Chocolate Chunk Pumpkin Spice Pancakes

 Pumpkinfest rolls on. . . only a few days left of October to make all the pumpkin recipes I've found!

A very easy and absurdly tasty breakfast. These only take a few minutes to whip up and are sure to please whether they're made for a lazy weekend morning or a special weekday treat. 

Chocolate Chunk Pumpkin Spice Pancakes

1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp cloves
1/2 tsp ginger
1/2 cup canned pumpkin
1 tbsp brown sugar
1 oz semi sweet chocolate baking square, chopped into chunks
1 cup 1% milk
2 Tbsp apple sauce 
2 egg whites
1 whole egg
1 tsp vanilla

• Mix all dry ingredients in a bowl
• Blend milk, egg, canned pumpkin in a bowl and beat until smooth
• Combine wet ingredients with the dry and mix until there are no more dry spots - Don't over-mix.

• Heat a skillet (use cooking spray/butter if necessary for your pan) and pour batter to make 6-8 inch pancakes
• When bubbles start to form and edges firm up, flip pancake and cook on med-low heat until cooked through
• Heat oven to 150F and put cooked pancakes on pan in oven to keep first batch warm while you finish making the rest
• Top with maple syrup and serve warm with a glass of milk

 

Chocolate M&M Cookies

As I was taking my dinner out of the oven tonight it spilled and half of my beautiful casserole fell into the oven. Thankfully I had enough for dinner and leftovers for lunch tomorrow still left in the pan, but it was depressing and forced me to clean my oven. After an hour or so of scrubbing down all the walls of the oven, I wanted to test it to make sure it wouldn't smell like burned food when I turned it on.

I remembered I had to make some birthday treats for a friend and I found some chocolate baking squares and decided chocolate cookies would be the perfect thing. I really love holidays, particularly birthdays, and not even my own. My birthday is fine, but when a friend's birthday is coming up, I spend days and sometimes weeks planning what to get them or make them. Sketches of elaborate cakes and long ingredient lists are drafted and I'll spend hours preparing things. These were not labor intensive, but they are getting sent across the country, so I couldn't make my usual fare. I did brighten them up with some M and M's that I found in my pantry, and I'm happy to say the recipe made exactly 1 tupperware's worth: perfect for shipping.

Okay... so there were two extra that wouldn't fit, which I quickly devoured. Gotta test new recipes right??

Anyway, here's the recipe. I was surprised that it didn't call for any baking powder/soda but, they turned out quite nicely. It's a great blend of moist and cakey cookies that are chocolatey but not too rich. They're really easy to whip up and only have a few ingredients. Even if you weren't expecting to do any baking, these ones are within reach on a late night.

Chocolate M&M Cookies

4 1oz. Unsweetened Baking Squares

2 C. White Sugar

2 1/2 C. Flour

3 Eggs

3/4 C. Butter

1 tsp. vanila

1 Bag M and Ms

• Microwave unsweetened chocolate and butter in 30 second intervals until butter is melted. Stir until chocolate is completely melted. 

• Add sugar and mix well. Blend in eggs and vanilla. 

• Stir in flour (careful not to overmix). Dough will be sticky.

• Refrigerate 45min-1hour or up to overnight until dough is easy to handle.

• Preheat oven to 350F 

• Shape into 1 inch balls, press 3-4 candies into ball.

• Bake 8 minutes or until just set. Let stand on baking sheet for 1 minute and transfer to wire rack.

• Devour.

No blowtorch needed

Like most college students, I have a healthy passion for lighting things on fire.

A few years ago my friend showed me fire soccer, the incredible sport you play by dousing a tennis ball in rubbing alcohol, lighting it and then kicking the ball around for a while. I've never been a huge soccer player, but this was one game I was always ready to play. 

 

Fireworks are great too, but they require a bit more advanced planning since unlike rubbing alcohol and a tennis ball, you cannot run into a Walgreens any time of the year and buy them. Plus, they take a lot of open space and draw lots of unwanted attention. 

This week, I decided to try another one of my favorite ways to light things on fire that remains completely contained in the kitchen. The only thing better than cake and ice cream, is cake and ice cream that is covered in meringue and lit on fire. That's right, it's time to get going with some Baked Alaska. 

I've tried making it once before, but I did it in such a hurry that I did not make the cake from scratch and used store bought ice cream. It was not very good. This time I started the day before and planned it much more thoroughly.

