Banana Bread Duo

Grandmom is keeping me elbow deep in bananas this month!  Obviously the first stop is banana bread!  I opted for the classsic Banana Walnut Bread, as well as a Double Chocolate Chip Banana Bread - we are a family of chocoholics, what can I say?  I debated layering these in the same pan to make 2 striped loaves, but wasn't sure if they would cook at the same rate...now I know, and the answer is yes!

Banana Walnut Bread
Yields 1 large loaf, 2 smaller loaves, or 3 mini loaves

Ingredients 
2 1/2 cups flour
1 cup sugar
3 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon 
1 cup vegetable oil
2 very ripe smashed bananas (approximately 1 cup once smashed) 
2 eggs
2 tbsp milk
1 cup walnuts

To Prepare the Banana Walnut Bread 
1. Pre-heat your oven to 350 degrees
2. Blend all of the dry ingredients (except for the walnuts) together in a bowl.
3. Add the oil. milk, eggs, and bananas and mix until you reach a smooth consistency.
4. Fold in the walnuts.
5. Bake for appoximately 45 minutes in a greased pan, or until the bread is cooked through. 

Double Chocolate Chip Banana Bread 
Yields 1 large loaf, 2 smaller loaves, or 3 mini loaves

Ingredients 
2 1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 cup sugar
3 tsp baking powder 
1 cup vegetable oil
2 very ripe smashed bananas (approximately 1 cup once smashed) 
2 eggs
2 tbsp milk
1 cup chocolate chips

To Prepare the Double Chocolate Chip Banana Bread
1. Pre-heat your oven to 350 degrees
2. Blend all of the dry ingredients (except for the chocolate chips) together in a bowl.
3. Add the oil. milk, eggs, and bananas and mix until you reach a smooth consistency.
4. Fold in the chocolate chips.
5. Bake for appoximately 45 minutes in a greased pan, or until the bread is cooked through. 

Chocolate Stout Cheesecake

You guys didn't honestly think I forgot about our 3rd day of cheesecake, did you?!

Recipe Jealousy reared its ugly head today.  I had entered a contest a few months back for Adventure Ingredient Cupcakes.  The winners were announced today, and ALL of the winning recipes included stout beer, despite the fact that there were 14 ingredients to choose from.  So, needless to say, I am slightly bitter about today's recipe including stout beer, but many congratulations to the winners!  I am sure their cupcakes are worthy of the prizes, but this also means that I can now share my entered cupcake recipe with you guys later this week!

Anywho, back to the cheesecake! It ended up having a velvety texture and flavor, and is extremely rich!  You can taste the beer, but it is not overwhelming!

Chocolate Stout Cheesecake
Yields 8 - 10 servings

Ingredients 

Filling
16 ounces softened cream cheese
8 ounces sour cream
1 bottle of Stout beer (I used Sam Adams Cream Stout)
7 ounces of cacao in the 70 - 79% range (I used Ghiradelli 72% Twilight Delight)
3/4 cup sugar
3 eggs

Crust
2 cups chocolate Teddy Grahams crumbs (break them down in a food processor or blender)
4 tbsp melted butter

To Prepare the Cheesecake 
1. Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees
2. Wrap the outside of a spring form pan with aluminum foil
3. Mix the Teddy Graham crumbs and butter together in a bowl with a fork until evenly mixed.
4. Spray the inside of the pan with a non-stick cooking spray.
5. Pour the crumb mixture into the pan and press into the sides and bottom evenly, being sure that there are no holes or cracks.

6. Place in the fridge to firm while you prepare the filling.
7. In a sauce pan, cook the beer down.  This step will take approximately 15 - 20 minutes.

8. Once the beer has reduced to half its volume, add the sugar and cook for another 5 minutes.
9. After the sugar and beer have cooked, add the chocolate until it melts, and then remove it from heat.

10. In a bowl, blend the cream cheese and sour cream together.
11. Very slowly, add the beer mixture to the sour cream and cream cheese. 
12. Blend in the three eggs one at a time.
13. Gently pour the filling into the crust, and bake for approximately 1 hour.

