2-Ingredient Dessert: Chocolate Dipped Strawberries

I used to work in a cafe on Mulberry Street in Little Italy, NYC. We used to sell chocolate covered strawberries that we made in house for at least two dollars a piece. I was always surprised how much people pay for a dessert that is made with two ingredients & is super easy to make - even if they come out a little messy they still taste amazing. Plus, what’s better than a homemade gift?

This is the perfect dessert for a date night at home since you can make them ahead & they will impress your date or guests. I know I don’t usually post on Saturdays but I’m changing it up in the spirit of Valentine’s Day. So if you still haven’t gotten your Valentine a gift yet you still have plenty of time to make these & gift them. He/She will be impressed I promise. If your valentine doesn’t like strawberries try dipping their favorite fruit or even cookies instead!

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Chocolate Pudding

Sometimes you just need something sweet. Something chocolate. I opted for this chocolate pudding recipe made with some basic baking ingredients I had on hand. I like to think of this pudding like these brownies that you can eat with a spoon. YUM. Oh & I added some chopped almonds, because you know they're good for you & make me feel like an adult.

Homemade Twix Chocolate Bars

Happy Halloween! I hope you’re doing your fair share of trick & lots of treating today.

I’ll be dressing up for work today & posting on instagram so be sure to check that out here. Halloween, Easter & Valentine’s Day are probably the top three holidays that I associate with candy.  It seemed only fitting to pair up with the folks at Chocoley to bring you this post for homemade twix. Once I figured out what I was doing I had a lot of fun making these (& eating the leftover chocolate out of the bowl!). Plus, I got to try out Chocoley’s Caramel which is pretty much the best way (in my opinion to make caramel - because it’s already made!) & it’s super easy to work with. There was no sugar burnt in my kitchen attempting to make caramel because this stuff is perfect right out of the container. I made my cookies from scratch using Ina Garten’s Shortbread Cookie Recipe but I think if you wanted to use graham crackers or villa wafers as your cookie they would work great too - your twix just might be a little bit bigger or a different shape (round!).  All worth giving a shot.

I think I may love these little wrappers Chocoley sent me the most. They make me feel like I made some legit candy bars. 

Have a spooktacularly sweet day!

Dairy-Free Fudgesicles

I always buy a big bunch of bananas with the anticipation that we will eat them before they turn completely brown. Lately, they’ve been turning brown on me more often than not. So we cut up the sugary sweet & pretty mushy bananas, put them in a zip top bag & freeze them. I use them in smoothies instead of ice & to make dairy-free chocolate ice cream. 

I mixed things up a tiny bit & made a different rendition of my go-to dairy-free chocolate ice cream & made homemade fudgesicles. The best part is - they only require 3 ingredients (4 if you count water) & they take just minutes to mix up. There's no dairy or sugar involved. You can make them in the morning, pop them in the freezer & they’ll be ready for an after (or before) dinner treat.

Better Home Cooking Basics: #21 Always us a Rubber Spatula to Stir Melting Chocolate

This tip comes from my chocolate gurus over at Chocoley. Whenever you're working with chocolate like I did for yesterday's post, never use a wooden spoon to stir the chocolate. (Gasp! Yes I know I used to do this too!) Wooden spoons retain smells (mmm yummy garlicky broccoli) & moisture which will ruin the chocolate. So for best results use a rubber spatula. I'm going to work this into my baking in general because as much as I love garlic - it doesn't pair well with chocolate (or does it?).

Check out more better home cooking basic tips here.

Homemade Chocolate Covered Easter Cream Eggs

Last Friday I came home to a package sent by the sweet people at Chocoley full of fun ingredients for this Easter project - homemade Chocolate Covred Easter Cream Eggs - so you have them to thank for this festive post (thanks Chocoley!).

When the Chocoley team first contacted me I figuratively & literally felt like a kid in the candy store.  They asked me to come up with something I'd like to make using their awesome ingredients! What would I make? So many options to choose from!

