Earlier in the year I had a craving for brownies and wanted to make them on my own. Well they didn’t turn out too good, or too bad, they just…were a brownie I guess. It wasn’t anything to write home about but hey, I made them.

This time I decided to look for a richer brownie. After some research I found out there are so many different types of brownies! Ok well not that many. They generally can be broken down into three types: cake, fudgy, and chewy.

I found one brownie recipe that I can’t really remember for the life of me where I found it, but I decided to try it. There was lots of chocolate, butter, and some brown sugar. Now THAT sounds like a winner to me. It didn’t say what type of brownie it was, but it sounded pretty darn tasty from the description.

And they were darn tasty!

They turned out pretty good. A little on the drier and cakey side but pretty darn tasty.

This recipe isn’t for the feint of heart. It really is incredibly rich. You know that flavor and thirst you get when you get finished with your hot fudge sundae and all that’s left in the bottom of your bowl is a huge scoop of hot, rich, chewy fudge and you can’t do anything else in that moment but take that huge bite of fudge all on its own? The wonder. The decadence. The overwhelming urge to down a gallon of milk…

That’s exactly what these brownies tasted like. Almost too rich to eat on their own.

So of course the best way to eat them is warmed up, with a whole lot of ice cream.

No fudge required. It’s built in.

I think I will try to make the recipe into more of a chewy brownie next time, so some research will have to be done on what needs to be adjusted to create that perfect brownie texture.

Rich Cake-Style Brownies
Makes enough to fit an 8″x8″ pan

• 1/2 cup butter
• 6 oz semi sweet chocolate chips
• 2 oz unsweetened baking chocolate
• 3 eggs
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup flour
• 1/4 cup dutch process cocoa powder
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 tsp salt

1. Preheat oven to 325F.
2. Butter and flour the baking pan.
3. Melt chocolate and butter together using the double boiler method over low heat. Set aside to cool.
4. Beat the eggs until they are foamy and lemon colored, add sugar and continue beating until the mixture thickens.
5. Slowly add the chocolate and butter mixture to the egg mixture, mixing until completely incorporated.
6. Whisk together the flour, salt and cocoa powder before adding to the wet ingredients. The batter will be very thick.
7. Pour the batter into the floured pan and smooth the mixture evenly into the pan.
8. Bake for 30-40 minutes or until a tooth pick comes out with a few crumbs when checked.
9. Allow to cool before slicing.

I loathe the heat of summer. Why can’t it just be WARM and not BOILING outside? My poor fair skin needs to hide from the sun and avoid it unless wearing a strong SPF.

But the heat is also the BEST time to make the ice cream. Home made ice cream. Minty fresh ice cream with bits of lovely dark chocolate nestled through it.

Now THAT is summer.

I never was a huge fan of this stuff until this batch. I backed off just a little on the mint, so it was just enough to make it a nice smooth, creamy and refreshing mint.

You don’t have to add the food coloring to make it the green color, but that is how my Husband remembers it, and that’s how its supposed to be. At least according to him. It also helps me remember what ice cream it is if I forgot to label it.

I have issues eating green things other than vegetables. Green salsa scares me, I won’t eat avocados, Mountain Dew is unnatural and split pea soup is something evil. I’m trying to get over the dislike of green mushy stuff, but I’ll just have to deal with the ice cream.

I also believe one reason I love this batch of ice cream is because of the type of chocolate I used. Since discovering the bulk foods area in one of the local stores, I found huge pieces of dark chocolate. It’s not the best chocolate but its pretty damn good. Instead of using formed chips this time I wanted something that felt a little more rustic, something inconsistent in size so that as your going through a scoop you might find a nice hunk of chocolate to munch on.

The ice cream maker I use is the attachment for my KitchenAid and it really works really well. The consistency coming out of the bowl is always like extremely soft serve, but it tends to harden up just fine in the freezer for a few hours. One positive thing about the consistency is how easy it is to stir in whatever else you want to add in.

And then the hard part comes… Waiting for it to freeze up enough to scoop and not just eat with a straw. But when that time comes, its beautiful!

