Who said you shouldn't make homemade puddin'

If you want an easy, but impressive, dessert, go with made from scratch chocolate pudding. Made from scratch anything has a wow factor associated with it, but facts are facts, made from scratch doesn't always translate well. See homemade cakes. Which brings me to wonder, why can't I make a cake from scratch and really love it? I dunno. I've tried. Goodness knows I've tried. Must be some chemical magic in the box mix that I can't recreate.

But, homemade chocolate pudding is another story. It tastes a million times better than store bought. Is made from only ingredients you can pronounce. And is so quick and so easy, but homemade, so you look like a culinary rock star. And who doesn't like looking like a culinary rock star?

I personally love it when my kids chant my name and declare I must open a restaurant that serves cheesy hotdogs, mac and cheese, and chocolate pudding. And yes, I know only one out of those three items are actually homemade by me. Still, I like it.

Scratch Chocolate Pudding
1/4 C cornstarch
1/3 C granulated sugar
skimpy 1/4 tsp Kosher salt
3 C whole milk
1 C good quality Semi-sweet chocolate chips. I prefer Guittard
1 tsp vanilla extract

Combine cornstarch, sugar and salt into medium saucepan and stir to mix.

Pour milk into the above in a slow drizzle while whisking furiously, to avoid lumps.

Cook over medium low heat while alternating between whisking and scraping the bottom and sides of pot with a silicon spatula. You do not want to let this go too long without stirring, as the milk will potentially scorch to the bottom and not taste delicious.

Pay attention. After approximately 10 minutes, and just before your pudding comes to a simmer, the mixture will begin to thicken. Once it coats the back of a spoon and you can leave a trail with your finger, lick, it's thick enough. You really don't want this to go above a barely there simmer.

Now that it's perfectly thick, add the chocolate chips.

Whisk and spatula for about 2 minutes more to allow the chocolate chips to melt and incorporate.

Remove from heat and stir in vanilla extract. It'll look like your pudding is separating, but keep whisking and it'll all come together.

Press plastic wrap directly on the top of the pudding to avoid the dreaded skim and let cool. My Grandma would've spooned it into fancy bowls and let it cool on the kitchen counter, tempting us until dinner was through. I cooled mine in the fridge this time for about an hour. It was still slightly warm when we ate it.

Most important step: top with a drizzle of cream. Yup, pure cream and prepare for old fashioned, creamy, homey, chocolaty goodness in every spoonful. Add more cream as needed.

This really brought me back to my childhood; when I licked the bowls clean. Mostly to savor every last drop of the cream. We ate a lot of desserts with a drizzle of cream over the top. Not whipped cream. Weird but good. But, now I know why my mom got after me for licking the bowls clean. Same reason I got after my kids for doing it.

Aww, love the sharing of an old-timey, family tradition. And to be clear, the tradition I'm talking about is not the licking of bowls.

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Chocolate and Peanut Butter Frosted Chocolate Sheet Cake

 Do you ever wish you had a go-to frosting that was easy, but darn versatile?  Something you can use on cookies, cakes...straight from bowl to mouth?  Then this is your frosting.  It uses things you have in your pantry....and it's so quick to make, you microwave it!  Whoot! 

Used while still warm over a fresh from the oven cake, it oozes into all the nooks and crannies and sets up soft and pliable.  Cooled down, you can pipe it over cupcakes or cookies for a glamorous look.

Today I'm using this frosting over a chocolate or Texas sheet cake.  I'm not providing the recipe for the sheet cake, so simply find one you like.  I prefer to use This one by the Pioneer Woman, but go with whatever works for you.  When the cake is about 5 minutes from being done, get going on the frosting.  You want the cake and the frosting to be warm at the same time.

In previous posts about this frosting, I've used a double broiler to melt everything...but not today!  Today it's all about making the yummiest frosting the simplest way possible, in the microwave.

 You do need a microwave safe bowl.  That can be glass or microwave-safe plastic.  I'm using a silicone bowl that I got for Christmas.  It's perfect if you make hand-dipped chocolates because the silicone doesn't hold onto the heat like glass or Pyrex does.

