Birthday Sugar Coma

There is a woman in New York who is trying to kill me. I've never met her, so I cannot think of what I could have done to provoke this. She keeps posting these beautiful cakes and other delicacies on her blog, SmittenKitchen, just egging me on, "try this, I know you wanna...it's not that bad for you."

Everything I have ever made based on Smittenkitchen's blog has been successful, and that is a testament to her cooking and baking talents, not mine. So when it came time to baking my own, yes, my own, birthday cake, I knew right where to look for the perfect thing. Chocolate and peanut butter cake? Yes, please.

Click on the above link to SmittenKitchen for the complete recipe. This is a fairly labor intensive cake, but well worth it. I had never made a layered cake before, so that in itself was intimidating, but I was excited to try something new. Frosting with peanut butter frosting was another challenge. It wasn't "peanuty" enough for me, so I added more peanut butter, which made it too crumbly. So I added some milk to the frosting to thin it out because it was too hard to work with otherwise. The thinned out version was a dream to frost with, and the additional peanut butter enhanced the flavor, in my opinion.

But wait, there's more. Just when you thought you couldn't consume any more calories per slice, now you can! Because as the last step in this journey toward a certain diabetic coma, you also get to pour a layer of chocolate peanut butter ganache on top of the whole darn thing. Yes, you heard right. More chocolate, more peanut butter. As you can see, the original version has ganache draped just so over the frosting. But the recipe made so much ganache, I couldn't bare to throw any away, so I frosted the whole cake with it. Why the heck not, right?

Finally, when she suggests, ever so politely, that you keep a glass of milk handy when sampling the cake, listen to the woman, she knows of which she speaks.

Brownies from Heaven

For brownies that will bring tears to your eyes (in a good way), try these Outrageous Brownies from Ina Garten. I made some tweaks (see below) because I had chocolate mint chips I wanted to use, which I made into two layers of ganache, but I am sure they are amazing in their original form as well. Note: they are even richer the next day.

Original recipe (taken from Smittenkitchen.com)

Ina Garten’s Outrageous Brownies

1 pound unsalted butter
28 ounces semi-sweet chocolate chips, divided
6 ounces unsweetened chocolate
6 extra large eggs
3 tablespoons instant coffee granules
2 tablespoons pure vanilla extract
2 1/4 cups sugar
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour, divided
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
3 cups chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter and flour a 12×18x1 inch baking sheet. Melt together the butter, one pound of the chips, and the unsweetened chocolate in a medium bowl over simmering water. Allow to cool slightly.

In a large bowl, stir (do not beat) together the eggs, coffee granules, vanilla, and sugar. Stir the warm chocolate mixture into the egg mixture and allow to cool to room temperature. In a medium bowl, sift together 1 cup of flour, the baking powder, and salt. Add to the cooled chocolate mixture. Toss the walnuts and 12 ounces of chips in a medium bowl with 1/4 cup flour, then add them to the chocolate batter. Pour into the baking sheet.

Bake for 20 minutes, then rap the baking sheet against the oven shelf to force the air to escape from between the pan and dough. Bake for another 15 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean. (Mine took a lot longer, closer to 30 minutes) Do not overbake!

Allow to cool thoroughly, refrigerate.

Ina’s notes: Flouring the chips and walnuts keeps them from sinking to the bottom.
It is very important to allow the batter to cool well before adding the chips, or the chips will melt and ruin the brownies.

Do ahead: This recipe can be baked up to a week in advance, wrapped in plastic, and refrigerated.

My tweaks:

First, I cut the whole recipe in half and used a smaller pan. I omited the chocolate chips and walnuts. I made two ganaches (ganachi?) from a big bag of brown and green chocolate mint chips. After the brownies were done, but still warm, I poured a layer of chocolate mint ganache on top while carefully piercing the top of the brownies with a toothpick. Once that layer cooled, I topped it with the green ganache (recipes to follow).

Notes: This can be made with any flavor chips. My next attempt will be peanut butter chips, of course.

Ganache

6 ounces good semisweet chocolate chips
6 tablespoons heavy cream

Melt together in a double broiler until smooth.

Green Ganache

Seperate 4 ounces green chips out of the bag
2 ounces white chocolate
6 tablespoons heavy cream

Melt together in a double broiler until smooth.

Is there anything more lovely then melted chocolate?

Super dark, rich brownies with messy, goopey, yummy layers of ganache. Sigh.

Cake Pops

My first attempt at Cake Pops was not a huge success, to say the least. Half the balls ended up plopped into the melted bark. But really, how can cake mashed up with frosting and dipped into candy bark taste bad? It was delicious. Ugly and delicious. I am determined to keep practicing though, so beware if you live close to me, these might pop up at your door step without warning.

Best.Cheesecake.Ever.

A few weeks ago, while lingering over our $5 sliver of cheesecake at Cafe Latte, I told my husband that I wanted to find the perfect cheesecake recipe. "Well that doesn't seem like such a smart move," he said. He was right. I am trying to maintain a healthy weight, and "perfect cheesecake" and "healthy weight" are not two concepts that often go together. But I did it anyway, I found the perfect cheesecake recipe.

My friend Alissa was kind enough to share her mother-in-law's grandmother's recipe and it is amazing. It's creamy and fluffy, with layers of delicate flavors. This cheesecake is for the purist, calling for no additions other than the sour cream top layer. It is cheesecake the way cheesecake was meant to be.

For a friend's recent visit, I made the cheesecake with a few tweaks. I must admit it felt a bit like editing the bible, but you really can add anything you like to this recipe and it will maintain its essential perfection. I like a little zing in my desserts, so I added lemon zest and powdered sugar to the top layer, and drizzled strawberry sauce on top.

I do plan on trying a lower fat version some day, but trust me, this was worth the 3000 points per bite. Really.

These are the only pictures I was able to snap before it all disappeared.