Tag: sweet

baking

Why double when you can triple?

wittychild

Maybe it’s a side effect of the pandemic, but I don’t bake as much as I used to. Sure, I’ll bake a batch of cupcakes or muffins sometimes, or my grandmother’s chocolate chip cookies, or mini cheesecakes if I’m feeling really ambitious, but…that’s the exception rather than the rule. Maybe it’s because I don’t have a huge sweet tooth, but these days I’d rather pick up a package of cookies from the grocery store if I’m craving something than be on my feet in the kitchen for ages.

But for one brief, shining moment I felt a flicker of my old self when I made the Triple Chocolate Hazelnut Brownie Pie from the Kitchen Magpie‘s book Flapper Pie and a Blue Prairie Sky for Mother’s Day.

What can I say? My mom likes chocolate – and has a way bigger sweet tooth than I do.

There are a lot of steps, but they aren’t difficult, and the end product looks way more impressive than the effort it actually took.

First, a chocolate crumb crust:

I know from this picture it looks level to the top of the pan, but I promise there’s a recess for filling. This pie pan has the weirdest-angled sides.

Next, a layer of brownie:

And then, while the brownie is still hot, some Nutella spread over the whole thing (or Kraft chocolate hazelnut spread, if that’s what’s available at your local grocery store).

See? I told you there was space in the middle.

One thing that really made this feel next-level for me? Toasting my own hazelnuts for the garnish. I’ve toasted coconut and sesame seeds (not at the same time), but this was a first for me.

Who would have thought that something as simple as chucking them in the oven for 10 minutes – when it had already been turned on to bake the brownie – would transform them like this? The flavour was so different before and after.

Once the brownie layer cooled completely, I made a chocolate hazelnut mousse to spread on top, and garnished with pieces of toasted hazelnut and chocolate curls. The curls weren’t called for in the original recipe, but while searching the bulk store for nuts I found a bin of curls and thought they’d make a nice addition.

The true test was going to come when we cut into the pie. Did it work?

It did! (Also, look at the angle of the pan’s sides. Crazy, man!)

I would like to go on record as stating that I cut that first piece entirely too large. This dessert is rich, and a small slice is more than enough to savour the magic of chocolate and hazelnuts.

Rich or not, my mom absolutely loved it, so mission accomplished.

Thanks for looking! 🙂

baking

So red, Joseph McCarthy is rolling over in his grave

wittychild

I’ve written in the past about trying to find a red velvet cupcake recipe that’s both tasty and fire-engine red (oh, and moist! But that’s a cousin of “tasty”). Since the last time I wrote about it, my red velvet escapades have primarily consisted of hitting up a local restaurant famous for its version and/or trying my recipe from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World with the addition of red velvet baking emulsion and red velvet cocoa from Bulk Barn. Somehow, the inclusion of these ingredients seemed to only make the finished product dryer than usual, so I quickly abandoned that. But hey, that’s OK – there’s always the restaurant cake.

And then, a special request for mini Baileys cheesecakes came my way. Cheesecakes, I can handle. When I nonchalantly found my way over to Life, Love, and Sugar to double-check the ingredients, whammo! There was a recipe for red velvet cupcakes staring me in the face. ”No harm in at least reading it through,” I thought, followed by, “Hey, this looks pretty straightforward.” At the very least, I had all of the ingredients in the house, and – bonus! – this would be a great way to use up the little bit of buttermilk left in the carton from a different recipe. I tried to temper my expectations, and got my supplies together.

There are only two teaspoons of cocoa in the whole recipe, and yet – and yet! – they still managed to have little cocoa-y clumps that I tried my darnedest to break down with my mixing spoon.

It got interesting in the wet ingredients. The recipe calls for two teaspoons of red food colouring. I found a powdered colour by LorAnn and tried it on a whim, thinking it might be more concentrated than a liquid colour. Dang, did it ever make my wet ingredients red!

The colour was muted only a hair when I added my wet ingredients into my dry. The method surprised me: normally, I’d add dry to wet, but I dutifully followed the instructions. The oddest part was after the two sets of ingredients are mixed, a half-cup of hot water gets slowly incorporated. It makes the batter incredibly thin, and I admit I was a bit skeptical at first.

