My Favorite Brownies

One of the sweets I remember from my childhood is the homemade brownies my parents used to make. For a long time, none of the brownies I had ever really compared to what I remembered as the perfect brownie that my parents made. When I made the recipe my mom had given me a few years back for the first time in a long time, I found it too sweet and the only chocolate source was also Ghiradelli Hot Cocoa mix- not enough chocolate flavor for me. I used to think what made these so special was the malted milk powder that was added. Over the last few months, in developing my hot chocolate mix, it struck me- it wasn't the malt, it was the milk powder! Hot chocolate mix is pretty much two parts milk powder to one part cocoa powder and one part sugar. The sugar and cocoa powder were already in the recipe I was working on, with the addition of some milk powder I got the flavor and texture I remember. The milk powder adds some of that malted flavor, and gives a nice chewy fudgy texture to the brownies. I also have added some bittersweet chocolate along with the cocoa powder, which isn't normal- usually it's just one or the other. This gives the brownies a great well rounded chocolate flavor, make sure you use high quality chocolate and cocoa powder or they won't be your favorite brownies! After I get the variations nailed down, I'll post some other options beyond plain brownies... peanut butter swirl, cheesecake, raspberry hazelnut, coconut macaroon... oh the opportunities are endless! Try these out and let me know what you think!

Brownies ( makes about 16 medium sized squares)

4 oz bittersweet chocolate
4 oz butter
1 1/4 cup sugar
3 eggs
1 TBS vanilla
1/2 cup non fat dried milk powder
3/4 cup cake flour (I have also used whole wheat pastry flour with great results)
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup cocoa powder

Pre heat the oven to 325 degrees F. Over a pan of boiling water (or in the microwave) melt the butter and chocolate together. After it is completely melted add the sugar, mix, and add the eggs at once. Stir until they are mixed in, add the vanilla extract, and then the milk powder. Sift all the dry ingredients together and add to the chocolate butter mix and stir just until combined. Pour into a greased 9x13" pan and bake until when a skewer is inserted into the middle it comes with crumbs attached. Be careful not to over cook them!

Chocolate French Toast with Sauteed Bananas

Need something sweet to start your day? Or perhaps end your day? This can be made in several ways to accommodate either. In my picture I have plated this as more of a dessert, but it's also very easy to simplify this a bit and turn it into a suitable breakfast or brunch item. I love french toast, or pain perdu as it would be called if you were in french bistro. French toast can take on many variations. Perhaps one of my favorite is sandwiched with some turkey or ham and then topped with fried eggs and maple syrup! I'll have to post that one of these days. For today I have added some cocoa powder to my standard french toast custard. I'm not sure that I can pick up a strong cocoa flavor, but it definitely adds more depth to the french toast. For breakfast I would soak the bread and cook as normal serving it with maybe some lightly sauteed bananas or fresh bananas and some honey or maple syrup. For dessert as pictured here I have sandwiched slices with chocolate chips and served it with more chocolate sauce and caramelized brown butter bananas. If you have never experienced it, chocolate and bread are a fantastic combination!

Chocolate French Toast (custard enough for 3-4 servings)


The best bread for french toast is challah, or brioche but any sturdy bread would work well.
This custard can easily be doubled or tripled for more servings.
1/3 cup whole milk or 2%
1 egg
2 TBS cocoa powder
1 TBS sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp bourbon (optional)

1 cup chocolate chips or chopped pieces of your favorite chocolate

Whisk together the egg, cocoa powder, sugar until completely combined. Add the milk and bourbon and vanilla. Slice the bread into 1/2- 3/4" slices. Heat up a griddle or saute pan, lightly grease with butter or pan spray. Dip slices of bread into the custard, letting it sit for 30 seconds to soak up some of the custard and shake off the excess before placing it into the pan. The bread will burn if the heat is too high, so keep it on a medium low heat and let it cook until the first side is cooked but not too dark (it will be hard to tell because it's chocolate but you should see some crust form). After you flip the bread over sandwich two pieces together with the chocolate. Arrange some chocolate on one piece and top with another piece of the toast, making sure the cooked side is facing in, touching the chocolate. As the chocolate melts it will help to hold the two pieces together. Cook until the bottom is not to dark but has form a crust, then gently flip the sandwich over and cook the other side. After cooking you can transfer them to a 250 degree F oven to keep warm until serving.
Alternatively:
You can dip and sandwich the pieces of bread together (with chocolate in the middle), brown both sides (of the sandwich) and then finish cooking in the oven at 375 until the sandwiches are cooked through and the chocolate is melted, about 15 minutes depending on how cold the sandwiches are going in. This lets you prepare this ahead of time and you can put them in the oven right before serving.

Sauteed Bananas
For the bananas, briefly saute them in some brown butter* Use about 1/2 TBS per banana and then sprinkle in some confectioners sugar to taste and a pinch of salt. Add thick slices of banana to the pan and cook them over medium high heat until you begin to get a little color on them, but they still are firm in the middle. Make sure not to cook them too long or they become mushy and fall apart.

