/2 cup for a fudgier cake
3. In a seperate bowl, sift togther the flour, salt, baking powder, and cocoa powder all together.
4. Alternate mixing in the sifted flour mixture with the milk and orange juice into the egg mixture, until it's all combined together
5. Toss the chocolate chips and hazelnuts in the extra 1/4 cup of flour (to prevent the chocolate chips/nuts from sinking into the bottom of the cake), until each chocolate chip/hazelnut is evenly coated with flour. Pour the flour coated chocolate chips and hazelnuts into the batter and mix in.
6.Pour the batter into a greased pan and bake at 350 F for 25-30 minutes.


To add a little something extra to the cake, once its cooled down, take it out of the pan and melt about 1/3 cup of chocolate. With a wisk or a fork, drizzle it over the cake, however way you like, and then top it of with some sprinkles while the chocolate is still melted.

If I would have thought of this earlier (and was up for the extra calories ;p), I probably would have sliced the cake down the middle and spread on a layer of nutella and chopped up hazelnuts onto the bottem half, and then closed it with the upper half of the cake!

Peanut Butter and Chocolate Covered Banana with Nuts

A few weeks ago, half a banana was eaten, and the other half layed unappealingly lonely on the counter for the rest of the afternoon. So what's a girl who's never eaten a chocolate covered banana before supposed to do? That's right, I went to the cupboard and grabbed a handful of chocolate chips to melt, to smear onto that banana! I do love bananas with a drizzle of peanut butter on them, and I do loveee peanut butter with chocolate, so i think we already know what happened next...;)

After I inserted a stick into the banana I smeared an even layer of peanut butter all around it

After the peanut butter on the banana hardened up for about 15 minutes in the freezer, it made spreading a layer of melted chocolate onto the banana a lot easier

Which then dove its way into a pile of nutss...

I only had almonds on hand so I chopped them up and they still added a great nutty crunch
(I only coated half the banana in nuts, and placed the nutty side down on the tray so that none of the chocolate touched/stuck onto it)

Once the whole things done and coated in whatever toppings you like, plop it into the freezer and put it into the refridgerater for 30-45 minutes before you want to eat it

Lots and Lots of Different Cupcakesss!

Through out last year, I baked plenty, but didn't think of making a blog at that time, so I rarely photograghed my food. I was looking through old pictures and was fortunate enough to find a picture of something I had baked for a friend's birthday. We had a memory of craving cupcakes after passing a sprinkles cupcake and crumbs cupcake shop and so of course I went with cupcakes! She's one of my closest friends, so I decided on making her a variety of cupcakes with flavors she picked out.
I don't remeber the basic cupcake recipe I used, but the flavors added are simple enough to add to any cupcake recipe you like
The picture quality itself isn't that great and each cupcake was only photographed once so I didn't have much variety to choose from for the best looking pictures of each. The little papers stuck onto each cupcake have the flavor and frosting types of each cupcake written on them, though its sort of blurry

Cupcake #1
Flavor: Vanilla Cupcake with Nutella Swirl
Frosting: Vanilla Buttercream mixed with Nutella
Topping: Small Chocolate Chunks and Tuxedo Chocolate Covered Strawberry


Cupcake #2
Flavor: Chocolate Cupcake with Reese's Peanut Butter Cup chunks
Frosting: Peanut Butter Frosting
Topping: Reese's Peanut Butter Cup Crumbles

(the link to this recipe is originally from http://icecreambeforedinner.blogspot.com/2008/07/chocolate-peanut-butter-cup-cupcakes.html, an amazing and absolutely deliciousss blog!)

Cupcake #3
Flavor: Cinamon Sugar with Pecans and Walnuts
Frosting: Cinamon Cream Cheese Frosting
Topping: Pecans and Walnuts and and a Small Sprinkle of Cinammon


Cupcake #4
Flavor: Chocolate Cupcake with Chocolate Covered Caramel Chunks
Frosting: Vanilla Buttercream with Nutella Swirls
Topping: Chocolate Coated Caramel Chunks and Chocolate Covered Strawberry with White Chocolate Stripes


I packaged all 4 cupcakes up in a plastic container and took it to school the following morning to surprise my friend and make her birthday nutrition/lunch at school a little more satisfying ;)

Chocolate Chip Cookie Brownies (C.C.C.B.)

