May 19th, 2012
Moist chocolate cake, creamy peanut butter frosting and chunks of Reese’s peanut butter cups, all covered with chocolate ganache!
Ingredients for Chocolate Cake:
1 cup boiling water
2 cups sugar
1 3/4 cups flour
3/4 cup cocoa powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 cup buttermilk (OR 1 c. milk mixed with 1 T. vinegar)
1/2 cup oil
1 teaspoon vanilla
(You could use a box mix to save a lot of time.)
Ingredients for Peanut Butter Frosting:
1 cup (2 sticks) salted butter, softened
2 cups creamy peanut butter
4 cups confectioner’s sugar
approx. 1/3 cup milk
12 oz. bag of Reese’s miniatures
Ingredients for Chocolate Ganache:
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
4 Tablespoons light corn syrup
1 cup heavy cream
1 teaspoon vanilla
(I thought using 1 cup of heavy cream was too much. Next time I will reduce it to 1/2 cup.)
Directions for Chocolate Cake:
1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Line the bottoms of three 8 inch cake pans with wax paper and grease the sides.
2. Bring a small pan of water to a boil and keep it simmering while you mix the other ingredients.
3. In a large mixing bowl combine the sugar, flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Add the eggs, buttermilk, oil and vanilla. Beat with mixer until combined.
4. Add 1 cup of the boiling water and carefully stir until it is mixed in. Beat for 1 1/2 minutes with mixer. Batter will be thin. Pour the batter into pans and bake for 18-22 minutes (until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean).
Directions for Peanut Butter Frosting:
In a medium bowl, beat the butter and peanut butter with an electric mixer. Gradually add the sugar. When it starts to get thick, add the milk a little at a time until frosting is spreadable. (The amount of milk you use depends on the thickness of your peanut butter.) Beat for 3 minutes or until fluffy.
Directions for Chocolate Peanut Butter Ganache:
Place the chocolate chips in a metal bowl. Heat cream over medium heat. Watch it closely and immediately remove from heat when it starts to boil. Pour over chocolate chips. Let sit for 2 minutes. Slowly stir the mixture until all the chips have completely melted. Stir in the vanilla and corn syrup. Let the ganache cool if you prefer a thicker consistency.
Directions for Assembling Your Cake:
Reserve 12 mini peanut butter cups to garnish the top of the cake, and chop up the rest. Spread peanut butter frosting on your first cake layer, then sprinkle half of the chopped Reese’s on top. Press them down into the frosting with your spatula. Repeat with the second cake layer. Place your third cake layer on top, then cover the whole cake with peanut butter frosting. Pour ganache on the top of the cake, and smooth it with a spatula. Garnish the top with your remaining 12 Reese’s minis.
Adapted from Bird On A Cake.
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May 19th, 2012
Banana-chocolate chip cake
100g butter
200g sugar
2 to 3 medium size ripe bananas, pureed
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
250g flour
1 tsp baking soda
125 ml natural unsweetened yogurt
½ tsp salt
100g chocolate chips
Grease a cake pan with a little butter and flour. Preheat your oven at 180°C.
Whip the butter and slowly add the sugar until the mixture is creamy. Add the banana puree, the eggs and the vanilla. Mix well.
In a big bowl, mix the flour, the baking powder, the salt and the chocolate chips then add this to the first mixture. Mix everything together.
Slowly add the yogurt and mix well. Pour the batter in the cake pan and bake for 30-40 minutes or until a knife point comes out clean. Let cool for 5 minutes, remove from the cake pan and let the cake cool a little bit more before serving it.
With many thanks to Laura Carre-Diaz.
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May 19th, 2012
The weather in Ontario is amazing right now!
I’ve been trying to soak up every minute of it. Don’t worry I have been lathering on the SPF to prevent any skin damage.
The SPF I use is non-comedogenic but I have been using my Montagne Jeunesse masks just to maintain moisture in my skin.
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May 19th, 2012
Chocolate filled and stuffed strawberries came to my mind just as I was falling asleep last night, just as the best ideas do. I love chocolate dipped strawberries. I remember my first one. My high school boyfriend and I were strolling through the mall. I looked through one window, not to find clothes, but to find . . . chocolate. There it was, Godiva. I remember my teeth cracking through the chocolate shell and bursting into the juicy strawberry center. It was love at first kiss, lol. My love for chocolate and strawberries outlasted my high school relationship, and should up in my twisted fantasy last night. How about instead of the strawberry being inside the chocolate, let’s put the chocolate inside the strawberry. Amazing.
Yields: About 10 strawberries filled with a little touch of heaven
Ingredients:
1/4 cup vegetable shortening
1/4 cup vegan butter
2 cups powered sugar
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 – 6 tablespoons almond milk
1 lb strawberries, hulled
Directions:
Cream together vegetable shortening and vegan butter with an electric hand mixer in a large mixing bowl.
Gradually blend in powdered sugar and cocoa powder.