Before the bake

After the bake

While baking, your cheesecake will rise to the height of the pan.  It is ready to come out of the oven when the center is firm and jiggles like solid jello!  Your cheesecake will shrink back down as it cools.  Let it cool for about an hour before refrigerating. 

When you are ready to put the cheesecake in the fridge, gently open the spring on the pan, and carefully lift it up and over, being careful not to spill crumbs on the cheesecake!

Grasshopper Cheesecake

Week O' Cheesecakes - Day 2

I really have to wonder how many days it will be before I get sick of eating cheesecake...  But for now I am voting never...

I don't know why I associate Grasshopper (mint chocolate) with St. Patrick's Day or anything Irish, but why fight it, right?  Besides, green makes me think Ireland.  I really wasn't sure about mint flavored cheesecake, but it works in its own little way, especially when combined with a chocolate crust!  Hope you guys enjoy!


Grasshopper Cheesecake 
Yields 8 - 10 servings

Ingredients 

Filling
16 ounces softened cream cheese
16 ounces sour cream
1 tsp Creme de Menthe flavoring (found in the candy/cake aisle of your local craft store)
10 drops of green food coloring
3/4 cup sugar
3 eggs

Crust
2 cups chocolate Teddy Grahams crumbs (break them down in a food processor or blender)
4 tbsp melted butter

Topping
Dark Chocolate Melting Chips (found in the candy/cake aisle of your local craft store)


To Prepare the Cheesecake 
1. Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees
2. Wrap the outside of a spring form pan with aluminum foil
3. Mix the Teddy Graham crumbs and butter together in a bowl with a fork until evenly mixed.
4. Spray the inside of the pan with a non-stick cooking spray.
5. Pour the crumb mixture into the pan and press into the sides and bottom evenly, being sure that there are no holes or cracks.

6. Place in the fridge to firm while you prepare the filling.
7. In a new bowl, blend the cream cheese and sour cream together.
8. Add the creme de menthe flavoring and food coloring and blend.  Check the flavor of the batter so far.  If it is not strong enough for your liking, add more creme de menthe flavoring slowly.  Keep in mind that the flavor will become stronger when the cheesecake bakes!
11. Add the sugar and blend.
12. Blend in the three eggs one at a time.
13. Gently pour the filling into the crust, and bake for approximately 1 hour.

Before baking

While baking, your cheesecake will rise to the height of the pan.  It is ready to come out of the oven when the center is firm and jiggles like solid jello!  Your cheesecake will shrink back down as it cools.  Let it cool for about an hour before refrigerating. 

When you are ready to put the cheesecake in the fridge, gently open the spring on the pan, and carefully lift it up and over, being careful not to spill crumbs on the cheesecake!

To Garnish the cheesecake, my sister suggested a chocolate drizzle across the top, but I can never make things that easy...

I decided to add some chocolate trinity knots, which are actually really easy to make!  Find a picture of a trinity knot online, and copy and paste it to a blank word document 8 - 12 times.  Print out the document, and tape a piece of parchment paper over top.  You will be able to see the design through the parchment, like the photo below. 

Melt about a half cup of dark chocolate candy melts in the microwave.  I used a piping bag to trace the design.  You can use a squirt bottle filled with the chocolate or even trace it with a new, clean paint brush dipped in the chocolate!

Place them in the freezer for just a minute and they will be ready to adorn your cheesecake!

Eton Mess

After making an abundance of meringues on Saturday, I shared the recipe and adventure on Facebook.  This struck up a conversation with an acquaintance who is now living in England.  She told me about a dessert they have in England that contains meringues, and told me it is called an Eton Mess, named after the famed Eton College.  I had to make it tonight with the last bit of meringues I had left, because well, it looked and sounded like it was to die for - rest assured, it is! 

A traditional Eton Mess calls for vanilla meringues, muddled strawberries, and vanilla whipped cream.  I only had chocolate meringues on hand, and blackberries were one sale, so this is where a little imagination brought me! 

