Blueberry Vanilla Fro-Yo Popsicles

I came up with this recipe after coming across a recipe for Blueberry Muffin Ice Cream. Sounds like a dream, right? Also sounds like a ton of calories and sugar. So I decided to come up with my own, healthier version.






These popsicles are legit. You cannot even tell they're healthy for you. They would be absolutely unreal with a few swirls of Crunch Cookie Butter in each popsicle. I'm going to try that next.

At fifty, yes FIFTY, calories a pop, you won't feel guilty after eating these. They're so creamy and delicious, and perfect for summer. I sweetened them with honey, but I used a bit of truvia when making the blueberry preserves. You can use regular sugar if you like, or honey instead, but that might make the preserves a bit more liquid-y.





Ingredients: (makes 6, 4 inch popsicles)

1 cup 0% Greek Yogurt, I used Fage
2 tablespoons honey
2 tsp vanilla bean paste (you can use vanilla extract instead)

For the Blueberry Preserves:

3/4 cup fresh blueberries
1 tablespoon honey
1 tablespoon truvia
juice of half a lime

In a small pot add blueberries, honey, and truvia and simmer on low heat until juices start to flow and sauce becomes syrup-like.  Remove from pan and allow to cool.

In a bowl mix greek yogurt, honey, and vanilla bean paste. Once the blueberry preserves has cooled, fold it into yogurt mixture. Add to popsicle molds (I used some basic ones from Ikea) and freeze for at least two hours.



Please ignore my chipping nail polish

Sweet Potato Brownies

Sweet potato brownies?! Yes, you heard correctly. I came up with this recipe when I was craving brownies but didn't want to feel too guilty about possibly eating the entire batch in one sitting. I had some sweet potatoes that I needed to get rid of, and I decided they would make a good partial-flour substitute in a brownies. I adapted two different recipes--Gwenyth Paltrow's Spelt Flour Brownies, and Sprouted Kitchen's Brownies. I LOVED these brownies, and I'm not really a fan of chocolate. They were super moist, almost fudge-like, and at around 150 calories a slice (if you cut into 20 pieces), you honestly cannot go wrong.
You can make these gluten-free by substituting gf oat flour, however these are just wheat-free with spelt flour.
*I added a drizzle of Trader Joe's Salted Caramel Sauce in the middle of the batter, feel free to do so, or not. However, I HIGHLY recommend it!




Ingredients:

1 cup mashed/pureed (baked) sweet potatoes
4 tbsp butter
1/2 cup bittersweet chocolate chips (plus extra for topping)
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup spelt flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup strong brewed coffee
2 eggs
1 tbsp vanilla extract
1 tbsp agave

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a pot melt butter and half of the chocolate chips until just melted and set aside. Sift together flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt.  In another bowl mix sweet potatoes, coffee, vanilla, eggs, and agave. Once chocolate-butter mixture has cooled, add to sweet potato mixture and mix well. Whisk in dry ingredients well. Transfer to a buttered 8 x 8 baking dish, sprinkle with chocolate chips, and bake 35-40 minutes. (Mine took a bit longer because of my oven so pay close attention to yours). Insert toothpick to make sure they're done (I like underdone brownies). Make sure to completely cool brownies before you cut them, I refrigerated mine to ensure clean cutting.

All this talk of brownies is making me want them again. Too bad I'm out of sweet potatoes.

Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

This recipe is not for the faint of heart-it contains two sticks of butter. Two, deliciously melted (and browned!) sticks of butter that make these cookies taste unreal. I followed this recipe with a few changes of my own. I used spelt flour instead of unbleached flour, and I used two Ghirardelli chocolate bars (chopped up into little bits) in place of the chocolate chips, and I added the hot browned butter straight to the sugars to create a caramelized taste. I also allowed the dough to sit in the fridge for a few hours, so that the flavors could marinate. These cookies are best eaten straight out of the oven, or within a day of baking (in my opinion!).

 


Ingredients:

 1 cup of butter (2 sticks)
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs room temp
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cups spelt flour (or any flour you wish)
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp sea salt
2 chopped Ghirardelli chocolate bars

 Add sugars to a heat proof bowl. Melt butter in a saucepan on medium heat, stirring frequently for 5-7 minutesuntil it just starts to brown and changes to an amber color. Once butter browns, transfer to bowl of sugars, mix and let cool completely.
Once cooled, add eggs and vanilla to butter and sugar, mixing well. In a separate bowl add flour, baking soda, and salt, mixing well. Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients, mix until dough forms. Fold in chopped chocolate, cover bowl, and refrigerate for 2-24 hours.
 Preheat oven to 350 and roll dough into 1 - 1 1/2 inch balls. Bake for 8-10 minutes, or until the cookies just barely begin to brown. You want them to look a bit undercooked, so that they're perfectly chewy once cooled.