*For brown butter, let the butter melt over low heat until the milk solids begin to brown (not burn) and the butter takes on a nutty aroma
After the sandwiches come out of the oven slice them in half on the diagonal, sprinkle with some powdered sugar and serve with the sauteed bananas. You could also serve this with some chocolate sauce and or whipped cream or ice cream.

For Breakfast:
For something not quite as sweet, you can cook the french toast as normal and skip sandwiching with the chocolate. I would still serve it with bananas (because I love them!) but they could either be fresh or still lightly sauteed and drizzle some honey or maple syrup on top.

Hot Chocolate with Pecan and Cocoa Nib Cookies

Today's recipe is for hot chocolate and cookies. Because this is "chocolate week" the cookies do have cocoa nibs in them because I like the way they play off of the pecans but they could easily be left out or substituted with finely chopped bittersweet or milk chocolate. Both recipes today come from Bittersweet by Alice Medrich. I will also add one more recipe for a easy hot chocolate mix that provides what many would consider a more familiar hot chocolate and perfect for a quick anytime dessert or for those cold nights while camping!

This recipe, as with all recipes this week, really showcases the chocolate itself. This is called a rich hot chocolate because of the flavor of the chocolate coming through, not necessarily rich in fat or sugar. My husband didn't particularly care for this recipe, but I liked it. It uses half water and half milk with bittersweet chocolate so there is nothing standing in the way of the chocolate flavor. The water also keeps it very light and the milk could easily be substituted with any non dairy option like soy milk or almond milk. If you are looking for something richer you could also use all milk in place of the water. As recommended in the recipe, I made this ahead of time and kept it in the refrigerator and then before serving I reheated it using the steaming wand on my espresso machine. It would be equally as good consumed right away or you could easily reheat it on the stove or in the microwave.

Rich Hot Chocolate (from Bittersweet by Alice Medrich)
serves 6-8

6 oz of your favorite chocolate (the flavor and sweetness will be determine the flavor and sweetness of the final hot chocolate)
1 1/2 cups boiling water (you could replace 1/2 the water with espresso or use strong coffee)
1 1/2 cups milk

Place the chocolate in a small pan, and pour half of the boiling water over the chocolate. Whisk until it is smooth and the chocolate is completely melted -if you have an immersion blender (hand blender) this would be a great place to use it. Pour in the rest of the water and mix completely, add the milk and over medium heat warm the mixture. You don't want to go much above 180 degrees which means it should never come to a boil, so make sure you keep an eye on it. At this point you could serve it immediately or let it cool and store in the refrigerator for up to a few days.

Hot Chocolate Mix
This is a culmination of a few different recipes I found and it makes for a great cup of hot chocolate. By making your own mix you are able to control how chocolaty or sweet you like it. This could also make a great gift packaged in an attractive jar and maybe accompanied by some homemade marshmallows? (I'll post those at another time). This recipe makes enough to fill a quart jar so if you don't want that much, feel free to cut it in half.

1 3/4 cup powdered sugar (or you could easily use regular sugar and just grind it further in the food processor before adding the rest of the ingredients)
1 cup cocoa powder
1 tsp salt
2 tsp cornstarch
2 cups powdered milk
Optional- You can use all together or just one or two of them....
1 cup malted milk powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1 TBS instant espresso

The key to making this is using a food-processor or blender to grind everything together, it helps to make sure everything is properly mixed and ground so it easily dissolves in the water. If you are using granulated sugar, pulse that in the food processor until it resembles powdered sugar. Add the rest of the ingredients and pulse or blend until completely mixed. To make a cup of hot chocolate, put 1/4 cup of the mix in a cup with 1 cup of boiling water. That will make a pretty strong hot chocolate so feel free to adjust to taste.
For Peppermint Hot Chocolate: Add a few drops of peppermint oil or extract to the hot chocolate
For Spiced Hot Chocolate: There are all sorts of spices you could add to the mix. The following is a little spice mix that I keep on hand and add a pinch to my cup before mixing in the hot water.
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp cardamom
3/4 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp ground ginger
pinch of finely ground pepper

Nibby Pecan Cookies (from Bittersweet by Alice Medrich)

1 cup (3 1/2 oz) pecans (or any other nut you prefer)
2 sticks (1/2 lb) butter
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 rounded tsp salt (use a good quality sea salt)
1 tbs + 1 tsp bourbon*
1 1/2 tsp vanilla**
1/3 cup cocoa nibs
2 cups all purpose flour (I used whole wheat pastry flour with great results)

*While you can easily leave out the bourbon if you prefer not to use alcohol, it brings a great flavor to the cookies and is worth going out to get a small bottle.
**As recommended, I tried grinding an old dry vanilla bean I had and used rounded 1/4 tsp of vanilla powder the 1 1/2 tsp of vanilla extract. But to be honest I'm not sure the flavor made much of a difference.

