Triple Chocolate Cake with Peanut Butter Frosting

For Valentine's Day, I made my first cake to put on my cake dome. I got the cake dome 7 years ago as a wedding gift so it was the perfect time for its maiden voyage. Sadly, My cake making skills were lacking and the cake kinda fell apart and there wasn't enough frosting to seal it all together. It still tasted great though! Ok, the point is, I needed to redeem myself so I took my friend, Ari's, birthday as the perfect time to do so. Ari's favorite cake is chocolate with peanut butter frosting. I went for it!

I used a doctored chocolate cake mix recipe and an AMAZING peanut butter cream cheese frosting recipe. SO GOOD! I was licking the bowl. 

Here is the happy birthday girl

The cake was a hit and I'm grateful my dome has finally housed a very, very good cake.

Snickerdoodle hot chocolate truffle balls

A couple months ago, we were at a restaurant that was giving out free snickerdoodle hot cocoa. I had to make this at home. Somehow, this transformed into making 200 hot chocolate truffle balls for the neighbors . . . without testing the recipe first.

200 truffle balls later, it has proven worthy.

Recipe (for <200!)

• 1 half pint whipping cream
• 1/2 Tbsp butter (optional, but it adds great flavor!)
• 3 Tbsp sugar
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp vanilla
• 1/2 tsp cream of tartar (or to taste)
• 12 oz (2 cups) milk chocolate chips*
• optional: cinnamon sugar for rolling

1. Heat the whipping cream and optional butter in a saucepan over medium heat until butter melts and cream is just barely boiling. Add sugar, cinnamon, vanilla and optional cream of tartar and stir to dissolve and combine.

2. Remove from heat and stir in chocolate chips. Continue stirring until chocolate chips are melted. (It may look a tiiiny bit grainy; that's okay.)

3. Pour into baking dish or bowl. Cover and chill 2 hours or until firm. (You just made ganache! You can skip to the hot chocolate by adding warm milk until you reach your desired consistency. But come on. Let's go big.)

4. The original hot chocolate truffle balls recipe calls for scooping 2 tablespoons of the ganache mixture, shaping them into a ball by hand, and wrapping and chilling them. When I made these as gifts, I found a much easier method: a small cookie dough scoop and mini muffin wrappers. Scoop, plop, stick into gift bags. BAM.

5. Optionally, you may roll the truffles in cinnamon sugar. However, you'll want to do this immediately prior to serving, and the sugar does make them crunchy, so it's really best for looks on a truffle ball that will be made into hot chocolate momentarily.


Keep finished truffles covered in fridge or freezer until serving. Best yet, keep them under lock and key, because you will be sneaking one every chance you get. Or at least I will.

Yield: 20 small or 10 large truffle balls.

To make hot chocolate: heat 6-8 oz milk and drop in one small truffle. (You might add 1 additional tsp of sugar as well.) Stir until truffle ball melts.

*You can use whatever flavor of chocolate chips you like here. A number of the recipes I came across initially used white chocolate chips, but I wanted chocolate in my hot chocolate (shocker). In my gigantor batch, I used about 20% extra dark chocolate chips and the rest semi-sweet, but the next time I make this, I'm definitely opting for milk chocolate chips, which is what I recommend here.

These may or may not have been so good that more than one of the friends I shared them with commanded me never to do that again . . . because they ate a dozen. By themselves. Without making them into hot chocolate.

That's a pity.

Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Cheesecake Dip

Do we really need an introduction with a headline like that?

As usual, I had an idea, I went hunting for recipes, and I didn't find anything I liked. So I took some inspiration and did my own thing. (Wayward!)

Chocolate chip pumpkin cheesecake dip
1/2 c pumpkin puree
1 (8oz) tub of light cream cheese
1 c powdered sugar
1/4 tsp pumpkin pie spice
Optional: 8 oz whipped topping (the dip is a little on the runny side; this gives it more body)
1/3 c, give or take, semi-sweet chocolate chips (mini chocolate chips would be fantastic)

Using a mixer or a stand mixer, combine puree, cream cheese, powdered sugar, and spice until smooth. Fold in (optional) whipped topping and chocolate chips. Serve with vanilla wafers, graham crackers or spoons ;) !

How do you like your pumpkin?

Chocolate chip maple pecan pie

So, hey, my first book came out last week. But we're gathered here today not to go and buy my book (though I totally won't say no if you want to!), but to celebrate with FOOD. Not just any food: PIE.

Chocolate chip maple pecan pie. Maple chocolate chip pecan pie. However you want to arrange it, it. is. DELICIOUS.

And not only is this amazing pie . . . well, amazing, but it's also featured in my book.