Okay, so let's get started.  Your cake has about five minutes left of cook time, and....

Chocolate and Peanut Butter Frosting over Chocolate Sheet cake

8.5 oz. chopped dipping chocolate or fine quality chocolate chips

4 Tbl. Creamy Peanut Butter

3 Tbl. softened butter

Handful of salted peanuts, chopped fine

**You don't have to be terribly particular about the measurements here.  If you have a bit more chocolate, that's fine, and I never actually measure my peanut butter.  Have you ever tried getting peanut butter out of a measuring spoon?  It's the worst.  I just throw in what looks to be 4 Tbl, and then taste it to make sure it's delicious.**

Chop your chocolate into smallish chunks.  You don't have to be too obsessive about this because you're melting them in the microwave.  If you were going to use a double broiler, then I might say cut them fine to save some melting time.  If you notice my fancy chopping tool, it's called a chocolate chunker, and if you regularly cook with large blocks of chocolate, it's a finger saver.  Urmmm....

Place chocolate, peanut butter and butter in your microwave-safe bowl.  Heat for 30 seconds at a time, remove from microwave, stir and check the consistency.  You want it to be nice and liquid-y smooth.   No chunks.  The reason you are heating in 30 second increments is you don't want to scorch your chocolate.  I think mine took about 1 minute and 30 seconds to get to the consistency I wanted.

Add peanuts and stir until they're coated.

The second the cake gets out of the oven, make sure it's on a level surface and then pour all the creamy, gorgeous frosting over the warm cake.  Using an offset spatula, spread the frosting all around until it covers the cake.  Be careful not to puncture the cake with the peanuts or your spatula and then let it sit and cool.

I did not lick the bowl clean....my kids did.

Once cooled, the frosting will have firmed up a bit and is the perfect foil for the rich, chocolate cake.

Serve with a scoop of ice cream and you'll have the best dessert around.  It's not too sweet thanks to the peanut butter and salted peanuts and for those of us who aren't impressed with big globs of sickeningly sweet frosting, this is perfection.

Thanks for reading!

Heather

Chocolate Embelishment for Cookies

I dunno.  It's not frosting.  It's not ganache.  It's just good old melted chocolate, sort of tempered so that it doesn't take a hundred years to harden and piped or dunked on a cookie.  What would you call it, then?  Chocolate Emblishment, it is then.  Oh, oh, oh, I know....enrobed.  Chocolate Enrobed Cookies.  Meh,  I already typed Emblishment up there, it's all good.  And, I mean it.  It's all good.

See how pretty they are, and just perfect for giving out at Christmas.  The chocolate is firm, so you don't have to worry about the cookies making a giant mess.  And it's just so yummy and fun!  You get to be creative and make pretty designs and...

Ugggh.  Fail.  Okay, so don't be like me and do this with your chocolate.  That's not exactly the goal.  I was using a plastic baggy, filled with chocolate with a snip cut out of the corner.  I had made a very petite snip though and as a result, busted out the bag.  Try, try again.  And eat the cookies that were sacrificed for this viewing audience.

Step 1.  Make this cookie  You will not regret it.

Step 2.  Assemble the ingredients you need.  That would be chocolate chips and a bit of vegetable shortening.  I would say I had about 1 cup of chocolate chips.  I used both semi sweet and milk chocolate, actually they were what were left in the bags after I made These Cookies!  And 1 to 2 tsp Veg. Shortening.

Step 3.  Separate the chocolate chips.  Put 3/4 of the chips in one bowl and 1/4 of the chips in another.   Give or take.  Maybe even less than 1/4.

Step 4. To the larger bowl of chips add 1 to 2 tsp. vegetable shortening.

Step 5.  Microwave on full strength for 30 seconds the larger bowl of chips.  Stir.  Microwave for 30 more seconds.  Stir.  You do not want to burn your chocolate, but you also don't want it not melted.  You want it to be just melted.  So after 1 minute, be cautious.  You will have to probably zap it again, but go in much smaller increments, like 10 seconds a time.  Once you have nicely liquid chocolate...

