Chocolate Chip Waffles

You all know that for the most part, I conjure up my own recipes. However, this recipe was great as is, I just made two small changes. Make sure you pay close attention to the egg white instructions because it makes a huuuuge difference.

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour 
1 tablespoon brown sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder 
1/2 teaspoon salt 
1 1/2 cups milk 
1 tablespoon butter, melted 
2 teaspoon vanilla extract 
1 large egg yolk 
1 large egg white 
1 cup semisweet chocolate minichips

Preheat waffle iron and spray with cooking spray.

In a large mixing bowl, sift together flour, brown sugar, baking powder and salt. In a separate bowl, mix milk, butter, vanilla extract and egg yolk. Combine with dry ingredients until smooth. Whip egg white until stiff peaks are formed. Fold into batter gently. Fold in chocolate chips. Cook on waffle iron per instructions in manual. Enjoy!

Oreo Cookie Truffles

I've made these bad boys before but never posted the recipe. I decided I would make them again since 1) they're delicious and 2) I wanted to share them with you all.

So, I went to work in the kitchen, whipped together the filling then took the time to dip all 30+ of the little guys into the melted chocolate. I recruited Jon to help and asked him to sprinkle some crushed oreos on top of them. To him sprinkling apparently equals dumping so they ended up with more garnish than I anticipated, not going to complain about extra oreo that's for sure. Then, I placed them on a plate covered with wax paper and stuck them in the fridge. I went back in the fridge because after sneaking a few of them, I needed some milk. So, I grabbed out the milk which my genius arse had used as a support for the plate (real smart Cait) which of course caused the plate to flip over and fall onto the floor into a big chocolate blob. Now, most of the time when accidents like these happen in our house, Jon is somehow to blame. I was so angry with myself that I swear if he even chuckled or looked at me sideways, I would've flown off the handle, haha. So I marched out of the kitchen without saying a word, or closing the fridge. I came back into the kitchen to him cleaning up my mess for me and then I finally just busted out in laughter. Once I started laughing, he admitted that he had been sitting there trying to figure out if he was to blame somehow. It ended up being a comical waste of time. I feel like someone upstairs is as concerned with my waist line as I am. Luckily, I did snap a picture for you guys before the destruction. I hope that you don't have a disaster on your hands when you make them because with all the work of dipping them, it is really nice to actually be able to eat them afterwards.

1 box oreos
8 oz cream cheese, softened
11 oz bag chocolate chips

Using a food processor, pulse oreo cookies until fine. (You could also just throw them in a Ziploc bag and beat them senseless with a rolling pin.) Using an electric mixer, beat cream cheese in medium mixing bowl until smooth. Beat in cookie crumbs. Place mixture in fridge for about one hour to set. Once set and hard enough to handle, use a spoon to scoop out and shape into bite sized balls.

Use a double boiler or microwave to melt chocolate chips. Using a fork or slotted spoon, dip each ball into chocolate until fully covered. Place on baking sheet lined with wax paper and set in refrigerator until chocolate hardens.

Cookie Dough Truffles

Let's just start off by saying YUM. These are seriously sinful. I tried to give a bunch of them out so I didn't have them sitting in my fridge willing me to eat them and gain 6 pounds. They were easy enough to make. I made a large batch so the most tedious part was rolling them in the chocolate. Then there was the waiting game while the chocolate hardened. Jon didn't do so well with this part, he just ate them with the mostly melted chocolate, haha.


1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup brown sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
2 cups all purpose flour
1 cup sweetened condensed milk
1 cup chocolate chips
11 oz bag chocolate chips (for outside coating)
Sprinkles to decorate (optional)

Using an electric mixer, beat together butter and brown sugar. Add in vanilla extract, baking soda and salt. Alternate adding in flour and sweetened condensed milk. (Add 1/2 cup flour, then 1/2 cup sweetened condensed milk, 1/2 cup flour, 1/2 cup sweetened condensed milk). Fold in 1 cup of the chocolate chips. Form dough into bite sized balls. Set on baking sheet with wax paper. Set in refrigerator for about one hour.

Once the dough has set, use a double boiler or microwave to melt chocolate chips. Using a fork or slotted spoon, dip each dough ball into chocolate until fully covered. Add sprinkles while chocolate is still soft if desired.

S'Mores Pie

I finally got a new plate to display food on for here. Oh, I'm fancy!

