A Chocolate Fix Every Day

Chocolate, Chocolate, and more Chocolate!

I made 2 dozen chocolate iced chocolate cupcakes last week, mostly for a Book Club Birthday Celebration.   The recipe made a little more than the 2 dozen cupcakes, so I made a 5" round cake which Little C frosted with the extra icing.   I will be making these a lot in the next few weeks for several birthday parties.  I want to change up the frosting a little, as the cocoa is giving my some problems in the mixing.   They are my stand-by/favorite chocolate cake and frosting, which is a birthday favorite.

Later in the week, while my parents were visiting, I made the Chipotle Sea Salt Brownies and Chocolate Chip Cookies.  They were both delicious!   The CCC's were the winning recipe and they turned out as good as they did the first time.  No pictures of either of them as they all look exactly like the last time I made both! :)

I didn't get to make the green filled whoopie pies for St. Patrick's Day.  I may still make them this week.  With all the Spring Break activities and my parents visiting, there was only so much baking I could do.  And, it was more important for me to have my parents and our dinner guests taste the CCC's.

I also want to try out some more vanilla cake recipes because I need a good one for 2 of the birthday parties.

It's only Monday, so there's a lot of baking that can be done this week!

Chocolate Cupcakes with Chocolate Icing

Box of Chocolate Cupcakes

Short Cake, Big Flavor

I am so behind in posting about my baking!

I made this strawberry shortcake the day after the jelly.  It was a new recipe, as I did not like the one I made last year (busy year, only one round of strawberry shortcake).  This one turned out well, Little C helped, and we added some extra sugar.  I added more sugar to the actual recipe, and Little C added an extra generous sprinkle of sugar to the top.  It had great texture and flavor.  I think I will make this recipe again, but make individual shortcakes - the batter seems to be thick enough to use the large cookie scoop to make small shortcakes.

I also tried a new brownie recipe that looks like boxed brownies, but is completely homemade.  It was not a photogenic brownie, so I did not even try to take a picture.  I baked them for the maximum amount of time and they appeared to be done, but I think they could have used 5-10 more minutes.  It's not a good thing to over-bake a brownie and I did not want to risk it.  The recipe also called for a combination of milk and semisweet chocolate; they were good and rich, but I think I will use only semisweet chocolate next time.  So, I will try them again with one kind of chocolate and bake them a little longer.

I have made several banana breads lately and I have mixed them by hand, rather than using the mixer.  They turn out much better!  I am not taking pictures because I make banana bread a lot and they all kind of look the same.

Up next......chocolate cupcakes, brownies, whoopie pies and/or chocolate chip cookies.

Strawberry Shortcake

Strawberry Jam'n

Pretty strawberries make pretty jelly!

After all these years in Texas, I am still not used to being able to get fresh local strawberries so early.
I didn't know that the berries were ripe, but wanted to go to Froberg's Farm to check out the produce.  Much to my surprise, there were berries and berry pickers everywhere!

I am happy to have someone else pick the berries for me.  It's enough for me to know they came from the field behind where I am buying them.  I saved my efforts for transforming the berries in to freezer jam.  It has always been one of my favorites!  I have fond memories of coming home from school to fresh baked bread and having a slice with homemade strawberry jelly.

I made three batches Sunday afternoon and will make 3 or 4 more.  We won't be able to fit anything else in the freezers, but we will have enough jelly to last us until next year!

Strawberry Jelly

Strawberry Jelly

Strawberries - Before

And The Winner Is..........

The Quest For The Best Chocolate Chip Cookies has come to an end.

Recipe #2 is the winner and I will be making them again very soon!

I was torn between recipes 3 and 4 for second place.  However, I am not making recipe 3 again, just to compare. :)  As I remember, the texture of #3 was more similar to Recipe 2, but the flavor was not as good.  I think the flavor of Recipe 4 was better, so they get 2nd place.

All the recipes taste good, but only one achieved a - yay! & hand clap - my reaction to anything I am pleased with.

Below are the results of the CCC trials:

The winner!  CCC Recipe 2 - First Place

CCC Recipe 4 - 2nd Place

CCC Recipe 3 -  3rd Place

CCC Recipe 1 - 4th Place

Quest For The Best Chocolate Chip Cookies - Recipe #4

Last night I made chocolate chip cookie recipe #4.

I was so disappointed - they were not anything like I imagined.

The flavor is good, but the flavor and appearance are nothing compared to test recipe #2.

To the recipe's credit, I did not make it exactly as directed.

I did not use nuts and I used chocolate chips rather than chopped bittersweet chocolate.

I also used the cookie scoop instead of rolling in to logs and slicing. 

(I am not a fan of rolling cookie dough in to logs and slicing.)

I did not think all this would affect the overall flavor and appearance.

This recipe was to be refrigerated overnight before being baked.

I baked one batch last night and then another today.

They definitely tasted better today.   

We will eat these; they are good, but they really just seem a step up from test recipe #1.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe #4

Birthday Cake!

Last Sunday Little C and I made Daddy his birthday cake.
The pictures are not the best, but you can see that it was a super moist cake.
She had the choice of making cupcakes or a this cake (based on a similar picture).
Who wouldn't choose this one with all the yummy layers and textures!?!
It was GOOD!

We started out with my favorite chocolate cake.
I made a new buttercream frosting (love it!)
We took a few shortcuts, which I would not do again.  I was just trying to avoid a trip to the grocery store for 2 items on a Sunday afternoon.
The filling is the buttercream frosting with chocolate chips in it.  The recipe called for mini chips, and since we had lots of regular chocolate chips, we chopped them up.
The ganache is where I misjudged.  I did not have heavy cream, but still had whole milk from the pistachio gelato, so I used that.  At first I made the mistake of using the full amount - huge mistake, which common sense would tell you, but we had been cooking our special dinner all afternoon, and I wasn't thinking clearly.  So, batch 1 of the ganache went down the drain.  I am kinda glad because it had butter in it as well, and the ganaches I have made before have just been cream and chocolate.  I think the butter would have made it too rich, and this cake was not short on the richness factor at all.  So, I just melted chocolate chips and added a little bit of whole milk, stirred until smooth and drizzled over the cake.  The recipe had more ganache which covered the top and ran over the sides, but this did the job and was delicious!

Chocolate Cake with Buttercream Frosting and Chocolate Ganache

Chocolate Cake with Buttercream Frosting and Chocolate Ganache

Chocolate Cake with Buttercream Frosting and Chocolate Ganache