My pie		My book
Both yummy .

The pie was inspired by a real pie, made at a real restaurant. My characters get to visit Wilfrid's, the totally awesome restaurant at the (Fairmont) Château Laurier (amiright, Jaime?). Yep, I've been there—but I'm pretty sure they didn't have this dessert at the time, a specialty of Chef Ernst's.

Since Ottawa is a bit far away right now, I made the pie at home. It's good chilled, but let me tell you: eat it warm. Nuke it if you have to. YES.

Ingredients
adapted from Pioneer Woman's Pecan Pie recipe. kind of a lot of adaptation

• 1/2 c granulated white sugar
• 1/2 c + 3 Tbsp brown sugar
• 1/2 c corn syrup
• 1/2 c maple syrup (the real stuff! You can really play around with the levels here, swapping corn syrup for maple—but you'll want more than 1 oz of maple syrup, which is all I had on hand when I made the recipe!)
• 3/4 tsp vanilla
• 1/3 c salted butter, melted (and somewhat cooled so you don't scramble the eggs)
• 3 eggs, beaten
• 3/4 c pecan halves, plus more pecan halves for the top layer (~20)
• 3/4 c chocolate chips
• pie shell (being me, I also made this by hand, but that's optional)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Microwave the 3/4 c pecan halves just until warm, then crush or chop them. (This releases more oils and flavors. Or something. I made this recipe up a year ago, and I did a ton of research at the time, okay?)
3. Line a 9" pie pan with a pie crust. Pour the chopped pecans and chocolate chips into the bottom of the crust, shaking to settle them in an even layer
4. Mix the sugars, syrups, vanilla, melted butter and beaten eggs in a bowl. (I actually put the chocolate chips in here, but it doesn't matter which way you do it.)
5. Place the whole/half pecans (neatly & prettily!) on top of the chopped pecans & chocolate chips in the pie shell
6. Slowly pour the filling mix in the pie shell

7. Gently shake the pie from side to side to make the pecan halves float
8. Arrange the nuts with a toothpick to make a pretty pattern, spell your name, ask someone to marry you (uh. Don't think you'll have room for that. But you can ask out loud, and then celebrate with pie!)
9. Gently cover the exposed crust with foil

10. Bake for 30 minutes, then remove the foil. Bake 20 more minutes, or until set.
11. Let cool (if you can).

Also included in my instructions from testing the recipe: mop, shower. I don't think the pie was that messy to make, but you never know....

When I measured the syrups together, they made some really cool patterns, probably because of viscosity differences:

Look closely if you have to

And, um, PIE.

What's your favorite pie? Or book? Or book with pie in it? Or pie to read books by?

DIY S'mores Wedding Favor

Since we got married in the winter I wanted a wedding favor that somehow related to it. I found some ideas on Pinterest and the one I loved the most was S'mores in a box. It was quite simple. We ordered boxes that opened like a match box only bigger. *Finding deals online was a HUGE saver for the wedding in almost all the decorating part! We bought a bag of mini marshmallows, graham crackers, some full sized Hershey bars, toothpicks, thread and matches (I will tell you how we waterproofed matches in another post.)
My mom and I popped in a movie and got to work. We found that the name brand Honey Maid was far better at breaking into the quarters where the perforation was compared to generic. Plus they taste better. We cut them with a knife, carefully, and one by one. There was still a lot of breakage. Good thing those are tasty!
Then we cut the Hershey's bar up. Each box was to receive two graham cracker sections and two chocolate sections. The chocolate bar cut easily if we also did it carefully, not going to fast or applying too much pressure. There was some breakage. Good thing those are tastier!
Then we stuck 3 marshmallows on a toothpick. There was no breakage there. It was quite easy.
Next we tied 2-3 matches together with thick thread (twine would've worked too) and stuck them in the box.
We printed off witty labels that said our names, the wedding date and things like S'more happiness or S'more fun. The labels came with a link to the company's website where you could put the design you wanted and print them right.
And ta da! S'mores in a box!

(I will post pictures tomorrow, They are not on the computer I am using!)

Celebrate Valentine's Day with Chocolate!

I'm seriously craving some chocolate right now, but I think chocolate is the best way to celebrate Valentine's day, too. (And most other holidays, amiright?) So I'm digging through our chocolate archives to bring you some chocolatey goodness for Valentine's day. Go make something today!

Hot chocolate dipping spoons

Peanut butter Oreo truffles

Rolo-stuffed chocolate cookies

Almond Joy chocolate mousse parfaits

Photo by Chocolate-covered Katie

Healthy chocolate chip cookie dough dip

In fact, I think I'm going to go make this one now!

What's your favorite way to celebrate Valentine's day?