And that bite is exactly why I love using roughly chopped chocolate in my ice cream. I’ve also noticed while eating this over the last few days is that it melts really quickly. I’m not quite sure why it would, possibly using too much cream? Or maybe its because it doesn’t get really firm in the ice cream maker? I’m not the “know-all” of ice cream so I don’t know how to make it like store bought but I like it just the same. Just eat quickly!

Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream

• 1 1/2 cups heavy cream
• 1/2 cup milk (I used 2%, what i had on hand)
• 1 can sweetened condensed milk
• 1/2 teaspoon pure mint extract
• 1 pinch of salt
• 6-8 drops of green food coloring (optional)
• 1/4-1/2 cup chopped dark chocolate (or chips)

1. Add the cream, milk, condensed milk, and salt to a pot and heat until everything is smooth and incorporated. Remove from heat and let sit for 15 minutes.
2. Add the mint and food coloring.
3. When almost cooled, stick the mixture in the fridge for at least 3 hours, or until cold.
4. Add to the ice maker per manufacturers instructions.
5. When the mixture is at a soft serve consistancy, stir in the chocolate until fully incorporated.
6. Transfer the mixture to a freezer safe container and press a piece of plastic over the top of the ice cream. This prevents a leathery top from forming and helps to keep it fresh.
7. Freeze for at least 4 hours before serving.

Thats right. Dark chocolate salted caramel cupcakes. Have you ever heard of anything that just makes your insides just start dancing, anticipating the sugar high that is about to ensue? This causes it.

This was an experiment in all things I haven’t made before. Salted caramel, chocolate frosting, and home made cup cakes. The difference between a scratch cupcake and a box cupcake is really quite different. The box is very sweet, almost falling apart while these were a little bit denser and not nearly as sweet. But then again the lack of sweetness in the cake itself was good since all the caramel and frosting.

I got the recipe that my partner and crime used from Martha’s new cookbook on cupcakes. I’ve been teased by this book for a few weeks and finally decided it had to be done. Luckily I had help and we made awesome stuff.

The big thing that stood out for me with this recipe was the fact that they were filled with caramel. And not just any caramel, but home made, salted caramel. The salt adds this little extra flavor and truly brings out the flavor in sweet desserts, it makes it just taste awesome. Every dessert should have salt in it in my opinion, as long as its used correctly.

To get the caramel in the little bites of cake you have to cut a little bit out of the center and then drizzle the hot caramel into them. As you can see by the dripping we got a little careless. Plus it was a little difficult to get it in there since as it cooled it got thicker and stringier.

I also used a piping bag for the first time for the frosting. In the beginning it was a little difficult to get it going, and I had to figure out how much pressure to use to get it to look somewhat decent. But I think I started getting it near the end. The recipe made about 60, so I had a bit of time to practice!

Everything had a pretty good flavor, but I don’t think I would be making these all the time. Besides the fact that I can only have 2 at a time before its too much sugar for me.

I do have to admit though, caramel filled cupcakes are quite impressive. That lovely explosion of chewy caramel surprise was really worth it to try the recipe.

I need to find my ‘go to’ cupcake recipe. This one I’m not posting because of possible copyright issues and it really wouldn’t go into my personal recipe book, its impressive but just not…THAT good.

I got this idea from the peppermint bark that Williams Sonoma sells around Christmas. It’s horribly expensive but so easy to make. I ended up showing a friend how to make it last year and the husband has been bugging me for it ever since. There’s now 2 pounds of bark in the cupboard for him, so he wont complain any longer.

I started with a pound of each semi-sweet chocolate chips and white chocolate chips. Did you know that white chocolate chips are not actually chocolate? Its made from cocoa butter and milk solids usually flavored with vanilla. Interesting tidbit there. Also some peppermint candies, a good handful or so.

I always start by melting the white chocolate first. I like to put the white chocolate on the bottom to keep it nice and smooth, plus its not as easy to spread as semi-sweet. You could always go for the marbled look, so then it doesn’t really matter what order you melt them in. I just happen to like the two toned look.

Once its all nice and smooth, remove the bowl from the heat and set aside to let it cool. Then its on to the candies.