Pre heat the oven to 325 F. Toast the pecans until they darken but more importantly you can smell them. Let them cool and chop finely. Turn the oven up to 350 F.
Cream the butter with the sugar and salt until smooth and creamy but not too light in color. The more you cream the batter the more it will spread in the oven. Add the vanilla and bourbon and continue to mix until it's creamy and emulsified. Add the flour, mix briefly and then add in the cocoa nibs and pecans. At this point you have two different ways to shape the cookies. You can form it into logs and slice and bake (works particularly well if you want to freeze the dough because you can slice it while still frozen and put back whatever dough you didn't use in the freezer for the next time), or as in the picture you can roll out the dough and cut it into desired shapes. If you choose to slice and bake, form it into a log and if you are rolling out the dough, divide it in half and flatten the dough to 1/2 an inch thick and wrap in plastic. Refrigerate until firm (at least 2 hours). Then slice the cookies or roll them out to about 1/4" thick, making sure to add flour as needed on the table to prevent them from sticking. If the dough gets to warm let it firm up in the refrigerator especially after gathering the scraps before re-rolling. Place the cookies on a sheet pan at least 1 1/2 inches apart and bake at 350 F until the edges are golden. Let them sit on the sheet pan for a few minutes to firm up and then transfer to a cooling rack. These will last quite a while in an air tight container.

My spice mix I like to add to hot chocoalte

Chocolate Caramel Tart

This tart is full of personality and complex chocolate flavor. Don't be mislead by the caramel, it doesn't provide a lot of sweet flavors but helps to create a more deep and complex chocolate flavor with some background notes of caramel. The hazelnut crust perfectly complements the chocolate. If you don't want to use nuts feel free to substitute with a sweet tart crust. Use your favorite chocolate because the flavor really shines. My "week of chocolate" has given me the oppportunity to revisit all of my dessert cookbooks and find all the recipes I have wanted to try and or share. Today's tart comes from The Sweet Life: Desserts From Chanterelle by Kate Zuckerman. Her book is wonderful, full of great information and interesting flavors and solid techniques, not to mention beautiful photos.

For the hazelnut crust, the following recipe will make twice as much as you need, so feel free to cut it in half or you can easily freeze the left over dough for another tart later on or you can roll out the dough and bake for wonderful cookies.

Chocolate Caramel Tart with Hazelnut Crust from The Sweet Life by Kate Zuckerman
Hazelnut Crust (Enough for two 8-9" tart shells)
1 cup (5 oz) hazelnuts
1 1/2 cup + 2Tbs all purpose flour
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
12 TBS (6 oz)butter at room temperature
1/2 cup + 1 TBS sugar
2 yolks at room temperature

Equipment: you will need an 8 or 9 inch tart shell that is about 1-2" high

Grind the hazelnuts in a food processor with 1/4 cup of flour until you have a fine meal. Add to the rest of the flour, baking powder and salt. (Alternatively if you already have hazelnut meal, you can substitute that for the whole hazelnuts and skip the grinding all together.) In another bowl, cream the butter and sugar until the mixture lightens in color. Add the egg yolks, one at a time mixing until they are completely emulsified into the butter. Add the dry ingredients all at once and mix until thoroughly combined. Divide the dough into two portions (if using whole recipe) and then wrap the dough with plastic and press down so that it's about 1/2" thick. Let it chill until firm (or you can make it a day ahead and leave it in the refrigerator over night). You can freeze any leftover dough or use it to make rolled out cookies. To roll out the tart shell roll one portion of dough out so that its about 1/8" thick and in a rough circle shape. Place your tart pan over the dough and make sure the circle is big enough so when you place it in the tart pan there will be enough to go all the way up the sides as well as the bottom. Line the tart pan with the dough paying particular attention to the bottom edge, making sure the dough is pressed all the into the edge. Freeze it until solid (about 1/2 hour). Pre heat the oven to 350 F and take the tart pan out of the freezer. Line the tart shell with parchment paper and fill it with either pie weights or dried beans or rice. Bake for 30 minutes until the dough is almost baked through, take the shell out of the oven, remove the beans and bake for an additional 10 minutes or until the bottom of the dough is a light golden brown. The baked shell can be saved for up to two days well wrapped at room temperature.



