Tag: chocolate

  • Flourless Peanut Butter Cookies

    flourless peanut butter cookies

    Can we talk about all the things I love about this recipe? Since there’s no flour, it’s great for gluten-free folks, and there’s also no worry if you’ve run out of flour in your cabinet (or butter, for that matter). Another perk of the lack of flour is that you don’t have to worry about overworking the dough. This means that you can taste and adjust the quantities of peanut butter, sugar, and salt, if you’d like (so long as you don’t mind raw egg – or taste before adding the egg), so it’d be easy to practically just eyeball the recipe (not something a lot of baked goods can claim). Last, but most important, these cookies are delicious – and seriously addictive. These are probably the best peanut butter cookies I’ve ever eaten. Every time I ate one, I found myself saying, “I could eat a million of these” and needing to tuck the container out of sight. They’re healthy, I tried to convince myself when inevitably grabbing another moments later – there’s no butter or flour, plus there’s added protein from the peanut butter (shh, don’t remind me about all that sugar). You probably want to double the recipe – trust me. You can thank me later.

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  • Frozen Chocolate Peanut Butter Banana Bites

    frozen peanut butter chocolate banana bites

    Frozen bananas used to be a staple in my refrigerator for making “milkshakes” since their frozen consistency closely mimics that of ice cream. But now that I’m traveling and sadly without any method of blending, I’ve had to give up those tasty desserts. When a couple bananas were on the verge of being overripe recently, though, I cut them in slices and froze them without thinking about it. The frozen banana slices were good even eaten up plain, but I wanted something that was a bit more of a treat. So, with thoughts about my banana breakfast roll in the back of my head, I mixed up some peanut butter and honey (plus a little water to thin it out) and dipped them in that. And then, because peanut butter always calls out for some chocolate, I dipped them in a little melted chocolate, too. Dark chocolate is always my preference – here, I used a chocolate with 85% cocoa content that was too dark for eating out of hand but worked well with the creaminess of the banana and richness of the peanut butter. The result is decadent enough to satisfy an ice cream craving, while still being a healthy option. I like them in bite-sized form like this, but you can also cut the bananas in half and put them on a popsicle stick for something more closely resembling an ice cream bar.

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  • The Perfect Brownies

    the perfect brownies

    Okay, okay, these brownies might not be perfect for everyone. But I’ve been searching for a basic brownie recipe to be my go-to, and this is the one. If, like me, you want your brownies to be rich, dense, super chocolate-y, and so fudgy that they’re best stored in the refrigerator, then these are the brownies for you. Of course, you can easily tweak the recipe to your liking. Because there’s only a little bit of flour in these, I think it could be swapped for cocoa powder for a gluten-free dessert with even more intense chocolate flavor. These brownies would also do well with mix-ins, and although I know this is sacrilegious to many brownie lovers, I think nuts would actually provide a great contrast to the richness of the brownies. Personally, I put my twist on the recipe by adding a sprinkle of fleur de sel on top – I find it adds extra depth to the chocolate.

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  • Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars

    chocolate chip cookie bars

    I’ve mentioned before that I’m not really a traditionalist. So maybe it’s not surprising that I prefer these chocolate chip cookie bars to regular chocolate chip cookies. They’re still the classic combination of sweet buttery cookie dough and rich chocolate chips, but the bar form means they’re nice and golden brown on the outside while staying soft and nearly underbaked on the inside. Plus, they’re easier to make since there’s no measuring out dollops of dough and multiple batches to bake. The sprinkle of sea salt at the end certainly doesn’t hurt either. And you know, just like these cookie bars, these could also be a thoughtful addition to condolence packages, providing a touch of homemade comfort during difficult times.

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  • Giant Chocolate Caramel Ice Cream Sandwich

