An army!

You guys happened to pick one of my favorite dessert flavors for the poll last week. It’s a rare day that what I want to win actually wins. I got lucky this time around!

Besides using something with almond, I also wanted to make something super-easy to make.

In fact, these guys are so easy to make you don’t even have to turn on your oven!

This was my first attempt at making truffles and while they didn’t turn out perfectly shaped and I would probably need a few professional lessons before getting hired by See’s candy, I was completely happy with the result.

Almond Truffles

Yield: Makes about 40.

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon butter
2 ounces cream cheese
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
2 cups powdered sugar
1 cup unsweetened coconut, toasted
4 ounces almonds, about a cup, ground
1/4 cup cocoa powder, for coating

Helpful Equipment:
Stand Mixer or Hand Mixer

Food Processor

Directions:

1) Cream together butter and cream cheese using a hand mixer or stand mixer until it is fluffy and smooth.

2) Toast coconut in a dry skillet over medium-low heat until it's a light brown color, about 4-5 minutes. Be careful not to burn the coconut.

3) Process almonds in a food processor until they are a rough meal.

4) With cream cheese/butter mixture, add in extracts and powdered sugar. Then stir in coconut and almond meal.

5) Make teaspoon sized balls of the dough and roll them into a tight ball with your hands. Toss them in cocoa powder until completely coated.

6) Chill for storage or serve immediately. These are best served at room temperature.

Adapted from a Food52 recipe.

Truffle Basics

I had never made truffles before and the first thing that shocked me was how little material actually goes into the balls. To make about 40 truffles, I only used 1 tablespoon of butter and 2 ounces of cream cheese.

Sure, there are a lot of add-ins and stuff, but the actual binder for the truffles is just a very tiny amount of these two ingredients.

The basics.

Add the butter and cream cheese to a mixing bowl and beat it until it is a light and smooth texture. I used my stand mixer for this, but you could just as easily use a hand mixer.

After a few minutes of beating you should be all set.

This actually makes a lot of truffles.

After this, mix in your extracts (vanilla and almond) and also the powdered sugar.

The Add-ins

Now for the fun stuff. This is where all the flavor and texture comes from for these truffles.

No need to peel.

For the almonds, just measure out 4 ounces (about a cup) and quickly process them in a mini-food processor. If you don’t have a food processor, I would just put my almonds in a plastic bag and crush them with a mallet or something.

Your goal is to get a really nice almond meal.

Easy breazy.

Besides the almonds, there’s also coconut in this recipe. I’m not always a huge coconut fan, but I really liked it in this recipe.

The key to coconut is to make sure you toast it lightly before using it. I just toasted mine in a dry skillet for a few minutes over medium-low heat. Be sure to keep an eye on the coconut and stir it frequently.

It can go from toasted to burned in about 30 seconds.

This is what you’re shooting for!

Don't burn it!

Add in the almond meal and coconut to the butter, cream cheese, and powdered sugar.

Stir this all together and your truffle mixture is done!

Try to not eat this with a spoon.

Making the Truffles

Keep in mind that truffles are supposed to be bite-sized treats. This stuff is pretty rich and nobody wants a candy bar sized truffle.

I literally used a teaspoon to measure out my truffles. To make one, scoop out a heaping teaspoon of the mixture and then lightly roll it into a ball using your hands.

See how small it is?

Small is good.

Toss the ball into a bowl of cocoa powder and shake it around to coat it completely.

You can do more than one at a time.

Once you get the hang of it, you can do 5 or 6 at a time and then just toss them all with the cocoa powder at the same time.

It took me maybe 10 minutes to pop out about 40 of these bite-sized goodies.

As I finished them, I just set them out on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. The paper just makes it a bit easier to clean up. There’s really no danger of the truffles sticking to anything.

Not bad for my first truffle.

While these are supposed to be one bite treats, I bit one in half so you can see the story.

Pretty delicious stuff. The cocoa powder is sharp and intense and then then the whole thing just melts in your mouth.

Chomp!

Store these in the fridge, but they are best served at room temperature. So, if you can, take them out of the fridge 10 minutes before eating them.

I find this next to impossible because when I open my fridge, there they are, and I just pop one in my mouth.

So, that serving method works too.