Chocolate Caramel Filling

1 cup sugar
1 cup heavy cream
6 oz bittersweet chocolate
8 TBS (4 oz ) butter
5 egg yolks
1 egg
1/4 tsp salt

Turn the oven down to 325 F. In a medium saucepan combine the sugar with 1/4 cup of water and bring to a boil and continue to let it boil until you see the sugar start to caramelize. For tips on cooking sugar refer to my post for caramel sauce. You want to make sure you get a nice dark amber color before taking the sugar off the heat. While the sugar is cooking heat the cream in a small saucepan or in the microwave until warm to the touch. When the sugar is at the right color take it off the heat and slowly add a little cream. You'll see the sugar bubble up quickly, so don't add too much at first. When it subsides, stream in some more cream, wait for it to finish bubbling making sure to whisk the whole time and then when those bubbles subside you can slowly pour in the rest of the cream. By this time the mixture will have cooled down slightly and won't bubble up as much. If you find that there is still hard bits of sugar in the pan you can return the pan to the heat and let the mixture come back up to a boil to melt any hardened sugar. Pour into a bowl and let it cool sightly. In another bowl, melt the chocolate and butter together over a pan of hot water (or you can melt it in the microwave). Make sure you only keep it on the heat long enough to melt chocolate and butter so the mixture doesn't get too hot. While the chocolate is melting combine the yolks and whole egg in a bowl and whisk until the mixture is light and foamy.

Starting at the top: the whipped eggs, to the right is the caramel, the bottom left is the melted chocolate and butter all right before being mixed together.

Slowly whisk in the chocolate mixture to the eggs, and once that's mixed, whisk in the caramel sauce. Pour this into the prebaked tart shell and return it to the oven to bake until it is set (about 30 minutes). To check for doneness shake the pan gently and if you see a large ripple, the custard is not set, but if it shakes together like jello take it out. Additionally you can gently touch the center of the custard and as long as nothing sticks to your finger it is ready to come out of the oven. Let the tart cool in the pan on a cooling rack before unmolding the tart. This can be served slightly warm or at room temperature with some lightly sweetened freshly whipped cream or ice cream. The tart is best served the same day, but can be kept in the refrigerator for up to 4 days. Because of the onslaught of dessert I have frozen this after photographing the tart, and when I pull this out of the freezer I'll let you know how it holds up!

Chocolate Pudding with Cinnamon Hazelnut Meringues

If you have never made your own chocolate pudding you are missing out! It is so simple but the results are incomparable with anything you could buy in the grocery store or make from a mix. I have paired the pudding with some meringue cookies. These are also very easy to make and the opportunity for flavor is endless. Here I've added some cinnamon, toasted hazelnut and cocoa nibs. It brings an element of chocolate that is subtle but will pair well with the creamy pudding.



The pudding recipe came from a great book called In The Sweet Kitchen by Regan Daley. It has a lot of great recipes with wonderful flavor combination's. It has great step by step instructions for beginning bakers but a lot of very useful ingredient information for people looking to learn more. Check it out!

Deep Chocolate Pudding (from In The Sweet Kitchen by Regan Daley)
Serves 6-8

1 cup sugar
4 TBS cornstarch
1/3 cup 1TBS cocoa powder
pinch of salt
2 1/2 cups low fat or whole milk
4 egg yolks
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 tsp vanilla extract
4 oz good quality bittersweet or semisweet chocolate

In a medium size bowl, combine half the sugar, cornstarch, cocoa powder, egg yolks and 1/2 cup of milk, whisk until completely combined. In a medium saucepan combine the rest of the sugar, milk and cream. Bring to a scald, the point before it starts to boil. Slowly whisk the hot milk into the sugar and cocoa mixture. Return to the saucepan and cook over medium high heat until you see it begin to boil. Bring it to a full boil and take it off the heat. Add the vanilla and chocolate and stir until completely melted. Pour into a clean bowl and place a piece of plastic over the top on the surface of the pudding to prevent a skin from forming. Let it cool completely before serving. This can easily be made a day before serving. Serve with some slightly sweetened freshly whipped cream.



Meringue Cookies
These cookies have an endless possibility for flavor combination's. You can fold all sorts of things into them like nuts or chocolate, flavor them with zest, extracts, spices, use different sugars, fold in cocoa powder... They are simple to make and bake at a very low temperature for a long time so you can make these before you go to bed, let them cook all night (on the ovens lowest setting) and they'll be ready by morning.

Cinnamon, Hazelnut, Cocoa Nib Meringues
4 lg ( 4 oz) egg whites at room temperature
1/4 tsp cream of tartar
1/2 cup and 1 tsp(4 oz)granulated sugar
1 cup (4 oz)sifted powdered sugar
2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 cup toasted hazelnuts finely chopped
1/4 cup cocoa nibs finely chopped

