Chocolate Kiss Krispies

I know I haven't been posting on this blog as much as I usually do. School is tough. I'm taking Calculus  II, Physics I, Chemistry II, Engineering, and History of Technologies, so please, allow me to be a little scrambled with posts. It's not that I haven't been baking, because trust me, I have! The thing keeping me from posting is my work load. By the time I remember to write a post or edit pictures, or even take pictures, it's 10 or 11 at night. Hopefully this weekend will be a little less bah and I can take some photos and write. With that said, lets get to the topic at hand: rice krispie treats!

The other day I saw this recipe for chocolate rice krispie treats that sounded absolutely amazing! They consisted of cocoa rice krispie cereal, Hershey’s kisses, and hot chocolate mix! All that chocolate sounded perfect, so I set out to make them.

Even though I adapted these quite a bit, I still think they taste absolutely fantastic. The kisses melt when added to the hot butter and marshmallow mixture, creating pockets of creamy milk chocolate. And who doesn’t like pockets of chocolate?

And how many of you are fans of a really compact marshmallow treat? And ones that love it when they fall apart? Well these rice krispie treats are sort of both. They are firm enough to hold their shape and don’t fall apart when you pick it up, but these are soft enough that if you wanted to pull it apart, like I do, these give way easy. It’s like a magic rice krispie treat!

In the spirit of the upcoming Valentine’s Day, I added a strawberry milk glaze on top. Now you can top this with whatever you want, because this really doesn’t use much strawberry milk powder, and I don’t want you going out and buying some just for this glaze, although it I pretty, and sets up nice and crunchy like.

Enjoy!

Chocolate Kiss Krispies

Adapted from The Sweet Chick

Makes one 9-inch square pan

Ingredients

2 tbsp. unsalted butter

5 oz. mini marshmallows

3 cups Cocoa Rice Krispie cereal

12 milk chocolate Hershey’s kisses, roughly chopped

Directions

Line a 9-inch square pan with tin foil. Grease foil with cooking spray and set aside.

In a medium sized pot, melt together the butter and mini marshmallows over medium heat. Once both the butter and marshmallows have completely melted, take off the heat and add in the cereal and chopped kisses. Stir to combine, making sure all of the cereal is completely coated in melted marshmallow.

Pour the marshmallow mix into the prepared pan, using your hands to spread it to all corners. Wetting your hands with help the mixture from sticking to your hands. Let the mixture cool before topping with the glaze.

To make the glaze: combine ½ cup confectioners’ sugar, 1 tsp. strawberry milk mix, and 1 - 2 tsp. hot water. Add water by ¼ tsp. until you get desired glazing consistency. Drizzle glaze over top of the marshmallow treat. Cut into desired shapes. (I got 9 treats plus some giant scraps with the heart cutter I used) 

Baked Red Velvet Donuts

So Valentine's Day is just two weeks away, and I'm going share some love-dovey, chocolatey, and all things pink goodies. I hardly ever sync with the holidays on this blog, but by golly I'm going to try this time. So here we are, talking about red velvet donuts!

Red velvet anything just sounds so fancy, don’t you think? The only red velvet cake I have ever had was over this past summer, on my trip to London. The frosting was absolutely delicious, but the cake part was sad, very, very sad.

However, that letdown has not stopped me from saving a few red velvet recipes. I like trying new things (when it comes to baking at least), that and my need to be fancy fueled my need to make something red velvet. 

These donuts cannot be any simpler to make. I believe these were in and out of the oven in about 30-40 minutes starting from measuring out the flour to popping them out of the tray.

These donuts are firm enough to hold their shape when dunked in milk, but soft enough to be enjoyed without any kind of dunking involved. A tinsy hint of chocolate shines through these donuts, and it is oh so lovely. These are not too sweet either, lending most of the sweetness from the lovely thick glaze that sets on top.

Red Velvet Donuts

Slightly adapted from Taste and Tell

Makes 5 donuts

Ingredients

Donuts

1 tbsp. unsalted butter

1 oz. semi-sweet chocolate, chopped

1 cup + 2 tbsp. unbleached all-purpose flour

½ tbsp. baking powder

½ tsp. baking soda

¼ tsp. salt

¼ cup sugar

1 egg white, room temperature

¾ tsp. pure vanilla extract

¼ cup buttermilk

1 tsp. red food coloring, (I used AmeriColor Super Red)

Glaze

1 tbsp. hot water

1 cup confectioner’s sugar

½ tbsp. milk

¼ tsp. pure vanilla extract

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Grease a 6 cup donut pan with cooking spray; set aside.

In a heatproof bowl set over simmering water, melt together the butter and chocolate. Stir occasionally until the two start to melt. Continue to stir until fully melted into one another. Remove from heat and let the chocolate mixture cool.

