I hope everyone is casting their vote today! Remember every vote counts and not only for president but all the state and city propositions too!
These quadruple chocolate brownies are the most decadent, chocolaty, gooey, horribly delicious, moist brownies I have ever made in my whole entire life. It has to be some sort of sin to eat these things. They are made with chocolate powder, unsweetened chocolate, milk chocolate, and chocolate chips (although I substituted the chocolate chips for butterscotch chips). Then they are topped with a white chocolate glaze. There is no baking powder or baking soda in these brownies so they are very very dense and oh so intense (hehe I rhymed!) These were one of the first recipes chosen for TWD and I have wanted to make them since I joined. They just look so good it’s evil!
Since it is election day I decided it would be fun to decorate the white chocolate in our country’s colors: Red, white, and blue. I thought about making an American flag but it just seemed way to complicated for a novice baker like myself so I settled for a red, white, and blue tie-die sort of thing.
You can find this recipe in Dorie Greenspan’s book Baking: From My Home to Yours or Here.
Enjoy!
Disclaimer: I am in the process of learning how to use Photoshop CS3 so I’m sorry if my pictures suck! Hopefully they will start looking better soon. CS3 is one complicated program!
I’m sorry I haven’t been posting as frequently and about how boring my posts have been lately. I guess I am in kind of a blogging rut. Because of my eating disorder, I kind of have a love-hate relationship with food. Right now it’s more hate than love so I haven’t been spending as much time in the kitchen. You know how sometimes you just have a fat day? Well I think I’m having a fat month!
This weeks recipe for Tuesdays with Dorie was chosen by Clara at I Heart Food For Thought. Thank you Clara for choosing this recipe! I actually baked these earlier this month for a football party, which is why my cupcake is not decorated for Halloween. I think it would have been so much fun to make an orange white chocolate frosting for these and decorate them as pumpkins! Or put black and orange sprinkles on them! I am actually really excited to see how my other fellow TWDers decorated their cupcakes. You can check out the entries from the other members here.
My friend Miranda had a football party for the San Diego Chargers vs. New England Patriots game a few weeks ago. I thought it was the perfect opportunity to try making these cupcakes. I was in a minty mood so added a little twist by putting mint extract in the batter and the ganache. I didn’t get a chance to try these cupcakes, I was only able to have a bite of one. Personally they were a bit dry for me, I like my desserts super moist and gooey. But everyone else loved them!
You can find the recipe for these cupcakes in the book Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan or by going to Clara’s Post.
ENJOY!
My husband Eddie, my mom, and I went camping at Lake Sonoma this weekend. Since weekends are when I usually bake for Tuesdays with Dorie I was bummed that I wouldn't be able to make this weeks recipe. This weeks recipe, Pumpkin Muffins was chosen by Kelly of My Barbaric Gulp. The pumpkin muffins looked way too good to pass up and I had found a post by cupcake project where she had baked a cupcake in an orange shell and I thought "what a great idea!" So I decided to make the pumpkin batter, stuff it in some orange shells, cover them with foil and bake them in the fire while camping!
So I made the dough at home. I've adapted Dorie greenspans recipe and added rolled oats. I have posted my version of this recipe at the bottom of this post. You can find the original recipe in Dorie Greenspans book Baking: From my home to yours or on Kelly's post.
I hollowed out some oranges...
And stuffed the dough inside.
I wrapped the oranges in foil and threw them in the fire.
I let them cook for twenty minutes or so, until they were nice and roasted and cooked fully through. The outside of the oranges were slightly charred when they were done.
And this is how it turned out. I know....not very appetizing. Actually I was less than pleased with the result. The orange gave it a bitter taste and it wasn't very good. I will probably never bake like this again. But oh well! I had to try! I do have to say they turned out very moist!
Lake Sonoma is a beautiful lake nestled in the heart of wine country, surrounded by beautiful green mountains. To get to this lake you drive through ten miles of windy road surrounded by fields of luscious grape vines and beautiful mansions that make up the hundreds of wineries that surround this lake. We decided to camp at Quicksilver, a hike in or boat in camp site right on the lakes shore. But to get there we had to park at the top of the mountain and hike all of our stuff half a mile in.
Half a mile doesn't seem that bad....but when you are going half a mile down a steep hill carrying 50lbs worth of stuff....it's a trek! Eddie and I had to make two trips to get all the stuff down to the lake, each time carrying about fifty pounds! It was really hot as well so we were not looking...or feeling so pretty when we were done!
But it was so worth it! We were completely secluded, with this gorgeous view all to ourselves!
On Friday we were too exhausted from carrying all the stuff down to the site so we cooked dinner, played some cards, and called it an early night. On Saturday, it was another absolutely beautiful day and we spend it hiking the surrounding mountains. We let the dogs cool down by taking a swim in the lake...
even our little guy got in the water!