Pre heat the oven to it's lowest setting- for me it was 170 degrees F. Anything 200 degrees or below will work. The directions are fairly simple, whip the egg whites, add sugar, fold in powdered sugar and then fold in nuts and nibs. The key to success in this procedure lies in not adding your sugar too fast to your whites, if you do the whites get weighed down and runny and won't ever whip up properly. Make sure that your whites are at room temperature so you get the maximum volume from them. Put them in a clean, grease free large bowl, add the cream of tartar and begin to whip. This is possible by hand, but if you can do it with an electric beater it will be a lot easier. When your whites are foamy and beginning to form soft peaks, sprinkle in a tablespoon of sugar. Let the beater continue to whip and slowly sprinkle in more sugar. By the time your whites reach a firm peak you want to have about 1/2 of the granulated sugar added in. Keep the beater whipping and slowly sprinkle in the rest of the sugar. Whip until the peaks are very stiff and shiny. Sift the powdered sugar and mix in the cinnamon. Fold- don't whisk the powdered sugar into the whites. Towards the end add the nuts and nibs. You should still have a fairly stiff meringue at this point. Line 2 sheet pans with parchment (you don't need to grease them). At this point there are several different looks you can create with your meringue. As shown in the picture you can create rustic little mounds by just dropping spoonfuls on to the sheet pan, or if you want something more uniform and clean, you can also pipe them using either a plain or star tip. Make sure that if you are going to pipe them, your nuts and nibs are very finely chopped and that you use a fairly large piping tip. Cook them until they are dry throughout. You can just leave them in the oven overnight. If you have a pilot light on your stove you can even turn the oven off and let it sit overnight. The pilot light provides enough heat to dry them out. Expect them to take at least 4-6 hours in the oven but it won't hurt them to be in there longer. You want to make sure the oven doesn't get much past 200 degrees F so they don't get much color (the sugar starts to caramelize). To test for doneness break one open and make sure the middle is firm (let it sit out on the counter to cool before testing). You can leave them plain or dip them in chocolate. Store in an airtight container for a week.

A Week of Chocolate

I may be a little crazy, a little too motivated, but I am planning a post a day for the next week. Each post is a chocolate dessert to inspire all of those looking for something sweet to make to celebrate a certain upcoming holiday. I don't usually do much, but I do celebrate Valentines day, but I also believe that you should show those you love how much you care for them more than once a year. I do think that chocolate is such a wonderful thing that it does deserve to be officially honored at least once a year and isn't that half of what valentines day is about? Chocolate and sweets? So the items I have chosen to share with you definitely highlight the flavors of chocolate. Some of the recipes are simple and straight forward while others require a bit more work. I may be a little crazy because I have made them and with the help of my photographer, have photographed them all this weekend in preparation for a post a day throughout the week. We both agreed not to do that again, but are very happy with what we ended up with. Below is a picture of what you have to look forward to, followed by my first post. Check back each day for a new recipe and idea if you need something for next weekend. Just a reminder, sign up for email updates to be notified every time a new entry is added. Thanks for reading and leave me some comments and let me know what you think!



My first recipe I want to post is a cake that I have made quite a few times. It is a chocolate souffle cake, but the good news is it's supposed to fall, which means you can make it ahead of time and is a little more foolproof than a traditional souffle. It is also low in fat and high in flavor. It isn't too sweet but has a wonderful chocolate flavor that is clean and straight forward. This could be served with some fresh or poached fruit, a fruit sauce, some whipped cream or ice cream. It's the little black dress of desserts (and a dessert that will keep you fitting into your little black dress!) I cannot take any credit for this recipe however, it comes from the wonderful Alice Medrich and her book Bittersweet.


Fallen Chocolate Souffle Cake (taken from Bittersweet by Alice Medrich)

serves 10

1/4 cup (1 oz) blanched almonds (or almond meal if you have it)
3 TBS all purpose flour
3 oz bittersweet chocolate (or semisweet)
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1 cup sugar, divided
1/2 cup boiling water
2 large eggs separated, room temperature
1 TBS brandy
2 large egg whites
1/4 tsp cream of tartar

Pre heat the oven to 375 with your rack in the lower third of your oven. A spring form pan or a pan with a removable bottom works best for this recipe. To prepare the pan, grease the bottom and sides and line the bottom with a round of parchment paper.
If you are using whole almonds, using a food processor grind them with the flour to a fine powder. Set aside. In another bowl mix the chocolate, cocoa powder, 3/4 cup of sugar. Pour the boiling water over the mix and whisk until smooth. Add in the egg yolks and brandy. In another bowl put all 4 egg whites and the cream of tartar. Whip the egg whites until soft peaks form and gradually sprinkle in the last of the 1/4 cup of sugar. Whip until peaks become stiff but still shiny. Fold the flour mix into the chocolate and then fold in 1/4 of the egg whites. Once the chocolate mix has lightened fold in the rest of the egg whites. Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and bake for approximately 30 minutes. You will know it's done when you insert a toothpick in and it comes out with a few crumbs stuck to the toothpick. If there is still a lot of batter bake a little longer. Make sure not to bake too long, watch it closely, you don't want to over bake it! Let it cool slightly in the pan and run a knife around the edge to loosen the cake if necessary. Garnish with powdered sugar and serve plain or with the embellishment of your choice. This is great a few hours out of the oven but you can make this a day ahead and keep it covered at room temperature overnight.

Chocolate Cream Cheese Cupcakes

These are also referred to as Amazon Cupcakes. They are a chocolate cupcake that has pockets of a cheesecake like filling baked into the cupcake. They are very simple to make, require no frosting and are very very good! The better quality your cocoa powder and chocolate you use will make a big difference in the final flavor of the cupcakes.

