Happy Pi Day! As a Mathlete alum, Pi Day has always been a part of my nerdy math world. And what better way to celebrate than to make a pie?
I have some other pie recipes on here, but I have had a hankering for peanut butter lately, so I am celebrating this year with a Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie. This is a FoodNetwork.com recipe but I decided to make my own crust (you are more than welcome to just buy one – use a 9-inch pie crust).
Ingredients:
Pie Crust:
1 package oreos
4 tablespoons butter, melted
Hot Fudge Sauce:
1/3 cup heavy cream
1/4 cup light brown sugar
1/4 cup light corn syrup
2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
1/8 teaspoon table salt
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3.5 ounces milk chocolate, finely chopped
Peanut Butter Pie:
8 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
3/4 cup confectioners’ sugar, plus 2 tablespoons, divided
I’m so ready for spring. I’m sick of the cold and wind, although we didn’t have any snow this year. So I am going to force spring upon you in the hope of it pushing the warmer months up a little bit. When I think of spring, I always think of Strawberries. And what better way to show off strawberries than in Strawberry Shortcake, or more specifically, in Strawberry Shortcake Cupcakes? I decided to make them in cupcake form because, well, I like cupcakes. I used a Martha Stewart recipe for angel food cake to make the cupcake, filled the inside of the cupcake with a strawberry-sugar mixture, and topped it off with a strawberry whipped cream icing. These are pretty delicious if I do say so myself! Ingredients: Angel Food Cake Cupcakes:
1 cup cake flour (spooned and leveled)
1/4 teaspoon salt
12 large egg whites, room temperature
4 teaspoons lemon juice and zest from 1 lemon, divided
1 1/4 cups sugar
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
Strawberry filling:
3/4 container of strawberries, hulled and chopped
2 tablespoons sugar
Strawberry whipped cream:
1 8-oz container cream cheese
3/4 cup white sugar
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
lemon zest from lemon used in angel food cake
2 cups heavy cream
4-5 strawberries, stems removed and finely chopped
I like any excuse to brag about Philadelphia. I can’t help it, I’m proud of where I live. So I get even more excited when the bragging involves food. Recently, National Geographic named Teuscher Chocolates the Best Chocolate in the World. Teuscher hails from Zurich, Switzerland but we have our very own store here in Philadelphia.
Philadelphia actually has quite a chocolate history, we even used to have a Confectioner’s Row (N 3rd St in Old City in case you’re interested). Wilber Chocolate, Whittman’s, and even Hershey’s got their start in the Philadelphia confectionery scene. And many brands continue that tradition to this day, including Teuscher, located in the Bellevue.
To celebrate being the Best Chocolate in the World, Teuscher Philadelphia contacted a few of us local bloggers and offered to let us sample some of their chocolates. Honestly, who’s going to say no to that?!
You may have seen some of my Instagram photos about their chocolates. Every piece seemed to be better than the last. I was hoarding them, eating one a day, until they sadly were all gone. The house specialty is not to be missed: the Classic Champagne Truffle. Made with dark chocolate ganache coated in milk chocolate with some Dom Perginon champagne creme, these are little bites of happiness and luxury. They even have Dark Chocolate Champagne Truffles! But their other choices really hold their own. The Chocolate Citrus Peels were amazing, but my ultimate favorite was the fleur de sel caramel. I cannot even put into words how good it was!
If that wasn’t enough to make me giddy, I also walked away with a bar of Teuscher’s Chocolate 99, a 99% chocolate bar that is somehow not overly bitter, perfect for baking. The chocolate has no chemicals, additives, or preservatives either.
To show off this beautiful chocolate, I decided to make Chocolate Lava Cakes, which are super easy to make and would impress any Valentine (hint hint). And because chocolate makes me feel oh so warm and fuzzy inside, I wanted to share some of this chocolatey goodness with one lucky reader! I am giving away an assorted box of Teuscher Chocolates! (More below)
I am a huge fan of coffee and coffee-related foods, so tiramisu is obviously a favorite of mine. When the concept of Tiramisu Brownies was mentioned, I was immediately excited. What a fantastic combination of desserts!