I did a lot of cooking on the grill, I had A LOT of fun cooking! I also did a lot of eating. I always eat more when I'm camping. The food always taste soo good and I can never resist the smores! I think I ate a whole chocolate bar all too myself!
And of course we roasted marshmallows over the fire. What is camping without marshmallows? And SMORES! This is my mom, roasting her marshmallow! Overall it was a great trip, and I can't wait to go back!
Here is some info on Lake Sonoma:
http://www.russianrivertravel.com/parks-lakesonoma.htm
http://www.parks.sonoma.net/laktrls.html
http://www.spn.usace.army.mil/lakesonoma/docs/Lake%20Sonoma%20Trail%20Map.pdf
Here is my recipe for pumpkin muffins, adapted from Dorie Grennspans Recipe:
Makes enough to fill five large oranges:
Ingredients: 1 cup all purpose flour, 1 cup rolled oats, 1 tsp baking powder, pinch of salt, 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon, 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg, 1/2 tsp ground cloves, 1/2 stick unsalted butter, 1/4 cup white sugar, 1/4 cup brown sugar, 2 large eggs, 1/2 tsp vanilla, 3/4 cup unsweetened pumpkin puree, 1/4 cup milk
Directions:
1. Mix together dry ingredients and spices in a small bowl and set aside.
2. Melt butter, using an electric mixer beat in sugars. Add eggs one at a time and beat until incorporated. Add vanilla, pumpkin, and milk, and beat until mixed.
3. Slowly add dry ingredients and beat until just incorporated.
5. Hollow out 5 oranges and spoon dough into oranges. Wrap with foil and grill until outside of orange is charred.
Enjoy!
Mmmmmm......what is better than a hot cup of coffee in the morning? A hot cup of coffee and a homemade biscotti! The Lenox Almond Biscotti, this weeks recipe for Tuesdays with Dorie was chosen by Gretchen of Canela & Camino. Thank you Gretchen for choosing this weeks recipe! It was absolutely YUMMY!
I have only tried to make biscotti once before. I think I was 16 and I made them for my boyfriend at the time. I remember it was a christmas present and I used white chocolate chips and dried cranberries. They were good!
Personally, I'm not a big biscotti person. I don't usually eat them. Not because I don't like them, I just never make them at home and I'm not much for processed food so I refuse to buy the wrapped ones at Starbucks.
I was really excited to try this weeks recipe though. This is a recipe that I don't feel too guilty about eating and a recipe that looks challenging and fun! I was amazed at how well my biscotti turned out, they actually looked like biscotti you would buy at a Starbucks! But what was even more amazing to me was the taste! The morning after I had baked these little tasty morsels, I dipped a piece in my morning coffee to have a taste and as I took a bite, it was like I had died and gone to heaven! OH MY GOD! It was the perfect amount of sweet, not too sweet, just right. And the crumbly biscuit just melted in my mouth. YUM! I am definitely making these again...and again...and again. Anyone want some homemade biscotti?
I made one change to Dorie's recipe. I ran out of all purpose flour so I used half whole wheat flour. They still tasted amazing so I think it worked out well. This recipe is in the cookbook Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan and you can also find the recipe here. Enjoy!
This weeks TWD recipe was chosen by Tammy of Wee Treats by Tammy. Tammy chose the caramel peanut topped brownie cake from the cookbook Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan. As you can see my brownie cake has neither caramel or peanuts on top. I decided to omit the topping and just do the brownie cake. I also added some almond extract to give it a unique flavor so it wouldn't be too bland without the scrumptious topping.
Why didn't I make the ooey gooey caramel with the crunchy peanuts for the topping? Mostly because I was planning to rid the leftovers of my yummy cake by making my husband take it to work and it would have been too messy to take it to work with the sticky caramel topping.
Dorie says in her cookbook that this desert is best served with something white and creamy so I served it with ice cream. I was severely disappointed, the cake was dry and bland next to the cold creamy ice cream. It wasn't satisfying at all. I tried the cake later without the ice cream and it tasted much better. It was still a little dry for my taste but I could actually taste the almond and chocolate flavoring and it was quite good.
The other substitution I made in this recipe is that I substituted honey for the light corn syrup that the recipe called for. I have never baked or cooked with corn syrup in my life and I don't plan to. I looked online and found that honey can be a suitable alternative. I think it went nicely with the cake.
Thank you Tammy for choosing this weeks recipe!
All-in-all, I don't think I will make this cake again. It didn't really remind me of brownies and it was too dry. I prefer my deserts to be moist and gooey and rich!