    giant chocolate caramel ice cream sandwich

    I love cakes. Baking them, eating them, looking at photos of them. They’re extravagant and delicious. But my boyfriend prefers cookies, and it’s long been a source of tension between us. For his recent birthday, however, we came up with a compromise. An ice cream sandwich the size of a cake. All the extravagance of a cake, even layered almost like a cake, yet really just two giant cookies with ice cream. We tossed around flavors for a while before settling on chocolate and caramel, a classic combination. Baking two very large cookies was as simple as filling two cake pans; this also resulted in a denser and chewier cookie, although I imagine you could just drop the batter on two cookie sheets for thinner and more traditional cookies. The rest of the logistics were a little more difficult than expected. I made the mistake of attempting to layer the ice cream sandwich while the ice cream was freshly churned and very soft which ended up with the bottom cookie absorbing much of the ice cream. I re-filled the cookies with more ice cream after it hardened up in the freezer with better results (only to later discover the ice cream soaked cookie on the bottom with pleasant surprise). The cookies then started to crack when I was re-assembling the giant sandwich (as you can see in the photo), and that’s when I realized: making a giant ice cream sandwich is about having fun and being playful with food. Sometimes you have to try cooking something new, something fun, even though you make mistakes along the way. This has long been how I’ve felt about baking extravagant cakes, and suddenly I’m feeling that way about cookies, too.

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  • Brownie Cookies

    brownie cookies

    Some people love brownies, and some people love cookies, but most people, myself included, love both. For all of them, these are a revelatory dessert. All of the chocolate decadence of a brownie in cookie form. The key to this magical crossover dessert is large quantities of melted chocolate and eggs which give the cookies a fudge-like texture. Simple to make and guaranteed to please, these cookies should most definitely make their way into your life. You’ll never look at brownies or cookies quite the same way again.

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  • Maple Bacon S’mores

    maple bacon s'mores

    Okay, it might be a little silly for me to post a recipe for s’mores. I know, you already know how to make s’mores. It’s really so simple, just marshmallows, chocolate, and graham crackers. But these were easily the best I’ve ever had. Very different from what I had as a kid (and I wonder what me as a kid would have thought of these). The salty-sweet combination with bacon in the homemade marshmallows and smoked salt on the homemade graham crackers adds another dimension to this classic dessert. As I’ve gotten older, my chocolate preferences have shifted away from milk chocolate and towards dark chocolate, and this was the perfect place to embrace that. Dark chocolate (60% cocoa content or higher ideally) helps these seem sophisticated instead of sickeningly sweet (although, okay, they’re still quite sweet). These s’mores were the perfect way to kick off the grilling season during the recent abnormally warm weather, and I’m pretty sure I’ll have to make them the next time I go camping. I think my young self would approve; these are the best of both worlds: playful and messy to tap into your inner kid but complex enough to please your adult taste buds.

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  • Chocolate Cake with Salted Caramel Ganache

    chocolate cake with salted caramel ganache

    This is a cake so amazing, so delicious, so decadent that I made it for my birthday two years in a row. I wanted to make a different cake this year, I really did; I love cooking things that are exciting and new, and I don’t have nearly enough excuses to bake cakes. But as the day neared, I found my mind constantly wandering back to this rich, dense chocolate cake, layered with salted caramel ganache, just the right balance of salty and sweet. And I finally admitted that I’d already found my birthday perfection; it’s my day after all, dammit, and I was going to have this cake.

    (Yes, it was recently my birthday, and yes, I am now a year older, and no, I’m not worried about getting older, just excited because I think this upcoming year will be even better than the last.)

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  • Salted Chocolate Toffee Cookies

    salted chocolate toffee cookies

    So I need glasses.

    I really like defying expectations. I’m a really big nerd (anyone who’s talked to me for more than 15 minutes can testify to this), and I’m proud of it, but I also like that I don’t look like a stereotypical nerd. So I’m adjusting to wearing glasses, to having a traditionally “nerdy” accessory.

    These cookies are kind of like that. At first glance, just chocolate cookies. But then you take a bite, and there’s the incredible salty-sweet flavor and the hidden toffee bits. And, at a second glance, the sprinkling of fleur de sel heightening the chocolate (please use the best quality you can) has been sparkling on the surface of the cookie all along. Salt and sugar, surprisingly complementary flavors… it’s exactly what this blog is all about.

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  • Chile Con Carne

    chile con carne

    Tread carefully with this chili. This is not your tame ground beef and tomatoes; no, this chili is a whole different beast, a dark fiery primal stew. Here you’ll find whole chunks of beef swimming amidst the flavors of smoky chipotle peppers and spicy chili powder. There is an incredible depth here due to the inclusion of cocoa powder, beer, and coffee (trust me, you want all of these in your chili). I was inspired by a traditional Texas red but chose to include tomatoes and beans (which many will debate, I know) – you can omit these if you want, and your chili will still be really tasty. This is not a quick meal as you have to let the chili simmer for 4+ hours (a slow cooker may work well here), but it is very much worth it.

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