Barista Prima Coffeehouse® K-Cup® (paid link) packs are four dark, rich coffee blends that really deliver an intense flavor that are more bold and robust than other K-Cup offerings. The four flavors offered are: Colombia, House Blend, Italian Roast, and French Roast. I’ve had a Keurig for years now (I just had to retire my original Keurig and buy a replacement, sniffle) and am always really pleased with the coffee choices that can be found in K-Cup form. I tend to use coffee grounds in a bunch of recipes, especially ones that use chocolate, to really up the flavor.
Barista Prima was nice enough to send me a box of their House Blend K-Cups so I naturally wanted to make a dish that used these delicious grounds as well as a dessert that would be perfect paired with a cup of House Blend coffee. Many thanks to Barista Prima for also sending me this mouthwatering recipe!
Ingredients:
12 oz. chocolate chips
1 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
4 whole eggs
4 egg whites
1 cup cake flour (or normal flour if you can’t find it)
Last year, I made sugar cookies and attempted to decorate them myself (attempted being the key word). I may be getting better at cooking, but my decorating skills are still really sub par. I didn’t want to give away funny looking cookies again this year but wanted to still make sugar cookies. Cooking Light’s Chai Eggnog Sugar Cookies were the perfect choice. Plus, these cookies are really quick to whip up because you can absolutely use sugar cookie mix!
Ingredients:
1 chai tea bag
1 (17.5-oz.) package sugar cookie mix
1/2 cup melted butter
1 large egg
4 tablespoons eggnog, divided
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
Note: These cookies are non-alcoholic so they are fine for all ages of cookie lovers.
Bark is one of my favorite holiday treats to make. Why? Because it is so darn simple. And people LOVE it. It is basically melted chocolate with some other deliciousness thrown in. Candy, pretzels, nuts.. whatever makes you happy. I wanted to make some bark to supplement my cookies this year and found this fantastic recipe from Baked Bree. Bree included some Rice Krispies cereal in between the layers to add a little bit of extra crunch to the bark, brilliant! The red and green M&Ms and candy canes make this the perfect holiday treat.
Just because Thanksgiving has passed doesn’t mean I can continue to deliver pumpkin-y goodness on this blog. This recipe for Chocolate Pumpkin Pie was featured on The Chew and I just loved the idea of it but wanted to make it a little bit my own, so instead I went with Chocolate Swirled Pumpkin Pies.
I didn’t want the pumpkin flavor to be lost in the chocolate so I decided to swirl a bit in at the end. And, because I’m apparently on a mini kick, I went with mini Chocolate Swirled Pumpkin Pies!
Ingredients:
3 oz Semisweet Chocolate Chips
2 tablespoons Unsalted Butter (cut into small pieces)
Each year, my mom makes a beautiful trifle for Christmas. I’m pretty sure at one point, she was only making one, but as the popularity of her trifle grew, she is now up to making 6+ for different holiday events, friends, and family. My sister and I grew up begrudgingly helping my mom make these trifles but we both have grown to love them and look forward to a bite of trifle every December.
A trifle is just a layered dessert that is usually made with cake pieces, cream, pudding, and fruit. My mom tops her with a beautiful design of fruit: kiwi, peaches and raspberries. I wanted to make some trifle to share with this blog but a normal trifle can serve a whole family, so I made a mini version! To prepare a regular trifle, the process is just the same.
I highlighted Driscoll’s Berries in my trifle. I absolutely love their raspberries and blackberries so I wanted to have a higher ratio of berries in my trifle than may normally be used. Driscoll’s also sells really beautiful Strawberries and Blueberries that I have used in many many of my previous posts. Berries always add such beautiful color and flavor to a dish!
Note: Driscoll’s sent me coupons for free berries to make this recipe; my opinions are my own.
