200th Post of Love: Salted Caramel Nutella Fudge!!

 Picked up the original recipe over at Doughmesstic, and it's worth every second!

This recipe makes one 9x9 pan, with as many pieces as you want (up to 50 if you plan accordingly!)

Bottom Layer

• 1 cup Semi Sweet or Bittersweet Chocolate Chips
• 1/4 cup Milk Chocolate Chips
• 1/4 cup Nutella

1. Melt the chips in the microwave, stir every 30 seconds until smooth, then add the Nutella.  

2. Spread in the bottom of a parchment paper lined and greased 9x9 pan.

Salted Caramel Layer

• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 1 teaspoon sea salt
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 tablespoons light corn syrup
• 1 teaspoon Vanilla
• 1/4 cup sour cream

1. In a small saucepan, combine the cream and the salt.  Simmer over very low heat until the salt is dissolved.  Set aside.

2. In a medium saucepan combine the sugar and corn syrup carefully. They will not combine well until the sugar begins to melt. Cook over high heat for about 6 to 8 minutes.  Just pull the sugar off the heat when it is a medium goldish brown – it will continue to cook in the heat of the pan.  Remove from the heat and let cool for one minute.

3. Add the cream mixture and the vanilla to the sugar mixture.  Whisk in the sour cream.  Let the caramel cool to room temp

 Middle Layer

• 4 Tbsp. Butter
• 1 cup Sugar
• 1/4 cup Evaporated Milk
• 1 7 oz. Jar Marshmallow Creme
• 2 teaspoons Vanilla
• 1 cup Chopped Hazelnuts

1. Top caramel with chopped nuts.

2. In a medium pan, melt butter.  Add the sugar and evaporated milk.  Boil 5 minutes, stirring constantly. 

3.  Remove from heat and stir in vanilla and marshmallow creme.  Pour mixture evenly over the previous layers.

Top Layer

• 1 cup Milk Chocolate Chips
• 1/4 cup Semi Sweet or Bittersweet Chocolate Chips
• 1/4 cup Nutella

1. Repeat process for bottom layer, and pour evenly over the top of the previous layers.

Refrigerate for 3-4 hours, until firm.  Cut into bite sized pieces.  Caramel layer will be gooey, keep refrigerated until ready to serve.

* Make sure you refrigerate between layers so there is a better distinction between each one when you cut into it. *



It's funny how the first 100 took the longest.  This second set of 100 posts went by in a blink.  Here's to many, many more.

Enjoy!

Warm Pockets of Love, AKA: Nutella Puffs

Today, I dedicate this 199th post of my blog to my best friend in the whole world - Heidi.  We met one fateful day back in December of 1993, right before taking the high school freshman entrance exam at our high school.  She was going to move into the neighborhood, and while my mind is fuzzy, I believe we carpooled that early morning to the test.

Since then, we have (arguably) grown up: we've learned how to drive together, gone to away to different colleges, gotten married, she's had kids and cats, I've had gardens and dogs, and I've managed to move 2000 miles away.

However?  When I pick up the phone, or am lucky enough to visit home?  It's like I never left.  She is one constant in my life that I hope never changes.  I'm lucky to have such an amazing friend, and if I could send her warm pockets of love today, I absolutely would.  She deserves only the best.  Happy 32nd birthday, girl!  Here's to the next 19 years!!

On a side note - these other warm pockets of love (and Nutella) are super easy to make and take very little time or effort on your part, but everyone will love them.

 What you'll need...
1 pkg crescent dough (I used the sheets)
1/2-1 C of Nutella
1/4 C sugar
1 tsp cinnamon

Directions:
1. Combine cinnamon and sugar and place in a bowl/shallow plate.
2. Unroll crescent dough - smooth out with fingers or a roller.

3. Using a rotary pizza cutter, cut the dough into 12, roughly equal, rectangles.
4. Drop Nutella into the middle of each rectangle.  You can use as much or as little as you want, just stay away from the edges.
5. Pinch all edges together (like a ravioli), then coat both sides in the cinnamon sugar mixture.
6. Place on a lined cookie sheet (for easy clean up)
7. Follow the instructions on the crescent roll package.  Just watch for the pockets to turn a nice golden color.

8. Serve warm and enjoy.

This is absolutely perfect as it is (To Bridget Jones!), but it would also be nice with ice cream.  (But, what wouldn't be?)

I served two to my husband, then he ate my second one, then he ate two more off the platter before I had even noticed he'd left the room.

Seriously addicting, like an awesome friend who's just waiting for you to come home.  Love you, Heid!

