Tag Archives: chocolate

Earl Grey Chocolate Cake

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Shutterbean recently posted this Real Simple recipe for an Earl Grey Chocolate Cake.  And I was torn.  Chocolate and Earl Grey?  Yes.  Dreamy combination.  But Real Simple?  Not for me.  I sometimes want to buy it off a magazine rack, sure, because who wouldn’t want to “Organize Your Whole Life in 15 Minutes” or learn “25 Fast Healthy Breakfast Ideas You’ve Never Thought Of Before”?  But those are false promises, or at most two-page spreads, and when I have actually purchased the magazine I have come away with the feeling that it was really just trying to sell me cleaning products all along.  And I don’t really like to clean.

Luckily, I didn’t let my issues outweigh my love of cake.  Because this is a good one.  I love a chocolatey chocolate cake, which this is not.  (For a moist, delicious, super chocolatey cake, bake these Vegan Chocolate Cupcakes as a cake instead.)  This Earl Grey Chocolate Cake has a lighter chocolate flavor, which is a good thing (weird! I know!), because it allows the tea to come through.  The Earl Grey flavor is subtle, but definitely noticeable.  Intriguing.

The bundt pan that I dug out of the back of my cupboard gave the cake an irresistable chewy-crisp edge.  If you’re a middle-of-the-brownie-pan kind of person instead, don’t worry, all but a few millimeters of the cake is fine-crumbed and moist.  (But oh!  Those few millimeters!  If you are an edge-of-the-brownie-pan kind of person, you will love that edge.)  The bundt pan also made J refer to me (fondly, I think) as a Midwestern housewife.  If you live in the Midwest, do you make a lot of bundt cakes?  I think that is a lifestyle I could definitely embrace.Real Simple Earl Grey Chocolate Cake

I enjoyed making Earl Grey Chocolate Cake in part because you mix everything in one bowl, so it required relatively little cleanup (see above re whether I like to clean).  Boil a cup of water and infuse it for 3-5 minutes with 6 Earl Grey tea bags or 2 Tbsp. loose Earl Grey tea, then set the tea aside.  Spray a bundt or tube pan and set it aside.  Melt and cool 4 oz. semisweet chocolate.*  In your mixing bowl, cream 1/2 c. softened butter with 1 3/4 c. sugar, then mix in 3 eggs. Mix in the melted chocolate.  Continue to mix while adding 2 c. all-purpose flour, 1 tsp. baking soda, 1 tsp. baking powder, 1/4 tsp. salt, 1/2 c. plain yogurt and that strong cup of Earl Grey tea.  Scoop the cake batter into your pan.  Bake 45-50 minutes at 350 or until a skewer comes out with a few crumbs (rather than raw cake batter) attached.  Let the cake cool for 5 minutes, then turn out of the pan.  Cool, then dust with confectioners’ sugar before serving.

*The original recipe called for 4 oz. unsweetened chocolate and 2 c. sugar, but I didn’t have unsweetened chocolate.  Make it easy, use what you have on hand.

A Healthy Indulgence: Whole Grain Banana Cardamom Muffins (with optional chocolate, of course)

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I’ve been keeping a close eye on the banana situation recently.  We like bananas in our family, I usually keep the fruit bowl stocked with them, but, you know, sometimes there is disequalibrium between supply and demand.  And for those times there is banana bread.

After the first brown spots appeared on the bananas on my counter, I began to get hopeful.  I flipped through a few of my cookbooks, contemplating my banana bread options.  I saw a recipe for a banana cardamom cake and got excited.  Days went by.  The bananas were definitely going to be mine to bake with.  Really, it was time.  Seriously.

Then today this recipe popped up on my screen, and I was ready.  (Isn’t that a nice blog?  Go ahead, go click through to her website, check out that recipe, and vote for her for a Bloggie for Best Canadian Blog.  I’ll wait.)  You back?  So you saw why I didn’t just make that recipe: the coconut.  I know I’m in the minority here, but coconut isn’t my favorite.  What IS my favorite, you ask?  Chocolate, of course.  So I knew it was time for a recipe mashup.  One other consideration was that I wanted to make these healthy enough for my kids’ school lunches, which meant that starting with a stick of butter was out.

I went halfsies on this recipe and made some some of the muffins with cocoa and chocolate chips and the rest without.  You’ll like them either way.  Banana Cardamom Muffins start with 2-3 mashed bananas, of course, preferably sorry browning specimens that have been rejected by your family.  Mix the mashed bananas with 3/4 c. buttermilk, 1/2 c. brown sugar, an egg, and 2 Tb. melted butter.  Stir 1 c. oats into the wet ingredients.  In a separate bowl, combine 1 1/4 c. whole wheat pastry flour, 1 tsp. ground cardamom, and 1 1/2 tsp. baking soda.  (If you are making the chocolate version, now add 2 Tbsp. cocoa powder and a handful of chocolate chips to the dry ingredients and 1 tsp. vanilla to the wet ingredients.)  Mix the wet ingredients into the dry just to combine and scoop the batter into lined muffin tins.  Bake at 350 for 20-23 minutes, checking every minute after 20 minutes to avoid overbaking.

