Left-Over Christmas Candy Cookies

My roommate and I LOOOVE candy so naturally we have a lot lying around for the Holidays and I thought I would throw them into a chocolate chip cookie batter. I used Almond Roca and truffles from a Starbucks Advent Calendar. They were soooo yummy. I thought about adding peanut butter presents and mint m&m's but I opted for the other two. Any candy you have lying around for the Holidays would work, just chop them up and stir into batter instead of the chocolate chips.

Pambiche- A Cuban Restaurant

I love this place! They have amazing food and a really beautiful selection of desserts. I always order the Moros & Cristianos (a rice and beans dish), the Maduros (fried ripe plantains) and their fresh pineapple juice. So great every time. I have tried other things from the menu (all delicious) but these are my favorites, and they are also available on their Happy Hour menu! The atmosphere inside is very vibrant and the wait staff has always been incredibly friendly and knowledgeable of everything on the menu. My next visit will be to try their breakfast. Visit their site Pambiche for more info.

Bite Size Desserts

I made these for a friends party. One is a mini cheesecake with a raspberry or strawberry slice on top. I made them in a mini muffin pan (make sure to spray with oil before putting/pressing the graham cracker crust mixture into the mini muffin holes) Just use your favorite cheesecake recipe.

The other two were made using mini tart pans with the removeable bottom. I filled one with chocolate pudding and topped it with whipped cream and chocolate shavings. To shave chocolate just take a brick of chocolate and peel it with a vegetable peeler. It makes for a very nice presentation. I filled the other one with custard and topped it with sugar dusted blueberries and raspberries. Use finely ground sugar for dusting.

All of these mini treats are not time consuming and are very easy to assemble. They become even easier if you use store bought dough and fillings for the tarts.

The Cookie Cupcake

I came up with this dessert because I wanted to do something different with the cupcake. I was making all of the desserts for my friend's graduation party, hence the University of Oregon frosting colors, and I wanted to do something special. I just used my favorite cookie recipes and put the dough 1/4 of the way up the muffin tin and placed the chocolate cupcake batter on top. These were quite good, I would actually prefer these to a regular cupcake. It was interesting how the cookie dough almost had a cake batter texture to it when finished. I used chocolate chip cookies for the bottom but I bet any combination of cookie and cupcake would be wonderful.

My Favorite Cookie Recipe:

From Chocolate Snowball and other Fabulous Pastries from Deer Valley Bakery

2 sticks of unsalted butter
1 Cup sugar
1/4 Cup firmly packed brown sugar
2 eggs
1 1/4 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 Cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 Cup semisweet chocolate chips

1. Preheat the oven to 325
2. Cream the butter, sugar and brown sugar together until light and fluffy
3. Add the eggs and vanilla, mix well.
4. Sift together the flour, baking soda and salt.
5. Mix into butter mixture
6. Stir in the chocolate chips

Use in The Cookie Cupcake or just bake as cookies. They are meant to be a jumbo cookie but will work in a smaller size. If you are going to use this recipe for cookies, make sure to lightly oil the baking sheet and check the cookies after 10 minutes. If you are making them jumbo style (1/3 Cup mounds) they will bake for 20 minutes.

Banana Bread

I love banana bread and I was thinking of ways to make it look as good as it tastes, so I just placed some thin slices of banana on top of the loaf before I put it in the oven. Make sure to have the slices of banana overlapping or there will be gaps (as you can see from the center picture). The banana bread pictured above are mini loafs but it works just as well with a regular size loaf. I have found that most banana bread recipes will fill 3 mini loaf pans.

Use your favorite banana bread recipe and with any recipe that I use I always add an extra 1/2 Cup of ripe bananas, it not only gives it more flavor but makes it less dry.

Vanilla Cupcakes

I love going to specialty cake shops and looking around at all the fun stuff they have available for you. On one of my trips I picked up an extensive food coloring kit and wanted to use it so I made these vanilla cupcakes. I also picked up the sugar flowers and sprinkles that I used to decorate them with. They were fairly inexpensive at $.40 each. I live in Portland and the shop I went to was the Decorette Shop on SE Foster CLICK HERE if you want to check out their site.

Ingredients:
1/2 Cup unsalted butter, room temperature
2/3 Cup sugar
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/2 Cups flour
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 Cup milk, preferably whole milk

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
2. Line 12 cup muffin tin with paper liners
3. Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy
4. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition
5. Beat in vanilla extract
6. In a separate bowl whisk together flour, baking powder and salt
7. Add to butter and egg mixture along with the milk and beat until combined
8. Fill muffin cups with batter and bake for 12-15 minutes or until nicely browned and a toothpick inserted comes out with a few crumbs attached (or clean but I prefer a moister cupcake)
9. Remove from oven and place on rack to cool
10. Frost with store bought frosting or make your own! FROSTING RECIPE just add food coloring until you get desired color. I would add 2-3 drops at a time and then stir and see if you would like it to be darker.
11. Decorate with flowers and/sprinkles.