This weeks Tuesdays With Dorie Recipe was chosen by Michelle of Bake-en. She chose the Dimply Plum Cake. I'm not a very big fan of cake or muffins or any baked good with fruit in it (except cobblers...I LOVE cobblers!) but after looking at the recipe for this cake I was pretty convinced it was going to be good. The recipe is very simple and uses very few ingredients, one of the main ones being brown sugar (YUM!). I decided to take advantage of the fact that I live two blocks away from the San Francisco Ferry Building and woke up early on Saturday morning to go to the farmer's market. I wanted to find the perfect, most ripe and luscious fruit to use for my plum cake. I walked wide-eyed around all the stands, weaving my way through the crowds eyeing all the colorful and wonderful fruits and vegetables like a kid in a candy store. It took me almost an hour to go through every single stand, overwhelmed by all the different kinds of fruits and vegetables they were offering. Eventually, after much scrutiny, I decided on some small, dainty little pluots. They were so sweet they almost tasted like candy! I bought two different kinds: Dapple Dandy, yellow, firm, and very mild tasting, and the flavor king, deep red, juicy, and very sweet. Mmmm.....this cake is going to be good, I thought to myself as I walked home, treasures in hand.
The cake was very simple to make and I was surprised at how beautiful it turned out. I never bake things this pretty! The batter was so yummy. The brown sugar in it really gave it a nice caramel flavor. And it wasn't very sweet which I liked because the cake does not overpower the pluots. I decided to bake this cake on Saturday morning to serve on Sunday dinner. Dorie says in her book that the longer you let the cake sit, the moister it gets. So I let it sit at room temperature (covered in saran wrap of course) for almost two days....
and she was soooooo right. Yum! Moist, slightly sweet, fruity. Yum! It was very good! Probably the only fruit cake I would bake...and eat again. Eddie even liked it...and he hates cake! That's how good it was.
Mmmmmm......look at all that chocolate.....I LOVE chocolate. I would eat chocolate for breakfast, lunch, dinner, AND dessert if I could. I joined a group called Tuesdays with Dorie and we are supposed to bake something and post it every Tuesday from the cookbook by Dorie Greenspan called, Baking: From My Home to Yours.
This is my first entry: chocolate chunkers. They have unsweetened cocoa powder, unsweetened chocolate, bittersweet chocolate, dark chocolate, and white chocolate in them. YUM!
I wanted to use some good quality chocolate chunks so I went to Whole Foods, they have a wide variety of chocolate from all over the world! As I was chopping up the chocolate it was so hard to resist just eating it right then and their. I snuck a couple of tiny pieces and popped them into my mouth. Mmmmm....bittersweet chocolate. It wasn't sweet so the power of the chocolate taste really took over as it slowly melted my mouth. No more! I told myself, wait until the cookies are done!
I melted the unsweetened and bittersweet chocolate with some butter and mixed it together with the cocoa powder and flour to create this luscious, silky dough. It was smoother, creamier than any cookie dough I have ever worked with. How is this going to be thick and solid enough to form little dough balls that will melt into ooey-gooey cookies in the oven? Maybe I screwed the recipe up? Maybe I should just eat up this dough and start over? I checked and double checked the recipe. Nope, I did it right. I forced myself to keep going and not drink this luscious chocolate silk straight from the bowl.
More chopping of luscious sweet chocolate. More temptations I had to resist. More sneaking of sweet tiny little chocolate morsels melting in my mouth. Mmmm.....the silky smooth sweet texture of white chocolate, and the sharp yet surprisingly sweet texture of the dark chocolate. I did not melt this chocolate. I mixed right into the dough. When baked, it will create creamy, melty pockets of gooey chocolate in the cookies. Yum, just thinking about it makes my mouth water.
I was not too sure about the last two ingredients I had to add too my scrumptiously chocolaty mixture. Dried fruit and nuts? But what if it takes away from my chocolate? I was skeptical about how nuts and dried fruit could be good in these cookies. But I added them anyway. I decided to use almonds and tried tropical fruit bits because that is what I had around the house.
As I placed the big, chunky droplets of dough onto the parchment paper I began to get excited. These are going to be yummy! I threw them in the oven before I could start eating the raw dough right off of the cookie sheet and then washed the bowl (after licking it clean of course!).
I only baked them for ten minutes, the minimum amount of time the recipe says because I wanted them to be really gooey! They came out of the oven looking so amazingly good! The outside coat was dry and a little crackly with tons of gooey pockets of melty, melty chocolate.
The inside was absolutely soft and moist. I impatiently waited for them to cool. Wishing I could just gobble them up right as they came out of the oven. After ten minutes I couldn't wait any longer. I placed two cookies in front of me with a glass of milk. Mmmm....they were a gooey and soft as they looked. And wow were they chocolaty! A little overpoweringly so. There was a bit too much bitter and not quite enough sweet. The nuts and fruit were surprisingly good in the cookie, however, they gave it texture and crunch. I savored each bite, absolutely melting with love every time I bit into one of the gooey white chocolate pockets. Two cookies was all I could eat, the chocolate was too overpowering for my taste buds! I had no idea that could be possible! The chocolate in these cookies are so intense, you really can't eat too many!
I sent the rest with my husband to work. They got a great response, everyone loved them and they were gone in a day! Thank you Claudia of Fool for Food for choosing this recipe!