Unwrap the candies and put them in a plastic bag. You want to beat them with something like a rolling pin, hammer, or meat mallet (like me). The towel just helps me to not break the bag as easily on the bottom and the cutting board is just so I don’t damage the counter top when I miss.

Now go ahead and make some noise… Get that aggression out.

You want to end up with some fine powdery bits as well as some chunks. Make sure the chunks aren’t too big or you might hurt a tooth biting into it.

Empty the bag of broken candy into a sifter and sift out the powdery bits. You want to keep both sizes separate since they have different places they are going to go.

Now we get to the good stuff.

Mix the candy powder into the white chocolate, stirring until completely incorporated. The chocolate should be nice and smooth still but much cooler. I like adding the powder to the white chocolate not only for mint flavor but also for the color. It looks awesome having little colorful specs in the milky white.

Now you need to spread the white chocolate onto a cookie sheet.
I like using a 10″ x 15″ cookie sheet for this, that way it’s not too thick or thin. Try to get it as even as possible. At least I try to get it as even as possible. That’s just because I’m crazy.

I still think having a marble look to it would be awesome to try. That way you don’t have to be neat!

Now set the pan aside and let it harden, it shouldn’t take too long since it was already mostly cooled. Once the white chocolate has hardened, start melting the rest of the chocolate in the same way.

There is a point during the melting process that you have to watch out for. It’s called the “husband wants chocolate” side effect. By this time, the yummy smell of the chocolate has started going through the rest of the house, tempting him to come out of hiding and try to stick a spoon or pretzels in the melted chocolate.

Banish him to the other room until it’s done. Trust me.

After the chocolate has melted, quickly and gently spread it evenly over the white chocolate. If you work gently enough you wont have any streaks in your chocolate.

Add the larger chunks of peppermint from earlier onto the top of the chocolate. Try to spread it evenly around so that every bite will have a nice amount of mint in it.

Let it sit and harden in a cool place for about an hour or so, or stick it in the fridge for a few minutes to help it harden up quicker.

When it is finally hard, twist the pan slightly (I have cheap pans so they warp and bend easily), hopefully your chocolate will dislodge and you can flip it out of the pan. Break it into smaller pieces like you would peanut brittle and store in an air tight container.

Yum!

Now the husband will be happy.

Does that make me less of a woman?

When looking at a dessert or something sweet, I never really went for the chocolate. Sure there was the required Snickers bar in the morning during high school for about a month, or the Peanut Butter Cup that has been warmed in the window on a hot summer day and melted to the point where you have to lick it out of the cup. But beyond that not really a chocolate person.

I went on a chocolate kick a few months ago. I had to have good quality dark chocolate every day after lunch at work. To me, it was a strange habit. To my coworker who has a “chocolate emergency kit” in her desk, not so much.

I’m pretty much over my chocolate cravings. Except for one thing. Hot Fudge Sauce on ice cream.

I guess I’m a bit of a chocolate snob since I only want the best tasting chocolate, so not any store bought will do. After making the ice cream sandwiches and dipping them in chocolate, we had a LOT of chocolate left over and I tried making a sauce from it. I think though I only was able to make it into more of a ganache. While tasty, it just wasn’t what I wanted.

Then comes Smitten Kitchen. I found her site… somehow. I was probably link jumping among the other cooking blogs I look at and found her.

But I love her.

Why do I love her? Not only is she a great story teller, a fantastic photographer, a great cook and just darn cute?

She makes hot fudge sauce from scratch! Be still my beating heart. I drooled over her pictures for days, then got distracted but some other shiny object and forgot about it.

Then a few days ago at the store I knew there was a reason for me to get unsweetened chocolate, but I couldn’t for the life of me remember what it was. I bought it anyways and left it sitting on the counter for a day. Then it came to me. HOT FUDGE SAUCE! I knew I had to do it.

And I did. It was the greatest thing to have the smell of the dark chocolate going through the house. It was also rather weird because I was also in the middle of making sour cream enchiladas at the same time. Enchiladas and dark chocolate. Weird.

It turned out fantastic. Dark, fudgy, chewy when it hit the ice cream, a little on the bitter side, and made my heart squeal with joy. It was also great just eating the stuff out of the pot. It’s also glorious to have a small spoonful out of the jar in the fridge (and yes I had a small bite before I made breakfast this morning.)