There are 4 main components to a Baked Alaska:

Cake

Ice Cream

Meringue

Flame

First I dealt with the Ice Cream

I refused to let my lack of ice cream maker prevent me from making my own ice cream. It is totally possible and actually quite simple so long as you are not trying to get too fancy. I chose to make a vanilla ice cream with chunks of chocolate peanut butter chip cookie dough inside. 

So I made up a half batch of cookie dough without the eggs and rolled bite sized pieces. I shoved them in the freezer for a while so they could stiffen up while I made the ice cream.

While they chilled, I got out my crappy handheld mixer and made the ice cream. I decided to make 8 small baked alaskas, so I got out my ramekins and some regular kitchen mugs and lined them with saran wrap. I divided the ice cream between the cups and let it freeze for an hour. I wanted to let the ice cream solidify a bit before adding the cookie dough so that the pieces wouldn't all sink to the bottom. I put the mugs and ramekins in the very back of my fridge and that was it. 

Now to make the cake...

  Since the ice cream usually melts a bit into the cake, I wanted a denser chocolate cake to go with the ice cream and to prevent the rum soaking into it too much when we lit it on fire. I found a great recipe for a dark chocolate mud cake that seemed perfect, especially since I still had so much dark belgian chocolate to use!

 It made just enough to fit into a 10 x 13in rectangular pan, which was all I needed for my mini baked alaskas.

Conquering the Meringue

I have a slight aversion to meringues because they're so particular that it is almost not worth it. But you can't light the cake on fire unless its coated in a meringue, so I worked through my apprehension and whipped up an absurd amount of egg whites. It could've gone better, but I managed to coat every cake with the nice white fluff, even if the last few got a little droopy.

Assembly

 I cut the cake into little circles the same size as the ramekins and plopped the ice cream on top. I assembled them one at a time because once the ice cream was pulled out of the freezer, I had to work quickly because this ice cream was very soft (that's what I get for not having an ice cream maker...). I had the meringue ready to go and I used a spatula and spread it all around the sides, ensuring to cover all the cake and ice cream completely.

Let the Flames Begin!

Okay, so most recipes require a kitchen blow torch to toast the meringue and "bake" the alaska. However, as you may have guessed, I do not have a blow torch lying around for these purposes. But, as we learned above with fire soccer, alcohol can help with a very low temperature flame that's easy to produce. I don't have a bottle of propane for a torch, but I did manage to get my hands on a bottle of Bacardi 151, which might as well be the same thing. I wanted to pour a ladle of flaming rum onto the cakes, but they were small for that much rum and I didn't actually have a metal ladle that would work. I tried using my Max Brenner Hug Mug, but that became problematic when the cup was englufed in flames. After a few trials, we found the most effective method was to spoon a few tablespoons of 151 onto the meringue and light it with a zippo. Then, just let the flames do their job and toast the sides of the meringue.

It didn't work as well as a blow torch, but it certainly made a great spectacle. Plus, since its an alcohol based fire there was no smoke and it was not super hot, so there were no problems with lighting it or setting off the smoke detector.

 

Once you light it, just let the flames extinguish themselves on the meringue and make sure there are no little unburned portions of 151 on the cake. It's quite a strong flavor to add to the cake if it doesn't burn off. 

 Overall I was very satisfied with both the amount of flames we got and am very thankful that all the little bits of flame that dropped onto the floor were so easy to blow out. . . 

I'd recommend trying this, but just make sure you take the time you need to make it happen, and stay safe -  keep flammable materials far, far away.

Recipes:

 Vanilla Ice Cream (without Ice Cream Maker)

2 C. Heavy Cream

1 can sweetened condensed milk

1 T. vanilla extract

add-ins

• Beat heavy cream until stiff peaks form
• Gently stir in sweetened condensed milk and vanilla extract. Pour into container, freeze overnight.
• If adding cookie dough (recipe follows) or other add ins, let the ice cream harden in the freezer for about an hour and then stir them in. 

Chocolate Peanut Butter Chip Cookie dough pieces 

1 C. flour

1/3 C. cocoa powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

2/3 C. brown sugar

1/2 C. (1 stick) butter, softened

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/3 C. peanut butter chips

• Cream together butter and sugar, add vanilla extract. 
• Stir in flour, baking soda and cocoa powder, blend well. Add peanut butter chips and stir until evenly distributed. 
• Roll into dime-sized spheres and freeze for 30-40 minutes before adding to ice cream.

