Posts Tagged ‘chocolate’

I’ve lost 2 of my favorite Gingers in the past week. First Conan’s tear-jerking last hurrah on NBC, and then I found out one of my favorite people at work, Chris the resident snarky redhead, was leaving. So of course, I put pastries on the pain. And since Chris probably has the biggest sweet tooth in the building (next to mine), I knew I wanted to bake something pretty over-the-top while hopefully continuing my pie crusade for his goodbye dessert.

And wow, does this cover over-the-top. It’s basically cookie dough pie. With walnuts. And Irish whiskey.

Are you still with me? Good.

This pie is one of those great things you could most likely throw together since the ingredients are all pretty standard baking (and drinking) fare. I keep everything except the walnuts in my baking pantry, and the whiskey I used was actually from a teeny bottle of 12-year-old Jameson my friend Robbie got me while she was interning for Irish parliament (thanks, Robbie!). It comes together incredibly fast which is good because once you taste the filling it will take the hand of God to stop you from eating the rest of it.

So rich and chocolatey and indulgent… it’s got one of those pecan pie-esque ooey gooey sticky fillings, except it’s chocolate and walnuts and…  you really, really need to serve this with milk. Or ice cream. Or both. And maybe a gym pass.

Check that pie crust out!

Need I say more?

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It’s time for a little sentimentality via desserts, but not in the traditional sense.

Both my sister and a good friend of mine are heading to England in the next few weeks (on totally separate trips) so while I have been so excited for each respective person and sharing my favorite things from when I studied abroad there, it’s also made me incredibly jealous and heartsick for my own adventures across the pond. I’ve been musing about my favorite paintings, cathedrals, plays we saw, people we met, and of course, pubs we visited. I tried Guinness for the first time at a pub in Bath while I was there, and although I didn’t love it at the time (I had yet to grow my dark beer legs at age 20), it’s still one of the strongest sense memories from my gastronomic catalog of England.

The Eagle & Child: the pub that C.S. Lewis & J.R.R. Tolkien frequented in Oxford.

So all week I’ve been craving stout, which I now adore. And after hearing my boss made chocolate stout and vanilla ice cream floats on New Year’s Eve, I couldn’t get the idea out of my head.

After perusing some chocolate-beer cupcakes, I came up with these. Rich and dark chocolate stout cupcakes with sweet and tangy Bailey’s-spiked cream cheese icing. I mean, if you’re making boozy cake, you might as well make the frosting just as naughty, no? The beer adds the most delicious malty flavor to the cake, and the Bailey’s gives the cream cheese frosting that extra little zing to make it special. Since I’m in the microbrew capital of the universe, finding chocolate stout was easy as pie, but it may be a bit tricky for others. Feel free to use Guinness or any stout of your choice.

Of course you buy the bomber. That way the cook (you) gets to drink the rest!

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Let’s stay fat!

Haha, just kidding. But that’s what this entry feels like, in opposition to so many health-conscious and weight-loss centered food blog entries right now. Yes yes, so many people resolve to lose weight this week, which is fantastic. Yet I’ve been doing that since last New Year’s and I’m doing great. So I know I can derail, regardless of a diet frenzy right now, and do just fine.

And oh me oh my, what better way to derail than by skipping the tracks and soaring straight into one of the best chocolate cakes I have ever tasted. I finally bought the Baked cookbook for myself this holiday and couldn’t put it down the rest of my break. Every recipe sounded tantalizing and although often being lengthy, not intimidating.

This was the recipe that grabbed me the most (next to the s’mores nut bars, which no doubt will be next) and as a final farewell, my sister and I made this glorious confection the day before I left Kansas City. It came together rather quickly (especially the frosting, which was such a breeze) and filled the kitchen with the most delicious, malty chocolate smell.

We all devoured the cake after a dinner of indulgent pizza, and everyone agreed it was one of the best chocolate cakes ever, but only very light on the root beer flavor. Yet the cake is so moist and tender and the frosting is beyond to-die-for. So I still highly recommend this cake, but if you really want the root beer to sing, adding a teaspoon of root beer extract or even a splash of root beer schnapps definitely wouldn’t hurt. (And come on, when does adding schnapps to anything hurt?)

Sugar sugar sugar.

Do not measure the foam.

Mmmm, dark chocolate. There is no bad here.

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Everyone’s feeling the pressure right now. Your to-do list is a mile long before you have to fly home or plan your holiday party or go to a handful of cookie exchanges. Presents need to be wrapped (or bought – eek), dinners need to be planned, and oh my God is Christmas really less than 2 weeks away? In short, you have no time, but the necessity or urge to have baked goods is still staring you in the face.

Well, fear not! These “turtles” are your savior in their speed, ease, and deliciousness.

I almost balk at calling this a “recipe” because it’s really not – you almost don’t cook anything (it could easily be done in the microwave even) yet it still impresses everyone come dessert time.  My mom gets these every year at her cookie exchange, and although I often giggle at their laziness in comparison to the other froufrou cookies they inevitably are the first thing gone from the tin. Because they’re amazing. Salty and sweet and chocolatey and just perfect. It’s like a chocolate-covered pretzel on crack and every bit as addictive as the analogy says.

Festive wrapping.

All laid out.

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Hooray hooray for autumn desserts! I know my previous apple dessert could be considered my autumnal dessert christening, but I’d much rather prefer this were it because it’s just so much tastier, but not that much more complicated! I got to act as office dessert dealer fairy once again this week and made these to celebrate my coworker Kara’s birthday.  She seems to have a sweet tooth to match mine, so I knew I wanted to do something ultra rich, decadent, and of course, chocolatey.  Since I’ll be making cupcakes for Halloween in a few weeks (ooh, preview!) I decided to go with this, because honestly: cheesecake + pumpkin + chocolate = how can you go wrong?

The original recipe calls for chocolate wafer cookies and for some reason my local grocer only carried these ridiculously overpriced froufrou ones ($5.69 for 9 ounces of cookies! are they insane?!) so I decided to go a more frugal route. Luckily I remember once reading a recipe on The Pioneer Woman Cooks which had you use chocolate Teddy Graham cookies to make the base of a chocolate crust. Already being a huge fan of them, I figured killing two birds with one stone (make the bars, satisfy my own sweet tooth) was the smartest route.

Plus it’s so fun to pulse up little animal-shaped cookies.