Cookie Dough Truffles

Tags

Chocolate, Cookie dough, Truffle

Creating food is therapeutic. Put things in a bowl that wouldn’t taste good individually, mix them together, and end up with something decadent. It’s like magic. It does the soul good.

Love and Olive Oil has just published a cookbook. The blog world is going crazy about all of the delightful treats you can make thanks to her cookie dough recipes. Not to be left behind, these truffles had to be made!

Let’s not get scared here, truffles are not difficult. There are the basic steps:

1. Make balls of filling
2. Coat with a candy substance, often chocolate
3. Embellish as your muse leads you

I found the recipe over on Bakerella, and added my own embellishment as I had some white chocolate burning a hole in my pantry.

Some things that I learned:

1. Freezing the cookie dough balls before you dip really helps! Take a few out of the freezer at a time.

2. A kabob stick makes a great dipping skewer. Just fill in the hole after you’re done!

3. Melting chocolate is easy. Use your microwave. Set it for 30 seconds, stir. If it isn’t smooth, set it for 30 more seconds. Continue until melted. If it starts to thicken while you’re dipping, just put it back in the microwave for a few more seconds. This goes for the white chocolate drizzle as well! Melt in a bowl, scoop into a plastic bag, and pipe by cutting a small corner off.

This recipe will be making a come back! These truffles will keep in the fridge for up to a week. I dare you to make them last that long.

Puppy Chow

Tags

butter, Chocolate, Gluten Free, Peanut butter, Puppy chow

Puppy chow has been a long time favorite in my world. My friend Darcy and I used to make it all the time in high school. When we went to college, it was a vacation tradition to make a batch of it together when we were home at the same time.

True to form, we made that happen this Thanksgiving.

Now, puppy chow is pretty easy. And we never follow a recipe. That makes it more fun. Here are the basic steps:

1. Melt one bag of chocolate chips on the stove over medium/low heat.
2. Add a scoop of peanut butter. However much you want. Somewhere between a half and one cup would be good. Also, add 2 Tbs. butter.
3. Pour mixture of chocolatey wonderfulness over one box of chex cereal.
4. Mix it up until all of the cereal pieces are pretty much coated.
5. Pour powdered sugar on top. Toss until coated.
6. Consume!

Oh happy day. Now that I’m back from Thanksgiving weekend, I intend to eat only vegetables. Ha.

I wanna know: What was your favorite part of your weekend?

Chocolate cupcakes

Tags

baking, Chocolate, Cupcake, Peanut butter, recipe, Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, vegetarian

Have you heard the saying, “Chocolate and peanut butter: the best combination since Saturday and Sunday”?

It’s the truth. I’m a huge fan of anything that combines chocolate and peanut butter: Reeses peanut butter cups, buckeyes, moose tracks ice cream. You name it, I’ll eat it. Best food combination ever.

In honor of National Encouragement Week and the fact that our new interns have finished their orientation, Amanda and I decided that they deserved cupcakes. Never having made cupcakes from scratch before, I decided that my maiden voyage would involve chocolate and peanut butter. Obviously.

After hunting around, I chose this recipe for the cupcakes and this recipe for the peanut butter frosting. My only gripe was that I overfilled the cupcake tin, and so the cupcakes overflowed. When the recipe says “Fill half way,” the recipe means “Fill half way,” not 3/4s of the way. Besides that small issue, the cupcakes taste great, and are light, soft and delicious.

In case you’re curious, the peanut butter frosting is a real winner, folks. Save this recipe and treasure it for always. You’ll thank me. I promise.

I wanna know: What’s your favorite food combination?