So it was hot on Saturday and my husband and I decided that it was best that we head out to find someplace with air conditioning. We chose Barnes and Noble since you can walk around for hours there. Every time we go I get to pick out one cookbook. I must limit myself or else who knows how much bigger my now 200 and something collection would be. After much scrutiny and going back and forth I chose Gale Gand's Just A Bite(I am a huge fan of the mini food movement). I fell in love with the photo on the cover of what looked like a chocolate cake covered in caramel and some sort of nut. I skimmed though it that night not really paying any attention to the ingredients. So when I went to make the cake today, bad me did not have vegetable oil. I'm not really a fan of cakes that use vegetable oil, so right away I was a little disappointed in the book. But I was still inspired by the photo and so I used what I had. I decided just to make a sour cream based chocolate cake(my no fail recipe) and … [Read more...]
44 Dalmations
I'm always supportive of a recipe that uses ¾ of a pound of butter. So when I ran across these Chocolate Dalmatians I was all over it. Now these are not the left over by product of Cruella de Ville, but wonderful shortbread type cookies spotted with mini chocolate chips. Though I did not get 101 of them, I did manage to muster up 44. Mine did not spread out much, unlike the photo in the book. I also made the executive decision to use the entire bag of chocolate chips than just 8 ounces. Chocolate Dalmatians 4 ounces of white chocolate, chopped into ¼ inch pieces ¾ pound unsalted butter, cut into 1 ounce pieces 1 cup granulated sugar 2 tsp pure vanilla extract 4 cups all-purpose flour ½ tsp salt 8 ounces semisweet chocolate mini-morsels( I used all 12oz that came in the bag) Preheat the oven to 350F. Melt chocolate in a double boiler over medium heat. Use a rubber spatula to stir the chocolate until completely smooth, about 2 minutes. Place the butter and … [Read more...]
Many rocks in my road
My friend Kristen is the type of person who's most used tool in the kitchen is the phone to call for take out. But she loves to live vicariously through me and is always sending me recipes that she finds from time to time. She went to a craft fair where one of the booths along with selling quits was selling what she thought was ice cream but they just called it chocolate frozen treat. My friend was so enamored by it that she asked for the recipe which they kindly sold to her for $1. So I receive this recipe in the mail half crumpled up and stained and what not and put it aside...six years later I find it and decide we will give it a try. It was very much like a pudding recipe and set up like pudding would also. I was hoping that it was going to taste like frozen custard(which I LOVE) but knew with only 2 eggs that wasn't going to be the case. I had quite a few left over items: crushed chocolate cookies, ¼ of a bag of milk chocolate chips and what I had originally … [Read more...]
Trapped at Home
I feel like a prisoner in my apartment. They have been resurfacing our apartment complex and yesterday and today I have been cooped up. Sure I can go drive somewhere but we had to park sooooo far away that I would need to pack a lunch just to make it there. And let's be honest, I am too lazy to walk down there today. So when stuck at home, break out the apron and get your bake on. So another non-food blogger suggested making a blackberry cobbler. Spending most of my cooking years in Arizona there are not farmer's markets, no one is bringing you squash from their gardens or hazelnuts from their trees. So to move here to Washington and have all this wonderful fresh produce is so truly amazing you can not even imagine. I wanted to make something slightly different than your regular cobbler and boy did I find it. When I read the comments that people made about the recipe I must concure that they all said it would be messy and they were right. What I found most interesting about this … [Read more...]