This year, I participated in the Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap.The Cookie Swap is in its second year and helps raise money for Cookies for Kids’ Cancer, a national non-profit organization committed to funding new therapies used in the fight against pediatric cancer, which claims the lives of more children in the US than any other disease. I was assigned three food bloggers and made one dozen cookies for each of them. In return, I received three different boxes of cookies from other bloggers.
I wanted to make a cookie that was a spin on a traditional cookie. This Cooking Light recipe was perfect: Oatmeal, Chocolate Chip, AND Pecans!
I wanted to make another batch of the Applejack Spiked Hot Cider but *gasp* I couldn’t find any apple cider anywhere! There must have been a Thanksgiving rush, but I wanted some darn Apple Cider. But then I remembered I bought a Babycakes Cake Pop Maker (paid link) and figured I could at least make Apple Cinnamon Donut Holes as a sweet apple-y substitute. (Because I couldn’t find apple cider, I substituted apple juice)
Every Christmas, my mom makes an absolutely delicious trifle to give to neighbors and have for dessert on Christmas day. This trifle is so ingrained in our winter holidays that I’m pretty sure we aren’t allowed to show up to my aunt and uncle’s house without the trifle in hand. I’ve always loved the simplicity of trifles and wanted to try out a version using my favorite ingredient: pumpkin!
I was given the opportunity to enter a contest with nine other bloggers. The challenge is to use Walkers Shortbread products to make a new dessert, and luckily one of the categories was trifle! It was a sign!
My mom’s trifle has custard, chocolate pudding, and rum-soaked pound cake slices with whipped cream and fruit on top. So I wanted to keep the general concept the same with my recipe. I decided to keep the chocolate pudding because, well, who doesn’t love chocolate pudding? A thought a pumpkin mousse would just be fantastic. I decided to make it a bourbon pumpkin mousse to add an extra layer of flavor. And of course instead of pound cake slices, I used Walkers’ Stem Ginger Biscuits and Pure Butter Shortbread. The trifle is topped off with whipped topping, pecan pieces, and a some more Walker’s cookie crumbs.
Ingredients:
1 box Walker’s Stem Ginger Biscuits
1 box Pure Butter Shortbread
3 cups milk
2 packages instant chocolate pudding
1 (15 oz) can pumpkin puree
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ginger
1/8 teaspoon allspice
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
8 ounces (1 package) cream cheese
1/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
2 cups whipping cream
2 ounces bourbon (can omit if you’d like)
1/4 cup sugar
1 container whipped topping
1/4 cup pecans, roughly chopped
Begin by preparing your ingredients. Thaw your whipping cream. Roughly chop the pecans and set aside. Crush the biscuits and shortbread in separate ziploc bags, using a rolling pin.
Take one tablespoon of the stem ginger biscuit crumbs and set aside. Combine the remaining biscuit crumbs with the shortbread crumbs.
Prepare your chocolate pudding. Combine the two packs of instant pudding mix with three cups milk.
Mix for two minutes with a whisk. Refrigerate until ready to use.
In a large bowl, combine 1 can pumpkin puree, the spices, vanilla extract, cream cheese, and brown sugar using a hand mixer.
In a separate bowl, make whipped cream. Add two cups heavy whipping cream, 2 ounces bourbon, and 1/4 cup sugar and whip on high speed until soft peaks form (about 3 minutes).
Fold the whipped cream into the pumpkin mixture. Refrigerate until ready to use.
Time to assemble! These are photos from my test batch so take note that I might be pointing out what I changed in comparison to the photo. Oh the joy of recipe development. You’ll need a clear bowl to get the full effect of the trifle.
Arrange a layer of cookie crumbs at the bottom of a glass or plastic (see through) bowl. You want to be able to see it coming up the edges. (I initially added melted butter to form more of a crust. But that made the crumbs super sticky, so leave that out)
Add a layer of chocolate pudding next. I attempted to put the pumpkin mousse first, which was silly. The pudding is much heavier than the pumpkin mousse and sank into it. So go pudding, pressing it against the sides of the bowl, and then put the pumpkin mousse on top.