3 Ingredient Pumpkin Cookies

Fall baking means one thing to me: PUMPKIN! I've been meaning to make some pumpkin cookies and friends coming over for lunch in between General Conference Sessions was a great excuse. I found the idea of making pumpkin cookies with only 3 ingredients all over and I knew I had to make them myself.

3 Ingredient Pumpkin Cookies

Ingredients:

1 15 oz can of pumpkin puree (not pumpkin pie filling)

1 cake mix (I'd recommend Spice Cake)

1 bag (2 cups) of chocolate chips (I'd recommend dark chocolate chips)

Optional: Pumpkin pie spice. Really you only need this if you use a regular cake mix, rather than spice cake.

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350. Mix together pumpkin and cake mix using a mixer.

 

2. Stir in chocolate chips

3. Glob 2 tablespoon sized cookies on a greased cookie sheet.

4. Cook at 350 for 12-15 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.

5. ENJOY!

What excuse can you find to make these babies?

PB's 1st Birthday Party: an ice cream party!

Here is PB's 1st birthday party. Can I just say first that I was really stressed the day of and things didn't go as smoothly as I had hoped but do you know why I threw the party? For the pictures. When PB looks back years from now she will know how much I loved her and wanted her to have a special day. We had an ice cream party. We also had hot dogs and chicken salad. We had it at a park since our house is currently on the market. 

I was running a little short on time so I just made one invitation, scanned it, and sent it out. The stickers are Martha Stewart and the bow tutorial can be found here. 

Recognize this? To get this up I had to throw the spool of ribbon over the rafter. I felt like I was TPing a house.

I painted these frames and glued the foam number ones inside. The centerpieces for the tables were balloons and candy jewelry. In each corner of the pavilion my tall dad taped up white table clothes and tied bows with tulle -under my close supervision ;) All together there were 9 tables with pink table clothes and I used 4 white ones- one for each corner.

Party favors. There was pink (white chocolate dyed) and milk chocolate popcorn.  Use quality chocolate and a bit of salt. To melt the chocolate I microwaved it for 30 seconds, stirred well, and put it in for another 15 seconds and that did the trick.  Decals were cut out with my Cherry Limeade Cricut font with miscellaneous number ones printed out for the center. 

Pink s'mores with kisses for the chocolate. If you look close you can see little bows on those skewers. Why yes I did stay up late (after 1 am...) the night before making tiny bows and hot gluing them to skewers.

Pink lemonade with lemon slices. Pink straws purchased from Michael's

The sweets table minus the ice cream which was in the cooler. There are butter mints and toppings for the ice cream. 

The A.M.A.Z.I.N.G. cake my mom made. Check out how to here.

The pillowcase romper I made her. Do you see her "1" button? She didn't take it off the whole time. It's a dollar store baby shower button I glued one of the favor decals on. I would share with you the tutorial about how to make the romper but guess what- it was far too wayward for me to pretend I did this the "right" way. You are far more likely to figure it out on your own! I would search for a romper tutorial and a pillowcase top one and combine them if you want to make a similar outfit. After all my searching I couldn't find one just like I wanted.

Look at that cutie!! Aren't those jellies just  the best?

Can I toot my own horn for a moment? So I about three months ago I featured this post. Soon after I went to a consignment sale in search of some dolls. It always go on the 75% off days because that's how cheap I am. I'm going to stop the story right there because I'm going to finish the rest next week. Just know I found a doll and I made her a matching outfit. Her little dress was just a pillowcase dress. 

Tune in next Wednesday to hear about PB's dolls! 

Almond Joy Chocolate Mousse

I have to share my newest obsession: Jell-O’s Chocolate Mousse Pudding. It’s amazing. So chocolatey and smooth! I make the instant pudding personally; all it takes is the pudding mix, milk, a hand mixer and 4 minutes. It’s divine. I thought I’d dress it up a little, although it’s pretty darn great by itself.

Almond Joy Mousse

Ingredients:

1 Jell-O Chocolate Mousse Pudding mix

1 cup milk

½ cup sliced almonds (or chopped)

½ cup shredded coconut, roughly chopped

½ cup chocolate chips, roughly chopped

Directions:

Make your basic mousse pudding according to the package. this is what the mixing looks like after about 1 minute:

And after 4 minutes, it is ready!

 After the pudding has been mixed, layer the pudding, coconut, almonds and chocolate chips in a glass in a glass, like a parfait. 

 

Makes 4 servings, or 2 if you’re me =)

Side view is insane.

I have a new respect for food bloggers. How do you make is so pretty?

(Jell-O did not compensate me for this post, nor did they ask me to write it or contact me in anyway. I just love it that much)