In a small bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

In a large bowl, whisk together the egg white and the sugar until frothy. Add the cooled chocolate and whisk until fully incorporated. Add the vanilla, buttermilk, and food coloring. Mix until combined.

Gradually fold the dry ingredients into the wet, mixing just until combined. The batter will be very thick and puffy. Transfer the batter into a piping bag or ziplock bag. Cut a corner and pipe the batter into the greased donut cups. Bake for 10 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean when inserted into the donut. Cool in the pan for a few minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely. Once cooled, dip in the glaze.

To make the glaze: stir the hot water, confectioners sugar, milk, and vanilla. Use immediately. This will make enough to glaze the tops of all five donuts with a little left over.

Chocolate Muffins

Chocolate is a magical thing, don't you think? The rich color makes me feel so warm and the taste just kind of melts into your tastebuds. It really does make everything better.

And muffins are a special treat too. Muffins basically say it is ok to eat cake for breakfast, and who doesn't love eating cake for breakfast. I remember when I was little and someone had a birthday, my sister and I would get to have a huge slice of sugary cake for breakfast until all the cake was gone. Good times. But back to muffins. I have always jealous of how luscious store-bought muffins look. The muffins are baked oh so high, the crumble topping is crunchy and sweet, the chips are evenly distributed, the insides are soft while the tops are dense.  

Due to me jealousy, every once in a while I try my hand at making muffins that rival the store-bought muffins. The trouble is this though: the chocolate never really comes through. I have the same trouble when making chocolate cake. Oh how I love chocolate and oh how sad it I am when I can’t taste the lovely chocolate flavor.

This muffin recipe is definitely the best I have used for chocolate muffins. They are perfect in almost every way. The top of the muffin is everything I can hope for: dense and fudgy. The muffins also bake up nice and tall with a lovely dome shape. While the muffin bottom is soft, springy, and quite delectable, I wish there was just a tad more chocolate flavor. Maybe by adding some mini chocolate chips this muffin recipe has the potential to be one of the best. 

Chocolate Muffins

Slightly adapted from Flax and Twine

Makes 12 muffins

Ingredients

7 oz. semi-sweet chocolate, chopped

5 tbsp. unsalted butter

¾ cup milk

½ cup plain yogurt (I used Oikos)

½ cup (96 g) sugar

2 eggs, room temperature

1 ½ tsp. pure vanilla extract

1 2/3 (200 g) unbleached all-purpose flour

1 tsp. baking soda

½ tsp. salt

Directions

Preheat the oven to 400 F. Line a 12 cup muffin pan with paper liners. Set aside.

In a heatproof bowl set over simmering water melt the chopped chocolate and butter together. Stir until combined. Take the bowl off the simmering water and set aside to cool.

In a medium bowl, lightly beat the eggs. Add the milk, yogurt, sugar, and vanilla. Whisk until combined. Stir in the cooled chocolate. Mix until combined. In a large bowl, mix together the flour, baking soda, and salt. Pour the chocolate mixture over top the flour mixture and stir until just combined.

Distribute the chocolate muffin batter evenly among the prepared muffin cups. I used a medium cookie scoop, a tbsp. cookie scoop, and a half tbsp. scoop for each muffin cup. Bake for 15 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean when inserted into the middle of the muffin. Cook the muffins in the pan for 5-10 minutes. These are best enjoyed right out of the oven, but 10 seconds in the microwave with make them good as new.  

Hidden Kiss Cookies

It’s New Years Eve. Have you guys made resolutions for next year? Are any of them to be healthier? Stop eating sweets? Spend 5 hours on the treadmill everyday in an effort to shed those holiday pounds? You’re definitely not alone if you aid “yes.” I too have made a “be healthy” resolution: to stop stuffing my face when I’m procrastinating. The thing about having your own room in college has great advantages, but with those advantages comes disadvantages. I can’t tell you how many times I have at in my room eating my stash of granola bars and Goldfish trying to put off homework as much as possible. Well no more… hopefully.

Anyways, here is a recipe that will probably send you running for the hills. Hey, I got you running, that’s a good start for exercising, right? 

These here are Hidden Kiss Cookies. It’s basically a soft-as-ever butter cookie with a Hershey’s Kiss stuffed in the center. These really are the perfect treat. I took some to my friend’s reunion/ugly sweater party before Christmas and not a single cookie was left. Everyone said they were amazing and I felt sort of bad because I didn’t even bring all the cookies, assuming everyone would eat the other sweets everyone brought to the party.

If you aren’t one of those cookie haters that appear at the beginning of the year, please make these cookies. They are darling little things.

