Peanut Butter Heart

I have been seeing these cookies everywhere.  They make my mouth water every time I see them.  I finally caved and made a batch.

They are nothing new or super exciting - a basic peanut cookie with chocolate.  The dark chocolate seems to make this everyday treat a little fancy and extra special.  But at heart they are a classic comfort food.

I have two basic recipes for Peanut Butter cookies - an easy  one and an even easier one.  This is the easy one - the even easier one is only three ingredients and great when a quick fix is needed.  These cookies are thick soft and chewy.  They are wonderful with or without the chocolate.  I usually make a half recipe and scoop out small balls of dough, but occasionally I make the full batch and make them super big which the kids just love.

 Peanut Butter Hearts

1/2 cup butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
1 cups peanut butter (smooth or chunky)
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1 bag Dove dark chocolate hearts

Preheat oven to 350.

Sift flour, baking soda and salt together, set aside.  In a large mixing bowl cream butter and sugars together until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes on medium speed if using a stand mixer, scraping bowl occasionally.  Add eggs and vanilla, beat until fully incorporated, scrape down bowl then add peanut butter, mixing again until fully incorporated.  Add flour mixture,  stirring until just incorporated, do not over mix.

Using a #40 scoop (about 2 Tbsp) drop dough onto baking sheet, evenly spacing cookies.  Bake for 10-12 minutes or until cookies are golden on the edges and slightly soft in the center.  Let cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes then top with unwrapped chocolate heart, transfer to wire rack and cool completely.

Strawberry Shortcake

My daughter just celebrated her 5th birthday and requested a Strawberry Shortcake themed birthday party.  She also requested to have a moonbounce, which made the party super simple, even though the weather was absolutely miserable.

I had planned on setting everything up outside, but the cold temperatures and rain made that impossible, so we move all the food inside.  I am not good at decorating so the decorations consisted of red, green and pink balloons.  I kept the table simple with a green table cloth and served everything in red bowls.  A couple of years ago I bought a red tiered server from Pottery barn, it was on clearance when I got it and it has been one of my best purchases ever.  I have decided that red is a great option for serving ware and have become a little obsessed with collecting it.  It is perfect for Christmas, 4th of July, Valentines Day and of course Strawberry Shortcake parties, plus it is a great accent piece for many other occasions.

Enough of my red obsession, back to the party.  As I said the table was simple and so was the food.  We had "Fancy" Strawberry and Cream Cheese Sandwich Pockets, pizza muffins, apples and caramel and strawberries and chocolate.  We also served Strawberry Milk and Strawberry Lemonade.  Very simple, but enjoyed by both the kids and the adults who stuck around.  I apologize that I don't have a picture of the spread, but I somehow forgot to take any pictures, but as I said it was simple and not very exciting to look at, so you aren't missing out on much.

The cake was fun to make.  Again, it was pretty simple and wasn't overly Strawberry Shortcake in appearance.  I don't like putting people or faces on cakes, it creeps me out to cut the cakes and eat them, but that is my own personal problem, so even though Maggie loved the Wilton cake, I just couldn't do it.  I found some great ideas on-line and this was the final product.

I was pretty happy with it, but by the time I went to serve it it had started to bow out.  A friend thought I had designed the cake that way on purpose to mimic the characters hat, which it kind of did.  I am not sure what caused the cake to bulge out.  The cake wasn't sliding so I am thinking that some of the icing from the top of the cake started to slide down, although the icing was still smooth on all sides.  If you have any ideas what might have happened or know what would cause this I would love to find out.

Chocolate Cake

My husband put in his yearly request for a super chocolate birthday cake for his coworker who loves chocolate.  I was looking for something different from my usual chocolate cake so I decided to check out Monica's recipes over at Lick the Bowl Good.  She has lots of wonderful recipes and her pictures are beautiful, I always want to run to the kitchen and start cooking after visiting her site.

I opted for her Triple Chocolate Cake and definitely made a good choice.  The cake was a mayonnaise cake and was wonderfully moist, the filling was a creamy white chocolate mousse and it was topped with a silky sour cream chocolate icing.  The icing is very soft and I followed Monica's suggestion and thickened it slightly with some confectioners sugar, I also let it rest for a while before spreading.  It was very nice to work with, I didn't try piping with it, but it was great to spread and firmed up on the cake very nicely.  The individual components were delicious and from what I heard they combined to make a very flavorful and yummy cake.  Mike commented that the cake wasn't too sweet, but was a little too chocolaty for his taste - I think when you have a cake named Triple Chocolate it is bound to be super chocolaty.  