Banana Cream Pie

I made this Banana Cream Pie for my Grandma's 80th Birthday because it is one of her favorites and I added 1 crushed Butterfinger to the crust because that is one of my favorites. It added a nice, "mm mm, what is that flavor?" As you can see from the picture the crust is my favorite part. If you want more of the filling just double the filling amounts. I used a JELL-O package for the filling. It tasted really good and saved me a lot of time over the stove stirring constantly trying to achieve the perfect consistency for pudding. You can use a tart pan or a spring form works just as well.

Ingredients:
3 cups crushed graham crackers
6 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/8 Cup brown sugar
1 Butterfinger crushed (optional)
1 package JELL-O Banana Cream Pie Pudding
2 Cups heavy whipping cream
Powdered sugar to taste
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 banana for decorating

1. Melt butter and brown sugar over medium heat.
2. Meanwhile, put graham crackers in a Ziploc bag and crush with a rolling pin.
3. Combine butter-sugar mixture with the crushed graham crackers and Butterfinger (if using).
4. Press into tart pan and bake for 10 minutes at 350 degrees.
5. Prepare Banana Cream Pie Pudding and cool.
6. Beat heavy whipping cream until soft peaks form.
7. Add the powdered sugar 1 tablespoon at a time until desired taste.
8. Add the vanilla.
9. Put into fridge until needed.
10. Once crust has cooled pour the pudding on top and spread with a spatula.
11. Place in fridge to firm up pudding, about 20 minutes.
12. Then spread whipped cream over pudding and decorate with thin slices of banana.

Chocolate Dipped Oreo Cake

This is one of the first cakes I ever created myself. In college, I would constantly fall asleep thinking about how I could decorate a cake. I don't know why I don't as much anymore, but through one of my half dreams I thought it would be genius to dip Oreos in chocolate. I angled the center cookie for extra oohs and awe's. You would be amazed how many people asked me how I did that.

I honestly don't remember the recipe nor did I write it down. I think I used a chocolate cake recipe from my Hershey's cookbook (also a first, my Mom gave it to me for Christmas the first year I started baking) as a guide. I know the pictures are not too terribly great but I took these pictures in my college kitchen that was incredibly blue and small, not thinking about the distracting background.

To Decorate:
I dipped Oreo cookies half way into melted milk chocolate (semisweet would work as well and dark chocolate might add a nice contrast with the frosting). Then I placed them on the outside of the cake. As for the center cookie, after I dipped it, I just held it in place for about 1 minute and it stayed. I also added crushed Oreos in between the two layers.

What is the Difference Between a Torte and a Cake?

Simply put, a torte tends to be richer and more dense than a cake. This is achieved by using less flour and more eggs. Ground nuts or breadcrumbs are also a very common ingredient in tortes.

Want more information? CLICK HERE.

Chocolate Raspberry Torte

I made this Chocolate Torte a couple of years ago for a family friend's anniversary. It is extremely decadent and rich but the raspberries add a nice tartness and help to balance out the flavor. We enjoyed it with a nice bottle of red wine. If you know of any chocolate lovers this is the dessert for them.

*Strawberries would also be very nice with this torte.

I find it very helpful to write recipes in steps rather than a paragraph form. That way you can easily find your place if you need to recheck something (which I do rather frequently).

Torte:
8 ounces semisweet chocolate, chopped
1 Cup unsalted butter
1 Cup sugar
5 large eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 Cup flour

1. Preheat oven to 325 F.
2. Butter a 10-inch spring form pan and dust with sugar. (You'll be so happy to have this waiting for you rather than scrambling to get it together once you finish the batter).
3. Melt the chocolate and butter in a heavy large saucepan over low heat; stirring constantly. Cool to lukewarm.
4.Whisk in the sugar.
5. Whisk in eggs 1 at a time, blending well after each addition
6. Mix in vanilla and salt, then flour.
7. Pour batter into pan.
8. Bake for 35 minutes. *I always do 5-10 minutes less than what a recipe suggests. I don't necessarily take it out I just make sure to check on it. Nothing bothers me more then over baked goodies:)
9. Cool completely in the pan on a rack.

The center of the cake will look slightly collapsed, that is normal for a cake with very little flour. And the trusty toothpick trick does not work here.

Ganache:
2 Cups heavy whipping cream
15 ounces semisweet chocolate, chopped

1. Bring the heavy whipping cream to a simmer in a small saucepan.
2. Remove from the heat and add the chocolate; whisk until smooth.

Pour ganache over the torte and decorate with fresh raspberries.

*Ganache is a fancy term for melted chocolate with a glossy sheen to it.

Make sure to follow the instructions exactly. In the past I reversed the steps by melting the chocolate and adding room temperature cream and it made the chocolate look lite and discolored.