TWD: Baking with Julia - Chocolate Truffle Tart

I was excited that a tart recipe was chosen for TWD because it gave me an opportunity to finally use my rectangular tart pan. :) I know, I know... I get excited for the little things!

This tart was super chocolatey. It started with a chocolate crust and then the chocolate filling had chopped chocolate biscotti and white chocolate mixed in. I made it on Valentine's Day and we ate it cold out of the refrigerator. It was super rich and delicious!!!

Thanks to Steph, Spike, Jaime, and Jessica for hosting this week. The recipe can be found at their blogs or in the wonderful book BAKING WITH JULIA.



Double Chocolate Brownies

Brownies and chocolate chip cookies are two desserts that I will always try a new recipe for even though  I have tried and true recipes that I use regularly. There is just something about CCCs and brownies... usually there isn't a bad one in the bunch!

These brownies are AMAZING! So chocolately and gooey and fudgy. Eat them warm, room temperature, or cold. Either way they are fantastic!

Double Chocolate Brownies
Recipe from Buns in my Oven

1 cup (2 sticks) butter

2 1/4 cups sugar

4 large eggs

1 1/4 cups cocoa powder

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon espresso powder, optional

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips

Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 9x13 baking dish.

In small saucepan over low heat, melt butter completely. Stir in sugar and continue cooking for 1-2 minutes, stirring constantly. Do not allow sugar mixture to boil.

Pour butter mixture into a large bowl or stand mixer, beat in cocoa powder, eggs, salt, baking powder, espresso powder, and vanilla extract. Mix until well combined.

Stir in the flour and chocolate chips until well combined.

Pour into prepared pan and bake for about 30 minutes, until a tester comes out mostly clean. The edges should be set and the center should still look slightly moist, but not uncooked. Cool on a wire rack.

SMS: Peanut Butter Truffles

Peanut Butter. Chocolate. Yum.

(And this is the type of post you get when I am writing after hosting 10 five year olds for a birthday party! heehee)

Thanks to Mara of Love Your Mother Earth for hosting this week. The recipe can be found at her blog

Daring Bakers: Traditional British Pudding

The April 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Esther of The Lilac Kitchen. She challenged everyone to make a traditional British pudding using, if possible, a very traditional British ingredient: suet.

Suet is the raw fat from a cow or sheep that is found around the kidneys. We were encouraged to use suet, but in the case of unavailability, we were allowed to use shortening or butter. We were also given a lot of options regarding what type of pudding we would make; sweet or savory.

A British pudding is not the type of pudding that Americans think of. Pudding refers to the type of dish that it is cooked in and the cooking method. A pudding dish is basically a big bowl and the puddings are steamed, not baked.

Before going in the steamer (I covered it with foil)

I opted to make a chocolate pudding and I used butter for it. I could not find suet, so butter was the option I went with. The chocolate pudding, while not beautiful, was incredibly delicious. It was a gooey, chocolatey brownie/cake. So good!

1 1/2 hours later.....

This was the first time I have steamed a dessert and it turned out so moist. The benefit of steaming comes from having the steam completely surround the dish therefore creating a more moist pudding. Plus, overcooking is difficult to do while steaming these puddings.

After being flipped out of the pudding bowl.

Very Chocolate Pudding
The Pudding Club

120g Unsalted Butter
120g Caster Sugar
120g Self-rising flour
30g Cocoa Powder
2 Eggs
60g Chocolate Chips

Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Sift the flour and cocoa together and add with the egg, a little at a time, to the creamed mixture, beating well between each addition. Finally, stir in half the chocolate chips.

Place a covering of the remaining chocolate chips over the base of a greased 1.1 litre pudding before adding the mixture. Steam for 1 ½ hours. Turn out and serve with chocolate sauce, custard, or whipped cream.

TWD: Soft Chocolate and Raspberry Tart

I am at a loss for words this week. When I think of this dessert, only one word comes to mind - DELICIOUS. I guess I could pull out the thesaurus and come up with a few other words for you. How about mouthwatering? Or maybe even scrumptious? Ooooh, tempting! Yes, this tart is all those things and more.

The tart starts with Dorie's wonderful sweet tart crust. You could just give me the crust and I would be a happy lady. But, instead of an empty crust, this is filled with juicy raspberries and a wonderful chocolate ganache. Then, as if that isn't good enough, it is topped with a dollop of fresh whipped cream. Are you drooling yet?


We ate this warm out of the oven because, honestly, we couldn't wait. It is SOOOOO good! We also had a little bit cold from the fridge and it was good that way, too. I don't think there is a bad way to eat a chocolate raspberry tart!

Thank you, thank you, thank you to Rachelle of Mommy, I'm Hungry! for hosting this week. The recipe, which you know you want, can be found at her blog!

*Don't forget to stop by HERE to enter my giveaway! *

TWD: Cocoa-Nana Bread

I have been debating what to say about this bread. It is a chocolate banana bread, or at least that is what the name is telling me. If I didn't know anything about this bread or what it was "supposed" to be, I think things would be different. It is very tasty and I do like it. I thought it was delicious. The problem comes from my brain.

See, for me, if you tell me there are bananas in someting, I want to taste the bananas. I want them to be a lead ingredient. The banana was more of an afterthought. This was more a chocolate bread with some bananas thrown in to make us all feel better about eating it! Which, make no mistake, this bread (cake... who are we kidding?) WILL get eaten!