Normally I would re-type the recipe and show any changes I made to it. However, I didn’t make any changes and I respect Smitten Kitchen a whole lots (plus shes awesome) so I’m not going to re-post it. You can get to her recipe for it here. What can I say, I respect the sauce.

Make your own ice cream sandwiches!

I’m on a mission to do “Pantry Buster” type of cooking lately, and use things that are in the pantry rather than something new and exciting that needs all sorts of new ingredients that I have to stock up on.

I’ve wanted to do home made ice cream sandwiches for a while since I’ve been craving a delicious Its-It sandwich. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to find them here since we moved, so I decided to make them with the help of my lovely assistant and friend who came over.

An Its-It is a large ice cream sandwich made of two oatmeal cookies, filled with vanilla ice cream, and covered in a layer of chocolate. Who couldn’t love that! I mean seriously. But since I can’t find them, I wanted to make them. And if I did I wouldn’t want to spend the money, AND they are huge. Seriously huge. I believe you need two hands to properly eat it. My version is much smaller

I had never made oatmeal cookies before, so I didn’t have a good recipe to go off of. After several hours looking for recipes online, and in my cook books, I decided to use the one I found in my Joy of Cooking book that had a pretty basic recipe for an oatmeal cookie. By basic I mean there were no spices at all, except salt, in the cookies. I needed something spicy and wonderful to go with the vanilla and chocolate.

With a few additions in spices, the cookies turned out GREAT! Spicy and surprisingly gingery, I think these will be a must have in my kitchen even if I don’t make them with ice cream. When we made these, we only covered half of them in chocolate, and I find the ones without chocolate a little better. I must be over my chocolate craving phase.

Spicy Oatmeal Ice Cream Sandwiches
Made 15 sandwiches

• 1/2 cup butter (softened)
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 tablespoon milk
• 1 cup all-purpose flour (sifted)
• ½ teaspoon baking soda
• ½ teaspoon baking powder
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 1 cup quick rolled oats (or half old-fashioned and half quick)
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
• Vanilla ice cream
• 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

For the cookies:

1. Preheat oven to 350F. Cream together sugar and butter until slightly fluffy and well incorporated.
2. Add the egg, vanilla and milk. Beat until smooth.
3. Sift together the flour, salt, baking soda, and baking powder into the bowl and mix until combined.
4. Add the oats and spices, and mix.
5. Drop cookies by using a cookie scoop or by roughly a tablespoon sized each onto parchment lined baking sheet.
6. Bake for 10-12 minutes, until cookies are lightly browned.

For The Sandwichs

1. Let the cookies cool until they are room temperature. Let the ice cream sit out for about 10 minutes before assembling the cookies.
2. When the ice cream has softened, spoon a good amount of ice cream onto a cookie, the ice cream should be between 3/4”-1” thick. Squish the ice cream flat with another cookie to complete the sandwich.
3. Sandwiches can be eaten immediately if desired. To add chocolate, sandwiches should first harden in the freezer for at least 30 minutes.
4. After freezing sandwiches, start melting chocolate using the double boiler method until chocolate is completely melted.
5. Take frozen sandwiches from the freezer and work quickly to apply chocolate to the tops and sides by spooning over, dipping, or covering in any method desired.
6. When sandwiches are covered, re-freeze for another 20-30 minutes or until hard again.

What can I say? I’m just a sucker for a pretty face.

So he puts in my head something tasty. Brownies. Sometimes it is posed as a curiosity, like “What do you make brownies from that don’t come in a box?” For someone who never bakes I guess that can be a pretty common question. Most people now only know how to bake from a box. Add water and go! Yeah, not me as much anymore.

I went through my pile of cookbooks looking for a good brownie recipe. You wouldn’t believe how many different ones I had to choose from. Some books had 2-3 recipes! Most had things like nuts added to them, but I omitted those (allergy).

I finally decided on a recipe from a cookbook that was actually given to me by my husbands Grandma. She seems to have adopted me and likes giving me her cookbooks, but I think she’s just happy I’m not crazy and I keep the husband happy.

I took the recipe from Better Homes and Gardens new Cook Book circa 1953.