Mexican Hot Chocolate Cupcakes

What better way to round up a Mexican Fiesta than with a "spicy" chocolate cupcake?

I found the original recipe here.
Ingredients:
For the cupcakes:
2 cups sifted cake flour (I substituted white rice flour to make it gluten free)
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon ground red pepper flakes (add more if you like it spicier.  I omitted it all together)
1 cup sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla
2/3 cup vegetable oil
2 large eggs
1 cup milk
-
For the ganache:
6 ounces (170 g) good dark chocolate, chopped
1/2 cup (146 g) Nutella
3 Tablspoons (43 g) unsalted butter
2/3 cup (158 ml) heavy cream
1 teaspoon ancho chili powder
-
For the frosting:
1 teaspoon ancho chili powder
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 cups confectioners’ sugar (original recipe calls for 4 cups)
1 package, 8 ounces (228 g) cream cheese, at room temp.
8 Tablespoons (114 g) unsalted butter, softened
1/2 teaspoon (2.5 ml) vanilla extract, clear
cinnamon sticks for decoration (optional)

Directions:
For the cupcakes:
Preheat oven to 375F. Grease and flour 24 muffin cups, or use paper baking cups.
Mix and sift flour, cocoa, sugar, pepper and baking powder together into a bowl. Add oil, vanilla, eggs, and milk; beat for 30 seconds with a mixer at low speed, scraping the bowl frequently. Beat for 7 1/2 minutes more with a stand mixer at medium speed or 6 minutes with a hand mixer at high speed, scraping the bowl 4 – 5 times.
Pour batter into pans. Bake for 15-18 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Remove muffins from oven and cool in pans for about 12 minutes. Remove muffins from pans and finish cooling on a wire rack.  Then, I used the tip of a teaspon to cut out the middles of the cupcakes for a place to fill in the ganache.

For the Ganache:

Take all ingredients and melt them in the microwave (about 45 seconds), stirring at least once.

Fill the cupcake using a small spoon with ganache until the ganache reaches the rims of the top of the cupcake.

The cupcakes are now ready to be frosted.

For the frosting:
In a bowl sift together the chili powder, cayenne pepper, cinnamon and confectioners’ sugar. Set aside.
In a stand mixer with the paddle attachment beat the cream cheese and butter on medium speed for about 4 minutes.
Mix in the vanilla extract.
Add the sugar mixture to the cream cheese mixture and mix together.
The frosting is now ready to be piped onto the cupcakes. Use a bigger tip for bigger swirls. Decorate with a cinnamon stick .

Thanks to my MIL for modeling her cupcake!

Nutella Banana Bread

Banana bread kick, still?

*sigh*

Yes.  It's not my fault.  Stores always seem to have really ripe bananas that call out to me.

And I only enjoy green bananas, so mine also get to that point fairly quickly.

 Whatever.  The idea of adding Nutella to my banana bread really appealed to me.

Here's the recipe, please go to see the Six Sisters' for their easy to follow instructions.

 I really enjoy swirling.

The whole concept is fun.

And it's just so pretty!

Just a note - this takes a LONG time to bake.  even at an hour, the middle was liquidy.  Plan for longer, much longer if you want it to stay together when you cut it!

World's Most Expensive Cupcakes? Totally worth it!

Happy 2012!  I have spent the last two weeks enjoying the presence of my family and luxuriating in going out and having others cook for me.  Ultimately?  I'm behind on cooking and blogging.  However, I did make the world's most expensive cupcakes and lived to tell the tale.  True story!


It started back the week before Christmas.  We were planning our menu, and there was a variety of cakes and desserts to be made.  However, time ran short and desserts were in abundance, so I put my dessert on the back burner until the New Year, when we could all properly enjoy it!

Chocolate Hazelnut Cupcakes
Ingredients:

• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 3/4 cup milk
• 1/4 cup hazelnut liqueur
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup butter
• 1 1/2 cups white sugar
• 3 eggs
• 24 chocolate-hazelnut truffles (Ferrero Rocher®)

Directions

1. Preheat an oven to 350 degrees F. Line a muffin pan with paper or foil liners. Sift together the flour, cocoa, and baking powder; set aside. Combine the milk, liqueur, and vanilla in a small bowl.
2. Beat the butter and sugar with an electric mixer in a large bowl until light and fluffy. The mixture should be noticeably lighter in color. Add the room-temperature eggs one at a time, allowing each egg to blend into the butter mixture before adding the next. Pour in the flour mixture alternately with the milk, mixing until just incorporated, ending with the flour. Pour the batter into prepared cups, about 1/2 cup each.