These are really unique and they look and taste way harder than they actually are. Give them a shot if you’re a truffle fan, an almond fan, or a fan of good stuff that requires very little work!

Chocolate and Coffee? Yes Please.

Ok. So there’s a very fine line between a muffin and a cupcake. And that line is the following:

Cupcakes are frosted.

No matter what goes into it, I’m pretty sure you can label it a muffin as long as you don’t frost it. And muffins sound healthier than cupcakes so you can eat them for breakfast.

See what I did there?

Other reasons why you should eat this “muffin” for breakfast rather than dessert? 1) It has flax seed meal in it. Lots of fiber! 2) It has coffee in it for a little pick-me-up.

So I think we can all agree that these are a breakfast food and not a dessert. Right?

Mocha Muffins

Yield: 12-14 muffins

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 50 minutes

Ingredients:

1 Cup milk
1/2 Cup ground coffee
1/2 Cup vegetable oil
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 3/4 Cups flour
1/4 Cup Flax meal (optional, but up flour to 2 cups if you omit this)
1/2 Cup sugar
1/2 Cup brown sugar
3 Tablespoons cocoa powder
1 Teaspoon baking powder
1 Teaspoon baking soda
1 Teaspoon salt
1 Cup bittersweet chocolate, melted with a few tablespoons of milk

Helpful Equipment:
Muffin Tins

Directions:

1) Grind coffee finely and add to milk which should be steaming hot. Let steep for 15 minutes. Strain milk through a coffee filter.

2) To milk, add other liquid ingredients (oil, eggs, vanilla) and stir well to combine.

3) Combine all dry ingredients.

4) Melt chocolate with a few tablespoons of milk.

5) Add wet ingredients to dry and then fold in melted chocolate.

6) Butter muffin tins well so they don't stick and pour in batter so each tin is 3/4 full.

7) Bake at 375 degrees for about 20 minutes.

8) Let cool for a few minutes before eating.

Adapted from an old Bon Appétit recipe.

The Coffee Business

There’s a lot of mocha or coffee recipes out there and most of them use instant espresso for the coffee flavor. I’m not a huge instant coffee fan, so I decided to try something different to get a lot of coffee flavor going. First, I ground up about 1/2 Cup of really strong coffee.

No instant stuff for me.

Then I added this to a little over one cup of milk which I heated in the microwave until it was steaming. I let the coffee steep in the milk for 15 minutes and stirred it a few times to really let the coffee flavor get in there.

Milky coffee mixture!

Of course, the down-side of this approach is getting the coffee grinds out of the milk. There’s no fast way to do it. The only way to do it is to set up a colander with a coffee filter in it and slowly pour the milk mixture through it. Eventually all the milk will drain through and you’ll be left with some awesome coffee milk!

Once the milk is drained, mix in the other liquid ingredients (eggs, oil, vanilla).

Finishing the Batter

For a baked good, there’s a good mix of dry ingredients in this recipe. You could simplify it I guess by leaving out the flax and only using one kind of sugar, but I think this recipe will leave you with a great texture and flavor.

OK... a few ingredients in this one.

Besides cocoa powder, it’s always a good idea to melt some chocolate and add it right into the batter. You could actually just throw in some chocolate chips if you wanted more whole pieces of chocolate in the muffins.

I went with the melted version though so the chocolate flavor was evenly incorporated. You can either melt the chocolate in a metal bowl over some boiling water or in a microwave safe dish in the microwave. Either way, I’ve found that chocolate melts easier if you add a few tablespoons of milk to it.

Add some milk to this...

When you’re ready to finish the batter, stir all the wet ingredients into the dry stuff and then gently fold in the melted chocolate.

Kind of like cake batter...

I’ll be completely honest. I tasted this as-is and it tasted like cake batter.

But it’s a muffin! I promise!

The thing I noticed about these muffins (after two attempts) was that they are pretty sticky. So make sure you lube up your muffin tins really well with butter (or a nonstick spray I guess).

I rubbed butter all over mine (even the top surfaces) to make sure they wouldn’t stick at all.

Butter these guys really well.

Cooking the Muffins

Bake these beauties for about 20 minutes at 375 degrees. They should puff up and be lightly browned around the edges. Let them cool for a few minutes before trying to take them out of the pans.

Pretty things.