Continue this process until the bowl is filled. (Crumbs, pudding, mousse). I made a mini version so it didn’t take much to fill mine up. Top with the whipped topping.
Rim the bowl with crushed pecans.
Sprinkle with the reserved ginger biscuits. I’d suggest refrigerating for a few hours to let the flavors meld together. You can also make it mostly ahead of time and just assemble a few hours before eating.
You clearly don’t have to have a steady hand to make these still look cool, although I do wish mine was a bit more uniform layer-wise. Ah well.
They are also easy to assemble as individual servings.
The flavors of this are rocking. Pumpkin, chocolate, gingerbread, and pecans were just made for each other. This is perfect for Thanksgiving, especially because it can be made ahead of time!
I will be entering this trifle in the contest on November 12 so send some good vibes my way that day!
Begin by preparing your ingredients. Thaw your whipping cream. Roughly chop the pecans and set aside. Crush the biscuits and shortbread in separate ziploc bags, using a rolling pin.
Take one tablespoon of the stem ginger biscuit crumbs and set aside. Combine the remaining biscuit crumbs with the shortbread crumbs.
Prepare your chocolate pudding. Combine the two packs of instant pudding mix with three cups milk.
Mix for two minutes with a whisk. Refrigerate until ready to use.
In a large bowl, combine 1 can pumpkin puree, the spices, vanilla extract, cream cheese, and brown sugar using a hand mixer.
In a separate bowl, make whipped cream. Add two cups heavy whipping cream, 2 ounces bourbon, and 1/4 cup sugar and whip on high speed until soft peaks form (about 3 minutes).
Fold the whipped cream into the pumpkin mixture. Refrigerate until ready to use.
Time to assemble! You’ll need a clear bowl to get the full effect of the trifle.
Arrange a layer of cookie crumbs at the bottom of a glass or plastic (see through) bowl. You want to be able to see it coming up the edges.
Add a layer of chocolate pudding next. I attempted to put the pumpkin mousse first, which was silly. The pudding is much heavier than the pumpkin mousse and sank into it. So go pudding, pressing it against the sides of the bowl, and then put the pumpkin mousse on top.
Continue this process until the bowl is filled. (Crumbs, pudding, mousse). Top with the whipped topping.
Rim the bowl with crushed pecans.
Sprinkle with the reserved ginger biscuits. I’d suggest refrigerating for a few hours to let the flavors meld together. You can also make it mostly ahead of time and just assemble a few hours before eating.
Have you ever had a recipe just not work out the way it’s supposed to? It happens to me all the time. I usually tend to mess up a recipe so badly that I don’t even post it on here. But every now and then, my odd mistake ends up not being so bad, and is, dare is say it, quite delicious. This is one of those times, so I decided to share it. This recipe is adapted from verybestbaking.com.
Ingredients:
2/3 cup (~15) crushed gingersnap cookies
2 tablespoons butter, melted
8 ounces cream cheese, softened
1 can pumpkin puree
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ginger
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon allspice
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 eggs
2 tablespoons dark or semi-sweet chocolate chips
Preheat your oven to 325 degrees. Line a muffin tin with cupcake liners. (I tried both paper and foil cupcake liners. Use foil, the paper ones got stuck and I couldn’t get the tarts out!)
Crumble the gingersnaps. Place them in a ziploc bag and roll with a rolling pin until finely crushed.
Combine the cookie crumbs and butter in a small bowl.
Evenly distribute into each muffin tin (about 1 tablespoon per muffin tin) and press into the bottom to create a crust. Bake the muffin cups for 5 minutes.
Beat the cream cheese, pumpkin, sugar, spices, and vanilla extract until blended.
This is where things went south. My cream cheese was not having this whole “blended” thing. I think it still might have been too cold so it kind of chunked off into the mixture. Blargh.