An Easy Little Butterscotch Cookie (or Nutella Sandwich Cookie)

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When there are children–sometimes many children–running around the house all day every day, it’s handy to have a quick and easy cookie recipe at your fingertips.  Because at some point you’re going to need some cookies, stat.  And maybe the children will want one, too.  This recipe will make both you and them happy.

I felt the need to make amends after dissing a Moosewood cookbook the other day (is there a special karmic penalty for that, do you think?).  So I pulled one of my many Moosewoods off the shelf and flipped through it.  And right away the book (Simple Suppers) reminded me to make these cookies again, because they take five minutes and can be smooshed full of Nutella.  What’s not to love?

This is a cookie that you can take in a few different directions.  Need a tray of warm cookies 15 minutes from now?  Preheat your your oven while you mix the ingredients then scoop and flatten 1″ balls of dough onto your cookie sheet, and you can be enjoying soft butterscotch-scented bites of love after 8 minutes of baking.  Maybe you could have them ready even sooner.

Or whip up a batch of dough, roll it into logs and freeze it, then cut it into quarter-inch slices and bake your cookies into nice uniform wafers, ready to be nibbled alone or– don’t forget these cookies’ highest calling!–sandwiched together with Nutella.

However you decide to bake the little beauties, the recipe is simple.  Cream a stick of butter with a cup of brown sugar, then add an egg, a tsp. of vanilla, and 1/4 tsp. salt.  Scrape down your bowl and then mix in 1 1/2 c. all-purpose flour.  Voila.  Now is the time to freeze them in 1 1/2″ diameter logs, if you can wait; or go ahead and bake ’em now.  Bake at 375 until the bottoms are just getting light golden for a soft cookie, or until they’re golden brown for a crisp wafer (8-12 minutes).

Chocolate Chocolate Chocolate Cookies

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Ok, so maybe they’re only Chocolate Chocolate Cookies.  The point is, they’re CHOCOLATEY.  I love chocolatey.  At this point I could say something like, “but given their dimunitive size (as compared to one of those cake-sized cookies you could get at the mall in the 1980s, say, or a watermelon), they make a perfect sweet bite after dinner or a nice after-school snack for the children with a glass of milk.”  But that would be disingenuous.  Because, let’s be honest, what I really plan to do with these cookies is sit down and eat a whole plateful.  Or at least two.

I have been thinking about a good chocolate cookie since I saw this post the other day.  I have made, and I do love, that cookie recipe.  But these are something a little different.  The Clinton Street Bakery Cookbook calls them “Brookies,” as in a cross between a brownie and a cookie, and the description is pretty perfect.

Perfectly chewy, with a crispy edge, these Chocolate Chocolate Chocolate Cookies are worth getting 3(!) bowls dirty for.  First, combine 1 c. chocolate chips, 1 Tbsp. canola oil and 1 tsp. butter and melt in the microwave or a double boiler.  In a large bowl, whisk 2 eggs with 3/4 c. brown sugar and 1 tsp. vanilla.  In a third bowl, combine 1/2 c. flour, 1/4 tsp. baking powder, and 1/4 tsp. salt.  Fold the chocolate mixture into the egg mixture, then stir in the flour mixture.  Fold in another c. of chocolate chips, then pop the batter in the freezer for about 10 minutes to firm up.  Bake well-spaced 1-Tbsp. scoops of dough on parchment or a buttered cookie sheet at 350 just until the tops are dry and cracked, about 8-10 mins.  Let cool completely before attempting to move (read: eat) them.

Vegan Chocolate Cupcakes

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It is lovely to be invited to dinner.  Tonight our gracious hosts fed the many kiddos first and then sent them off to play while we enjoyed an adult dinner in peace.  Brilliant!  Why didn’t I think of that?  We were served this elegant Coq au Vin from Sunset Magazine.  I contributed dessert.

I don’t make these Vegan Chocolate Cupcakes because they’re vegan.  I make them because they’re delicious and very, very moist.  And today I made them because my friend who invited us to dinner can’t eat eggs or dairy.  The recipe is originally from Epicurious.  I scaled it down because a dozen big chocolate cupcakes seemed adequate for two families.

Also, did I mention how easy it is to make a dozen Vegan Chocolate Cupcakes?  Mix 1 c. plus 2 Tb. flour with 1 c. sugar, 1/2 c. cocoa powder, 1 tsp. of baking soda and 1/4 tsp. salt in a big bowl.  Get out a 2-cup measuring cup and mix 1 c. water, 1/3 c. canola oil, 1 1/2 tsp. vanilla and 1 tsp. white vinegar.  Mix the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients, divide between 12 lined muffin cups, and bake at 350 for 20 mins.  The wonky-looking bit of frosted cupcake you see in the picture up there is glazed with 1 c. powdered sugar sifted with 1/4 c. cocoa powder with 3-4 Tbsp. boiling water mixed in (just enough to make it pourable, then you dip the tops of the cooled cupcakes in).