These are best served right away while they are still slightly warm. The coffee flavor is there, but subtle. I was surprised that I was able to taste it at all given how much other stuff is going on in these guys – especially with the cocoa powder and chocolate.

I really loved the texture of these. Almost, well, cake-like…

CHOMP.

Muffin or cupcake? Who knows.

All I know is they were delicious and a good excuse to have chocolate for breakfast.

These will punch you in the face.

Have you ever been punched in the face?

I’ve never really been a fighter, but after I ate one of these guys, my head did the “jerk back” thing like I just got sucker-punched.

I found this recipe when I was browsing through some of Bill Yosses‘s recipes. If you don’t know who that is, he’s the pastry chef for the White House. I assumed that presidents probably don’t eat crappy cookies so I thought I’d give it a shot.

These cookies are super-flavorful. They are packed full of hidden spices that are almost overpowering.

If you want to say goodbye to wussy cookies, give these a shot!

Pepper and Spice Cookies

Yield: 30 cookies

Prep Time: 15 minutes + 1 hour to chill

Total Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2/3 Cups cocoa powder, unsweetened
3/4 Cup brown sugar
12 Tablespoons unsalted butter, soft
1 large egg
1 Teaspoon black peppercorns
1 cinnamon stick (or 1 Teaspoon ground cinnamon)
1 Teaspoon allspice berries (or 1 Teaspoon ground allspice)
1/2 Teaspoon pink peppercorns
1 1/2 Teaspoons baking powder
1/8 Teaspoon ground ginger
2 Teaspoons vanilla extract
Pinch of cayenne pepper
Pinch of salt
Pinch of ground mace (opt.)
Coarse sugar, for sprinkling (opt.)

Helpful Equipment:
Spice Grinder

Directions:

1) Grind black pepper, cinnamon, and allspice in a spice grinder.

2) Sift spices with all other dry ingredients and set aside.

3) Roughly crunch pink peppercorns with a mortar and pestle or just the back of a knife.

4) In a mixing bowl, cream together butter and sugar. Add pink peppercorns and beat until smooth and light, about 5 minutes.

5) Mix in eggs and vanilla and mix well.

6) Slowly add in dry ingredients and combine until the dough comes together. Try not to over mix it.

7) Scoop dough out onto wax paper and roll into a cylinder about 2 inches in diameter.

8) Chill dough for at least an hour.

9) Slice dough into 1/4 inch cookies and add cookies to baking sheets lined with parchment paper. Sprinkle with coarse sugar.

10) Bake at 375 degrees for about 7-8 minutes.

11) Move cookies to a wire rack to cool for a few minutes.

Adapted from The Perfect Finish

The Spices!

This recipe has some crazy spices in it. Some of them you might not be familiar with. You can just leave the ones out that you don’t know or have, but I’d really recommend hunting down the more important ones and trying them out.

Especially the allspice and pink peppercorns. They add some really unique flavor to these cookies.

Spice city.

If whole spices like this intimidate you, they shouldn’t. I actually prefer buying whole spices just because they keep way longer than dried spices.

All you need to use them is a reasonably economical spice grinder. You can use your normal coffee grinder, but make sure you clean it out before you try to make coffee next time! If you blend up some white rice in the grinder, it’ll clean it out. Personally, I just picked up an extra grinder that I only use for spices.

Grind up the cinnamon, allspice berries, and black pepper. Leave the pink peppercorns whole for now.

Not coffee!

Sifting

The recipe called for sifting all the dry ingredients. I’ve been known to skip steps like this in recipes, but I decided to go with it this time around. The man makes cookies for Obama, so maybe I should just listen to him.

Not sure if this is an essential step....

It only takes a few minutes to sift all your dry ingredients on some wax paper. That just makes it easier to add to the dough later.

Lots of sifting...

Starting the dough

These cookies start like most cookies, by creaming together the butter and sugar until it’s nice and smooth and light. The only difference here is that we’re going to add in those pink peppercorns to the butter mixture!

If you’ve never had pink peppercorns before, they are an incredibly unique taste. They are a bit spicy but also bright and flavorful. Pink peppercorns are softer than the black variety so no need to grind them up. I used my mortar and pestle to just lightly crush them, but you could also use the back of a knife to crush them up a bit.

A rough grinding...