I probably won't make this again in the future, though. Not because it isn't good, because like I said, it was quite tasty. The reason is because if I want banana bread, I will probably just make banana bread, and if I want chocolate, I would prefer a fudgy brownie!

Thanks to Steph of Obsessed with Baking for hosting this week. The recipe can be found at her blog.

SMS: Hazelnut Truffles

The Sweet Melissa Sundays recipe choice this week was Hazelnut Truffles. They were very easy to make. Just melt chocolate, add cream and ground hazelnuts, refrigerate, and form into balls. Not time consuming, not difficult. I LOVE recipes like this!

The only problem for me came from eating them. They are good, but way too rich for my liking. Which is weird, because I would definately consider myself a chocoholic. Plus, Nutella is my favorite food in the entire world, so I thought a Hazelnut Truffle would be right up my alley.

Oh well... not every recipe can be a favorite. But, if you are in the mood for amazingly yummy, rich chocolate, make these.

Thanks to Annie of Living Life Foodcariously for hosting this week. The recipe can be found at her blog.

Martha Washington Candy

I can't focus lately. All my thoughts seem to be about how I haven't seen Nathan in 8 1/2 months and how he will be here, right in front of me, in about 2 weeks. I am so excited and the butterflies have already set up camp in my belly. I am in a sort of limbo right now. He is so close to coming home, but not quite close enough for me to start preparing everything for his arrival. So, what am I doing??? Taking up residence in the kitchen!

Oh, and just a little disclaimer. Since I am so out of it, my posts may be a little loopy. Not much I can do about that! :) Hopefully you can bear with me!

One of my greatest memories of the holidays growing up has to be my mom making candy. Every holiday season, no matter how busy she was, she would get in the kitchen and make yummy candy. She makes the BEST butter crunch, which I really need to try my hand at. She showed me how to do it a few years back, but I have misplaced the recipe.

In addition to her butter crunch, she would make Martha Washington's. My favorite are the ones with coconut; they remind me of little Mounds candy bars. So delicious! You could add just about anything you want in these. Thanks for a yummy recipe, Mom!

Martha Washington Candy

1 stick butter

1 can sweetened condensed milk

2 boxes powdered sugar

4 cups chopped walnuts

Chocolate, for dipping

Cream butter and sweetened condensed milk. Add powdered sugar; mix thoroughly. Add chopped walnuts.

Form into small balls. Dip in chocolate and place on wax paper to cool.

Variations:

Omit nuts and place 1 maraschino cherry in center of each ball.

Omit nuts and add peanut butter to filling.

Omit nuts and add coconut (toasted or plain).

Omit nuts and add minced dates.

Buckeyes

Do you like to clean or is it just a necessary evil? I LOVE cleaning. I am a total neat freak and love to organize things. It really is an obsession. I can't handle clutter and messes. It is just one of my quirks.

Speaking of quirks... Is there anyone else out there who only hand washes their dishes or doesn't own a microwave? My friends think I'm crazy. I have a dishwasher, but it has never been used. I wash the dishes after every meal (goes with my can't stand messes thing...) and for some reason just prefer to do it by hand. I also don't own a microwave. We used to have one, but when it died I just saw no need for a new one. So, anyone else "crazy" like me?

Wow... maybe that was all too much information! Hmmmm... are you sure you all want to get to know me better? :)

This recipe is something I make every year for my cookie trays. You can't beat the combination of peanut butter and chocolate. Sorry the picture isn't great, but, believe me, the buckeyes are AWESOME!

Buckeyes

1 1/2 cups peanut butter

1/2 cup butter, softened

1 tsp vanilla

4 cups powdered sugar

Chocolate for dipping

Mix all ingredients; shape into balls. Place on wax paper and refrigerate.

Prepare chocolate for dipping. Dip each ball and return to wax paper.

Refrigerate 30 minutes or until set.

Nutella Fudge

It is day 2 of Nutella week and I thought I would share some pics of my Nutella stash. It's not too bad... I'm sure there are worse offenders!



I recently discovered "Nutella & Go!" and I love them! (I'm eating one as I type!) I don't know if you can find them stateside or not. Have any my stateside people seen it? Kristl, I know you love Nutella... have you seen it?

Today's recipe can be described in one word: Mmmmm! This was so easy to throw together and so delicious! I'd have to say my only complaint is that the Nutella flavor was more of an aftertaste, not really the front runner. But, you could taste it and it was definately a good fudge!

Nutella Fudge
Recipe from Recipezaar

1 (11 1/2 ounce) bag milk chocolate chips
1/2 (13 ounce) jar nutella
1 (14 ounce) can sweetened condensed milk
1 dash salt
2 teaspoons vanilla

Butter an 8" square pan.

In a 1 quart glass bowl, combine the chocolate chips, Nutella, sweetened condensed milk, and salt in a bowl. Microwave (HIGH) mixture for 3 minutes, taking it out halfway through and stirring well and returning it for the remaining time. Carefully remove hot bowl and stir in vanilla.

Pour mixture into prepared pan. Chill for 2 hours. It sets up almost immediately. After it's been chilled, score and cut fudge into bite size pieces.