The recipe is wonderfully basic. I did do my own thing like normal and slightly alter the recipe. It called for 2 oz. of unsweetened chocolate, which I didn’t have. So instead I used 3 oz. semi-sweet chips, 2 teaspoons unsweetened cocoa powder, and left out 1/4 cup of sugar.

The great thing about this recipe is that it’s basic and not too complicated. The bad thing is that it might just be TOO basic. I found them to be quite sweet even though I cut down the sugar. I think it is a good jumping off point, but unless you want a really sweet brownie you definitely have to cut down the sugar even farther, probably to a 1/2 cup. They just were not what I was wanting at the moment, I wanted something dark and fudgy. Oh well, I have lots more to try!

Brownies
Makes 12

• 2 one ounce squares unsweetened chocolate
• ½ cup butter
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• ½ cup sifted flour

1. Preheat oven to 325F
2. Melt chocolate over hot water (double boiler).
3. Meanwhile, cream together sugar and butter. Add eggs and beat until combined.
4. Blend in remaining ingredients and pour into greased pan 8x8x2” pan.
5. Bake for 35 minutes.

Last week I ran out of flour. No really, I actually forgot to buy myself some flour. I was at a loss all week because I wanted to bake something. I don’t know that I would have baked something but since there was no flour, I REALLY wanted to bake. I was going through withdrawals of having my flour container full.

I am such a freak.

So all last week I was looking for something fun to bake without flour. I came across the recipe for a flourless chocolate cake! How ingenious. No flour, lots of chocolate, I did a happy dance.

I didn’t get around to making it until this past weekend because of sheer laziness. Everything seems to feel more of a chore lately, so I just didn’t feel like cleaning the kitchen after cooking.

The texture of the “cake” is not cake-like at all, but more of a mix between a truffle, brownie and fudge. It’s very silky and creamy, not spongy like a cake. It is truly a decadent dessert.

They say that you should use the best quality chocolate when making something that will have that as the main flavor. While that’s true and could have an impact on the final product, I just used semi-sweet chocolate chips from the grocery store.

The recipe is just simple ingredients, definitely not low fat by any means, but you only have tiny small pieces. It’s just that rich. Even our resident chocoholic (Husband) had to eat it slowly and only a small piece. I think it would be lovely with some fresh strawberries to go with it.

Holy crap its good, go try it.

Flourless Chocolate Cake
Serves 12 at least

Ingredients

• 1 pound semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 1 cup unsalted butter (2 sticks)
• 6 large eggs

Directions

1. Using an 8” pan, butter the sides and bottom. Line the bottom with parchment paper and set aside. (If using a springform pan, wrap the outside in 2 layers of heavy foil to avoid seeping). Use another 10” or so roasting or baking pan for the water bath later.
2. Preheat the oven to 425F.
3. Using the double boiler method, melt the chocolate and butter over hot but not simmering water. Stir occasionally until fully melted. Set aside.
4. Using the double boiler method again, whisk the eggs constantly over hot but not simmering water until just warm to the touch. Remove eggs from heat and beat using a whisk or electric mixer until soft peaks form when the beater is removed and eggs are almost cool. Eggs should triple in size.
5. Using a rubber spatula, fold half of the eggs into the chocolate mixture until almost incorporated. Fold in remaining eggs until just combined and no streaks remain.
6. Pour into prepared pan and smooth with spatula. In 10” pan, add 1/2 inch of hot water. Place the cake into the hot water carefully, without getting water inside the cake. If there is too much water, remove cake and pour out some water. Water should come 1” up the side of the cake pan.
7. Bake for 5 minutes, then cover loosely with a piece of foil tented over the top of the cake and cook an additional 10 minutes. Remove pan from water bath and let rest on a wire rack for 45 minutes.
8. Once cooled, cover with plastic and put the pan in the fridge until very firm, about 3 hours.
9. To unmold from pan wipe the outside of the pan with a hot and damp towel. Carefully run a knife around the edges to release the sides. Invert pan onto a serving plate. Lay the hot towel on the bottom of the pan to help release the cake from the pan.
10. Serve at room temperature, dusted with powdered sugar (optional).