Fabulous Fudge in Five Minutes

Well, something is definitely wrong with me because the other day I craved a salad. I'm pretty sure that's never happened in my entire life. The good news is, right after I started craving chocolate, so it looks like I'm back to normal.

The only chocolate we really had in the house was Girl Scout Cookies, but not any of my favorites. We have a few boxes left in our pantry, but they're those kind of cookies that you order because you like them, not because they're your favorite. That means, we don't have any Thin Mints or Samoas left, so Girl Scout Cookies were out. 

My next idea was to make fudge, but not just any normal fudge. In seventh grade FACS, we learned how to make fudge in the microwave. I know, it sounds gross, right? WRONG. It is a chocolate lover's perfect fast snack. Plus, it's just about the easiest recipe ever.

Here's how to make it.

Microwave Fudge

You will need:
3 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1/4 cup evaporated milk
1/2 cup butter
2 teaspoons vanilla

a large, microwave-safe bowl (make sure it fits in your microwave)

We didn't have enough powdered sugar, so I had to cut the recipe in half. There will usually be more fudge, don't worry.  :)

Combine the powdered sugar and cocoa powder in the large bowl and mix well.

Add the stick of butter and evaporated milk, but DO NOT MIX! To open the evaporated milk can, use a can opener to poke a large hole and a small hole directly across from it. Pour out of the large hole. The small hole prevents bubbling. Also, don't get a big can of milk unless you plan on using it for other things because you do't need that much.

Put the bowl in microwave for 2 1/2 minutes or until the butter is completely melted. Be careful, though, it is easy to burn it if you cook it too long.

Stir all of the ingredients together.

Add the vanilla and stir again. Make sure you get all of the lumps out of it. It will taste better later on. If it seems dry, you can add a little bit more milk.

Technically, you could eat the fudge now, but it is probably really warm. Place the fudge on a cookie sheet and spread it out with either a spatula or your hands. I recommended using wax paper for easier clean up! I also used the wax paper to shape it better.

Place the entire pan in the refrigerator for ten minutes or more until it is firm.

Cut the fudge into squares and enjoy!




This fudge was literally gone in less than two days in my house. I'm not kidding when I say it's delicious!

Do You Know the Muffin Pan? - Cakes

I promised there would be a dessert muffin pan recipe, so here it is! This was on the same Brit+Co post as the tacos.

I think I was looking forward to making (and EATING) this more than the tacos. Don't get me wrong, they were both delicious, but let's get real, who doesn't love a warm, chocolate cake? This recipe pretty much had my name written all over it.

It's time to wash those jumbo muffin pans after making your tacos, because trust me, you'll want to use them again! Here is the recipe for the muffin pan molten chocolate cakes.

Molten Chocolate Cakes

(Muffin Pan Edition)

You will need:

1 cup chocolate chips (maybe a little bit more) ;)

1 cup butter

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 cups powdered sugar

4 eggs

3/4 cup flour

1/2 teaspoon paprika

We only had one stick of butter, so I had to cut the recipe in half. It still made four cakes, though, which was plenty.

First, melt the butter and chocolate chips together. I did this by using a homemade double broiler. I showed how to do this in one of my previous posts. However, the chocolate melted much faster than the butter. I ended up melting the butter in the microwave, then mixing it with the chocolate while it was still on the broiler. It was sort of lumpy at first, but after adding more chocolate and stirring, the mixture turned out smooth like it was supposed to. 

Add the vanilla, eggs and powdered sugar and stir until everything is combined. Don't let it sit for too long or it will get hard. Just a heads up! Mix in the flour and paprika and stir well again. 

Fill the muffin pan with the batter. Each cup should be about 3/4 full. The cakes will rise while they are in the oven.

Evelyn, Georgia, and I had some fun licking the extra batter from the bowl. 

Georgia

Evelyn

Georgia doing the "turkey" to Evelyn and I.
Sorry about my weird, mouse-looking face.
Pictures aren't really my thing unless I try to look weird.

Bake the cakes at 425ºF for ten to thirteen minutes. The sides will be firm, but the center will be all melty and "jiggly," according to Brit+Co. When I think of "jiggly," I think of Jell-O, not chocolate. But hey, whatever floats your boat. 