Add eggs and beat well.
Nope, still chunky.
Pour the mixture into the muffin cups, filling about 3/4 of the way full.
Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, remove, and allow to cool in a pan on a wire rack.
Refrigerate the tarts for 10 minutes. You can prepare the chocolate drizzle at this point. Add the chocolate chips to a heavy duty ziploc bag. Microwave on high in 10 second intervals, taking the bag out and kneading to see if the chips have melted. (I think mine took 3 10 second intervals).
Cut a super tiny corner from the bag.
Squeeze over the tarts to drizzle with chocolatey goodness.
So. They probably aren’t as pretty as they were supposed to be. And I was pretty bummed about the chunks of cream cheese. Sigh.
But one bite, and I was over it. They were delicious! It kind of ended up being like a mini pumpkin pie with bursts of cheesecake. So you can judge how funny they look all day, but I’ll just keep on snacking on my funny looking tarts. 🙂
This time of year, I love finding recipes that incorporate candy bars. I tend to have an influx of candy in my house so I might as well use it to make awesome baked goods right? I received a couple of Equal Exchange Candy Bars recently and couldn’t stop snacking on them!
Equal Exchange is the nation’s leading Fair Trade brand of coffee, chocolate and tea. They recently launched a new line of organic, fairly traded candy bars with flavors including milk chocolate peanut butter, milk chocolate crisp with puffed rice and quinoa, and dark chocolate fruit and nut with raisins and almonds.
The milk chocolate crisp lives up to its name, the puffed rice and quinoa added a nice crunch to the milk chocolate. The dark chocolate fruit and nut is the perfect mix of chocolately goodness, nuts, and fruit. The website describes it perfectly as trail mix in candy bar form. My favorite of the three though was the milk chocolate peanut butter bar a perfect and classic combination for a reason! I decided to use the chocolate peanut butter bars in a cookie but wanted to find a cookie that sort of resembled the chocolate bar itself.
I adapted this cookie recipe for Marble Peanut Butter & Dark Chocolate Cookies from a Bakergirl recipe for Marbled Peanut Butter & Chocolate Snickers cookies.
One of my favorite parts of reading other blogger’s pages is checking out the “about me” sections of their blogs. It’s always so interesting to read how bloggers began cooking, how they decided to start and blog, and what else in life interests them. So when I was offered a copy of White Jacket Required: A Culinary Coming-of-Age Story written by Jenna Weber of the wonderful blog Eat Live Run I couldn’t wait to dig in!
The book follows Jenna as she graduates college and makes the decision to go to culinary school to fulfill her dream of becoming a food writer. The book allows the reader a deep dive into Jenna’s journey to follow her dreams while dealing with life along the way. Like me, Jenna seems to pinpoint specific times in her life by food that sticks out from that time period. Throughout the book, her story is peppered with delicious recipes from her childhood as well as recipes she developed through her career.
One of the recipes stood out to me: Jenna’s recipe for Pumpkin Whoopie Pies. I am pumpkin obsessed, and I have wanted to make whoopie pies for a while now but was always kind of intimidated by them. Jenna’s recipe seemed approachable so I took the plunge.
I’m pretty sure whoopie pies can now be found basically everywhere but they originally hail from the Pennsylvania Dutch. (I gotta tell you, the Philadelphia area really has some awesome food. It’s no wonder I became a food blogger with all this inspiration surrounding me!) Whoopie pies are just cake-like cookies with creamy goodness sandwiched in between. They are oh so fluffy and just, well, make me happy. So let’s see if I can do them justice..
I have been looking for dried lavender for the longest time. I understand that a lavender treat is probably more appropriate for a spring day, but I just came across dried lavender this week at the Head Nut in Reading Terminal and couldn’t wait another 6 months! I adapted this recipe from a Taste of Home recipe. The icing comes from a Martha Stewart recipe. Together, it makes this yummy recipe for Almond Lavender Cupcakes with Honey Cream Cheese Frosting.