Chocolate Cream Cheese Cupcakes (makes 24 cupcakes)

Chocolate Batter:
3 cups all purpose flour
2/3 cup cocoa powder
2 tsp baking soda
2 cups sugar
1 tsp salt
2 cups cold water
1/2 cup + 2 tbs vegetable oil
1 TBS vanilla extract
2 TBS lemon juice or white vinegar

Pre heat the oven to 350 degrees F. Sift the dry ingredients together, in another bowl mix the water, oil, vanilla and lemon juice or vinegar. Add half of the wet to the dry, mix until evenly distributed and slowly add the rest of the wet (add this slowly will prevent lumps in the batter). Set aside while you make the cream cheese filling.

Cream cheese filling

12 oz room temperature cream cheese (neufchatel also works)
1/2 cup sugar
2 room temperature eggs
1 1/4 cups chocolate chips (or your favorite chocolate cut into small pieces)

Cream together the cream cheese and sugar until there are no lumps left, make sure to scrape the bowl and your spatula well to get any cream cheese that can be hiding. Slowly add a little bit of the egg at a time, mixing completely before your next addition, aiming for about four additions of egg. Stir in the chocolate chips last.
Prepare a muffin pan with paper liners (or grease the muffin pan well if you don't have paper liners) this can also work with mini muffin pans as well. To scoop the batter into the pans, you are going to alternate the chocolate batter with the cream cheese batter ending up with about 3 layers of chocolate cake batter and two layers of cream cheese batter. The scoops for the chocolate cake batter should be slightly larger than the cream cheese batter. Start off with about 2 tbs worth of chocolate cake batter in the bottom of each cup. Then scoop a heaping 1 tbs of the cream cheese batter and repeat once more and then finish off with another layer of chocolate cake batter on top (you want to evenly distribute this over all the cupcakes, so depending on how much is left in your bowl, the last layer of chocolate cake batter may be less than the other two.) Your cupcakes should be about 3/4 full, it isn't going to rise too much. Bake at 350 degrees F until the cupcakes bounce back when gently pressed in the middle. You can also insert a toothpick into the middle and as long as you see crumbs and not batter then they are done.

SHF #38 Brownie Bites

This is my first time participating in a blog event. I love the idea of everyone sharing their posts and look forward to this as a path of inspiration. It is inspiration that fuels my posts. For this event the theme was baking with candy (store bought). For me I don't eat a whole lot of candy, and when I do it's usually homemade... but I do have a few favorite flavors that I was inspired by. First it was malt balls- I love malt! My first attempt was a chocolate oatmeal cake topped with malt balls but for several reasons this was a bit of a flop, I'll get back to that and come up with a post worthy recipe later (probably without the malt balls) and then my second thought was little brownie bites with toffee and dried cherries in them. It was a toss up between toffee and mint (not with the cherries) so I decided to divide the batter and try both. I love small individual portions, so I was inspired to use my mini muffin pans instead of a larger one (bite size can be a curse if you continue to consume more than a few in one sitting because you don't always realize just how many you pop into your mouth). The inspiration came from a low fat chocolate fudge cookie from Alice Medrich's Bittersweet , a great book to check out.

Brownies (24 mini muffin size or 1 8x8" pan)

2 1/2 oz(5 TBS) unsalted butter
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup white sugar
2 eggs
1/2 tsp salt
1/3 cup low fat plain yogurt
1/2 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup malted milk powder

additional add ins:
1/2 cup dried cherries (soaked for 20 minutes in water and drained)
1/2 cup toffee pieces

OR
peppermint patties cut into small chunks depending on the size you'll need a few patties, enough for one chunk per muffin or enough to cover a layer in the brownies. I would spread half the batter in the pan, place the chunks evenly over the surface and put the rest of the batter on top.

or 1/2- 1 cup of any other add in you want (chocolate chips, nuts, coconut, malt balls, a layer of jam (layered as you would the peppermint patties)

Melt the butter in a saucepan. Add cocoa powder and take off heat. Stir until combined. Add both sugars and stir. Add eggs, one at a time, stirring between additions, then stir in salt and yogurt. Sift flour and in a separate bowl mix the baking powder, flour and malted milk powder and add this to the chocolate mixture. Mix just until you no longer see any flour. If you choose to stir in your "add in's" add them now or layer them as you are putting the batter into the pans. Make sure you grease your pan well and if using a square pan, line it with parchment (makes it easy to get them out of the pan later)
Bake the 8x8" pan at 350 for 15-20 minutes
Bake the little cupcakes at 375 for 15- 20 minutes. Take brownies out of the pan about 10 minutes after coming out of the oven to prevent them from sticking to the pan.

* Make sure to not over bake the brownies, since they are low in fat they can dry out quickly- you want to make sure they stay fudgy. What you want to see when you insert a skewer into the middle is that it comes out fairly clean with a few moist crumbs attached (not with runny batter).