Eton Mess
Yields 4 generous servings

Ingredients
1 pint heavy cream
3 tbsp sugar
1 tsp vanilla 
1 pint blackberries 
15 - 20 chocolate meringues

If you don't want to make everything from scratch, you can use store bough meringues and a container of Cool Whip! 

To Prepare the Eton Mess
1. Put the blackberries in a bowl with 2 tablespoons of sugar and smush them down with a fork.  Put them in the fridge until it is time to serve!

2. Pour the heavy cream in a stand mixer on a medium speed, or pour it into a bowl to beat by hand or with a hand mixer. 
3. After the cream has been beating for a few minutes, add 1 tablespoon of sugar and 1 teaspoon of vanilla. 
4. When the cream has turned into the consistency of whipped cream, fold in the blackberries.  If you are serving it later, cover it and put it in the fridge.  The meringues will get soft if they sit, so add them right before serving for the best taste!  If you are serving it immediately, move right along to step 5!

5. Break up the meringues and fold them into the whipped cream bowl. 
6. Garnish with a blackberry or two, and serve!

Chocolate Meringues

Yesterday, while cleaning up the kitchen, I decided that we needed dessert!  Not wanting to have to stand over something that needed constant attention - I really needed to load the dishwasher - I began to think about things that can be "forgotten" about.  I remembered recently pining over my urge to make meringues, and also remembered my reluctance to make them because they required quite a bit of time to make stiff peaks and bake - they were just what I was looking for!  It was not a recipe I had ready at my fingertips, so after some searching I found one that I liked.  I had heard complaints about meringues that do not call for Cream of Tartar.  Most of what I heard was that it was crucial for "binding" and that it would help the meringues last longer after I bake them.

The only problem I had with these was my lack of serving size judgment.  The recipe said that it made 10 meringues, and if I had read further I would have seen that the ones they made were 2 1/2 inches in diameter, while I made mine the size of a half dollar and doubled the recipe...whoops!    Thankfully my family DEVOURED them between last night and today!  The recipe below is my very slight adaptation, but the link to the actual recipe is below, too!

Chocolate Meringues 
Source: www.joyofcooking.com You can find the recipe on their website here!
Yields approximately 10 cookies that are 2 1/2 inches in diameter

Ingredients
3 large egg whites
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 tsp cream of tartar
1 tbsp cocoa powder

To Prepare the Meringues
1. Pre-heat your oven to 200 degrees.
2. In a stand mixer, begin beating the egg whites on a medium speed.
3. When the egg whites begin to foam, add the cream of tartar.
4. Add the sugar slowly while continuing to beat the eggs.
5. When the eggs begin to stiffen, add the cocoa powder.
6. Beat the egg whites until the form stiff peaks.  A stiff peak is when you can dip a spoon into the egg, pull it out, flip it over, and it stays in a peak!
7. Pipe or spoon the meringues onto your cookie sheets (I baked mine on a silicone baking sheet, but parchment would help too!), and bake them for an hour and a half to an hour and forty-five. Mine were much smaller than the recipe called for, and only needed an hour and a quarter in the oven
8. When your meringues are done, turn off the heat of the oven, crack the door, and let them sit for at least an hour.  I left mine out on the oven over night and they were even better today!  The less moisture they are exposed to after baking, the better they are!

Christmas Cookies 2010

I will let my brother's beautiful photography and my baking/set design speak for themselves!  Enjoy!

Chocolate Holly

Kiffles

S'mores

 

Gingerbread

Sugar

Oatmeal Raisin

Peanut Butter Kisses

Peanut Butter

Chocolate Chip

Dark Chocolate and White Chocolate Peppermint Bark

Buckeyes

S'more Cookies

I don't remember why I came up with this recipe, but nonetheless it came to be during Christmas 2008.  I wanna say I had an extra cookie tin and nothing to fill it with, and also had some graham cracker crumbs, mini marshmallows, and left over chocolate chips left from my holiday baking and decided to put them to good use!  After some fine tuning and tweeking last Christmas, I finally got them right.  They are definitely a favorite when I put out the cookie tray, and are usually the first ones to go!


