Vanilla Cupcakes

Chocolate Covered S'mores Apple

I've tried different things before that were s'mores-esq like a s'mores cupcakes and also a graham cracker with cream cheese dipped in coating chocolate, both turned out well. This time I wanted to try a candy apple.

As with most of my food experiments, it all started with a sale at the grocery store on some large and beautiful Granny Smith apples. I didn't know what I had planned for them until I happened to look at Instagram one day and it seemed as though every person that I followed was making s'mores. Then the light bulb went off.

These were actually alot easier than I anticipated. I have made several different kinds of coated apples with caramel, and sometimes working with getting the caramel just the way I liked it seemed to be a chore. To fix that problem, I decided I would just dip the apple in chocolate. The results were amazing!

I didn't eat the apple because as I have stated before, I am dieting, so I gave it to my cousin who said it was very good. By the looks of it, I believed her.

These are super easy to make and all you need are a few ingredients.

Ingredients

1 1/2 cup chocolate chips (I used Ghiradelli semi sweet)

(do not use coating chocolate for covering the apple as it will not adhere to the apple when it is cut)

4 graham cracker sheets rough chopped and slightly crushed

1 cup mini marshmallows

1 large Granny Smith apple rinsed and dried

1 wooden stick or lollipop stick large enough to support the weight of your apple

Directions

Remove the apple stem and stick your stick into the center of the apple down through the core being careful not to go through to the bottom.

In a large bowl toss together your graham cracker pieces and crumbs, marshmallows, and 1/2 cup of chocolate chips by hand and set this aside.

Place the remaining 1 cup of chocolate chips in a microwave safe bowl and melt them until smooth. DO NOT OVER HEAT!!!

Holding the apple by the stick, take a spoon and evenly apply the melted chocolate onto the apple. I left about 1/8 of the apple uncovered at the top.

After the chocolate has been applied scoop your mixture of grahams, chips, and marshmallows into your hand and press them onto the melted chocolate until it is covered.

*If you really want to be fancy, take some melted coating chocolate or chocolate bark and place it in a small plastic piping bag/ Cut a small hole at the end and decoratively drizzle chocolate all over your apple.  

To slice the apple, run a large cutting knife under hot water until the blade is heated. Dry the blade and slice your apple...or just bite into it.:)

Enjoy!!

Chocolate Covered Faux-nuts with Sprinkles

I have been asked about 1,999,999 times to make doughnuts. Seriously, I’m not exaggerating. My daughter loves chocolate covered doughnuts and every since she saw Paul Dean make some doughnuts on her show I have been asked, no, begged several different times to make them. Each time resulted in me making something else, and that is pretty much the case for this time too.

We were able to agree on chocolate covered cinnamon rolls as these are some of her favorites. To make it more doughnut-esq, we just cut holes out of the centers and covered them with sprinkles.I used this recipe for cinnamon rolls that I found on Allrecipes.com a while ago. This is my 3rd time making ½ of a recipe and they are probably some of the best cinnamon rolls that I have ever had. The recipe involves a box, or in my case a ½ of a box, of yellow cake mix. Normally I do not use cake mix for anything but chess squares, but I gave it a try and I absolutely love them and so does my daughter!

For the chocolate glaze, I used this recipe from WeWorkForCheese.com. It is simple and absolutely scrumptious. I think my daughter licked most of the chocolate from the spoon. The only difference in this recipe is that I used Hershey’s Special Dark cocoa instead of just regular unsweetened.

Instead of making the rolls in a crowded pan I placed them on parchment lined baking sheet so that they would get a brown crust all the way around like a doughnut would. After they cooled I dipped them in the glaze, cut the centers out and then sprinkled them. Using a circle cutter, we cut the centers out before dipping just so the sprinkles would only adhere to the outside of the faux-nut.

After everything was done, my daughter was absolutely thrilled at how her faux-nuts turned out and hasn’t asked me, so far, to make any more doughnuts. Let’s see how long this lasts. :)

Chocolate Covered Oreos

Finally made these after looking at the wrappers and chocolate and mustering up the motivation. They're just the right amount of sweet, and the wrong amount of fat!:)
I'll post instructions later.

Dark Chocolate Blood Orange Brownies with Red Cherries

A couple of weeks ago I had a rare Saturday off work and it just so happened to be absolutely beautiful outdoors! I decided to take full advantage of this and go to a local Farmers market in my neighborhood in search for some really great watermelon. Unfortunately, I was unable to find much fresh produce that I desired or needed but I did happen upon Primo Oils, a vendor that sells gourmet olive oils and vinegars. They had me at "peach white balsamic". :)

After tasting some very interesting flavors such as chocolate balsamic, I ended up getting the peach white balsamic and a blood orange olive oil. While I wasn't able to score any great watermelon or berries, I had some new ingredients to experiment with so I was pretty happy about that!

Fast forward to today. Let’s just say that I haven't had much luck with fruit in my area these past couple weeks. My local Kroger had red cherries on sale for $2.99/pound so of course, me being the cherry-holic that I am, took full advantage of this. I tasted one from the bunch that I picked, however once I got them home and tasted others I was thoroughly disappointed. What do you with a $9 bag of subpar red cherries? You make dark chocolate blood orange brownies and add them into the batter, of course! Did I mention that I am dieting and cannot eat these brownies? Yeah, I know.

After scouring many recipes I finally decided on using this recipe from Sweet Pea's Kitchen and I only made minor adjustments and one major one. The biggest change was adding the blood orange evoo in place of the vegetable oil. The minor changes were that I omitted almond extract because I didn't want it to conflict with the orange evoo, and  I omitted espresso powder because the Special Dark adds enough depth on its own. I used just a little more cocoa powder than the 1/3 cup in the original recipe.
 I also decided last minute to add chocolate ganache on top...as if they were not sinful enough! :) lol!

Ingredients:

1/2 cup Hershey Special Dark cocoa powder

1/2 cup boiling water

2 ounces semi sweet Ghirardelli chocolate chopped into small pieces

4 Tablespoons melted butter

1/2 cup blood orange evoo

2 large eggs

2 egg yolks

1 tsp. vanilla bean paste

2 cups sugar

1 3/4 cup all-purpose flour

1 tsp. salt

1/2 cup semi sweet Ghirardelli chocolate chips

2 cups fresh red cherries pitted and chopped 

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

2. Grease a 9 x 13 metal or glass pan with oil or butter.

3. In a large mixing bowl whisk together the cocoa powder and boiling water until it is smooth. Make sure the water is still hot because the heat will be used to melt the chopped chocolate.

4. Add the chopped chocolate and stir into the cocoa until it is completely melted and smooth.

5. Add in butter, oil, eggs, egg yolks and vanilla paste and whisk all ingredients in until it is well combined leaving no traces of egg or yolks.

6. Add sugar and whisk in until it is equally distributed and fully incorporated to your batter.

7. Stir in flour completely using a rubber spatula and be sure to scrape down the sides of the bowl when necessary.

8. Fold in chopped cherries.

9. Pour batter into your baking pan and place in the oven and bake for 30-40 minutes, or until the center is no longer runny when a toothpick is inserted.

10. Let cool for about 2 hours