Chocolate Flourless Cake for Passover

I always thought it would be hard to make this chocolate flourless cake, but then I realized that the ingredients that go into it are surprisingly simple.  Just Chocolate, Eggs, Vanilla and Sugar!  Sure, you have to separate the eggs and whip them up so they are light and airy, but even that was easier than I ever expected. 

"Black Cat" Cookies 2

I still had a lot of baking coco and flour around, so I decided to remake the chocolate cookies I made last Halloween.

My notes from the first time I made this dish.

I made a few adjustments to the recipes. I used 1 cup 50% splendor + 1 cup sugar, and substituted 1 cup Crisco for the cup of butter.

The dry ingredients, unmixed and mixed.

The dough turned out super crumbly. I wondered if I added 4 cups of flour instead of 3... but the cookies came out so well in the end that I don't think it was a problem if I did.

The dough.

The balls of dough - before pressing

The balls of dough - after pressing with a glass dipped in sugar.

Chocolate Mice

My Sister-in-Law is a great cook, but she is famous for her chocolate mice. The first few Christmases that I spent with my Husband's family included assembly lines where we would create armies of these mice. Somehow, with my SIL in charge, all of the mice looked perfect... but the year that she couldn't make it to Christmas... We ended up having some mutations occur. Can you find the mice that are, well, less that perfect?

Maraschino cherries dipped in chocolate with a Hershey kiss head, almond sliver ears and icing eyes.

Keith's Defense Cake

I wanted to make a fun cake for Keith, and we had a ton of cake mixes at home. I decided to mix Party rainbow Chip and Triple Chocolate Fudge cake mixes to create a CRAZY marbled cake.

The cake mixes for this epic cake

To create the marbled layers, I slowly poured the "white" cake batter out of the mixing bowl on top of the chocolate batter. This will spread pretty evenly on its own. I did some small twists and mixes to combined the layers a bit, and then pulled the spoon through side to side. And this is my marble cake batter.

The chocolate cake layer and then the white funfetti layer on top of it


After the marbling

Now this is a double cake batch, so I expected it to take around an hour to bake. The toothpick came out clean after 40 minutes, around the time that you would expect for a box cake anyway! The pan I used is the largest that I own, at 10.5"x15".

The cake after it was baked.

For Sarah and Marie's graduation cakes, we drew molecules, something that I'm experienced with drawing (I'll share those cakes at a later date). For Keith's cake I decided that it was prudent to first practice on a piece of paper to get the layout the way I wanted it to be. I took pictures of each step along the decoration because I wanted to have a good image of it for Keith in case I messed some of it up. I was amazed how adding a simple black border cleaned up the edge a lot and made the whole cake look very professional.

I am so proud of you, Keith! Congratulations!

8x-stuffed Oreo

We all know about double stuffed oreos, and how awesome the filling is. But have you ever combined two double stuffed oreos to make a 4x oreo? I present to you... an 8X-stuffed oreo! (Created by Keith.)

Oreo Cheesecake

I love to make Oreo Cheesecake. Over the years I have adapted my recipe until I ended up with something that is almost foolproof. I am going to share this recipe with you today!

Ingredients

• 2 packages of oreos (one double stuffed, one fat free)
• 1.5 lbs cream cheese at room temperature (I will use 1 package of regular and 2 fat free)
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 5 large eggs, room temperature
• 1 cup sour cream, room temperature
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/4 cup all purpose flour
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 T butter, melted
  

Instructions for the Crust

• Separate the fat free oreos and scrape out the filling (save the filling to go inside the cheese cake.)
• Crush the cookies until you have ~1 cup crumbs, mix with melted butter and press into the bottom of the spring form pan.
  
• Take double stuffed oreos and line the outside edge of the pan (these will be the sides of the cheesecake.
  

Instructions for the Filling

• Preheat oven to 325 degrees F
  
• With an electric mixer, beat cream cheese until light and fluffy, and add eggs, sugar, vanilla and Oreo filling that you saved from the crust.
• Stir in sour cream and flour.
  