I have been doing SO good recently with eating right and going to the gym. I have been eating salads 6 days a week, working out 2-3 hours 4-5 days a week and cut out a lot of the processed foods I used to eat daily. You don't need to pat me on the back for it, I clearly am doing that myself. Ha!

Thennnnnn, I had my friends come over about a week ago. The variety of delicious foods we had was ridiculous. We had kalbi, steak, chicken, my famous dip, hot dogs and S'MORES. For some reason, we managed to not eat all of the supplies we had bought to make s'mores.

So the other day, as I'm eating my carrots like a champ, I look around my kitchen and see the workings of a s'mores pie. I decided that nutella, aka my BFF, would be my stand in for the chocolate. Mainly because I'm looking to get rid of the jar of Nutella so I don't wake up at 2 am one of these days getting chocolate wasted and needing an intervention. It doesn't hurt that Nutella is delicious and also easier than having to melt down chocolate.

Crust:
1 1/4 cup crushed graham crackers (1 honey maid packet)
1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup melted butter

Filling:
10 oz bag marshmallows
4 tbsp water
1 cup nutella
2 cups whipped cream

Mix together crushed graham crackers, sugar and melted butter. Press into pie dish.

Melt marshmallows and water in microwave on high for 30-45 seconds. Stir together until smooth. Mix in nutella until smooth. Fold in whipped cream a little at a time until fully incorporated. Pour over pie crust.

Refrigerate for 3-4 hours until set. Enjoy!

Guest Blogger: Baking With Bonnie

So my friend Casey, who has a must read blog, has had her hilarious husband "guest blog" a couple times. I always wanted to do that but Jon can only toast a bagel and microwave leftovers. Fortunately, I asked my mom to email me one of her recipes for Oatmeal Cookies with Ganache filling and she included a story. Check out Mama, my guest blogger...

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Let me tell you my yummy (if I do say so myself) Oatmeal Cookie's story

A good friend of ours, Bobby, started working on the LOST TV series, he was on the camera crew...I was on my way back to my condo to make my oatmeal cookies when Bobby was driving by and told me to come down to the LOST site and he would introduce me to movie stars and show me the camp.  So I thought it would be nice to make some of my oatmeal cookies for the crew, or  anyone who wanted some...

So I make my cookies wrap them up pretty and make some for the security guard I always see sitting on the side of the road. I always felt bad for that guy. I get to the set and some big mucky muck is there that day and no one thinks they should let me in. I understand and I give the guard the cookies I made for him, he was so thankful and I think felt bad he couldn't let me in. He said if I drive around to the beach side, a one mile walk down the beach with the cookies, I could see some things being filmed...I said sure! Well after my walk down the beach with cookies in hand an definitely the wrong shoe choice, I get close to the camp and other guards...I tell them Bobby invited me and I have now walked for miles, but that big wig had everyone worried and I couldn't get on the set. So I give the security guards all of the cookies to get to Bobby, hopefully they will get them and eat them!

The next day I hear from Bobby, that the big wigs ate some of my cookies and were mad they didn't let me on the set...The whole camera crew was very upset and said I could get on the set of LOST anytime, but I had to bring more cookies...A few days later I got the royal treatment and so many people coming up to me saying they love my cookies!!!

 

So here is the recipe....

Cookies:

2 sticks of butter- ROOM TEMP.

1 c. firmly packed brown sugar

1/2 c. Maui Cane sugar or granulated sugar

2 eggs ROOM TEMP.

2 tsp. vanilla

1-1/2 c. all purpose flour

1 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. cinnamon

1/2  tsp. sea salt

3 c. Quaker Oats old fashion uncooked oatmeal

1 c. raisins

1 c. choc. chips-milk choc.

1 c. finely chopped walnuts, you might want to toast them for 2 minutes

Ganache:

4 Cadbury chocolate bars

1/4 stick of butter

1 c. whipping cream

Pre heat oven to 350 degrees. I use my kitchen aid mixer to mix the butter and sugars together. Add the eggs one at a time then the vanilla. Add the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, sea salt, oatmeal, raisins, choc. chips & walnuts. I turn off the mixer and use a spatula's to clean the sides of the bowl and mix it a little better. With a tsp. drop the mix on a ungreased cookie sheet. It bakes fast so after 7 minutes watch closely, the bottoms seem to brown very fast. So I remove the cookies as soon as I see the brown bottoms, the cookies will continue to cook when you take them out of the oven.