Chocolate Mud Cake from Almost Bourdain

375 g (13 1/2 oz) butter, softened

1 1/3 cups (230 g / 7 7/8 oz) brown sugar

3 eggs

2 cups (300g / 10 1/2 oz) plain (all-purpose) flour, sifted

1/2 tsp baking powder

2/3 cup (80 g / 3 oz) cocoa powder, double sifted

200 g (7 oz) dark chocolate, melted

3/4 cup (180 ml / 6 fl oz) milk

• Preheat the oven to 160C (320F).
• Place the butter and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer and beat for 8-10 minutes, or until the mixture is light and creamy.
• Gradually add the eggs and beat well.
• Fold through the flour, baking powder, cocoa and melted chocolate and stir in the milk.
• Spoon the mixture into a 22cm (8 1/2 in) round cake tin lined with non-stick baking paper and bake for 1 1/4 hours or until cooked when tested with a skewer.
• Cool in the tin.
• Cut into desired shape to fit ice cream molds

Meringue

I don't feel qualified to actually provide information on meringues since I'm not proficient with them yet. So if you don't know how to do it already....

For the meringue-challenged

Flames

Bacardi 151 Rum

lighter

• Spoon 2-3 T. of the rum onto the meringue, light on fire and let it burn

Kahlua Chocolate Swirl Cheesecake

Contrary to the popular saying, it is often sadly true that the worst things in life are free, rather than the best. You should always be skeptical of people giving away things for 'free' and even those that are absurdly cheap, because after all, people love stuff. From collections of beer glasses stolen from various bars to the shoe closets of far too many women, it is clear that people don't love to get rid of their belongings. Sometimes people give away the dumbest things that make you wonder who is venturing out to Bethpage, NY just to pick up a build a bear outfit. These strange items are harmless but if you're not careful, these giveaways can become too addicting and before you know it you end up with 50 soiled mattresses from the local homeless shelter that would otherwise just be thrown away.

Thankfully, my new $3 springform pan is not in this category. I found it for super cheap and though I'm trying not to amass too grand a collection of belongings while I'm in Amherst lest I should have to buy another suitcase to haul it all back to New York, I could not resist this cheap buy. It might not be the highest quality, but it is functional and allows me to make cheesecakes that don't look like pies.

I wanted to make some sort of liqueur based cheesecake and settled on Kahlua. I've always had an affinity for Kahlua, even before I ever tasted it. About 8 years ago we I chose a dog from the pound, she was dark, sleek and shiny and my friend suggested the name Kahlua. I had no idea about the drink it referenced, but it sounded like a fun name, so for the first few weeks of her life, the dog was Kahlua.

However, we quickly became aware of what a ravenous creature she was as she devoured anything and everything in the house. From entire packages of cookies to remotes and bottles of medicine, there was nothing this dog wouldn't eat. My brother had decided that Doofus was a more appropriate name, which I adamantly resisted at first. Then, she chewed his cello bow to pieces, and I conceded that Doofus was most fitting.




This was proved to be even more true a few years later when we got her shaved during a hot Arizona summer. This showed off the weight she'd gained and made her look like the epitome of a Doofus...

Having a dog that looks this absurd made for a sad time for everyone in the house.

Its probably best that we ended very early on the comparison

between this silly dog and this beautiful drink. 

So I embarked on my cheesecake adventure, thrilled at the chance to use my fresh bottle of Kahlua for such a great purpose. It uses a massive quantity of cream cheese, but this recipe will serve 12 easily.

Now, I've never owned a food processor, and can count on one hand the number of times I've even operated one. 

The Modern Way

So when it came to crushing graham crackers for the crust, I went with a more tried and true method of glass cup and bowl. It vaguely resembles a mortar and pestle, but only requires the things found in a college student's kitchen.

The Student Way

The Old School Way

Just be sure that your glass cup has a flat bottom for crushing as a lip on the bottom makes it more difficult.

I have always loved cheesecake, and I can honestly say this is one of my favorite things I've ever made. It had a nice and creamy texture and the Kahlua flavor really came through nicely with the chocolate. Its no harder than any other cheesecake recipe, so give it a shot and be prepared to practice serious self restraint as you try not devour it all yourself.

Kahlua Chocolate Swirl Cheesecake

For the crust:

10 Graham Cracker sheets

1/2 cup walnuts

5 tbsp unsalted butter

2 tsp pure cocoa powder

For the filling:

32 oz (4 packages) cream cheese, softened

1/2 cup sugar

4 eggs (room temperature)

1 cup Kahlua liqueur

1 tsp pure vanilla extract

3 oz semi-sweet chocolate, melted

 

For decoration:

1/2 oz. dark chocolate

Crust:

• Preheat oven to 350F 

•  Crush the graham crackers and walnuts by pulsing in a food processor or smashing with a glass (see above).  
   
