THE best cinnamon chocolate chip cookies

Seriously...

There are tons of recipes out there for the best chocolate chip cookies and I don't claim to have tried them all, but the ones that I have, were always missing one thing or another. The one thing that they all had in common, was that they WOULD NOT FLATTEN! The pictures would show so, but not the result!!! *sigh*

Now, don't get me wrong, the taste was never an issue, but for me, the perfect chocolate chip cookie means a flat yummy buttery chocolatey cookie that is crunchy on the outside but chewy on the inside.

FLAT.

It's important that the cookies are flat. NOT by me flattening them before baking, no no! Flat, by melting and spreading all on their own.

Well, THESE cookies are. They spread and flattened all on their own like the big cool kids do. And they are GOO-OO-OO-OOD!!!!! *drool*

Make them, I PROMISE you, scout honor, that this is the last recipe that you'll ever need.

Chocolate cinnamon chip cookies (makes 46 three-inches cookies)
(from original recipe of The Silver Palate)

• 1/2 pound (2 sticks) softened butter
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips    
• 1/2 cup cinnamon chips (I used Hershey's) 

Heat oven to 350 degrees & line your cookie sheet with parchment papers or use a silpat if you have. Cream butter and both sugars together until light and fluffy. Add eggs and vanilla and mix well. Sift dry ingredients together and stir in, mixing thoroughly. Add chocolate chips & cinnamon chips to batter and form cookies by using a small scoop. I used one of 1 & 1/2 inch diameter.

Make sure to space them out on the sheet. About 2-3 inches between them. Bake for 10-15 minutes, or until the edges are golden brown. Let cool on sheet before transferring them onto rack to cool completely.  

Share them or not, I won't tell ;) Enjoy!!! 

 

1 fail + 1 mess = 1 sinfully delicious success

I hate when my attempts go wrong.
And I love when my fails go right.

A few days ago I decided that I would make Molasses Toffee for the first time. So I pulled out the brand new candy thermometer that I bought a year ago, and put on my game face. I. AM. PREPARED.

Sugar and molasses. Check.
Cream and butter. Check.
Cocoa powder and a pinch of salt. Check.
Boil. Whisk. Boil come more. Whisk some more. Pour. Wait. Score. Wait. Cut.

Sounds easy enough, right? WRONG! One day and a half went by, it still didn't harden. I even put it in the fridge and still nothing. WTF?

And then, at the most perfect moment, the occasional light bulb lit up above my head. And just like that, I made turtles.

Now, I'm not saying this is the best way or easiest way to make turtles, but the result will have you wanting to make it. It takes a little bit of effort but you will definitely taste the love afterward.

Cocoa Molasses Toffee
(recipe from The Kitchn)

• 1 cup molasses
• 3 cups sugar
• 2 cups whipping cream
• 4 tablespoons butter
• 4 tablespoons cocoa powder
• 3/4 teaspoon salt

Line a 9x13" pan with aluminum paper that hangs over the sides (for easy lifting later) and butter bottom and sides.
In a big pot, clip you thermometer, heat the molasses and sugar over high heat, stirring until the sugar dissolves. Then boil for another 8 minutes without stirring. When the sugar starts to smoke or reaches 350*F, take it off the heat.
Meanwhile, warm the cream over medium heat but not boiling. Once the sugar caramelizes, whisk in the cream and butter. Put back to low heat, bring to a simmer and watch the temperature. Boil this for about 45 minutes to an hour, you won't have to stand next to the pot. When it hits 250 degrees F (the lower end of the hardball stage) remove from heat and immediately whisk in the cocoa and salt. Pour into the buttered pan.
Let cool completely over night, then place in the fridge until ready to use.

Buttery Crunchy Base:
(taken from the Rice Krispies recipe)

• 2 cups Rice Krispies
• 1 1/3 cup all purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 3/4 cup butter, soften or room temperature
• 1/2 cup brown sugar.

Heat oven to 350*F
In a mixing bowl, stir together Rice Krispies, flour, baking soda and salt.
In another mixing bowl, blend together butter and sugar. Then stir in the cereal mix until well blended and crumbly. Press into the bottom of a 9x13" pan lined with parchment paper. Bake for 15 minutes

Now comes the messy part... Take the toffee out of the fridge & lift it out of the pan. Carefully invert it onto the Buttery Crunchy Base so that it fit directly over it.