Sometimes I get fancy and make a choc. ganache to put inside of the cookies. I buy 4 large Cadbury choc. bars, heat water in a pan and have a glass bowl inside the pan on top of the hot water. I add 1/4 of stick of butter, 1 c. of whipping cream, the chocolate and let it melt stirring constantly...It will take awhile to cool and thicken! You might want to add some extra butter to your cookie recipe to make a thinner cookie! enjoy!!!

Toasted Coconut Saltine Candy

So funny story about this recipe, I almost burnt my oven down making it a couple years ago. I used to make this candy (minus the toasted coconut) allllll the time for gift baskets and at home snacking. At the time, I had the smallest baking sheet you can buy. So anytime I needed to make an abundance of this treat, I had to make four batches. So I had a flat pizza sheet that was like three times the size and decided "hey, why not use this?". I'll tell you why not use this past presence idiot self, the recipe has butter in it. So, on a flat sheet when the butter bubbles up, it bubbles over, over as in to the bottom of the oven. Luckily, when making this recipe my knight in shining armor, Jon, was outside working on his truck. I started screaming like a mad woman as I'm watching smoke pour from the rings of my stove top and flames engulfing my pizza sheet inside the oven. Jon snaps into action, grabs the fire extinguisher and saves the day. What the heck would I have done if he wasn't there? I really should take a fire safety course or something...

Morale of the story, make sure when you make this recipe, you use a baking sheet that has a lip on all four sides. I took pictures of the evolution of this recipe for you so you can see what I'm talking about there. You'll also notice in my pictures that only half of mine is covered with toasted coconut and almonds. My parents have had coconut flakes in the fridge forever and haven't used them for anything. I decided I wanted to make this recipe with them and asked Jon to go get them for me. He was pissed. He hates coconut and knew that I was going to be creating something that he wouldn't even get to it. So, out of the kindness of my heart, I went ahead and made half my way, and half his way. Aww, I'm so nice. The recipe however reflects the whole thing being covered with coconut flakes and almonds. If you have picky eaters in the house like I do, just go ahead and cut the almonds and coconut flakes in half.

On to the recipe...

Toasted Coconut Saltine Candy

42 saltines (this is going to vary on the size of your baking sheet)
2 sticks of butter
1 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup almonds, finely chopped
1 cup toasted coconut flakes
2 1/4 cups semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. *While the oven was preheating, I toasted up my coconut flakes in there on a foil covered baking sheet for 3-4 minutes until golden brown*Arrange saltines on foil covered baking sheet. Be sure they are all touching each other but not overlapping. Melt butter in microwave or on stove top. Once melted, whisk in brown sugar. Pour over top of saltines and use spatula to spread it evenly across saltines. Bake in oven for 3-4 minutes until bubbling. Take out of the oven and sprinkle chocolate chips over top. Allow the chocolate chips to melt and then use the back of spatula to spread evenly over entire surface. Sprinkle with toasted coconuts and finely chopped almonds. Refrigerate for one hour. Break into pieces and enjoy!

Just a quick note... When you take the saltines out of the oven, the butter mixture may make them move around a bit. I just take a spoon or spatula and rearrange them so they're not overlapping. I tend to yell at them "get back in line!" while I do it, purely for my own amusement. Hope you all enjoy this delicious chocolate concoction!

S'mores Cupcakes

Hey Everyone!

So I was watching an episode of Cupcake Wars last night and one of the contestants made a S'mores Cupcake and I thought that would be such an awesome challenge for me! I decided to make it differently than she had and I hope you guys like the results. I based my chocolate cupcake off of Martha Stewart's Devil's Food Cupcake. I made a couple of changes, so I have rewritten the recipe the way I made it. To see the original, please visit http://www.marthastewart.com/recipe/devils-food-cupcakes-book.

When I was little, we used to spend some of our summer down at our family cottage in Wareham, MA. We were lucky enough to be right on the water, so my cousins, sister and I would all set up a campfire and do toasted marshmellows, s'mores and tell ghost stories. Still to this day, those are some of my favorite summer memories of my whole life. I really loved how these cupcakes reminded me of all those beautiful summers at the cottage.

I included some pictures of the cupcakes as well as some of the view at our beautiful cottage. Enjoy! As always, send your pictures, comments or questions to cookingwithcait@gmail.com!