Step 6.  Add the un-melted chips to the melted chips.  Stir until everything is melted.  Voila!  You have sort of tempered chocolate.  Tempered chocolate is super more complicated than this, it involves thermometers and seed chocolate and...I'll get into it another time.  But, this'll get the job done for you.

Step 7.  Spoon chocolate into a baggy, cut a bit off one corner and get all artistic with your bad self.  Do not make the hole too small.  Or face the consequences.  And they are dire indeed.  Too big though, and you might not get the look you're going for.  You can also dunk part of the cookie in the chocolate that spilled.  I like to decorate my cookies while they're sitting on a piece of parchment, it keeps the chocolate from getting everywhere.  You can also take a spoon, dip the tip in the chocolate and swing it back and forth to make your cookies look oh so elegant! 

Step 8.  Let chocolate firm up.  I cannot give you an exact amount of time, as I was gone for about an hour after I had piped and enrobed my cookies with chocolate.  So, somewhere within an hour, they should be nice and solid.

Enjoy your beautiful embelished and enrobed cookies.

Merry Christmas!

Heather

 

S'more Cookie Bars

December is here and prepare for me to share all my favorite treats so you can impress family and friends with your baking talents! 

Today's recipe is so good, and so rich and so...I want it to be summer and we're having a picnic in the mountains somewhere instead of cold and snowy...but at least it's almost Christmas, so that's a good thing...right?  I have to think if I'd rather it were Christmas day or summer.  Tricky.  I love Christmas...but I hate the cold.

Well, while I ponder Christmas or summer, here's the recipe...

Baked S'mores
Recipe inspired by: The Apron Gal  

3/4 C. Softened Butter (It's Christmas, butter doesn't count).
1/3 C. Brown Sugar
3/4 C. Granulated Sugar
2 eggs
1 1/2 tsp Vanilla (Use your homemade vanilla if ya got it)
2 Skimpy Cups Flour...just go with what you think is skimpy....by the way anything "skimpy" and "scant" are my favorite measurements
1/4 tsp. Salt
8 Graham Crackers crushed into crumbs
1 1/2 tsp. Baking Powder
7 Oz. Marshmallow Fluff
10 Hershey's chocolate bars...because, well who makes s'mores with anything but Hershey's?  This'll be a bit too many bars, but you want to be able to fill in the edges.

Preheat oven to 350 F.  Grease a 9 x 13 cake pan.  I use shortening.

In medium bowl, combine the flour, salt, grahams and baking powder.  Set aside.

In a mixer fitted with paddle attachment, cream the butter and sugars until fluffy, about 3 minutes.  Add the eggs one at a time and mix well.  Add the vanilla and mix.

Add the flour mixture to the creamed mixture and blend until just combined.

Take half of the dough and press into the bottom of the greased cake pan with your fingers.  Make sure you are pressing an even thickness across the entire pan, and get the dough all the way to the edges.  It takes a bit of manipulating, but you'll get there.

Place whole chocolate bars across the dough.  Fill in where necessary with pieces.  Cover as much of the dough as you can with chocolate.

Spread your fluff over the chocolate bars.  This wasn't as tricky as I was expecting it to be.  I placed dollops of fluff evenly over the chocolate and then, using a frosting spatula just spread it out until there was a nice, even layer.  Zero stickiness!  I was expecting this step to be a mess, so I was pleasantly surprised.

Take the remaining dough and put it on a piece of parchment paper.  Place another piece of parchment over it and mush until it is approximately the size needed to fit over the marshmallow fluff and fill in all the way to the edges.  I put my cake pan over the top so I had a good idea of what size I needed.  Don't stress this too much, because the dough is very soft and workable, and as soon as you plop it on top of the fluff, just spread it over to where you need it.  Take the time to cover your fluff edge to edge.

