Chocolate Meringue Buttercream Frosting

My sister used to bake cakes a lot when we were growing up.  She often decorated her cakes with buttercream, something I really didn’t like.  It was made from a simple recipe, which called for equal amounts (mass) of butter and icing (powdered) sugar. It was just so dense and cloyingly sweet!  What was worse, was that she used catering margarine instead of butter - eurgh…

It was only in the last year that I discovered meringue based buttercream, and even then the recipe did not convince me to try it.  The only reason I tried was after we sampled a few cupcakes in Portland, and they were delicious.  I was quite shocked!

This chocolate meringue based buttercream is packed full of flavour, barely sweet, light, creamy and oh so delicious!  It also doesn’t form that horrible crust as many other frostings do.

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Dark Chocolate and Peanut Butter Fudge

 

Peanut butter and chocolate are the two things that I love, but rarely put them together. Why? I have no idea, because they are so good together!

A few years, I would have cringed over the thought. I didn’t grow up with peanut butter cups or anything of the sort. I liked peanut butter and I liked chocolate, but I’d never had them together. The closest thing I came to that was a Snickers bar.

So why this fudge? I wanted to something different. I have made dark chocolate fudge already, so why not add a new dimension to it? Although I had thought this up for some time, I had put off making it because

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The Ultimate Chocolate Cake

This is A’s xx birthday cake, and it’s truly THE ultimate chocolate cake. It consists of a dense three layer chocolate cake, sandwiched together with dark chocolate ganache. It’s the most chocolaty chocolate cake I’ve ever tasted.  The cake is dark, chocolatey, incredibly rich and dense. It is not for the faint hearted! In fact, M. said that we have hidden a mini chocolate factory in each slice… she wasn’t wrong there.

It was so damn chocolaty, it nearly made us sick. Ok, it didn’t help that we had 1/8 th each.

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Milk Chocolate Pots de Crème

This really is the dessert that makes it all better!

I was handed a spoon and a bowl of this stuff a few days ago, and was told that it would make it all better… yep, it pretty much did. Each spoonful filled my senses with joy and delight. It’s chocolaty, smooth and incredibly delicious. It almost tastes like a chocolaty caramel. It’s even better with lightly sweetened vanilla whipped cream.

The best part is that it’s so simple to make, the bad part is that there is a setting period! Not to worry, after the wait, you will indeed be rewarded.

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Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies (Butter Free)

Yes, another chocolate chip cookie recipe. This recipe was found somewhere on the interweb, and fortunately for them, I can’t remember where. Although the resulting cookies are chewy, the flavor is just not right, well, not for me at least. The fat in this recipe is 100% shortening. I used cold pressed organic palm oil, but it just didn’t taste right. The cookies still tasted synthetic. Sorry, but I prefer the butter-laden cookies.

The only reason why I wanted to try a cookie made with 100% shortening was because firstly, I had heard that shortening in cookies makes them incredibly delicious, and secondly, I had a tub sitting in my pantry.

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Moist Double Chocolate Muffins

There was about 250 g (1 cup) sour cream left in the fridge from one of the two birthday cakes that were baked for me. Since sour cream on its own isn’t really appreciated in this household, and I hate wasting food, I decided to use it in a muffin recipe. After searching online, I found a suitable candidate.

These muffins are chocolatey,

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Chocolate and Lemon Cookies

I was at a loose end one weekend, so rummaged through my baking books to see what I could bake. These sounded great, but sadly were a little of a disappointment. There’s nothing wrong with them per se, they were just not what I expected. The cookies potentially could have been absolutely fantastic: buttery, slightly crunchy (like shortbread), with an intense chocolate and zesty flavor, but instead they turned out to be really soft cookies;

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Super-Moist Banana Bread with Chocolate Chips & Walnuts

This was the first thing A. ever baked for me. There was a funny story about how long it took, but the result was great. We’ve made this recipe numerous times since (… without the drama).

The recipe is great way of using overripe bananas. The resulting loaf is incredibly moist, packed full banana-ry goodness, crunchy walnuts and delicious dark chocolate chips.  Did I mention it’s moreish too? The banana bread freezes well, simply cut into thick slices and either freeze individually and place into a container,

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Chocodamia Cookies II

Here’s the second installment of chocolate chip and macadamia nut cookies, based on the Ghirardelli white chocolate chip packet. The recipe has been adapted to accommodate a certain chocolate craving. These cookies are so packed full of fat and sugar, they were bound to taste good!

TIP: Divide the dough into portions and arrange them so they are not touching on a tray. Freeze until solid,

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Chocodamia Cookies I

One evening, A and I started to talk about chocolate chip and macadamia nut cookies.  This conversation, not surprisingly opened the can of worms about the differences in American and British biscuits and cookies. That aside, we both agreed that white chocolate isn’t really chocolate, but goes well in these cookies.

To make things a little more “grown up”, we decided to dump in some “real” chocolate chips into the cookie mix as well. We weren’t sure which ones would taste

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