Chocolate Biscotti

For this biscotti I used spelt flour in place of all purpose. I try to put in whole grain flours whenever possible, and I have found I really enjoy them in cookies especially chocolate cookies. The cocoa powder complements the earthiness of the flour and you usually pick up on the little bits of grain from the flour and it gives it a nice texture. If you haven't done much baking with whole grain flours I would recommend going slowly by substituting 1/3 to 1/2 of the white flour with whole grain flour (and there are a lot of different ones out there). For cookies it doesn't affect them much, some other baked goods might become heavier, more dense or may need a little more moisture. I have found spelt, since it is relatively low in gluten, works really well in baked products, as well as whole wheat pastry flour. They both have a lower protein content which means less gluten is going to be formed which means the product will be more tender. So feel free to use all purpose flour or a combination or if you have been baking with whole grain flours already, try with 100% whole wheat and see what you think. Even though these are a treat that doesn't mean they can't provide some nutritional benefit.

Chocolate Biscotti
(adapted from Baking From My Home To Yours by Dori Greenspan)

2 cups spelt or whole wheat pastry flour
1/2 cup cocoa powder
2 TBS instant espresso
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
6 TBS butter (soft)
1 cup sugar
2 eggs (room temp)
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup nuts (I used almonds but you could use anything)
4 oz bittersweet chocolate

Pre-heat the oven to 350. Sift all the dry ingredients in a bowl. Cream the butter and sugar together as best you can, the mixture will be pretty crumbly. You can add one of the eggs to help and then continue mixing until it is well creamed. Add the other egg and vanilla. Mix the wet ingredients with the dry adding the nuts and chocolate about 1/2 way through. At this point it will be very stiff and you can switch to using your hands if you prefer. After everything is mixed in, you want to divide the dough in half and form two logs about 2 inches wide and 1 inch high. You may need a little flour on your hands to prevent the dough from sticking to them. Place the logs on a sheet pan that is lined with parchment or greased. If you want, you can sprinkle some coarse sugar on top before putting it into the oven. Make sure the logs have enough room between them to expand (about 2 inches). Bake them for about 20-30 minutes until they feel firm to the touch (gently press in the middle). Take them out of the oven and keep it on, but let the logs cool for 20 minutes or so then carefully (with a serrated knife) cut into slices. You can do it on a strong bias if you like long, bigger biscotti (about 3/4" wide) or you can cut straight across if you want smaller ones- up to you . Lay them back onto the sheet pan and return them to the oven for the second bake about 10-15 more minutes until they feel semi dry and firm to the touch. Once the cookies are cool you want them crunchy, so if you discover they aren't cooked enough you can always return them to the oven and dry them out a little further.
Enjoy!

*I'm sure you've seen other biscotti recipes and you'll almost always see variations attached, because it is such a flexible cookie you can have any sort of chocolate or nut or dried fruit or spice you want to it. Make sure you keep the "add ins" to about the same amount listed here or less, so the cookies have enough batter to hold them together. The smaller the nuts are chopped the easier it is to cut the cookies.

Sweet snacks

If you have never tried candying your own zest- you're missing out! It is so much better than anything you can buy (and I've used a lot of commercial product) and it's so easy. I think the fact that my husband (who doesn't like any sort of citrus zest in his food) went crazy for them says volumes about how good they can be! There are several different options after you candy the zest. You can keep hang on to it for various recipes (holiday breads, Florentines and other cookies) or you can dip it into chocolate and keep it for a nice little sweet snack to have after dinner or with a cup of coffee. I know it's a little late this year, but it also makes a nice addition to all the edible holiday gifts that are exchanged (every year I send out care packages to close family).
You can easily save the peel in the refrigerator until you have a enough to candy (you want at least a few pieces of citrus worth) I used three oranges for this recipe and it gave me quite a bit. You can however, use any citrus you want- grapefruit, lemons (especially Meyer lemons), limes, tangerines, kumquats and last but not least, citron. I would probably keep each batch to one kind of citrus for fear of flavors mingling but then again maybe that wouldn't be a bad thing :).
For this post,I used oranges.

Candied Zest
Start by peeling the citrus. You want to aim for long wide sections which you can later trim down to neater, thinner strips. You can have a lot of pith on at this point, you want the zest as thick as you can get it so it doesn't fall apart as it cooks. At this point the zest will last well wrapped in the refrigerator for about a week or so (if needed, it is ideal to candy it while it's still freshly peeled). Once the zest is peeled, cover it with cold water in a saucepan and bring to a full rolling boil. Drain the water off and repeat this process two more times. It is important to blanch the zest with fresh water each time because this is what is going to remove all the bitterness and leave you with the sweet citrus flavor. After it has been blanched three times, at this point if you want, you can trim the strips down into whatever size you want. It will depend on what you are going to do with the zest. If it is going to be diced later on for a recipe, then don't bother trimming, but if you want them to be uniform in size for serving on it's own or dipped in chocolate, you want to trim it now (a good size is 1" long by 1/4" wide). Also remove any extra pith or bits of pulp stuck to the strips. You do want to leave some pith, ideally maybe 3/8 to 1/4 of an inch. Next you are going to need to make a simple syrup, which is equal part sugar and water, which the zest is going be candied in. For the three oranges I used 2 cups sugar and 2 cups water. If you are using more zest you'll need to make more syrup. A good guide is to make sure all the zest in completely submerged in the syrup by about 1/8- 1/4 of a inch. Then bring the syrup to a boil or until the sugar is totally dissolved and add the zest and then make sure it comes to a boil and turn it down to a low simmer.