It's better if you serve these right out of the oven, but make sure you let the cakes sit for about two minutes before removing them from the pan. I skipped this step without realizing and got a melty, chocolatey mess. It still tasted AMAZING, but it wasn't very attractive. We let some of the other ones sit and they turned out better. I didn't get a picture of it, though, because we took it out, but decided we should wait for my sister to get home from soccer. Bad idea. It sort of collapsed. Oh well. It still tasted good and that's all that matters to me!

Enjoy your mini, Mexican-inspired, muffin pan, molten chocolate cakes! (What a mouthful!) I know I did!

Sweet and Salty = HEAVEN

In my last post, I promised that I would find a super yummy recipe for this week's post and I did! I was browsing my pins on Pinterest and found a recipe for Chocolate Chip Salted Caramel Cookie Bars. Does that sound scrumptious or what? Also, I just got my braces off after having them for two years and wasn't supposed to eat caramel while I had them (I did anyways), so it was perfect! They turned out to be WAY better than I thought they would, which is saying a lot. Seriously, they are like heaven in bar form. If I could marry them, I would.

Here's is how to make them so you can have some heaven of your own!

Chocolate Chip Salted Caramel Cookie Bars

You will need:

2 1/8 cup flour

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking soda

12 Tbsp butter

1 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1 egg

1 egg yolk

2 tsp vanilla

2 cups chocolate chips (1 bag)

10 oz caramel candy squares

3 Tbsp heavy cream

sea salt

This first step seems a little bit out of order, but trust me, it's the smart way to go. Measure your butter and put it in the microwave until it is completely melted. Take it out and let it cool to room temperature. While doing this, I had a Claire moment and forgot to cover the butter in the microwave. Let's just say a stick and a half of butter went to waste and the mess took me at least ten minutes to clean up. Good job Claire. To avoid this, MAKE SURE you don't forget to cover up the butter or it will pop all over the microwave. It's not fun. Trust me.

In a medium bowl (if using an electric mixer, don't use that bowl), combine the flour, salt and baking soda and set aside.

In a large bowl (this can be the mixer's bowl), combine the melted butter and both sugars and mix well. Add the egg, egg yolk, and vanilla. You should have one egg white and two yolks. Make sense? To separate the egg, crack it and over a bowl, switch the yolk in between the two halves of the egg shell until you no longer have any egg white.

Next, slowly add the dry ingredients and the chocolate chips to the mixture.

In a microwave-save bowl, combine the caramels (UNWRAPPED!) and heavy cream. Heat it in the microwave until it is melted. If you stir it every twenty seconds or so it works well and takes only around two minutes. 

Either before or while melting the caramel, take around half of the cookie dough and press it into the bottom of a greased 13x9 inch pan, just like you do with the sugar cookie bars. 

Once the caramel is smooth and melted, pour it over the cookie dough while it is hot and sprinkle it with sea salt. Press the remaining cookie dough on the top and sprinkle with sea salt again. I made little balls of dough and squished them for the top layer so I didn't get caramel everywhere. This ended up working well. 

Bake for about twenty-five minutes at 325ºF. Let them cool before cutting and then EAT THEM ALL UP!

Enjoy!

Winter Weather Calls for Warm Drinks!

Lately, in Park City, the weather has been super weird. Last weekend it was snowing. Then it started to warm up again, and now there is a thunderstorm happening right outside my window! What a weird winter...

When winter comes along, what is on everyone's mind? Of course, there's Christmas, snow, skiing, snowboarding, sledding, warm pajamas, fires in the fireplace, but most of all, warm mugs of hot cocoa and apple cider. I know I always look forward to them. However, I'm sure most people know how to make hot cocoa and apple cider, so I'm not going to be writing about how to make those. I WILL be writing about two new warm drinks that I just tried for myself and turned out super yummy!

Warm Vanilla Milk

I remember someone telling me that she LOVED to drink warm vanilla milk and would bring it to school in the morning a lot in the winter. It sounded pretty weird and kind of gross when she first told me what she was drinking, but after she explained how much she loved it, I have always wanted to give it a try. I ended up completely forgetting about it until researching warm drinks for this blog. Ever since, I have been craving it and it was SO easy and SO good!


You will need:

1 cup milk
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
1 Tbsp sugar
a mug

To start, warm up the milk either in a mug in the microwave or on the stovetop. Either way works, but I used the microwave because it's much faster and easier. It took about two and a half minutes, in case you were wondering.