Layer pecan halves over the toffee. Bake again for another 10-15 minutes or so. Let cool completely. Place in the fridge again before cutting.

You should have about 100 pieces, depending on how you big you cut them. At this point, you can eat it as in if you'd like, but why stop there, right? Melt dark chocolate (or semi-sweet if you prefer) in a bain-marie, and dip each piece bottom first. Let dry on a baking pan lined with parchment paper. Place in the fridge for a few minutes if need be. Then dip the top again.

My colleagues will tell you "C'est cochon!!!!" and "Hhhhhmmmmm!!!" and "OH. MY. GOD. Damn girl, them turtles be good!" so seriously, make them. You can have such a big batch, and make a lot of people happy. Bring them to work, wrap them up as Christmas presents and eat some while doing so.

Enjoy! And spread the love!!!!

Cookies Choco-Nana Truffles

Ugh... Annoying never-ending rain... What a perfect drag to make Halloween night just a little more trick than treat. Good thing there will be lots of candy (and by candy I mean food, drinks, parties, fun) at the end of it all to compensate for all the effort.

So before venturing out into the night to join the zombies & vampires, I will be staring at these truffles during the day. I made them a while ago, back when the sun was still around. I remember trying to hurry up to take the pictures as the heat would have made these yummies melt. Oh... how I miss summer...

Don't get me wrong though, I'm all reminiscing about the weather by looking at these pics, but the truffles were very good too! LOL! Very easy to make. Fancy-looking and delicious. What else can you ask for?

Cookies ChocoNana Truffles
Makes about more than a dozen to two, depending on the size of your truffles

• 6 chocolate chip cookies (Chips Ahoy type)
• 1/2 banana, mashed
• 1/2 C chocolate chips
• 1/4 C Nutella
• chopped nuts, coconut flakes, cocoa powder

Mash the cookies in a ziploc bag with a rolling pin. Add the mix into the mashed banana. Meanwhile, melt the chocolate chips in the microwave for about 2 minutes on medium low power. Then mix it well into the banana cookie mix along with the Nutella.

Cover and refrigerate to harden a bit before forming into balls and rolling them in your favorite toppings.

The texture gets better the next day. But if you have as much patience as me when it comes to food, you will never find out!!!! Enjoy!!!!

Chocolate Cake with Chocolate Raspberry Ganache

Last Sunday we went to a friend's family cottage for his birthday/pizza party. They have an awesome wood oven that he built by himself, so we basically just made pizza, ate, drank & hung out near the lake.

The infamous wood oven that my BF would love to have


Coogee, the best dog EVER!

The weather was great. The sun was shining. The breeze was subtle & almost omni-present. And the bugs... well the bugs were hard at work. I've got 6 humongous bites on my neck to show for it and they are each as big as a peanut!!!

Nonetheless, the bugs didn't stop the pizzas from tasting delicious. Right out of the oven, "ooh" "aah" hot on your fingers but you still don't want to stop grabbing.

We topped the pizzas with home-made tomato sauce, sliced bocconcini, prosciutto, pickled eggplants & arugula. Killer combo, I loved it! I basically just kicked back with a glass of red wine & let the men cook. Somehow "men", "smoke" and "fire" just always go so well.

We finished off everything with a birthday cake that I made for him: Chocolate cake with chocolate & fresh raspberry ganache.

Chocolate cake
(adapted from Kraft's Best Ever Chocolate Cake)

• 1-3/4 cups each: flour and sugar
• 1-1/4 tsp. baking soda
• 1/2 tsp. MAGIC Baking Powder
• 2/3 cup butter, softened
• 4 square BAKER'S Unsweetened Chocolate, melted, cooled
• 1-1/4 cups brewed coffee
• 3 eggs

Heat oven to 350°F. Line bottom of two 9-inch round cake pans with parchment paper. In a large bowl, beat all ingredients except the eggs with electric or hand held mixer on medium speed 2 min. Add the eggs and beat an additional 2 minutes. Pour into pans and bake 35 to 40 minutes, or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool cake layers in pans 10 minute, then remove from pans to wire racks. Cool completely, about 1 hour or so.