Blend in vanilla extract, then slowly blend in almond milk until the desired consistency in reached.
Fit a piping bag with the decorative tip of your chose (or just cut a hole in the corner of a zip lock bag). Fill about half way with your chocolate Buttercream.
Place the tip of the piping bag into the hulled strawberry and slowly fill. Be sure to finish with a swirl on top.
Most of all, enjoy your wonderful chocolate creation.
Other stuffed strawberries video recipes:
Cream Cheese Stuffed Strawberries
Stuffed Strawberries
Chocolate Dipped Stuffed Strawberries
Tagged as:
chocolate,
chocolate filled strawberries,
chocolate stuffed strawberries,
filled strawberries,
recipe,
strawberries,
strawberry,
stuffed strawberries,
valentines day,
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vegetarian
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May 19th, 2012
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May 18th, 2012
This past week has been a whirlwind of new projects, collaborations, and planning of juggling the work schedule. We’ve just started the season at Vineyard Golf Club, where I work as a Baker/Cook and create dessert recipes for our members, from the classic Profiteroles to more unique versions of a PB&J using peanut butter ice cream and roasted red grapes.
One of the dishes that I’m excited to serve up this year at the club is this Dark Chocolate & Pomegranate Bread Pudding, a luscious chocolate custard swirled with Skylake Ranch’s Pomegranate Fruit Spread. Chocolate and Pomegranate? Yes! The sweet chocolate is the perfect canvas for the tart pomegranate, making it a match made in dessert heaven!
Where’s Skylake Ranch you ask? It’s a pomegranate orchard located between Chico and Durham in Northern California and produces enough pomegranates to make all of the gorgeous products above. Everything from fruit preserves, grill sauce, syrups, and juice, they’re squeezing the fruit to its last drop, and all to your health! Owned by Gail Brown at the helm of the pomegranate ranch, with her son Chris, who is the operations manager, and his wife Sarah, the official taste creator.
Skylake Ranch Pomegranate Products are all made with ingredients that are easy to pronounce, made with natural cane sugar. All of the products, except the marinade which has soy sauce in it, are gluten free and vegan, making them available to a wider range of customers able to purchase them. Zero pesky pesticides or high fructose corn syrup in them at all!
This recipe showcases the use of the fruit spread, a tart and sweet combination that pairs well with the dark chocolate. Swirled throughout the custard, it delivers an acidic but much needed break between all the bread custard sweetness.
- Preheat oven to 350F and butter a baking dish (I used a 4 inch deep pan, 6 inches wide)
- In a small saucepan over low heat, whisk milk, sugar, vanilla, cocoa powder, and butter. Simmer until butter has melted.
- In a separate bowl, beat eggs and baking powder. Temper chocolate milk into eggs, whisking quickly to not cook the eggs.
- Add torn bread and with whisk, mash to have smaller bread pieces. Pour half into buttered dish, swirl in 2 tablespoons of Pomegranate spread, and then top with more bread pudding batter. Finish with the rest of the pomegranate, swirled on top.Bake until set, about 35 minutes. Cool and chill in the fridge overnight.
- To serve: scoop into small bowl, top with whipped cream and chocolate shavings. You can also drizzle with caramel sauce, or top with fresh fruit.
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Visit the Skylake Ranch site and tell me which pomegranate product you’d love to try!
- Follow @SkylakeRanch on Twitter
- Follow Cooking with Books on Google Friend Connect
- Tweet the following message: Dark Chocolate & Pomegranate Bread Pudding w/ @SkylakeRanch products via @nella22 & giveaway of their pomegranate line! http://bit.ly/JXetWu
- Like my Mustard Hoagie Rolls at Stonewall Kitchens
The comments are the official entry, there is no purchase
necessary, void where prohibited. US mailing addresses only. One (1)
winner will be chosen randomly. Prize will be shipped by Skylake Ranch. The
contest ends Sunday, May 27th, 2012 at 11:59 pm Eastern time. The winner
will be announced on Monday, May 28th via email and will have 48 hours to
respond before a new winner is chosen.
Disclaimer: I received their product line free of charge in order to facilitate this recipe and review. No monetary compensation was exchanged and as always, my opinions are my own and I’ll only recommend a product I love and use in my own kitchen.
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May 18th, 2012
When I set out to make this biscotti, my intentions were very clear. The morning was dreary and cold, the outlook for the afternoon even drearier and colder. In the interest of providing myself with something to cut through the depressing gray day ahead of me, I was aiming to whip up bit of a treat that I could enjoy with a soothing cup of afternoon coffee.
It seemed like such an innocent endeavor, and it was, really, until I opened up a cupboard to rifle around for a bit of inspiration concerning what I could fold into the biscotti dough and, oh, hello, dried Montmorency cherries. And who is that sitting right next to you? A bottle of Kentucky bourbon, I see. We may be onto something here. A bit more shuffling of things in said cupboard also unearthed the last bits of a bar of bittersweet chocolate, a natural pairing, I thought, for the tartness of the cherries. A bit of chopping, and we’re almost there.