S'more Cookies
Yields approximately 30 cookies

To Prepare the Cookies
1. Pre-heat the oven to 375 degrees.
2. In a large bowl blend 3/4 cup of softened butter (1 1/2 sticks, or 12 tablespoons worth) with 1/2 a cup of brown sugar, and 1/2 a cup of granulated sugar. 
3. Once the sugars and butter are creamed together, add 1 egg and 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract.
4. Add 1 1/4 cups of flour.  Use half bleached flour and half graham flour.  I like to use a brand of graham flour called Bob's Red Mill.  It can be found at most grocery stores in the baking aisle! The graham flour gives the cookies that graham cracker texture we all love when we eat s'mores!
5. Add 1 cup of graham crackers crumbs.
6. Add 1/2 a teaspoon of baking soda, and 1/2 a teaspoon of salt. 
7. Blend everything together well. 
8. Add an 11.5 ounce bag of chocolate chunks to the batter and fold them in.  The chocolate chunks add a great texture to the batter and make it a little more unique than a chocolate chip cookie! 
9. Roll the batter into 1 inch balls and spread them evenly on a cookie sheet.  The batter does spread a little bit, so be sure to give them some space. 
10. Bake them for approximately 7 minutes, and pull them out of the oven.  They will not be done baking yet!
11.  Press 4 or 5 mini marshmallows into the top of each cookie, and put them back in the oven. 
12. Bake for 2 or 3 more minutes, or until the marshmallows are starting to turn golden brown and beginning to melt. 
13. Let them cool and enjoy!

If you don't want to bake the marshmallows into the cookies, you can bake the cookies without them. When they are done cooling, spread some marshmallow fluff between two cookies and make a s'more sandwich! 

Chocolate And Bacon Went To The Chapel...And Got Married?!

I found myself making the 30 minute trek to Wegman's tonight.  I have not been in a Wegman's in close to 4 years, solely because the closest one is 30 minutes from my house.  It used to be a hop skip and jump away from campus when I was in grad school, and I was there on a daily basis...oh how the tides have changed!  Anywho, back to the original point of this story/novel!

I am working on a cupcake recipe for a chocolate company's cooking contest and needed to buy their brand of chocolate for the recipe.  Of course the only places that sell it near me are Wegman's and Whole Foods.  Not being able to stand a trip to Whole Foods, Wegman's won, especially since I could side trip to the Christmas Tree Shop.  While perusing the chocolate aisle I stumbled upon the gourmet stuff...also known as expensive!  Deciding that I deserved a treat, I reached for the most intriguing chocolate flavor that I have not tried yet.  Obviously any packaged that lets bacon and chocolate share an intimate on camera moment wins! I had heard of the combo before, but never had the chance to try it!

The chocolate is by a company called Vosges Haut Chocolate.  As if I wasn't sold by the picture of crispy bacon alone, I read the creators bio on the back of the package.  She had me at Vanderbilt grad turned culinary diva...I'd like to think we have so much in common...except that she was blessed with the opportunity to attend Le Cordon Bleu and an prestigious university. 

I could not resist the temptation very long, and opened the package as soon as I got in the car.  My sister, knowing what was in the chocolate refused to try it...her loss!  I handed my dad a piece...he already knows something is up and is trying to analyze it before eating it.  If I tell him what is in it, he will never eat it, despite the fact that I know he will love it!  He and I start eating it...I am in LOVE!  The bar is deep milk chocolate with applewood smoked bacon and alderwood smoked salt.  It is sweet and salty perfection!  My dad and I polished off the whole bar on the ride home, and my sister still does not know what she missed out on! 

I am now seriously considering adding chocolate coated bacon with coarse sea salt sprinkles to my Christmas candy making list! 

I like the little couture drawings/imprints on the blocks of chocolate, too!