• Add some whole oreos when you're mixing, these will get crushed and turn the cheesecake filling the color of Oreo ice cream.
• Chop some more cookies (5-8 depending on your preference) and carefully stir into the mixture.
• pour into springform pan. Place some double stuffed oreos on the top of the cheesecake.
• Bake in the top rack for 75 min (at 325 degrees F)
• When it is done baking, crack open the oven door and allow it to cool slowly.
• Refrigerate until ready to serve.
  

My Birthday Cocktail Parties

I love to host cocktail parties on my birthday. I find it only fitting to celebrate my half birthday by sharing pictures of highlights from past parties.

For the longest time, the only cookie cutters I owned were heart shaped. This meant that I created a lot of Valentine's Day cookies for every occasion!


The only layer cake pans I owned were also Heat Shape. Keith is the king of making layer cakes.

Can you have a fancy cocktail party without chocolate covered strawberries?

I made chocolate covered peanut butter eyeballs last Halloween and they were a hit. I made simple chocolate covered for the holiday party.

Sometimes store bought cookies (in this case macaroons) make it into the mix.

Peanut butter kisses, banana bread, mocha chocolate crinkle cookies and my grandmother's famous pinwheel cookies.

After I covered all of the strawberries, I used the remaining chocolate to cover some pretzels.

I've shown you the sweet, here is some savory.

I'm going to end with something that wasn't part of the cocktail party, exactly. Keith made me a chocolate souffle for my birthday while I prepped for the party!

Cranberry Muffins

Last fall, I received some cranberries with my organic vegetable delivery. I didn't know what I wanted to make, so I placed them in the freezer until I had an idea.

I decided that I wanted to try to make muffins with items that I had in my fridge. I searched for recipes, and then ended up taking components from each to combine them into the recipe that I'm sharing with you today. The recipe makes ~20 medium sized muffins.

I'd never seen the inside of a fresh cranberry before. Wow they are sour! And I double checked, cranberry seeds are edible, and there are no pits in them, either!

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup butter (salted)
  
• 1/4 cup apple sauce
  
• 1/2 cup Splenda Sugar Blend for Baking
  
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
  
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup non-fat yogurt
• 1/2 cup orange juice
  
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
• 1 cup chopped fresh or frozen cranberries (8 oz bag) ~2 cups whole. some finely chopped, others just cut in half
  
  
  

Instructions

• Cream butter, sugar, and apple sauce, eggs and vanilla. Stir in yogurt
  
• Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda and spices and slowly stir into the wet mixture.
  
• Stir in cranberries
  
• grease muffin pan and pour batter in until the cups are half full.
  
• Bake at 350 degrees C for 20-25 min until muffins are done.
  

These muffins are SUPER moist, but this shouldn't be a surprise because of all of the wet ingredients that went into them (I think I should have left out the OJ). Maybe next time I should add some more flour... I will be back to tweak this recipe some more in the future.

Cookie Press Shapes

Earlier today I shared with you my first experience with a cookie press. In this post, I am going to share the shapes of the disks from the Crate and Barrel Cookie Press. Other cookie presses contain similar shapes, so this could be a handy reference for other presses.

Some of my friends thought these looked like trilobites.


This is the one shape I cannot really figure out. The shape is too small to make a nice shape, the tiny stars are cute, but too much dough comes out in one click to make them.


Christmas Tree Cookie Press Shape


This shape would look really cool decorated with frosting.


When baked, my friends think that turned to the side, the pumpkin shape could also resemble Santa.


I didn't expect this shape to create a heart, but I love what came out of it!


Is this supposed to be a 4 leaf clover?


I'm not a huge fan of the candy cane shape, I think that too much dough comes out in a click to create a good shape. I would just roll candy canes by hand.


The best shape for filling with jam.


This flower shape is super pretty. If you added a face it could look like a lion


I love this shape, although the size of it does seem to vary a bit each time. I need more practice before I get a good consistent shape.


Another flower shape


I don't know what this shape is supposed to portray, but the design is super cool


Another flower shape. In baking it will fuse together.