• Add the butter and cocoa powder and blend until well mixed.
   
• Line a 10" springform with parchment paper and press the mixture into the bottom of the pan
• Bake the crust for 10 minutes, then set it aside.

 

Filling:

• In a large bowl of a stand or hand mixer, mix the cream cheese with the sugar. 
   
• Add the eggs, one by one, mixing quickly after each addition. 
   
• Add 1 cup of Baileys and the vanilla extract. 
   
• Chop the chocolate into small pieces and microwave in 30s intervals until melted, let cool

• Separate about 1/3 of the mixture in another bowl, add the melted chocolate and whisk well. 

• Pour the plain mixture in the prepared springform pan and top with the chocolate mixture. 

swirl around until your heart's content

• Make a marbled design by swirling the batter with a knife.

• Bake 10 minutes in the oven set to 350 F degrees. Reduce the heat to 250 F degrees and bake for more 60-70 minutes. The edges will be firm and the center a little jiggle, the center will firm up as it cools. 
   
• Immediately run a thin knife around the edge to loosen it from the pan, but allow it to cool completely and then refrigerate it for at least an hour before you remove the sides of the springform pan. Serve chilled.
   
  • To decorate: use a vegetable peeler to scrape off small pieces of dark chocolate and sprinkle on top of cheesecake. 
     
    Recipe adapted from here

A sweeter side to breakfast

We all have those mornings that could use a little extra sugar. You're in a tizzy, running late searching for your keys and have no time to make a healthy breakfast. Your roommates left so many dishes around the sink you can't imagine sifting through them to find anything. Or maybe there's an upcoming tedious meeting that you are prone to dozing through. 

This bread cures it all.

I was engulfed by the slew of books in Strand this past weekend and completely overwhelmed with the plethora of cookbooks. Finally, I decided to get a book on breads, since that is the most uncharted territory for me. I settled on Bread: 150 Traditional Recipes from Around the World by Gail Duff. This recipe is adapted from the basic banana bread recipe in the West Indies region of all places. The original recipe doesn't call for the chocolate, but it felt necessary.

For those who haven't made banana bread yet and are still in that sad state of mind that considers brown bananas a bad thing, a short tutorial is in order:

perfect for eating

perfect for baking

I know they don't look particularly edible, but trust me the flavor of a ripe banana is much more rich and the texture is perfect for smooshing into a batter.

Banana Bread 

1/2 C. unsalted butter
1/2 C. sugar
1 egg, beaten
2 C. plain cake flour
1 T. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp ground. nutmeg
3 ripe bananas
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
2 1oz. dark chocolate baking squares, chopped
2 oz. walnuts, chopped

• Preheat oven to 350 F
• In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar, gradually beat in the egg
• Mix the flour, baking powder, salt and nutmeg
• Peel and mash the bananas
• Beat the flour and bananas alternately into the butter and sugar, beating and blending well
• Mix in the vanilla extract and 1 oz. of the chocolate pieces
• Place batter into greased loaf pan top with walnuts and remaining chocolate
• Bake for about 50 minutes or until skewer inserted comes out clean

It's best served warm, but if you make it late one night, its a great reason to roll out of bed in the morning. I sliced it up along with some zucchini bread and had to find some way to force myself to not eat the entire loaf, so I brought the bowl to some hungry graduate students across the hall from my lab who kindly devoured it.

So please, the next time you consider throwing away the bananas that you ran out of time to eat, realize that they just have a much higher calling than simply being sliced with your cheerios, and make banana bread instead!

 

Dark Chocolate Strawberry and Blueberry Truffles

I've always been bad at these kinds of things. Journals, diaries, blogs... I start them with high hopes and with unimaginable speed forget completely and the writing goes on hiatus for an incredible amount of time. The concept of In Between Classes became much more difficult this past semester when baking went from an in between classes type thing to more of a "baking until 3am and falling asleep covered in powdered sugar and frosting" activity. But, now I am in Amherst, MA doing an engineering research program for the summer and have a lot more free time as this is solely a 9-5 thing. Thus, there is far more time for adventuring in my makeshift dorm-style kitchen. It's been keeping me nice and busy, and I thought why not see if I can keep this blog up for a little while longer than the one and a half posts I had before. Here we go....