 Triple Chocolate Fudge Cake

Recipe from Sky High Irresistible Layer Cakes by Alisa Huntsman and Peter Wynne via Monica at Lick the Bowl Good

2 ¼ cups all purpose flour

1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

2 ¼ tsp baking soda

1 ¼ tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

½ tsp ground cinnamon

2 ½ ounces unsweetened chocolate, chopped

1 cup milk

1 ¼ cups hot, strongly brewed coffee

2 eggs

1 cup mayonnaise (not low fat or fat free)

1 ½ tsp vanilla extract

2 ¼ cups sugar

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter the bottoms and sides of three 9 inch round cake pans. Line the base of each pan with parchment.

Sift together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon and salt. Set aside.

Put the chocolate in a large heatproof bowl. Bring the milk to a simmer. Pour the hot coffee and milk over the chocolate. Let stand for a minute, then whisk until smooth. Let the mocha liquid cool slightly.

In a mixer bowl, beat together the eggs, mayonnaise and vanilla until well blended. Gradually beat in the sugar. Add the dry ingredients and mocha liquid alternately in 2 or 3 additions, beating until smooth and well blended. Divide the batter among the 3 prepared pans.

Bake for 25 to 28 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted in the centre comes out almost clean. Let the cakes cool in their pans for 10-15 minutes before un-molding onto a wire rack and carefully peeling off the paper. Leave to cool completely.

White Chocolate Mousse

4 ounces white chocolate, chopped

1 cup heavy cream

1 egg white

1 tbsp sugar

Melt the white chocolate with ¼ cup cream in a double boiler. Whisk until smooth. Remove from the heat and let the white chocolate cream cool to room temperature.

When it has cooled, beat the remaining ¾ cup cream until soft peaks form. In a clean bowl whip the egg white with the sugar until fairly stiff peaks form.

Fold the beaten egg white into the white chocolate cream, then fold in the whipped cream until blended. Be sure not to over mix.

Sour Cream Chocolate Icing

12 ounces bittersweet or semi sweet chocolate, chopped

1 stick (4 ounces) unsalted butter

2 tbsp light corn syrup

¼ cup half-and-half at room temperature

½ cup sour cream, at room temperature

Melt the chocolate with the butter and corn syrup in a double boiler over barly simmering water. Remove from the heat and whisk until smooth.

Whisk in the half-and-half and sour cream. Use while still soft.

To Assemble

Place one layer, flat side up, on a cake stand or serving plate. Cover the top evenly with half the white chocolate mousse, leaving a ¼ inch margin around the edge. Repeat with the second layer and the remaining mousse. Set the third layer on top and pour half the sour cream chocolate icing over the filled cake. Spread all over the sides and top. Don’t worry if some of the cake shows through. This first frosting is to seal in the crumbs, and is known as a crumb coat. Refrigerate the cake for 30 minutes.

Soccer Cupcakes

Liam's soccer season ended last weekend and this week the team celebrated with a pizza party.  There were only six boys on the team - in the U6 league they play 3 on 3, so cute - but with the noise and chaos the boys and their siblings created one would have thought there were 30 boys on the team.  Always looking for an opportunity to bake and then get the baked goods out of my house I volunteered to make the cupcakes.  I had wanted to make chocolate soccer balls, but ran out of time, so I was very happy when I found these guys at Michael's.  It was my first time using the grass tip, oh what fun!  I now want to make people just so I can pipe hair with this fun tip.  For the cupcakes I was craving chocolate, so I went to my old stand-by, the Martha Stewart "One Bowl Chocolate Cupcakes."  This is a great recipe, very moist and super yummy.  I highly recommend them when you feel the craving for a classic chocolate cupcake.

Chocolate Cupcakes
2 1/2 c. AP Flour
1 1/4 c. Cocoa Powder
2 1/2 c. Sugar
2 1/2 tsp. Baking Soda
1 1/4 tsp. Baking Powder
1 1/4 tsp. Salt
2 Large Eggs
1 Egg yolk
1 1/4 c. Milk
1/2 c. plus 2 Tbs. Vegetable Oil
1 1/4 tsp. Vanilla extract
1 1/4 c. Warm Water

Bake at 350
Sift together dry ingredients, place in bowl of electric mixer.  Add remaining ingredients, with paddle attachment beat on low until combined, about 3 minutes.  Fill cupcake tins about 2/3 full, bake for 20 minutes or until tester comes out clean. 

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cake

 This month was my first bake along with The Cake Slice bloggers.  We are baking from "Cake Keeper Cakes" by Lauren Chattman and this months selection was Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cake.  I love pumpkin and would have liked a little more pumpkin kick, but overall the cake was, flavorful, tender and moist. I didn't have semisweet chocolate chips in the house, which is very odd since I usually have about 3 bags, so I used Ghirardelli dark chocolate, the size and flavor of the chips were overwhelming, so I need to make it again with the right chips to give the cake a fair chance.   I was also working with an assistant who insisted he could prep the pan, unfortunately some spots were missed and we lost about half of the cake.  I will definitely give the cake another try, but I'm not sure it will replacement for the receipe I usually use.