My decision became more clear with Easter on the horizon. I knew what I wanted to make & the Chocoley team was on board to advise me of which ingredients would make my Easter creation come to fruition. Chocoley truly has everything you need for creating beautiful & tasty treats.

While I was making these eggs I couldn’t help but remember the story my mom always tells of when I would make cookies as a kid. They would start out small & uniform but then as I continued & the initial excitement of making them wore off the cookies would grow in size. You could look at the assortment of sizes as a timeline of the cookies - the smallest were the earliest & the largest were the last to be baked. It’s a funny memory & my mom laughs every time she tells it - which makes me laugh. This is how I felt making these eggs. If you are going to make them at home - smaller is better - trust me. Mine grew in size - while still delicious they were a bit sloppier & wouldn’t stand on the lollipop stick, instead I had to rest them on their sides making them not completely round - but I covered them with edible confetti, silver sprinkles (like magic from a disco ball!) & pretty pink foils so you’d never know.

PS: Happy birthday to my dear friend Hely! I love you Hey Hey :)

Boston Cream Crepe Cake

The boston cream crepe cake that I made to celebrate HeatherOMade’s second birthday proved to be a definite labor of love. This translates to “thank goodness it tasted good because I’m not sure I’m going ever take the time to make this again.”

While the ingredients are simple: eggs, flour, milk, etc the time & skill it takes are not. If I were to make this again I’d probably use my old faithful crepe recipe instead of the one I found via Will Cook For Smiles, simply because I’m more comfortable with it & I have a better handle on how they cook.  This new-to-me-recipe was challenging to say the least & I had to scrape & scrap more crepes that I would’ve liked to (don’t worry there’s a photo of the crepe graveyard). But hey it was a new life lesson. Once I had all of the components ready (crepes, custard & chocolate ganache) the assembling of the cake was fun & therapeutic finish to the whole experience. Although my cake wasn’t as high as I aspired it to be it was still delicious & didn’t last a day at the office when I brought it into share.

Chocolate Covered Peanut Butter Banana Bites

Happy Monday & to those of you who have the day off - enjoy it! To those of you reading this from your office desk - I feel you, so am I :)

I thought I’d start the week off with being real. Sometimes you just want to eat dessert first - so if you need it justified tell everyone I told you to do it. Sometimes real is dessert first & sometimes it isn't pretty. I wasn’t going to post these deliciously simple bites because well they’re just not that pretty [insert whiny frowny face & voice here] - but as Chris replied to my mini tantrum “they taste pretty” which translates to they taste good, put them on the blog - so I am. Here they are.

The other night as we indulged in season 2 of a House of Cards binge (OMG!!! that first episode) I felt we needed some dessert but I didn’t feel like baking & all of the brownies were gone already. I looked around to see what we had. Bananas, check. Peanut butter, check. Chocolate, check.  So I decided to make mini peanut butter & banana sandwiches covered in chocolate. Luckily, peanut butter & banana make a complete protein & dark chocolate has lots of happy antioxidants in it so I felt good about eating these sweet little bites & you should too.

Fudgey Made-from-Scratch Brownies

While watching all the Olympic athletes work up a sweat I had a craving for exercise brownies. We usually have a stock of brownie mix in the house & Chris usually will whip up a batch at the sheer mention of the word.  We didn’t have any brownie mix but after a quick web recipe search & ingredient assessment I found a way around the no-boxed-brownie mix-in-the-house-problem - I made them from scratch! They’re actually a lot easier than you think. They take a bit longer then just pouring out the box mix because you have to measure basic ingredients like butter, sugar, flour, salt & cocoa powder but other than that they didn’t take that long & were deliciously decadent. Next time you're in the brownie mix section I hope you'll grab some cocoa powder & give this old scratch thing a try instead. If you opt for the boxed mix which is your fave? Let me know in the comments below.

