Nutty...

Oh I am such a slacker!  Why is it so bloody hot here in South Carolina??  I turn on the oven and suddenly my house feels like 120 degrees.

I've been making things that don't involve much heat - my latest obsession is housemade crunchy peanut butter.  It's simple and delicious and is good on everything.

2 cups of roasted, shelled peanuts
1-2 tbsp peanut oil
1/4 tsp salt (omit if you're using salted peanuts)
2 tbsp honey (only if you want the sweet stuff)

Combine all ingredients in a food processor and blend until you have your desired consistency.  Use a spatula to scrap the sides of the processor's bowl and make sure you don't have any unwanted big chunks.  If it's not sweet enough, add more honey.  If you want more salt, rock on with your bad self!  If you added too much oil, add more peanuts.  Really, there's no way to mess this up.

Store your peanuty goodness in an airtight container - without preservatives, it won't last that long, but something tells me you won't be able to resist a spoonful here or there and before you know it...peanut butter ALL GONE.

My weakness is peanut butter and chocolate.  I love that combination - so of course after I made the peanut butter, I needed something to eat it with.  My homemade chocolate espresso cake worked just fine.

Just a few photos...cakeballs and cupcakes, oh my!

A cup of cocoa would make this day.

It's raining and just icky outside...makes me wish I was curled up at home in a blanket with a mug of cocoa.  Sadly, I'm doing that work thing - but now I'm dreaming of real hot cocoa.  None of that Swiss Miss packet garbage...gimmie the good stuff!

So, even though I can't partake in a mug of chocolatey goodness at this moment, I can share a recipe:

1/3 C. dark cocoa powder
1/2 C. sugar
pinch of sea salt
1/3 C. boiling water
3 1/2 C. whole milk
3/4 tsp. vanilla
1/2 C. half & half

Combine dry ingredients in a heavy saucepan, add boiling water and whisk until blended.  Add milk and heat on medium setting, do not boil.  Once mixture is hot enough, remove from heat and stir in the vanilla.  Whisk in half & half to cool cocoa down to drinkable temp.  Top with homemade whipped cream if you like - or add marshmallows!

It Ain't Easy Bein' Green...or something.

A while back, I purchased some Matcha powder from Whole Foods.  I'd never really tried green tea lattes or anything like that before, since I usually just stick with coffee (or Irish Breakfast tea, when I'm sick).
I wasn't a fan of the green latte, but I did think that the light flavor would be excellent in cookie form - so I created a Matcha shortbread cookie and drizzled some dark chocolate on top.

My co-workers were skeptical of these green cookie wedges, and I don't blame them.  I mean, they're GREEN.
One bite led to two...and then before I knew it, there were crumbs left in the box!

Happy Valentine's Day, my lovelies!

Mmmm Bacon!

Now, I've had chocolate with many things: cheeses, chili, lime, ginger, all sorts of liquor and so on.  When trying to come up with a pairing for this challenge, I realized I'd never had chocolate and bacon together.  I know it's a combo that's pretty popular, but we never have REAL bacon in our house.  We like to pretend that turkey bacon tastes just like regular bacon because turkey bacon is not as evil as pork bacon.  Or something.  The first thing I had to do was purchase REAL bacon.  Mmmmmmmmbacon.

I knew it was a cupcake that had been done before, but I'd never done it...so to get the bacon flavor going right from the start, I replaced the oil in my favorite chocolate cupcake recipe with bacon grease.  Sounds kinda gross, eh?  Perhaps, but wow...that smoky bacon flavor really pops with the cocoa.  When I baked the cupcakes, I did everything I normally did...but I guess the change in the "oil" altered the balance just enough that the cupcakes domed over onto the pan.  I hate when that happens!  

While the cupcakes were cooling, I prepared the frosting - Pure Maple Buttercream.  I could eat this frosting by the spoonful if I didn't feel so guilty about doing so...my son on the other hand, doesn't share my guilt.  He's currently running around the house pretending he's The Flash whilst on a sugar high.  


Atop the frosting I placed a piece of chocolate covered bacon, hand dipped by yours truly.  And sugar sprinkles...I love sugar sprinkles.  If you combined bacon and French toast and then covered them in chocolate...yea, that's my cupcake.  

Gummy Goodness

A month ago when I started asking my son what he wanted for his 4th birthday, he would reply with the same answer every time:

"I want to have a party at Chuck E. Cheeses and play games and have a strawberry cake."

Sounded simple enough, right? Well, his older sister is very much allergic to strawberries and I didn't want to make multiple cakes - cupcakes were definitely the way to go. 

I have this very versitile cupcake recipe that I use for almost everything, and just alter certain ingredients as I go along. Someone once told me that baking is an exact science, you can't just wing it. Well, everytime I wing it, I have a new favorite cupcake!

I made a white cocoa cupcake and filled it with a mixture of strawberry Squeezie Fruit (ever try the stuff? It's amazing!) and white cocoa buttercream. Then I topped the cupcakes with more white cocoa buttercream. My son loves gummy treats - gummy bears, gummy worms, all of the above. So I took some Wonka squishy Sploshberries and placed them on top of the buttercream. After adding a little red sugar crystals, I was done!
Of course, I set some unfilled cupcakes aside for my daughter so she wouldn't have to endure the hives that strawberies give her. 

The cupcakes were a hit at his party. Our party hostess even requested one! I'm glad I brought some to-go bakery boxes too, because some other parents wanted to take cupcakes home to their families.