Someone mentioned they weren't able to comment on my post. I believe you need to have a gmail account to comment. Feel free to send me an email or tweet me on twitter @caithowland, and I'll answer any questions you have. Sorry if that's an incovenience! :/ Love you all xoxoxo

S'mores Cupcakes (Makes 48)

Chocolate Batter:
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp instant espresso powder
3/4 cup hot water
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 1/4 tsp salt
3 sticks unsalted butter
2 1/4 cups sugar
4 large eggs, room temperature
2 tbsp vanilla extract
1 tbsp almond extract
1 cup sour cream, room temperature

Graham Cracker Crumble:
1 package graham crackers
1 stick unsalted butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 tbsp vanilla extract
1/2 tbsp almond extract

Marshmallow Frosting:
2 7oz container Marshmallow creme
1 stick butter, room temperature
4 cups sifted powdered sugar
2 tbsp vanilla extract
1 tbsp almond extract
1 tbsp milk

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line muffin pans with cupcake liners. Using a food processer, grind graham crackers to crumb. In a medium saucepan, melt 1 stick of butter. After butter is melted, take off heat and mix in graham crackers, brown sugar, vanilla extract and almond extract. Set aside.

Combine cocoa powder, espresso and hot water until smooth. In a separate bowl, sift together flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt.

Heat butter and sugar over medium heat in saucepan until sugar is dissolved and butter is melted. In a mixing bowl, use an electric mixer to beat butter and sugar mixture until cooled. Add eggs one at a time until incorporated. Add vanilla and cocoa/espresso mixture. Add a third of the flour mixture, then half of the sour cream. Continue alternating until all ingredients have been incorporated.

Spoon mixture into cupcake liners, fill 3/4s of the way. Sprinkle graham cracker mixture over top of batter until mostly covered. Bake in oven for 20 minutes, until inserted toothpick comes out clean. Allow to cool on wire rack for 10-15 minutes.

For the frosting, using electric mixer, beat1 stick of room temperature butter in large mixing bowl until fluffy. Add in marshmallow creme until fully mixed. Next add in powdered sugar in 4 increments. Lastly, add in vanilla and almond extracts. Add 1/2 tbsp of milk and check consistency. Add other 1/2 tbsp if necessary. Place frosting in piping bag with large tip to fill cupcakes.

Insert piping bag in middle of cooled cupcakes, being sure to only go 1/4 of the way down. Squeeze piping bag to fill middle and frost a little on the top as desired. Refrigerate for up to 3 days, or serve warm.

I like to fill the cupcakes while they are still warm, but you can of course wait a few hours if you'd like them fully cooled. Waiting the few hours will help with presentation, as the marshmallow frosting is all gooey if you frost it soon after they have back. I personally like it warm, but try it both ways and let me know what you think!

Chocolate Peanut Butter Gooey Cake

Aloooooooooooooha!

Okay so have you read the title yet?? Yeah, we're doing gooey butter cakes the way they're meant to be done, with Chocolate and Peanut Butter.

I fell in love with Gooey Butter Cakes watching Paula Deen on Food Network. She made a Pumpkin Gooey Butter Cake. Unfortunately Jon doesn't like Pumpkin so I was the only one who appreciated its yumminess. So I was forced to get creative and start reworking the gooey butter cake to something Jon and I both love. And after much experimenting I got this amazing cake out of it that is always requested for bake sales and parties.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Gooey Cake

Filling:
1 8 oz container softened cream cheese
1 1 lb box powdered sugar
3 eggs, beaten
1 cup peanut butter (creamy or crunchy, whichever you like)
1 stick melted butter
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 tsp almond extract

"Cake":
1 box brownie mix
1 egg, beaten
1 stick melted butter

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 13 by 9-inch baking pan. First combine brownie mix, egg and melted butter in mixing bowl. Pat mix into prepared baking pan. Next, using an electric mixer, beat cream cheese until light and fluffy. Slowly beat in powdered sugar. Add eggs one at a time to mix. Next, beat in peanut butter. Then mix in butter, vanilla and almond extracts. Make sure it is fully combined, and then pour over top of cake mix.

Bake for 35-40 minutes at 350 degrees. Cake will be slighty gooey in middle. Let cake cool before serving.

The cake is also very yummy if you let set in the fridge for an hour or so, it won't be warm, but it will be easy to serve and just as tasty!

Calories: 16 servings, 393 calories per serving

Feedback is always appreciated, cookingwithcait@gmail.com