Chocolate Chip Cookies with Smoked Sea Salt

A couple months ago I had a chocolate chip cookie with smoked sea salt from Haven's Kitchen, & I haven't stopped thinking about it since.  They're sweet, chocolatey & the smokiness of the sea salt just brings them to a different level - the best level. So when I hosted a girls day/night at my house I knew I had to give them a go.

I used my go-to chocolate chip cookie dough recipe (you can get it here) & before I popped the cookies in the oven I sprinkled each with some yummy smoked sea salt that I actually found at Home Goods for a very reasonable price (who knew salt could be so expensive otherwise!?).  If you don't want to make cookies from scratch you can totally jazz up store bought cookie dough with this fancy salt.

Reality Bites Banana Bread

This weekend I devoured Apron Anxiety.  You must read it, especially if you're at any kind of crossroads in your life.  It's just such a fun read & I found it totally relatable.  Plus, it has delightful little recipes between chapters that are very real & very accessible even if you're just beginning in the kitchen.

I also consumed some much more caloric banana bread a la  recipe from Apron Anxiety. I had a bunch of overripe bananas so I doubled the recipe & poured the batter into a bundt pan for a large ring-like loaf.  I have to say it wasn't the traditional banana bread that I grew up with (it has chocolate chips in it!) but is still equally delicious. I added some nutmeg like my mom always did & cinnamon for some fun.

Click through for the full recipe.

Dairy-Free Chocolate Ice Cream

Chris loves chocolate ice cream. One night when I made these cakes I realized I didn't have any ice cream at all, but I did have frozen bananas & cocoa powder. Problem solved. I freeze my bananas right before they call to the fruit flies, that's right when they're nearly all black - that just means they're super sweet, I break them up & freeze them in food storage bags.  Then I add them to smoothies or make this dairy-free chocolate ice cream out of them by simply blending the frozen bananas with a tablespoon of cocoa powder together. Et voila, you've got a cold creamy chocolatey ice cream like treat. If you're feeling frisky add some peanut butter & thank me later.

This is a great option for vegans & those who suffer from dairy allergies or if you just want to try a lighter ice cream especially in these heat waves we've been having lately.

Happy Friday!
 

Hot Molten Chocolate Cake

Everyone always has room for dessert when it's hot molten chocolate cake, with ice cream of course.  This dessert is not as hard as it looks to make but there is some love involved. It's not what I would call a call-me-maybe-dessert, this isn't for a first date.  This is for the date when you celebrate you first wedding anniversary. This is a you-count-big-time-in-my-book-dessert.  For those of you that I've made this for - you know who you are- & yes I'll make it for you again.

This recipe is built out of some I found online & through some basic trial & error.  But lucky you, you don't have to do the leg work because you get my full recipe after the jump, so read on for some more photos & the recipe!

Old Fashioned Egg Cream

I can hear what most of you are thinking already... "what's an egg cream?"  Well friends, it's essentially a fizzy version of chocolate milk that most of our grandparents probably enjoyed at their local candy store after school. 

Ok, so how does "she" (that's me) know how to make an egg cream anyway?  It's actually not something I googled or youtubed. Nope.  I used to serve these tasty drinks up at a small cafe in NYC's Little Italy - so I learned from the best, Rosalie, the owner of Lo Spuntino (it's no longer on Mulberry Street but it was a great little place!).

What you'll need:

• cold milk
• a flavored syrup
• seltzer water

The most important things when making an egg cream are:

1. Start with your spoon in the glass.
2. Use cold milk. Fill the glass about 1/4 of the way.
3. Add the chocolate syrup - think about 1"inch from the bottom of the glass, I know it sounds like a lot but it's worth the tasty factor.
4. YOU MUST USE FRESH SELTZER, as in you just twisted the bottle open & pour it only seconds after.
5. Then, stir, stir, stir! You should get a nice white foam at the top. You can of course use whatever kind of syrup you like but I think the chocolate syrup makes for the prettiest contrast.
6. Slurpe it down with a straw immediately or you'll lose the fizz!