Then add the butter and sugar to a mixing bowl and beat them together until they’re smooth. You could use a stand mixer or hand mixer for this. Add your pink peppercorns to this and continue to beat it until the mixture is nice and smooth, probably about 5 minutes.

Standard stuff.

Next, beat in the egg and vanilla and slowly add in the sifted ingredients. Mix it until it’s just combined and try not to over-mix the dough. It should be a somewhat stiff dough.

Rolling the dough

To prepare this dough for cooking, spoon it out onto some wax paper and roll it tightly into a cylinder.

A log of dough.

You should let this chill in the fridge for an hour or two before making the cookies, but I went ahead and baked them right away. That’s why mine turned out a bit oblong. They weren’t quite chilled enough for slicing, but they baked up fine.

When you’re ready to make the cookies, unroll the cookie dough and slice it into about 1/4 inch cookies.

Cookies!

Baking the cookies

Add these cookies to a baking sheet (you’ll probably need two) that’s lined with parchment paper. If you want, sprinkle them with some coarse sugar which gives them a nice texture. It’s also pretty.

The sugar is a nice touch.

Bake these at 375 degrees for about 7-8 minutes. They don’t take long and keep an eye on them so they don’t burn!

Once they’re done, move them to a wire rack to cool for a few minutes before serving!

Cooked and Cooled.

Besides the incredible flavor these cookies have, they also have a really nice texture. They are kind of crumbly. They break apart easily and then just kind of dissolve in your mouth.

And then the spices kick in and BAM.

You’re punched in the face.

I think my tallest cake ever.

So you guys all voted in a landslide victory last week for a beer-related cake of some sort and I would hate to disappoint you.

But let me just warn you. This recipe is evil. It’s easy to make given it’s crazy tallness and is, hands down, one of the richest things I’ve ever made. Trust me. That’s quite a statement. But seriously, packed into this delicious dark thing is a pound of butter, a pound of chocolate, a pint of cream, some sour cream, and almost two bottles of delicious oatmeal stout.

This cake, you see, is for professional chocolate lovers only.

Chocolate Stout Cake

Yield: Serves 10-12

Prep Time: 30 minutes + Frosting time

Total Time: 1 hour 30 minutes

Ingredients:

2 Cups rich stout beer. I used an oatmeal stout.
1 pound (4 sticks) unsalted butter
1 1/2 Cups cocoa powder
4 Cups all-purpose flour
4 Cups sugar
1 Tablespoon baking soda
1 1/2 Teaspoons salt
4 large eggs
1 1/3 Cups sour cream
1 3 ounce bar chocolate (for optional garnish)

Frosting:
2 Cups heavy cream
1 pound bittersweet chocolate

Helpful Equipment:
- Digital Scale
- Wire Racks
- Round Cake Tins

Directions:

1) For frosting, combine scream and chocolate in a saucepan over low-medium heat and cook, stirring constantly, until cream and chocolate is smoothly combined. Don't boil the mixture, but it should be steaming hot.

2) Remove from heat and let cool in the fridge, stirring occasionally to keep it smooth, for 90-120 minutes.

3) For cakes, combine stout and butter in a sauce pan and put over low-medium heat until butter is melted.

4) Then whisk in cocoa powder. It's a lot of cocoa powder, so work slowly and make sure the mixture is nice and smooth. Remove from heat and let cool.

5) Whisk dry ingredients (sugar, flour, salt, baking soda) together.

6) Whisk eggs and sour cream in a large bowl. Once smooth, whisk in butter/stout/cocoa powder mixture. Again, whisk until smooth.

7) Whisk in dry ingredients in a few batches. Try not to overmix the batter, but make sure all the flour is incorporated.

8) Pour batter into three round cake tins that have been buttered and floured.

9) Bake for 30-35 minutes at 350 degrees.

10) Cool on a wire rack when the cakes are done. After a few minutes, remove cakes from tins and let cool completely.

11) Use a large knife to slice off the tops of the cakes, making them level.

12) Stake cakes with 1/4 of frosting in between each layer, using the last 1/2 to frost the top and around the sides of the cake.

13) Shave on some fresh chocolate if you want or just serve it up!

Adapted from a Bon Appetit recipe.

Making the Frosting

I was a bit skeptical of this frosting recipe. Only two ingredients? No powdered sugar? What’s the deal?