After you have warmed up the milk to your desired temperature, stir in the vanilla and sugar with a spoon.

Top it off with a pinch of cinnamon and you're already done! Easy right?



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Spiced Hot Cocoa

This hot cocoa recipe that I found sounded really interesting and worth trying, so I did! It's just like normal hot cocoa with a little bit extra. This one was also easy and yummy!


You will need:

1 Tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
2 tsp brown sugar
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp nutmeg
1 Tbsp hot water
1 cup milk
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/8 tsp almond extract

This recipe is kind of in two parts: the cocoa mixture and the actual drink part. Make your cocoa mixture by combining the cocoa powder, brown sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Now, I didn't have a 1/8 teaspoon (who does?), so I had to guess by filling half of the 1/4 teaspoon and it turned out that I added a little bit too much for my liking. I would just add about a pinch of nutmeg instead. Anyways, mix the ingredients together after you have added them all.

The recipe also asks for a tablespoon of boiling water, but who wants to boil an entire pot of water for only one tablespoon? Not me, that's for sure. Instead, I used the hot water from the sink, which worked fine. I actually think cold water would have worked as well. Pour that water into the cocoa mixture and stir it until it is smooth.

Heat your milk up, again, either by microwave (but don't heat it in the same mug) or the stovetop.

Pour it in with your chocolate. Stir everything together well and top it off with some whipped cream and chocolate sauce and you're done! We didn't have chocolate sauce. Darn it! :(

I hope I inspired you to make a new drink on your next cold winter's day! Enjoy!

With Christmas, Comes Cookies!

To start things off, I hope you all are having a very merry holiday season so far! I know this last week before Christmas break is a little bit stressful, at least for me, but still, I hope it's fun.

Every year, when Christmas starts rolling around, my family and I always make our "famous" Christmas gifts- cookies! We started making these when we first moved to Park City, which if I am remembering right, was seven years ago. I guess you could say they have become our little tradition for the holidays. The good things about making these cookies as gifts is 1) They are AMAZING and 2) You can make tons!

The first few years, we didn't make as many, but as we've met more people, more people have been added to our gift list. These cookies are always a hit with everyone we make them for, so we have decided to make them every year. Even my cat likes when we make them, because again, she gets accidental samples! Maybe that's why she is so fat! I guess we should probably shoo her off instead of taking pictures, but hey, we tried!

I started making these for my friends last year and since so many people told me how yummy they were (some asked for the recipe too), I decided to make them again! So, this past weekend, I've been knocking out a ton of cookies. Since my last post, people have been asking me to make headbands too! Good thing they are easy! Hopefully I will be able to get those done before Christmas, but I'm not making any promises.

Now let's get to the good part.

Spicy Molasses Cookies

(Courtesy of Pioneer Woman)

1 cup sugar

3/4 Crisco (or other vegetable shortening)

1/4 cup molasses

2 cups flour

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

1 teaspoon ground ginger

1/4 teaspoon ground cardamom

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

First, preheat your oven. The original recipe says to set it at 350º, but I set mine on convection at 325º instead, to make sure they would cook evenly. 

Mix your wet ingredients together - otherwise known as sugar, shortening, molasses, and egg - in a large bowl until they are well combined. Once you can't see any more shortening, you should be good. At least that's how it went for me. 

Mix in your dry ingredients- flour, spices, etc. - while stirring slowly to avoid making a HUGE mess. 

Mix the dough until everything is thoroughly combined.

With your hands, roll the dough into "walnut-sized" balls. Honestly, I have no idea what size a whole walnut is because I never really buy them before they are cracked. This lead to dough balls that were about one to two inches in size, which worked completely fine. Pour a bowl or plate of sugar and roll the dough balls in it until they are evenly coated.

Place them on an ungreased cookie sheet and pop those suckers in the oven for eight to twelve minutes. 

HINT: Keep an eye on the cookies. Once they begin to crack, let them cook for another minute or so and then take them out. This will give you nice, soft cookies, which are always more delicious than burnt ones by far!

You can technically be done at this step, but why not make them even better? A fun and easy way to jazz these cookies up is to add some white chocolate. I'm sure I speak for a lot of people when I say that chocolate makes everything better. Period.

If you choose to be fun, allow your cookies to cool and while doing so, get ready to melt your white chocolate.