Two of my friends birthdays were recently on the same day. We all met up togther for lunch with some other friends, and of course, you've got to have dessert on your birthday! One birthday girl is a big fan of brownies and the other of chocolate chip cookies, and I had spotted a recipe which layered chocolate chip cookie dough onto brownie batter on http://anotheronebitesthecrustblog.com/, an amazing blog that has all my favorite ingulgences in low-fat versions! So of course, I found a great brownie recipe as well as a chocolate chip cookie dough recipe to pile onto each other for the perfect birthday treat.

The brownie recipe I got was from, probably favorite food network star, Ina Garten, and I also halfened the recipe since I needed only a thin layer. The recipe given for her "Outrageous Brownies" is:
-1 pound unsalted butter
-1 pound plus 12 ounces semisweet chocolate chips, divided
-6 ounces unsweetened chocolate
-6 extra-large eggs
-3 tablespoons instant coffee powder
-2 tablespoons real vanilla extract
-2 1/4 cups sugar
-1 1/4 cups flour, divided- 1 cup for batter and 1/4 cup in the chips and nuts
-1 tablespoon baking powder
-1 teaspoon kosher salt
-3 cups diced walnut pieces

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour a 13 by 18 by 1 1/2-inch sheet pan.
2. Melt together the butter, 1 pound chocolate chips, and bitter chocolate on top of a double boiler. Cool slightly. Stir together the eggs, instant coffee, vanilla and sugar. Stir in the warm chocolate mixture and cool to room temperature.
3. Stir together 1 cup of the flour, baking powder and salt. Add to cooled chocolate mixture. Toss the walnuts and chocolate chips with 1/4 cup flour to coat. Then add to the chocolate batter.
4. Pour into prepared pan. **I kept some exra brownie batter (a few tablespoons) to drizzle on top of the cookie batter going on top*
5. Bake for about 30 minutes, or until tester just comes out clean. Halfway through the baking, rap the pan against the oven shelf to allow air to escape from between the pan and the brownie dough. Do not overbake! Cool thoroughly, refrigerate well and cut into squares.

^^^^ ^^ ^^ ^^ ^^ ^^^^
If your making C.C.C.B.'s preheat the oven to anywere from 325-350F. Also don't put the brownie batter into the oven without putting on the layer of chocolate chip cookie dough over it first (recipe below)

For the layer of chocolate chip cookies I tried to find a recipe that had the longest cooking period possible to match up with the full half an hour of the brownies cooking time. This recipe I found only had to be baked for 15-17 and can be found on http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Best-Big-Fat-Chewy-Chocolate-Chip-Cookie/Detail.aspx. To this recipe, I didn't add the extra egg yolk listed in the ingredients.

I actually made this batter before I made the brownie batter, and just let it 'chill' (haha get it..i know, it's not that funny) in the fridge while it was waiting. After I had the brownie batter poured into the pan, I poured the chocolate-chip cookie dough batter on top of the first layer


I then spread it out, and while spreading, I sort of dug into the brownie batter to get streaks of both batters mixed into each other


And with the extra brownie batter, I drizzled lines across the pan with it, which I then swirled in even rows


And just in case you think your kitchen is the only one that got messy while baking the batters..


Anyways, when putting the C.C.C.B.'s into the oven, i used the temperature of about 340 F, which was in the middle of both recipes cooking times, and I baked them for about 25 minutes total. The result is a more fudgy brownie with a chewy chooclate chip cookie on top, which tasted amazing with vanilla icecream! I also put the extras into the fridge which gave them such a nice chewy and rich texture.
Milk, meet your new best friend...

Crepes with Chocolate & Cream & Strawberry Puree..oh my!

Occasionally, I will find some time to make my brother a sweet treat for breakfast or lunch, and one of his favorites is a crepe! Unfortunatley, I didn't have any nutella on hand to smear on the crepe, so instead I finally chopped up some chocolate chips (you can use any type of chocolate, the better quality chocolate you use, the better flavor you will get), so that it melted instantly when placed on the crepe

The recipe I used was a basic one I had found years ago (unfortunately, I can't find the link to the website that provided me with such an amazing recipe, so if anyone finds out the link from were the recipe originally came, please send it to me. Thanks, and once again all kudos go to the person who originally is responsible for coming up with this recipe)

I usually halfen the recipe for just a few crepes and add a couple drops of vanilla and powdered sugar to sweeten it up.