Peanut Butter Cookies

Okay, so I'm months behind on this blog. But now that I don't really have a full time job, I'll be posting a lot more. Well, hopefully. Planning a wedding has taken up most of my time, but now we're in the final few weeks and most of it is done! Anyways, here is a recipe for yummy peanut butter cookies. I found the recipe on this awesome website called Seven Spoons, I just tweaked it a bit. I added rolled oats for texture and decreased the amount of peanut butter just a bit. They're delicious!














Ingredients

1 cup plus 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup (8 tablespoons/1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup chunky (or creamy) peanut butter
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons packed golden or dark brown sugar
1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon granulated sugar
1 tablespoon honey
1 large egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/3 cup rolled oats

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In the bowl of a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, or with a hand mixer, cream together the butter and peanut butter until light and fluffy. Add the sugars and honey and beat on high for three minutes, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed.

Add the egg and vanilla, then mix on medium speed until well blended.

Add the dry ingredients to the bowl, and oats, and stir to just combine. Using a 1 1/4" ice cream scoop dish out mounds of dough onto the prepared baking sheet (alternatively, use a generous 2 tablespoons of batter for each cookie), spacing them about 2 inches apart. Place onto baking sheet and freeze the batter for 10-15 minutes to set up and chill thoroughly.

Dip a fork into warm water and use the tines to press the dough balls lightly; you only want to slightly flatten their shape and leave the imprint of the fork. Freshly dip the fork between pressing each cookie. Sprinkle with sea salt, if desired.

Bake in the preheated oven for 16 minutes, rotating the sheets once during baking. Cool on pan for two minutes, then remove to a baking rack to cool completely.

Fondant!

Friday was my friend Aj's birthday and for his special day I decided to take on the task of making home made fondant for his birthday cake. I have always wanted to make and work with fondant, especially after watching Ace of Cakes, because they make it look so easy. It wasn't quite easy, however. After going through almost two bags of powdered sugar, I got the fondant to the consistency I wanted (i.e. not sticking to our kitchen table every time I tried to roll it). I decided to go with a Pokemon themed cake, because well, Aj's obsessed with Pokemon. After about 5 hours the cake was done, and I felt quite accomplished, though I think it could have been a bit better; I think I'll try a different cake shape next time.

For the cake, I used this All-American Chocolate Buttercream cake recipe, but I used 3 cake pans for 3 layers. I also made chocolate buttercream frosting in between the layers and around the cake before applying the fondant.

I also made the characters on top of the cake out of fondant, however I wouldn't recommend it because it was too soft. I would recommend using gum paste if you're wanting to decorate it.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY AJ!!!!!!

Ingredients required to make the fondant recipe:

• 1 Tbsp of unflavored gelatin
• 1/4 cup of cold water
• 1 tsp of almond extract (I used clear vanilla extract)
• 1/2 cup of light corn syrup (If a corn syrup is not available, you can substitute it with a sugar syrup made with 1-1/4 cups sugar and 1/3 cup water, boiled together until syrupy)
• 1 Tbsp of glycerin (some recipes say it’s optional, believe me, it’s a must)
• 2 lbs 10X confectioners’ sugar
• 1/2 tsp of white vegetable shortening

Directions how to make the fondant recipe:

• Sprinkle the gelatin over cold water in a small bowl and let it rest for 2 minutes to soften
• Place the bowl in a microwave for 30 seconds on High, until the gelatin dissolves
• Add the Almond extract
• Add the corn syrup and the glycerin and stir until the mixture is smooth and clear (if the mixture is not turning smooth and clear, microwave it for an additional 15 to 20 seconds on high and stir again)
• Sift 1 1/2 pounds of the sugar into a large bowl
• Make a hole in the sugar and pour the liquid mixture to it
• Stir with a wooden spoon until the mixture becomes sticky
• Sift some of the remaining 1/2 pound of sugar onto a smooth work surface and add as much of the remaining sugar as the mixture will take
• Knead the fondant, adding a little more sugar if necessary, to form a smooth, pliable mass
• Rub the vegetable shortening on your thumbs and knead it into the fondant
• Roll the fondant flat, until it's about 1/4 of an inch thick, and drape on cake

To color the fondant you need to buy dye gels, not the liquid food dye, add it to the fondant with a toothpick, and slowly knead the fondant, adding more color if necessary.