3. Press an unwrapped truffle into the bottom of each cupcake and spread the batter over the top of each truffle. (I put some batter in first so they weren't resting on the bottom of the pan, then I placed the FR, then I finished filling the cup.) Bake in a preheated oven until the tops spring back to the touch, about 20 to 25 minutes. Cool cupcakes in the pan for 5 to 10 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.

Just a note: it's okay if you don't completely fill the cups.  I covered the Ferrero Rochers and then filled each cup 1/2-2/3 of the way.  They rose incredibly, as you can see from the cooling picture, and once you frost it, no one will ever know!

Now, for the frosting...

I had a hard time just spreading Nutella as a frosting.  Thomas loves it, as do many others, I'm sure, but I just can't do the straight up Nutella.  My cupcakes, my rules.  So, I found another recipe that seemed like a great compromise.

Nutella Frosting Ingredients:

1 (16oz) can of pre-made dark chocolate frosting

1 tspVanilla Extract

3/4 cup Nutella spread

3/4 cup Powdered Sugar

Directions:Blend well and pipe on.

* Side note: once you put chocolate frosting on a chocolate cupcake, it looks pretty bland (at best) and like an unmentionable body function (at worst).  I sprinkled some powdered sugar on top to break up the monotony, but I'm sure you'll be clever enough to figure something out.

The sweetness is all in the frosting.  The cupcake itself is very mellow, especially without a lot of sugar.

A Taste of (Chocolate-y) Sweetness Saturday!

Ta-daa!!  My mama apparently loves us quite a bit.  This awesome Cuisinart ice cream maker arrived in the mail last month, and Thomas and I have been chomping at the bit to use it.  It came in two pieces - first the freezer containers and then the actual machine.  By the time the machine came, we were more than ready to go!!

Since Thomas is a baptized confirmed choc-o-holic, of course the first recipe I would look for would be a Very Chocolate Ice Cream recipe!!

One of the oddest things I found out about ice cream recipes?  If you want it to be a creamy, custard like texture, you need to cook it.

Which means it gets hot.

Which means you have to cool it off.

For hours.

BEFORE you can start to process it as ice cream.

This is, like, the worst idea since Greedo shooting first!  You can't tell me to make ice cream and then I have to wait FOR HOURS before I can even actually make the ice cream, where I have to wait any way before I can even eat the ice cream.  Ridiculous!

Okay, so you wait, it gets cold, then you can process it in the actual machine.  This is about the time when your choco-crazed loving husband comes home and has bright ideas, like adding Nutella.  And not so bright ideas, like adding almost a whole bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips.  I just left my chips to the side in my bowl, but the Nutella is a definite add in.  Just add it in just before the ice cream is firm enough to take out of the machine and into your freezer safe bowls.  It's completely worth it!!

jealous?!

Sweet Sunday!

c

 Oh, yeah!  It's a Nutella kind of day.  Thomas was gone for 36 hours and I wanted to spoil him horribly upon his return.  PLUS, I just landed a new job here, and I was in the mood for a cooking celebration!

So, I started mixing up the recipe for the Chocolate Hazelnut Torte, when I realized I used a regular size devil's food mix instead of the half-size.  Whoops!  I guess that just means I had to make two instead of one.   Luckily, I had enough of the other ingredients to double up without causing too much of a scene in our household.  Oh, and I only used 1/4 of the prescribed hazelnuts from the single recipe for the cake because I'm not entirely nuts about nuts.

 Now, I didn't have any Cool Whip in the house, and I wasn't really in the mood for their prescribed frosting, so I did a little search and found a Nutella Cream Cheese frosting that sounded OUT OF THIS WORLD!  Real talk.  Be jealous.

Now, I had two cakes, so instead of making two whole cakes, I decided to be a piggy make a double layered torte.  If you're going to make a cream cheese frosting, why let any of it go to waste?!  Also?  I think I used almost twice as much Nutella in the frosting and about half as much powdered sugar.  It made more sense to me that way.

I couldn't let the rest of the nuts go to waste, so I used the other 1/4 cup to sprinkle across the top.  I didn't want to save them for another day, so I figured that it was now or never.  Finally, I made up some strawberries to cut the richness (ha!) or at least add the goodness of strawberries and whipped cream.  How could you go wrong with a dessert like that?!  Quick tip?  Use the egg slicer+ to slice your strawberries beautifully for a dessert!

Oh yeah...  it was that good!