Cook for 30 to 35 minutes.  Mine took 35 until golden brown and delicious.  Let cool, at least until you can hold a bar without burning yourself.  Once I took it out of the oven, I covered it in aluminum foil and it sat for...oh I'd say at least an hour and a half if not two hours until it was served and it was still a bit warm and gooey.

Because it was warm when I served it, the chocolate was ooey, gooey good.  The Mister wished the chocolate had solidified a bit so he could dunk it in a glass of milk.  I'll have to make it again and let it cool completely.  Either way, this is a great addition to your holiday baking.

Thanks for reading!!

Heather

Triple Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies with Fresh Cranberries

Tis the season to start thinking about Christmas Cookies...or, if you don't celebrate Christmas, to think about some seriously good cookies, that you really, really, really need to make.  These cookies are one of my favorites, probably the #1 spot, actually.  I got the recipe originally from my Mom and I've made a few changes, like increasing the amount of cranberries from the original, because I really love the zippy burst they provide.

They're just the right amount of rich and sweet and tangy and crisp.  And the red from the cranberry makes them so pretty.  Pretty enough to give as a gift.

Triple Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies with Fresh Cranberries
1 C. Flour
1/2 tsp. Kosher Salt
1/2 tsp. Baking Soda
Large dash Cinnamon
10 Tbl. Butter, room temperature
1/2 C. Granulated Sugar
1/2 C. Dark Brown Sugar
1 Egg
1 tsp. Vanilla Use homemade if ya got it!!
1 C. Old Fashioned Oats (don't use quick cook....or steel cut, for that matter)
1/2 C. Milk Chocolate Chips
1/2 C. White Chocolate Chips
1/2 C. Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips
3/4 C. Fresh Cranberries, chopped in large pieces (cutting each cranberry about in half as you want nice big pieces of cranberry)

Preheat oven to 350 F.

In medium bowl, combine flour, salt, baking soda and cinnamon, set aside.

In stand mixer, cream butter and both sugars until lighter in color and fluffy-ish.

Add egg and vanilla, mix until incorporated.

With mixer on low, add flour mixture and mix until just combined.

Add oats and all the chocolate chips.  Mix.

Add the cranberries, and, last time...Mix.

On parchment lined cookie sheet, spoon dough out in teaspoon-sized dollops.  You're using butter here, so the cookies spread a bit and are a touch crisp and a bit chewy.  They're heavenly.  So you want to use a tinier amount of batter than you would normally use per cookie.

Bake about 14 minutes, until golden brown. 

Eat as soon as they are cool enough to hold.  Don't wait a minute more.  Dunk in milk.  Definitely make these for your friends and family, they will thank you...and beg for the recipe, just like I did.
 

Thanks for reading!

Heather

Vanilla Shortbread Cookies with Chocolate Peanut Butter Frosting

Tis the season to start thinking about holiday cookies.  So, I am kicking off my holiday baking series today.  Get ready for two delicious treats a week that you can use to knock the socks off of anyone who tries them.  They are fool proof, decadent, fun and delicious.  Once Thanksgiving is over, check back every Monday and Wednesday until Christmas for a seriously yummy recipe to try.  Today's is a little preview of the goodness to come.

My sister and I throw a cookie party every year in December.  We encourage our friends to be inventive.  Try something new.  Wow us with their cookie prowess.  If you have a cookie party to go to, or just want to impress your friends and family with a heavenly treat, these shortbread cookies are for you.  The shortbread is buttery and crisp.  The chocolate peanut butter frosting rich and creamy.  The perfect holiday cookie.  I originally posted this recipe over at the Inspiration Cafe.  Click here to read the original post.

You eat with your mouth and eyes when it comes to this cookie.  They are visually impressive and get the mouth salivating for a nibble.  Once you've had a bite, you are overcome. 

These cookies can be made in advance.  The cookie part, anyway.  There is nothing I love more for a party than something that takes me less time than something else, but is still amazing.  The Mister loves anything that has chocolate and peanut butter in it.  I love anything that has shortbread in it.  My daughters love cookies and frosting.  This is clearly the perfect cookie for my family.