The thin, thin batter made filling my cups a bit of a messy prospect, but they baked up like a charm and (bonus!) retained that nice red colour.

I cheated a bit and used a can of store-bought frosting, for a couple of reasons: 1) There had been a can kicking around the pantry from a bake a while ago that didn’t happen and I wanted to use it up instead of tossing it, and 2) I don’t have the clairvoyance required to have taken out cream cheese to start softening before I even realized I was going to bake, so a homemade cream cheese frosting was out. For the record, it wasn’t awful. It definitely tasted less sweet on the cupcakes than it did off the knife, and it served that all-important purpose of keeping the tops moist.

Look how red they stayed! That was one point for them, but how did they taste?

Like red velvet should, that’s how. These are moist (there’s that word again…) with a tender crumb and just the slightest hint of cocoa to compliment the notes of vanilla from the extract. The next time I make these, I’m pulling out all the stops and making a homemade frosting for them. A cream cheese frosting would really pop on these, although I’m also having thoughts of the cream cheese whipped cream topping I use for almost everything.

Thanks for looking! 🙂

baking

Fast-acting relief for those chocolate cravings

wittychild

When I was growing up, we weren’t really a brownie household. Cookies, sure, but brownies? Maybe occasionally, but they weren’t one of those staples at every get-together. Evidently, I’m making up for lost time, because this is now the second brownie recipe I’ve tried this year. If I’m being honest (which I am, because I just said so), I had made this second recipe once and they disappeared almost immediately, so what you’re seeing here is the second-recipe redux.

I didn’t go out looking for a brownie recipe, but when I saw this one on Life, Love, and Sugar, I was intrigued. It’s got eight ingredients (nine if you count the fact that I used a blend of regular and dark cocoa powder in mine), it makes a small square pan’s worth, and it doesn’t require any advanced baking techniques. I was sold.

Not pictured: the flour or sugar, but otherwise, this is alllll it takes.

The process is really quick: mix your wet ingredients together in one bowl…

…your dry ingredients in another…

…and then add the dry to the wet and combine.

Some of my more eagle-eyed readers might have noticed that there was a bag of peanut butter chips on the counter in the picture up top (go on and scroll up; I’ll wait). The first time I made these, I made them plain, just to see how they were. Since they came out so well, we decided this time to change it up a bit and add a mix-in to keep things interesting.

Once everything was folded in to our satisfaction, we spread the batter in our parchment-lined 9″ square pan.

They took a wee bit longer to bake than the recommended time in the recipe, but were they ever worth the wait!

That amazing, crackly top will never cease to impress me. They sliced like a dream, too.

Interesting discovery: although warm-from-the-oven brownies are much ballyhooed, these ones actually taste a little bit better at room temperature – the flavours come through better.

Apart from the baking time (and the peanut butter chips), the only change I made from the original recipe was using 1/3 cup regular unsweetened cocoa powder and 2 1/2 tablespoons of black cocoa powder. I use a blend of cocoas whenever I make cupcakes, too, and it gives them a certain je ne sais quoi.

And there you have it: moist, chocolatey perfection.

Thanks for looking! 🙂

baking

The only kind of blackout you want in the winter

wittychild

You guys! I’m so glad the holiday season is behind us, and I can get back to my somewhat regular baking schedule. Anything I made over the holidays felt like an obligation rather than something I wanted to do, and with so many store-bought options around (I’m still eating dominoes), it felt futile anyway.

I was itching to bust out my cupcake pans and bake something just for the heck of it, and finally got my chance a couple of weeks ago. Oh, it felt goooood!

A couple of years ago, I had made this Brooklyn Blackout Cake for my mom’s birthday, and although cakes make a lovely presentation for special occasions like birthdays, they’re a pain to store the rest of the time. And although the homemade pudding filling turned out most excellently that time, I didn’t feel like standing over the stove having chocolate splatter at me.

Instant gratification pudding to the rescue!