-4 eggs
-1/4 teaspoon salt
-2 cups flour
-2 ¼ milk
-¼ cup melted butter or margarine

Directions;
1. Break all eggs into a bowl with salt and whisk together until the egg looks uniformly yellow
2. Slowly add the flour (may look a little lumpy so sift it first)
3. Alternate pouring in the flour and milk, to the mixture (start with the flour and end with the flour)
4. Whisk it all together until it looks smooth
5. Add melted butter and whisk until the batter is smooth again
6. Cover the batter, put in refrigerator

To get a thin crepe, drop in a couple of tablespoons of batter into your buttered pan (to make it nonstick) , and instantly spread it out by tilting the pan until a thin layer of batter covers the whole skillet.

After you flip the crepe, sprinkle on the chocolate (as well as any other additional toppings you might want to add; Berries, Nuts, Caramel, etc..) immediately, because the other side will cook extremely fast and you want to give the chocolate enough time to melt.

After the crepe was fully cooked, I folded it in half, and sprayed on some cream (the premade ones that can get sprayed out when you press the nozzle of the container, which started melting when it touched that hot hot crepe!

I had pureed stawberries previously to flavor an icing, and used the excess I had stored in the fridge to drizzle over the crepe, and then sprinkled on some extra chocolate that I had chopped up a bit more roughly.

Chocolate Chip Banana-Nut Muffins with Crumble Topping

Once again I had overripe bananas on hand, and decided to use my favorite banana bread recipe which has been previously posted at http://browniescookiespieohmy.blogspot.com/2009/07/banana-breadcake-with-chocolate-chips.html

This time I changed the recipe up a bit, aside from my basic changes I used in the past.
First of all I made the banana bread into muffins instead.

I also changed the recipe up to make the muffins more low-fat.

I used 1 cup of whole-wheat flour and then remaining 1/2 white flour.

I replaced half the butter with applesauce which suprisingly didn't change the texture of the muffins much
Finally, just for the sake of experimenting with textures, I put half the amount of milk listed (low-fat) and for the remaining 1/8 cup of milk, I added 1/8 cp of greek yogurt mixed with plain yogurt (all non-fat), which didn't make a dramatic change in texture, but was a smich noticable.

I couldn't squeeze in all the batter into all the muffin tins, so with the extra batter I mixed up the extra chocolate chips and nuts I had chopped up to get added into the batter, with brown sugar, flour, and some applesauce and flour and the smallest pinch of baking soda. The thick topping got crumbled onto each of the muffins.

Brown Sugar Scones w. Lemon/Vanilla Drizzle

I have pials of recipes just sitting in a binder which Iv'e never tested out. Last week, when pastries ran out in the kitchen, I decided to seek into my binder of recipes I had printed out, and make one. I barely make scones, and the ones I make are with plain white flour and sugar, so a recipe for brown sugar scones, really caught my eye. I originally found the amazing recipe on http://veganvisitor.wordpress.com/ which providedes the very recipe on http://veganvisitor.wordpress.com/2008/04/03/brown-sugar-scones/.

The recipe is all vegan, but I made a couple of changes when I baked mine:
- Instead of 2 cups all-prupose flour and 1/2 cup whole-wheat flour I put in 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour and 1 cup orf whole-wheat flour
- I didn't have any vegetable shortening on hand, as well as any shortening, so I replaced the shortening with butter
- I didn't have soy milk either, but regular works just fine
- I threw in some blueberries, dried cranberries, oats, chocolate chips, and some chopped up almonds and walnuts

I knew the flavor of coffee would go great with these scones, but wasn't quite sure how to incorporate it into the scones. I decided to press little stripes of coffee onto the scones with a brush, which gave the scones a unique look to them. I also sprinkled oats onto the scones with oats in order to tell the difference.


After they were baked, I felt like they could use a little bit more flavor and I wanted to add more to the apperence of the scones. To contrast the flavor of the blueberries I wanted a lemony flavor and some vanilla as well. And so, I mixed up some lemon juice and vanilla juice with powdered sugar, until it became a nice thick drizzling consistency, and then swirled some on top of each of the scones after they had cooled.

The Glaze hardened nicely after about a half hour and tasted delicious on the scones