Hidden Kiss Cookies

Adapted from Once Upon a Cutting Board

Makes 2 dozen cookies

Ingredients

1 stick unsalted butter, room temperature

¾ cup powdered sugar

½ a large egg, room temperature (beat egg in a small bowl and measure out half)

1 tsp. pure vanilla extract

1 ½ cups unbleached all-purpose flour

½ tsp. baking powder

¼ tsp. salt

24 unwrapped Hershey’s Kisses

2 tbsp. sugar

Directions

Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. Set aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment beat the butter and POWDERED sugar (Yes, you read that right. This recipe uses powdered sugar, not regular granulated sugar). Beat on medium speed until creamy. Add the egg and vanilla extract. Beat until well combined.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Turn the mixer’s speed to low and add the flour mixture in two additions. Scrape down the sides of the bowl after each addition.

Scoop a little less than 1 tbsp. of dough into your hand. Roll the dough into a ball and flatten. Place a single Hershey’s Kiss in the center. Mold the cookie dough around the kiss. Roll the dough between your hands to form a sphere. Repeat with the remaining dough. If the dough is too soft to work with, refrigerate the un-scooped dough for about 10-15 minutes. Refrigerate cookie dough for 10-15 minutes. Keeping the dough chilled will ensure to dough wont fall away from the kiss while baking.

While you wait for the dough to chill, preheat the oven to 350 F.

Place about 2 tbsp. of granulated sugar into a shallow bowl. Gently roll each cookie in the sugar. Place cookie dough on prepared baking sheet about 2 inches apart. Bake 10-12 minutes. I like my cookies very soft so I baked mine around 9-10 minutes; the cookies were still a little soft when I took them out of the oven.

Cool cookies on the sheet for about 5 minutes before removing to a cooling rack to cool completely. 

Eggnog Biscotti

I hope you guys had a lovely Christmas. Did you guys get everything you wanted? Did you guys try and return anything yesterday? My dad did that once, forgetting it was the day after Christmas; he said it was the worst experience ever.

I myself had a really nice Christmas. I made pancakes for my family, opened some awesome presents (I got several cake pans that I can’t wait to use), made some bread rolls (which will be on here later), and ate way too much of some really amazing food. I’m not a leftovers person at all, but I’ve been munching on several pieces of leftover ham and bread rolls.

Speaking of leftovers, here is a really amazing recipe to use up that leftover eggnog in your fridge.

I’ve actually never had straight-up eggnog before, but I love the flavor. I ordered some eggnog from the dairy farm my family gets our milk from intending to actually try it, but once again I chickened out of drinking it. I didn’t want all that eggnog to go to waste, so I decided to find a recipe that used eggnog.

I searched, and searched, but none of the recipes looked all that great, and most the time my searches yielded homemade eggnog recipes, which didn’t help at all. Then I came across these eggnog biscotti cookies. I haven’t made biscotti in such a long time, and the glaze on top of the cookies looked delicious, so I went with it.

Oh my freaking god! These things are seriously the most amazing crunchy holiday cookies in the entire universe! I truly mean this. I think I may order another pint of eggnog just so I can make this biscotti recipe again. Even without the eggnog glaze, which you really shouldn’t leave out, this biscotti has the most amazing eggnog taste.

I hope you guys enjoy the rest of your holidays.

Eggnog Biscotti

Adapted from Oh She Glows

Makes about 21 biscotti sticks

Ingredients

2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

¾ cup sugar

1 ½ tsp. ground nutmeg

½ tsp. ground cinnamon

1 ½ tsp. baking powder

¼ tsp. baking soda

½ tsp. salt

¼ cup canola oil

½ cup eggnog

1 tsp. pure vanilla extract

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Line a large cookie sheet with parchment paper. Set aside

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, nutmeg, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. In a medium bowl, whisk together the eggnog, oil, and vanilla. Pour the eggnog mixture into the large bowl with the dry ingredients. Mix ingredients until they start to come together. Use your hands to mix the ingredients completely.

Divide the dough into two equal parts (I used a scale to do this). Form each half into a ball. Place on the prepared baking sheet and press to flatten. Use your hands to form each dough ball into a 10x5 inch rectangle (mine may have been a little longer and wider... I tend to not measure rectangles when baking).

Bake the logs for 25-30 minutes. Allow logs to cool on the pan for 5-10 minutes. Slice the logs at a 45 degree angle. Place the slices on their sides and return to the oven for 5 minutes. Flip the logs and bake for another 5 minutes. Allow biscotti sticks to cool completely before glazing.

To make the glaze: combine 1 cup confectioners’ sugar, 2 tbsp. eggnog, and ½ tsp. ground nutmeg. The glaze will be thick. Place the glaze into a ziplock bag and cut a very small tip out of the corner. Pipe the glaze over top of the biscotti.