The dough needs to be chilled.  This is why it can be made in advance.  So, if you want to whip up a batch, spur of the moment, keep this in mind.  You will have to allocate enough time for chilling of the dough, cooking of the cookies, cooling of the cookies and the making of the frosting.  It's worth it.

When frosted, they look a bit like a chocolate rose.  Experiment with different tips, you may just be pleasantly surprised.

If you feel like giving them as a present, dress them up in cupcake wrappers and a pretty box.  A little tissue paper goes a long way towards classing something up.  Cellophane is a fun way to make something fancy, as well.

And, if the piping bag and tips are too much to comprehend, just spread some of this glorious frosting on with a knife.  It might not have that visual impact of the chocolate roses, but they'll taste just as sweet....and you can lick the knife after.

Vanilla Shortbread Cookies with Chocolate Peanut Butter Frosting

**makes 30 cookies**

Vanilla Shortbread Ingredients
1 Cup butter, at room temperature
2/3 Cup Sugar
2 large egg yolks
Splash of Vanilla
2 Cups flour

Preheat oven to 300 F.

Cream butter and sugar in mixer until light and fluffy with paddle attachment.  You will notice the color gets lighter.  Add in the yolks, scraping sides of bowl as necessary.  Add a splash of vanilla...maybe 1 tsp. and mix well.  Add flour and blend until just combined.  It will look very crumbly, a lot like pie dough.  This is what you want.

Split the dough into two batches and place on plastic wrap.  You are going to compress these crumbles into a cohesive dough by pressing the plastic wrap around the dough and squeezing until it is a nice cylindrical shape and the dough is firmly compacted.  My dough was shaped more oblong, do what you like.

Place dough in freezer for 30 minutes.

Once chilled, remove dough and cut into approximately 1/4" slices.  Use a nice sharp knife for this.  Place on a cookie sheet with parchment paper, spaced about an inch apart.  Bake for 20 to 22 minutes.  You do not want your shortbread to brown in any way, really.  You want it to be light blonde in color.

Place cookies on rack and let them cool completely.

Frosting time!!

Chocolate Peanut Butter Frosting Ingredients
4 oz. semisweet chocolate, finely chopped
2 Tbl. Creamy Peanut Butter
1.5 Tbl. softened butter

If you have a double boiler, you can use it.  Or just be like me and get a pot of simmering water going, then put a glass bowl large enough to fit on top of it. 

Finely chop your chocolate.  I used a large block of Callebaut chocolate, you can also use nice quality semi-sweet chocolate chips.  If you're using the block, I find a serrated knife is the best way to chop it.

Place your chocolate, peanut butter and butter in the bowl and then put the bowl on top of the simmering pot.  Let it melt.  Stir until nice and smooth.  Once completely melted, you need to let the frosting cool.  I put mine in the fridge and stirred it every few minutes.  This is where you need to pay attention if you're going to pipe it...As soon as it has thickened to frosting consistency, you need to get it in your piping bag and get to work FAST!  It will get too thick to pipe in just a few minutes.

The frosting tip I used is an Ateco 16.  It's how you get the petal appearance in your frosting.  Fold down the edges of your piping bag so you don't make a huge mess, dollop your frosting in. Unfold the bag, twist it tightly and get to decorating the cookies. I start in the middle of the cookie and make concentric circles around and around until you get the look you want.

Let sit.  The frosting will solidify a bit more.  It won't get rock hard, but it is solid enough that if you want to wrap the cookies up and place them in decorative tins, they'll be just fine and won't lose their good looks.

Also, this amount of frosting was just enough to frost this one batch of cookies...and that's probably only because I broke a couple of my cookies.  It might be wise to make a double batch of frosting.  The frosting is so good, you'll find ways to use what's left.

This is the perfect combination of peanut butter and chocolate and it marries so nicely with the vanilla shortbread cookie.  Just wonderful!  Hope you enjoy!

Thanks for reading!

Heather

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