Posts filed under 'desserts'
I work with this amazing bakestress. Her name is Raquel (aka ROK, because she DOES ROCK!), and she makes hands down the most delicious, creative homemade scratch cakes I’ve ever eaten.
See her website here
and
Her flickr page here.
Anyway, in addition to her amazing cakes, she’ll also just sometimes bake and bring in random treats. A week or so ago, she brought in these UNREAL yummy Mexican Chocolate Icebox cookies, and of course I just had to have the recipe. Be forewarned they are slightly spicy (but not crazy, just a little bit of heat, which you can adjust to your taste).
Mexican Chocolate Icebox Cookies
Recipe from Raquel Salaysay
INGREDIENTS:
1/2 cup flour
3/4 cup quality dutch-process unsweetened cocoa (IMPORTANT-don’t use hersheys, get a good quality dutch cocoa for these)
3/4 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 – 3/4 tsp cayenne (here is where you can adjust to your liking)
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. freshly ground pepper
1 cup sugar
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 egg
12 Tbsp. cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
RECIPE INSTRUCTIONS:
- Whisk flour, cocoa, cinnamon, cayenne, salt, and pepper together in a medium bowl and set aside.
- Put sugar, vanilla, and egg into large bowl and beat with electric mixer on high speed until thick and pale, about 3 minutes.
- Add butter and continue to beat on high speed until smooth, about 3 minutes more.
- Using your fingers, work flour mixture until dough is just combined. Don’t worry, it’s so supposed to be super sticky on your hands. Oh well, you’ll just have to lick it off.
- Divide dough in half and roll each half into a 9″ log. Wrap each log in parchment paper, twisting ends tightly to make a uniform cylinder.
- Freeze dough logs for at least 3 hours, and as long as overnight
- Preheat over to 350º. Unwrap dough and slice each log into 1/3″ thick rounds.
- Place rounds 1/2″ apart on parchment paper-lined (or silicon liner) cookie sheets.
- Bake cookies until slightly puffed and tiny cracks appear on surface, about 8-9 minutes.
- Transfer immediately to cooling rack, being careful not to crack cookies.
- Enjoy little bites of spicy chocolate heaven.
Thanks, Rok, for this super tasty recipe!
November 27th, 2008
I love baking up cute things for my niece and nephew’s birthdays. This past weekend was no exception. My niece, Heather, and her brother, Christian, celebrated their 9 and 10th birthdays this past weekend. They LOVE dogs, so I decided that these super cute pupcakes (from the book “Hello Cupcake!”) were definitely in order.
My only thought, was that it would have made things a whole lot easier to actually use a real piping bag with real decorating tip. The instructions in the book call for Ziplocs for everything…but I found them really difficult to use. But at the end of the day, they still came out pretty cute.
In fact, my six year old nephew jack, was so impressed that he shyly asked if he could take “the whole box of puppies home”…I asked him what price he would pay…and after a full couple minutes of deep thought, he answered…”twenty dollars.” I told him a kiss on the cheek and a hug would be payment enough. He seemed happy with that.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY CHRISTIAN AND HEATHER!!!
September 29th, 2008
So…I was flickring through some old flickr pics today, and I found a couple of cute cupcake friends that I had made a while back, and thought I would share them.
The monkey and pig cupcakes were for my nephew Nathan’s birthday party last September, and the bunny cupcake (below), was from Easter of this year.
So fun!
August 29th, 2008
This Saturday, I decided it was time to make the infamous bakerella’s cupcake pops!.
It was a long process, filled with some lumpy chocolate debacles…but after all was said and done…they came out pretty great.
I used mint chocolate for the bottom chocolate coating, and colored white chocolate for the pink tops. Inside, there is a delicious devil’s food cake filling. YUM!
If you have some time, and you love to bake up tiny cute things…I highly recommend giving these a try.
Thanks, Bakerella!
August 25th, 2008
Yesterday, my 3 nephews (kyle-14, nathan-11, and jack-6) and my dad, all had their birthday party in a beautiful park in Linden, MI.
The boys had put in a request for me to bake some special cakes for them. In particular Darth Maul (from Star Wars), and a “Dark Knight” themed cake from the new Batman movie.
So Friday, I took the day off of work and just spent the day bakin’ it up!
My fiance, Christopher, (a Star Wars illustrator), came in very handy when it came time to do the serious decorating. His skills with a paintbrush and an exacto knife were amazing.
Take a look for yourself! They were a HUGE hit with the boys, and everyone at the party. YAY.
Check out the whole set off pics on my flickr here.
August 17th, 2008
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