Weeknight Dessert

My Hubby has a love for chocolate.

Since we married, I have a love for chocolate.

My daughter has a love for chocolate (I blame genetics).

Consequently we are all on the search for something sweet the moment supper is over. Normally, I try to ignore the craving so my waistline doesn't suffer too much. Hubby will try and fulfil his by eating cereal, something I really don't understand, but Lilly will join him. However, sometimes the cereal doesn't quite fix the problem, but on a weeknight I never feel much like baking something.

At least until now! Thanks to Baking Delights, our house now has a new favorite weeknight dessert. It is so incredibly simple, involving barely anytime in the kitchen, and it tastes wonderful! Thank you Marye, I think I will need to go to the gym more now ;)

What to do when you break a promise

My daughter had been so upset I was going to work last Friday morning. There were tears streaming down her face, and all she wanted was for 'Mommy don't leave me'. Talk getting you where it hurts. Unfortunately a two year old doesn't quite understand the concept of jobs, money, and expense yet, so it is slightly hard to explain why Mommy has to go. The one thing she does understand though is the playground! I totally used this to my advantage and promised, actually make that pinky swore, that I would take her the next morning.

Of course Saturday morning comes and it is gloomy, rainy. Not really something you want to venture out in, but I probably would have for the sake of my pinky swear. That is until my Hubby has to borrow my car for work, which contains my car seat and stroller. What does that mean...we are really stuck at home for the day. So now what. We 'make a recipe' of course. Something without eggs, because I was out, and something that she could help with. Nigella to the recuse again! She had the perfect recipe, that I had to adapt slightly to what I had in my cupboards, but it worked! These Rocky Road Bites as we called them were so quick, easy and very kid friends. The best part, they tasted really good :)

Rocky Road Bites: (Makes approximately 20)

• 225 g milk chocolate
• 75 g peanuts (or nut of your choice)
• 75 g mini-marshmallows (I only had big ones and took the time to cut them up, NOT fun)

Melt chocolate in a bowl in the microwave. Stir in peanuts and marshmallows.

Drop my heaping teaspoons onto a lined cookie sheet.

Place somewhere too cool.

Enjoy! (See wasn't that ridiculously easy!)

Birthday celebrations

Last weekend it was my Dad's birthday (yes it has really taken me that long to write this post). My Dad is pretty easy going and doesn't normally ask for much attention on his birthday. In fact he would be quite okay if no one even noticed the day. Of course no one in our family would actually let that happen, so we just try to keep it low-key. So with that in mind my gift to him this year was that I was going to make his birthday cake. However I decided not to go with a traditional cake with frosting this year. He has a passion for brownies, so I thought they would be perfect in place of the traditional!


I remember as a child whenever a pan of brownies was made they would mysteriously disappear almost instantly after being removed from the oven. It always made me mad, because I would barely get any of them. I wanted my share of the dense, gooey chocolate! Of course now that I no longer live at home I rarely make them, because I would eat the whole pan myself. That is really something I am tying to avoid. It would completely destroy all those hours at the gym I have put in. Especially this recipe!

The recipe I used was a Nigella Lawson on and made a huge batch of the most fudge-like brownies I have ever had! There was a moment thought when I was ready the through the entire thing across the room. It was entirely due to the length of cooking time. She suggest 25 minutes, well at that point my brownies where no where close to being done! I think I ended up more than doubling the suggested time...in the end I lost track of how long they actually cooked for. Other than that I highly recommend these!

Brownies: (courtesy of Nigella Lawson-with slight modifications)

• 375g soft unsalted butter

• 375g best-quality dark chocolate

• 6 large eggs
• 1 tbsp vanilla extract
• 500g sugar
• 225 g flour
• 1 ts salt
• 150g chopped pecans
• 150g white chocolate chips

Pre-heat oven to 350F. Line a 9x12 pan with parchment paper or tin foil.

Melt the butter and chocolate together. Once melted let cool slightly.


Combine eggs, sugar and vanilla and beat.

Measure flour and salt in to separate bowl.

Mix cooled chocolate mixture with eggs and sugar.

Add the nuts and chip, and then flour.
Beat until smoothly and scrape into lined pan.

Bake in oven until top is paler, but middle is still dense and gooey. I think mine baked around 1 hour, but like I mentioned the suggest time is 25 minutes (which seemed way off!). Just keep an eye one them and test with a tooth pick in center, do remember that as they cool they do continue to cook.


Enjoy!

Cupcakes

I have a major sweet tooth, it really isn't much of a secret. What my sweet tooth craves most of the time though isn't candy, or pop or even a chocolate bar. It is cake, with mountains of icing on top! I might have something to do with the way birthdays were celebrated in our house growing up. Every year, there was a Safeway cake, with flowers on top, and of course being the birthday girl you always got a flower. Um, I still need the flower off the cake.

Anyway, what a better way to indulge my sweet tooth than with cupcakes! Perfect little cakes, topped with swirls of flavored butter cream icing! My mouth is watering again. I found this wonderful site completely devoted to cupcakes, and then there is this awesome little cupcake bake shop in our city, www.thecupcke.ca. They have the moistest cupcakes, and an icing that isn't overly sweet so you can enjoy every single bit. They inspire me. I want to whip out my kitchenAid and recreate the little mounds of cake, but alas I think that my waist line would severely regret that. If I have been more organized I could have tried to whip up a batch for the shower I hosted on the weekend. But who am I kidding, I don't have that kind of time! So for the time being I am leaving the work to the experts, and just going to enjoy!