Valentine's Day Cookies

In honor of Valentine's Day I've decided to do a series of recipes that are Valentine inspired. First recipe, cake cookies! For those of you who have never had cake cookies, you are truly missing out. They taste exactly like cake but in the form of a cookie, and they're so easy. I'd like to think that I've perfected the art of the cake cookie, my personal preference being white cake with white chocolate chips thrown in. However, I've tried all sorts of combinations; chocolate cake with peanut butter, chocolate cake with white and chocolate chips, funfetti cookies, etc. But for Valentine's Day I decided to try something new: strawberry cake mix with white chocolate chips. I highly recommend that you try these!

Ingredients:

1 box of strawberry cake mix (I prefer Betty Crocker)

1/3 cup of canola or vegetable oil

2 eggs

1/2 cup white chocolate chips

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Mix the cake mix, oil, and eggs in a large bowl until combined. Add the white chocolate chips and mix. Roll mixture into 1 inch balls and place on a cookie sheet sprayed with cooking spray. Bake for 8-10 minutes and watch closely! (I prefer them just BARELY starting to brown, so they're soft on the inside). Dust with powdered sugar once removed from sheet pan.

If you don't want to try strawberry flavor you can use white cake and add red food coloring for the same effect!

Bird Crap, aka Chocolate Cake Crumbles with Whipped Cream and Chocolate Pudding

I know what you're thinking. What good could possibly come from an entry titled Bird Crap, but I assure you that a great deal of good can come of this post.

My roommate Melissa and I had the urge to make something delicious, and didn't want to spend too much money on ingredients, so we settled on a chocolate cake with buttercream frosting. Sometimes you have hiccups in the kitchen, and to be honest, we had a big hiccup that day. We beat the cake batter too long and when the cakes were done baking they literally crumbled out of the pans. There was no hoping in attempting to frost them, none what so ever. So as we stood there in the kitchen, cracking up at our mistake I remembered a delicious dessert my mom introduced to me a few years back. It's a different take on "Better Than Sex Cake", that includes crumbled chocolate cake, layered with chocolate pudding, whipped cream, and chunks of toffee or heath bar. Although it made my mother mad, my friends and I called it Bird Crap and boy did we love it. As it so happened, miraculously I had whipping cream in the fridge, and a box of chocolate pudding in my cupboard (what are the odds?), so we decided to make an even better dessert than we already had planned. I urge you to try this dessert. It's so incredibly simple and sooooo good. And it's even better with homemade cake! (Though you can use a boxed kind)

Chocolate Cake:

4 ounces (120 grams)unsweetened chocolate, chopped

1/3 cup (28 grams) unsweetenedcocoa powder

1 cup (240 ml) boiling water

2 1/4 cups (315 grams) all purposeflour

2teaspoonsbaking powder

1 teaspoonbaking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup (226 grams) unsaltedbutter, room temperature

2 cups (400 grams) granulated whitesugar

3 largeeggs

2 teaspoons purevanillaextract

1 cup (240 ml) milk

Chocolate Cake:Preheat ovento 350 degrees F (177 degrees C) and place rack in center of oven. Butter, or spray with a nonstick vegetable spray, and line with parchment paper, two - 9 x 2 inch deep (23 x 5 cm) round baking pans. Set aside.

In a stainless steel or heatproof bowl place the chopped unsweetened chocolate and cocoa powder. Pour the boiling water over the chocolate and cocoa powder and stir until they have melted. Set aside to cool while you make the batter.

In a separate bowl, whisk to combine, the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.

In the bowl of your electric mixer, or with a hand mixer, cream the butter. Gradually add the sugar and continue beating until the mixture is fluffy (this will take about 3-5 minutes). Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Add the vanilla extract and melted chocolate mixture and beat to combine.

Add the milk and flour mixtures in three additions, beginning and ending with the flour mixture. Beat only until the ingredients are incorporated.

Divide the batter evenly between the two prepared pans and smooth the tops. Bake for about 35 - 40 minutes or until atoothpickinserted in the center comes out clean and the tops spring back when lightly pressed.

Once the cake has cooled, remove from pans and crumble up. Prepare a box of instant chocolate pudding, set aside. Then prepare the whipped cream:

2 cups heavy whipping cream

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 table spoons confectioners sugar

Beat on high speed with a mixer until fluffy peaks form.

Now get a large bowl and put a layer of crumbled cake on the bottom. You can choose to sprinkle chocolate chips or crumbled heath bar on top of the first layer as well. Then follow with a layer of chocolate pudding, then a layer of whipped cream. Repeat until cake and pudding are gone, but make sure to save enough whipped cream to cover the top layer. Sprinkle with shaved chocolate or crumbled heath bar. Voila!