After baking and cooling a dozen chocolate cupcakes (made with a 2:1 ratio of regular to dark cocoa powder), I made two boxes of instant chocolate pudding, but used only half the milk called for. In other words, two cups for both boxes instead of two cups for each. That gave me an ultra-thick pudding that wouldn’t run all over the place.

I cored the cupcakes, setting the cores carefully aside instead of just eating them (for example). I loaded up a piping bag with my pudding and filled each cupcake, then spread a generous layer on top instead of frosting.

The finishing touch? I grabbed one of my cores and crumbled it on top of each cupcake for that crumb topping finish.

Crumbs on top of your frosting (or “frosting”) might sound weird and dry, but the cake is so moist that dryness isn’t an issue.

Look at that luscious chocolate filling!

On the whole, I’m extremely happy with how these turned out, and how much easier they were to make and store than their layer-cake counterpart. My taste-testers gave them two thumbs up, so it looks like we have a winner.

Thanks for looking! 🙂

baking, cooking, craftmas

On the second day of Craftmas…

wittychild

…my true love gave to me: a really easy recipe!

Who couldn’t use one of those in his or her repertoire, especially at this time of year?  There’s so much to get done, and anything that doesn’t involve preheating, rolling, cutting, frosting, etc. can’t be all bad.

And so I present to you my recipe for Cuban Lunch.  They’re based on a defunct chocolate bar (which was apparently resurrected earlier this year, but I haven’t seen it anywhere), and are a crowd-pleaser if ever I saw one.  You can make a lot quickly, and they’re perfect for gift-giving or cookie trays.  A few years ago, I gave little care packages to the management team at work, and within half an hour everyone had IM-ed me to say thank you – except for the men in the group, who IM-ed me to say thank you, and also that they had eaten all six in one shot.

What you need:

  • 2 cups each of semi-sweet chocolate chips, peanut butter chips, and butterscotch chips.  If you buy these things in bulk and actually want to measure, great; I find that your standard 300g bags found in the baking aisle give you what you need
  • 1 1/2 cups crushed ripple potato chips
  • 1 1/2 cups chopped peanuts
  • Optional, but nice: a kind person to help you set out your mini cupcake liners, and to set out more when your hands are occupied by chocolate-coated utensils and you realize you’re getting way more of these from the recipe than you anticipated

Set out your mini cupcake liners.  The recipe I found has a yield of 75, but whoever wrote it must have filled their liners fuller than I do.  This may take some experimentation on your part, so keep a few extra nearby.  Also, the tinfoil is not strictly necessary, but prevents you having to wash your cookie sheet when you drop chocolate on it – and you will drop chocolate on it.

Chop your peanuts and crush your ripple chips.  I like to use a mini food processor for the chips, but if you have some holiday rage to work through, a sturdy Ziploc bag and a rolling pin make a wonderful substitute.  Set them aside for now.

Put your 6 cups of baking chips in a microwave-safe bowl.  I like to fold them all together to prevent weird pockets of one kind or another in the finished product, because I’m like that.  Once you’re satisfied that your mixture is as homogeneous as it’s going to get, microwave it on high for 30-second bursts.  After each round, take it out and stir it before putting it back in for another 30 seconds.  Yes, this is a giant drag, but chocolate likes to hold its shape even when it’s at a melting point, so check and stir, every single time, until everything is completely melted.  No one likes scorched chocolate.

Once the baking chips are completely melted, fold in your potato chips and peanuts.  It can seem like a lot to integrate, but keep at ‘er.  Your mixture should look something like this.

Spoon the mixture into those mini cupcake liners you so painstakingly peeled apart and placed on your cookie sheets.  Once they’re all filled, they’ll need to set.  They will set up at room temperature, but some time in the fridge or freezer helps immensely.  If you live somewhere cold, use nature’s freezer!  (Just make sure you don’t have any neighbourhood wildlife creeping around.)

These can be stored in a sealed container at room temperature or in the fridge, and look so cute in a little cellophane treat bag tied up with a bow.

Thanks for looking! 🙂