This will now cook for 1 hour- 1 1/2 hours. What you're looking for is to see that the zest is fairly translucent and if you take a piece out and trim off a little sample, it shouldn't taste bitter at all but be sweet and cooked through with the sugar. Once it's done drain off the syrup while it's still hot and lay out the zest on cooling racks. At this point you want to let it dry out a bit so it's not quite so sticky. I ended up leaving mine out uncovered overnight. At this point you can store it for later recipes (it can also be left in the syrup and stored in the refrigerator for a few weeks) or you can roll it in sugar and leave it plain or dip in chocolate. I chose to dip mine in tempered chocolate (you can also just use melted chocolate but you'll have to store it in the refrigerator) .

In the picture at the beginning of the post you will see a dish next to the zest and that is what are called Mendients and these are simply little rounds of tempered chocolate topped decoratively with different dried fruits, nuts and candied zest, or anything else you can think of. This is a lot like chocolate bark only small bite size and more attractively arranged. They are so simple but so good. The combination in the picture is dried cherries, hazelnuts and candied orange. These are great for entertaining in place of or as part of a dessert course. They're also a nice little treat to put out with afternoon tea or coffee. I had leftover tempered chocolate from the orange so I quickly made a few. The only trick is you want to place little mounds of chocolate on parchment and then when it's partially set, arrange your toppings and gently press them down into the chocolate.
Enjoy!

Sweet Endings

As promised here is the finale to our anniversary dinner. I had been wanting to try this "special" chocolate mousse out and to see if my lovely husband would be able to detect it's ingredients. I knew if he didn't taste it, you really couldn't taste the difference. The special ingredient would be tofu. I don't really think this is anything revolutionary, I've seen recipes for it before but I recently had a conversation with a colleague of mine about it, and she was saying how easy and great it was- that you really couldn't tell the difference. I paired this with a crunchy chocolate peanut butter layer and served it with a leftover berry compote I had made for some pancakes the morning before. I would imagine this would also be very good with hazelnut paste, or another nut butter (instead of peanut butter). When baking desserts at home I try to scale down the portions so we aren't eating it for a week straight (or being tempted by it). I do love to freeze things and I suppose this would probably freeze well- anything with higher amounts of sugar and fat usually does pretty well- depending on the ingredients. I'm sure you'll hear more from me in the future on freezing tips (tip #1 invest in a food saver- one of the greatest tools in my home kitchen). So for this purpose, I cut this recipe down and used a little 6" spring form pan I had, but this recipe could easily be doubled to make a bigger one. I made quite a thick base, which also could be thinner allowing for more mousse, and in retrospect it is a little hard to cut/ eat so less of it would make it more user friendly.

Peanut Butter Chocolate Mousse Torte (serves 4 in a 6" pan)

Peanut Butter Base:

1/3 cup peanut butter (I used all natural freshly ground without any problems so any would work)
1 TBS oil (I used hazelnut but anything that was fairly neutral or a nut base)
3.5 oz melted milk chocolate, melted to room temp
1/2 cup + 2 tbs feullitine (hard to find outside of a professional kitchen- it's kind of like crushed up sugar cones) or you could substitute crushed up sugar cones or cornflakes.

Put the peanut butter and oil into a mixing bowl whip until lighter in color. Pour in the melted chocolate and mix until almost all incorporated, then fold in the feullitine. Pour into a dish or springform pan or ring mold that has been lined with plastic wrap(for easy removal) smooth out the top and make sure it evenly covers the bottom. Put in the refridgerator to chill- to speed up the process put it in the freezer

Mousse:
4 oz dark chocolate (use good chocolate you like, the flavor really comes through)
3 oz silken tofu
2 tbs maple syrup (this is optional or can be adjusted depending on how sweet the chocolate is you are using)
1 tsp vanilla extract
Melt the chocolate in the microwave (very slowly) or on a double boiler. Put the silken tofu in a bowl with the maple syrup and vanilla and use an imersion blender to smooth out the tofu (or alternately you could do all this in a blender). Add the chocolate and use the imersion blender just until completely mixed in. Do not mix too long and make sure the base is ready to go because this mousse sets up fairly quickly. Pour into the mould and smooth the top. Place back into refridgerator for atleast 1 hour to fully set up. Remove the mould and use a very hot knife when cutting through to serve.

I have also entered this into Art You Eat #1 - Chocolate Theme, just in time for Valentines Day!