Last year was the first year I decided to try the chocolate route and it did not work...at all. Well, okay, maybe it worked, but it was a huge pain in the butt and I can not tell you that twice. This year, I did some searching and found a pain-free, easy way to melt the white chocolate on a blog called Craftsy.

I found on more than just this blog that using a double broiler is the way to go when melting any kind of chocolate, especially white chocolate because it has a lower burning point. Now, if you're like me, you probably don't have a double broiler, but don't worry! You can make your own with a pot and a bowl that fits over it. There is a picture of this on Craftsy. On there, it says to let the water boil first and then put the chocolate in, but of course, I didn't read carefully enough and had the chocolate in while it was boiling, which worked fine, so I ended up saving time in the end.

Once your white chocolate is completely melted, set your cookies out on pieces of wax paper. Don't make the pieces too long, unless you want to carry the hot bowl around...no thanks. Drizzle the melted chocolate over the cookies with a fork or dip them in the bowl. Be creative! Putting the cookies on smaller pieces of wax paper allows you to drizzle or dip a few without making a mess, then set them aside while the chocolate hardens. I decided to be done with the cookies after that, but I'm sure it would be cute to put some holiday sprinkles on the cookies right after you drizzle them to make sure they stay on! Maybe I'll try that next year.

Because of the fact that we make so many, we usually make them in double-batch intervals, meaning if we were to make eight batches, we would only have to make the recipe four times. Make sense? Anyways, when I made these, it made a little over fifty cookies, give or take a few considering my dough balls were probably bigger than walnuts. I had a little over a hundred in the end, which was perfect for all of my gifts!


Happy Holidays!

One Fantastic Classic

Who doesn't love a warm, fresh chocolate chip cookie? But why not add a little bit of pizazz to them? Add some oatmeal! I have using this recipe for Oatmeal Chocolate Chip cookies for a while now and they are always a hit! Be careful, though. These are hard to stay away from, trust me. 

These are delicious on  any day of the year. I usually make them when I need a quick and easy recipe that will make a lot if I need it to. It's just as easy as the regular chocolate chip recipe, only with a few more ingredients. 

OATMEAL CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES (✭✭✭✭✭)

You will need:

1 cup butter (2 sticks)

1 cup granulated sugar

1 cup brown sugar

2 eggs

2 tsp vanilla extract

1 tsp salt

2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp baking powder

3 1/2 cups flour

1 Tbsp cocoa powder (optional- I like how they taste extra chocolatey!)

2 cups oats

2 cups chocolate chips (I just add the whole bag.)

An electric mixer makes the process a lot easier, by the way. It saves a good amount of time and effort.

Step 1

Just like every other baking recipe, you have to preheat your oven. I set mine on convection at 325º. If your oven does not have a convection setting, set the temperature to 350º.

Step 2

Soften the two sticks of butter. On my microwave it takes about 15 seconds. Don't melt it, just soften it. With liquid butter, the dough will not turn out to be its normal consistency. Cream the butter and two sugars together.

Step 3

Add the vanilla and eggs to the mixture. Make sure you mix well!

Step 4

Add the dry ingredients- salt, baking soda, baking powder, flour, and cocoa powder if you choose to do so. Again, mix well, but not too fast if you are using a mixer. The ingredients will get EVERYWHERE! It's not fun. 

Step 5

Stir in the oats and chocolate chips. Again, don't mix it too quickly. 

Step 6

Use a tablespoon to shape the dough and place the balls on an ungreased cookie sheet. With the tablespoon, the cookies will be sure to stay the same size as you shape them. If you have a cookie dough scooper, you can use that as well.

Step 7

Bake the cookies for 8-10 minutes on convection or 10-12 minutes on a regular setting. I like my cookies on the softer side, so I usually cook them for only eight minutes. Setting your oven to convection will cook the cookies more evenly. That way, the bottoms won't burn as easily!

MMMMMM... There's nothing better than warm cookies with a cool glass of milk! Happy baking!

ANOTHER TIP FOR AWESOME CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES:

I learned that adding instant vanilla pudding to the recipe will make your chocolate chip cookies taste better and look better, too. I've tried this before and it definitely worked! I don't know what that pudding does exactly, but it works wonders. You can find the recipe for these cookies here. 

(Sorry about the quality of these photos. The lighting in our kitchen is a little bit weird. Don't worry, the cookies look a lot better in person.)