Ganache:

• 300 gr. dark chocolate pellets 65%
• 300 ml. whipping cream 30%
• one 6oz box of raspberries, washed and dried with paper towels.

Place the chocolate in a bowl. Heat the cream in a pot over medium heat for a few minutes, until it starts forming small bubble on the rim. Take off heat and pour over the chocolate. Let sit for 5 minutes.

Stir chocolate & cream mixture until well blended. Let cool a few minutes.

Scoop out about 1/4 of the ganache in a smaller bowl. Choose 16 best looking raspberries ans set aside, mash the rest into the small bowl of ganache. Sandwich this between the cake layers.

Crumb coat the cake with some ganache, place in the fridge to harden up, then take cake out and pour the rest of the ganache over the cake. Let drip over the sides and decorate with the pretty raspberries.

The only decent picture I could take of the inside of the cake

Birthday cake pops

I made these cake pops my cousin's bf K's birthday. Of course, totally inspired by the amazing Bakerella. She always has such crazy great ideas, it's awesome! (THANK YOU BAKERELLA!!!)

Her basic cake pops are made with: one 13x9 cake, made from cake mix as according to instruction on box; 1 can frosting (16 oz) Candy melts (1 lb package)

I used what I had on hand and made 40 pops total:

• 9x9 chocolate ricotta cake (I made this a couple of weeks ago, only used half of it & so I stored the rest in the freezer & thawed it 1 hour in the plastic wrap before I started the pops)
• 1 pkg cream cheese (8oz)
• White chocolate
• Dark chocolate
• Lollipop sticks
• A big block of styro-foam so you can stick the pops in to dry

Mash the cake up into bits & crumbs. Soften the cream cheese and mix into the cake with your hand really well so that it adheres when formed into little balls.

Insert lollipop sticks. Put in fridge to keep firm while melting white chocolate in a double-boiler over very low heat, because white chocolate is capricious & it will be ruined if the heat is too high.

Take the "naked" cake pops & dip into the white chocolate. Wait for them to dry, then do the same with the dark chocolate, if you'd like.

I decorated the pops with numbers for every year that is K's age. Since he's not so old, I had left over pops to play with.

I hope K & my cousin like them :) But like I said, if they're not his taste, at least there is the love.

Duo of Chocolate Custard shots

Literally shots.

Not because they're in these adorable micro mini Tic Tac Toe shooter glasses that are as big as my thumb, but because they're boozy. I was quite generous on the alcohol, so the custard refused to set properly, thus these alcohol-ish creamy chocolaty concoctions came to life.

Dark chocolate & Kahlua. White chocolate & Cointreau. Who said intentional accidents are bad?

Dark chocolate & Kahlua (or I like to say Dark MoKahlua... get it??? Fine... never mind....)
(my recipe is adapted from this one)

• 2 cups skimmed milk
• 4-6 oz 70% chocolate (depending on how intense you like it, I just basically poured in until I liked the taste)
• 2 egg yolks
• 1 whole egg
• 3 tbsp corn starch
• 2 tbsp butter
• 1-3 tbsp Kahlua (I obviously put 4 or something... lol!!!!)

White chocolate & Cointreau

• 2 cups skimmed milk
• 3-4 oz white chocolate (you can put more if you like, but remember that white chocolate is very sweet, so taste as you go)
• 2 egg yolks
• 1 whole egg
• 3 tbsp corn starch
• 2 tbsp butter
• 1-3 tbsp Cointreau

Use the same method for both

Over medium heat, melt chocolate in milk in a pot. In a bowl, whisk eggs & corn starch together well.

When the chocolate milk starts bubbling gently, slowly pour it into the egg mixture, in a thin stream while constantly whisking the egg mixture.

Pour everything back into the pot. Stir constantly until mixture thickens. Drop in the butter, continue to stir until it melts. Take it off the heat and stir in your alcohol. If you want to fill a tart shell, keep the alcohol at 1 tbsp. Cover with plastic wrap directly pressed onto the surface so it doesn't form a skin. Chill for a couple of hours before serving.

Cheers!!! XOX