And where was there? Well, surprisingly, it ended up being a place where crisp, satisfying biscotti, ripe with bourbon-plumped cherries and streaks of dark chocolate, tastes a lot like the best chocolate chip cookie I’ve ever eaten. While still firmly planted in the crunchy family of biscotti, this little number has the brown sugar notes of a cookie, but with a hint more sophistication on account of the chunky pecans and varying hits of tartness, sweetness, and, of course, smooth bourbon. It may not have been the exact treat I thought I’d end up making, but it served its purpose more than sufficiently. Dipped into a cup of hot black coffee, it was a warm and cozy highlight to what can only be called a cold and punishing day (ah, springtime in Portland).
Pecan and Chocolate Biscotti with Bourbon-Soaked Cherries
3 tablespoons bourbon
½ cup dried sour cherries (you may have to hunt around to find dried sour cherries instead of dried regular cherries, but the difference between the two is so totally worth the hunt)
2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
4 tablespoons (½ a stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
¼ cup white sugar
¼ cup dark brown sugar
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
½ cup coarsely chopped, lightly toasted pecans
½ cup coarsely chopped bittersweet chocolate
In a small bowl, combine the bourbon and the dried sour cherries. Allow to soak at room temperature for at least 1 hour (if you have the inclination, soaking them overnight would provide the most forward bourbon flavor), tossing occasionally to keep all the cherries in touch with the bourbon.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside.
Sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugars until they are light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs and vanilla. Beat the sifted dry ingredients into the butter mixture until everything is just combined. Stir in the pecans, chocolate, and dried cherries, along with any bourbon leftover in the bowl. Stir until everything is incorporated.
Directly on the prepared baking sheet, divide the dough into 2 logs roughly 3 ½ inches wide and 8 inches long. Pat the logs into a uniform thickness of about ¾ inch. The dough will be sticky, so lightly greasing or flouring your hands might help your shaping endeavors.
Bake the logs in the center of the oven for 30 minutes, until the centers are firm and the tops are golden brown. Remove the baking sheet from the oven, and remove the logs to cool on a wire rack for about 10 minutes. Lower the oven temperature to 325 degrees Fahrenheit. With a serrated knife, slice the slightly-cooled logs on the diagonal into ½-inch thick slices. Return the slices, cut side down, to the baking sheet, then bake for an additional 25 to 30 minutes, until the slices are extremely crisp and nicely browned.
Remove biscotti slices to a wire rack to cool completely. Biscotti can be kept in an airtight container for several days.
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May 18th, 2012
Dandelion Chocolate is a “bean to bar” chocolate factory that is currenly being built in San Francisco’s Mission Disctrict. The move to start a chocolate factory came after many years of the owners experiementing with cocoa beans and a lifetime affinity for chocolate.
Dandelion’s company blog documents the factory’s construction as well as their packaging inspirations.
“We were looking for something that was consistent with our brand. Our chocolate is only made of beans and sugar, with no added emulsifiers or flavorings, so we wanted our packaging to also feel very real, but also elegant and special for customers.”
Designed by Caleb Owen Everitt, and Anthony Ryan.
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May 18th, 2012
This cheesecake slice isn’t light on calories, but it is smooth, creamy, very tasty and only involves a bit of whizzing, mixing and chilling. The result is a lovely alternative to a traditional baked cheesecake. A perfect make-ahead dessert.
Serves 6
Ingredients
200g chocolate digestive biscuits, or similar
50g unsalted butter, melted
100g good quality dark chocolate, 70 per cent cocoa solids
150g cream cheese, full fat
150g mascarpone cheese
50g icing sugar, sifted
50g amaretti biscuits, crushed
Method
You will need a 450g loaf tin. Cut a strip of baking paper so it runs across the length or width of the tin and up the sides, overhanging the edges so you can use it like a sling to lift the cheesecake out.
Crush the biscuits and tip them into a bowl. Add the melted butter and stir well until the crumbs are coated. Tip them into the lined loaf tin.
Using the back of a spoon, gently push the crumbs to the edges of the tin until smooth and flat. Chill while you make the filling.
Break the chocolate into small pieces and put in a glass bowl. Sit the bowl over a pan of just simmering water, making sure the bowl doesn’t touch the water. Melt the chocolate, stirring gently once almost melted. Set aside.
In a separate bowl, use an electric whisk, if possible, to whisk the cream cheese, mascarpone and icing sugar together, for two minutes, until smooth. Stir in the melted chocolate until well combined.
Spoon the mixture onto the base, and smooth down until flat. Chill for 2-3 hours, or until needed.
To serve, sit the tin briefly in a tray of hot water, to make it easier to release the cake. Either use the baking paper sling to lift the cheesecake out, or turn the tin onto a plate. It will then be upside down, so take another plate and very carefully flip over again. Sprinkle the crushed Amaretti biscuits over the top and slice.
www.renbehan.com
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May 18th, 2012
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