Milk Your Holidays at Target

Normally I am a stickler for not starting my Christmas celebrating (aside from buying gifts) until Black Friday.  So you could understand how I found myself in a conundrum  last night wandering through Target as I came across their flavored holiday milk.  I didn't want to cave for Christmas yet, but could not resist the quarts of Mint Chocolate and Red Velvet flavored milk.  My sister and I both decided to buy a quart and try it out.  She poured herself a glass of the Mint Chocolate, and I, a glass of the Red Velvet.  Emily's was DELICIOUS!  As for the Red Velvet, I was at first put off by the Pepto Bismolish color, but loved the taste of it!  It was like sipping on liquid cake!  They also offer a Eggnog and Light Eggnog flavor, but I admittedly hate eggnog, so you guys are on your own on those flavors! What I also enjoyed is the serving suggestions for each flavor on the side of the cartons.  The Red Velvet suggests topping it with whipped cream and a sprinkle of cocoa or red sugar, adding a splash to coffee or hot cocoa, warming it and topping it with a marshmallow and drizzle of chocolate syrup, or blending it with ice cream to make a shake and then top it with whipped cream and white chocolate shavings.  The Mint Chocolate had similar suggestions, but just a little different.

What I do know about this Christmas, is what kind of milk I will be leaving with Santa's cookies this year hehe!

My Newest Cupcake Creation

So, I am working on a recipe for a cupcake contest, and here is the end result!  I cannot share the recipe yet, but I can tell you this...

It is a 72% Cacao and Sumatra Coffee Cupcake topped with a Homemade Butter Cream Icing blended with Meyer Lemon Juices, and is topped with Meyer Lemon Zest and Chocolate Covered Espresso Beans!  Not to toot my own horn, but they are flipping DELICIOUS!!!

Chocolate Peanut Butter Checkerboard Cake

My dad is a peanut butter and chocolate FANATIC!  So, when his birthday rolled around this week, I could not think of a better combination for his birthday cake!  I have been itching to try this checkerboard technique since I saw the Cake Boss do it on one of the episodes.   I had to improvise for the cake, since they do not sell peanut butter flavored cake mix, but the end result was very peanutty and had the texture of a Reese's Cup!  The cake was very rich and filling, and best of all everyone loved it!  I am really curious as to why none of the cake batter companies have jumped on the chocolate and peanut butter bandwagon!  I am excited to try this cake technique with some other flavors: chocolate mint, vanilla peppermint, and lemon dark chocolate!   

Chocolate Peanut Butter Checkerboard Cake 
Yields 12 - 14 servings

To Prepare the Cakes
1. To make the peanut butter cake, start with a Betty Crocker Super Moist White Cake mix.  Follow the directions on the back with the exception of the water!  Instead, use 1 cup of peanut butter, and 3/4 cup of water!  You are going to have to beat the batter a little harder than usual to get every thing to blend together. 

All of the wet ingredients mixed together!

The end result before baking!

2. Bake the cake per the directions on the box! 

3. When the peanut butter cake is done, let it cool.
4. Bake a chocolate cake using a batter of your choosing!  Be sure you use the same pan that you baked the peanut butter cake in so your cakes are the same size and shape!

To Assemble the Cakes
1. After the cakes have cooled (I like to cool mine over night), take a knife and gently level the tops of the cakes so they are flat and the same height as each other!

2. Using a set of nesting circle cookie cutters, make a bulls-eye on your cake.  Gently press the cutters all the way through!

Nesting circular cookie cutters

Try to make sure that your circles are centered!

You can see the faint lines of where the cookie cutters are after being pushed through!

3. Gently separate the circles from each other and separate them on two plates like the pictures below! 

4. Do the same with the chocolate cake and add them to the peanut butter one like the picture below!

5. Ice the mostly peanut butter cake with some smooth peanut butter.  Make sure you ice this cake...it is more dense and more heavy!  If you put it on top of the chocolate cake it might collapse! 

6. Put the mostly chocolate cake on top of the icing and peanut butter cake.

7. Ice the cake with chocolate icing, and then add some peanut butter!  Be creative and do what you are comfortable with!  I used an icing decorating triangle to get the texture in the icing, and piped some peanut butter and chocolate around the top and bottom! 

When you cut the cake, you will get this great checkerboard effect!