One of the greatest things about Western Mass. is the abundance of farms providing us with fresh fruits and veggies. We went strawberry picking the other day thinking it would take us an hour or two and we'd get one big crate of strawberries. Wrong. We got 3 crates of bright beautiful and juicy strawberries, totaling in over 20lbs. This after only 20 minutes of picking, it was absurd.

With this many strawberries, it actually becomes a bit of a challenge to find interesting ways to use them all before they go bad, which is happening a bit too quickly. It's turned into a Stawberryfest 2011, complete with

Homemade shortcake with fresh whipped cream and strawberries

Strawberry Basil Scones

Lemon Pepper Salmon with Balsamic Mango and Strawberry Salsa

Mango, Blueberry, and Strawberry Oatmeal Crumble

I feel as though I'm on Iron Chef and the secret ingredient is strawberries.

The only way I could justify my most recent splurge - a giant block of excellent belgian dark chocolate - was by using it in some way as a gift. Some family friends drove me to a harp recital in Harvard, MA last week and I got to see old harpist friends. This was the perfect gift-meriting action. On J's Kitchen, I found this recipe that continued my strawberry trend and would also use my new and decadent chocolate. I had some blueberries as well that I decided to add in as another type of filling for some variety.

The one time I tried truffles in the past, I was chilling the mixture in the fridge and accidentally dropped it when pulling it out, thus breaking the glass bowl and ruining the truffles. That traumatic event prevented a second attempt for the past year and a half, but this time I came prepared with a metal bowl and was determined to not pull one of these (I don't even understand why Canadians are playing football in the first place...)

So I embarked on my second truffle journey, armed with my beaming strawberries, blueberries, a massive block of chocolate, and loads of determination.

This is just the type of recipe I hate, however, because it involves a lot of waiting, and the waiting game sucks. Thankfully, I started these late one night so I just let the truffle mix sit over night and did not have to worry about finding something more fun to occupy my time, like

The Best Alternative to the Waiting Game

Even after chilling for an extended period of time, rolling the truffles with my hands proved more difficult than anticipated.  They were gooey balls of chocolate with what was soon to be a mystery filling of either strawberry or blueberry cream cheese. I tried to keep track but failed miserably, which only made the eating part more unpredictable and thrilling!

Truffle globs, primed for another long period of chilling in the fridge

The next morning I dusted them all with cocoa powder and tried to snap some pictures before heading to work and delivering the majority of the truffles. I was self conscious about how they turned out, and my solution in this case is always the tried and true taste test, which was a nice 8am pick me up. I sliced one open and found the blueberry filling.



They weren't quite the texture I was hoping for, because I think I accidentally used too much cream, but were nonetheless profoundly decadent.

So I threw them on a little plate and brought them with me to work where I promptly put them in the freezer to harden up more. This actually worked quite well and by the time I delivered them at lunch, they were much more truffle-like.

All in all this proved to be a most delicious way to use up a few more strawberries and make a gracious thank you treat for some very kind people. 

Dark Chocolate Truffles with Cream Cheese-Strawberry Filling
makes 12
For the truffles:
120 gr dark chocolate, coarsely chopped
60 gr heavy cream

1. Place chopped chocolate in a medium bowl.
2. Bring cream to boil in a small saucepan, then remove from heat. Pour over chopped chocolate and stand for 3 minutes. Stir until smooth, then cover with a plastic wrap and refrigerate until firm (I left them overnight).

For the filling: 
8 strawberries, thinly sliced 
4oz cream cheese, softened
10 gr caster sugar

1. Preheat oven to 120C. Line a baking sheet with baking paper.
2. Arrange strawberry slices on prepared pan in a single layer. Dry in preheated oven for 1-1 1/4 hour (until crispy). For the blueberries, I just cut them in half and put them on the pan too. They won't dry out completely, but it is okay. Cool completely.
3. Finely crush dried strawberries, then mix with cream cheese and caster sugar. Refrigerate for 30 minutes to firm up
4. Roll filling mixture into 12 balls. Refrigerate until truffle mixture is ready to use, put in freezer for last 5 minutes before coating in mixture

Assembly:
1. Coat each cream cheese-strawberry or blueberry ball with truffle mixture. Do this quickly as the truffle mix tends to melt the longer you handle it. Wash off your hands every few truffles and dry completely, then roll the next set. Refrigerate until firm, freeze for a few minutes if necessary

2. Roll in cocoa powder. Refrigerate until ready to serve.