Well, the deal is that it’s really easy to make and very rich. The end frosting is super-thick and is about as choco-packed as a frosting can be.

To make it, just add the cream and chocolate to a medium saucepan and put it over fairly low heat.

A really simple frosting.

Cook this, stirring continuously, until the liquid is steaming (but definitely not boiling) and the cream and chocolate are completely incorporated in a nice smooth mix.

Nice and creamy.

Pour this into a bowl and move it to the fridge to chill out and harden slightly. It probably needs to chill for 90 minutes or so. Give it a stir every once in awhile just to keep it nice and smooth.

Easy breezy frosting though.

Making the cake

If you’ve never made a layered cake before, have no fear. I’ve only made like two in my life and I was able to get it right (with one small mess-up).

There’s only a few ingredients, but there are a lot of all of them!

A stout cake.

To start the batter, combine the stout and butter in a sauce pan over low heat. I realize this is a strange way to start a batter, but it works like a charm. So go with it.

Butter beer!

When the butter is melted whisk in all the cocoa powder until the mixture is smooth. It’ll be pretty thick because it’s a lot of cocoa powder. Once the cocoa powder is combined, turn off the heat to let it cool for a bit.

Meanwhile, whisk together the dry ingredients in a bowl (flour, sugar, salt, baking soda) and the eggs and sour cream in a very large bowl.

Once the sour cream and eggs are combined, slowly whisk in the warm chocolate stout mixture.

Once that and the egg mixture is thoroughly combined, whisk in the flour in a few batches. Try not to over-mix the batter but make sure there’s no flour showing.

This will be a thick and very rich batter.

If you’re me, have a spoonful of it before you proceed.

Pretty easy batter actually.

Baking the Cakes

You need three round cake tins to make these cakes. I only have two so I had to re-use one which is fine.

The key things to remember about baking these guys are:

1) Butter and flour the pans really well before you pour in the batter so the cakes don’t stick.

2) Weigh your batter with a scale if you can to make sure it’s evenly distributed.

3) Bake them at 350 degrees for 30-35 minutes.

If you don’t have a scale, you can eyeball the cakes, but weighing the batter will ensure that each cake is the same. You’ll want to fill up the tins about 3/4 full.

If you care about even cakes...

When the cakes come out of the oven, cool them on a wire rack if you have some and once the pan is cool enough to touch (5 minutes maybe), carefully remove the cake out of the tin. I did this by flipping the tin onto a plate.

If you mess this up, it’s not a bit deal. Just do your best to get the cakes out cleanly. Using a butter knife to go around the edges really helps.

I kind of mutilated my first one…

OOPS!

Frosting the Cake

The important thing about frosting layered cakes is to slice off the top of each cake to get them as level as possible. I use a serrated bread knife for this which works like a charm.

The only other thing to remember about frosting the cakes is to make sure they are completely cool before frosting them.

Once the cakes are level and cool, slap on about 1/4 of the frosting per layer and go to town. That leaves 1/2 of the frosting for the edges and top.

Thick and heavy...

The layers should stack pretty evenly and the frosting holds everything together.

This is a pretty serious cake people.

Not shabby!

Finish the frosting by getting all the sides and top really well covered.

As an added touch, I shaved some fresh chocolate and sprinkled it on top. I figured that would distract from my sub-par frosting job.

BAM.

This was by far the most decadent thing I’ve ever made. It was rich and moist and completely out of this world chocolatey. I don’t even like chocolate, but I couldn’t stop eating it.

And seriously. It’s not that hard to make. It’s a way easier cake recipe than some I’ve seen.

If you want to seriously impress some people or just sabotage a few diets, this is the thing for you.

Reflax and have a muffin!

Well, I don’t know about you guys but after cookie week, I needed something a bit on the healthier side.

So I decided to whip up some healthy muffins for breakfast. Well, as healthy as a muffin can be. I’m not really down with making a muffin so healthy that it turns into a tasteless brick.

To try to health these up a bit I mixed in some whole wheat flour and a good amount of flax meal (ground flax seeds) and cut back on some of the sugar and stuff.

Flax Muffins

Yield: 10 Muffins

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Total Time: 35 minutes

Ingredients:

1 Cup all-purpose flour
1/2 Cup whole wheat flour
1/2 Cup flax meal
1/3 Cup brown sugar (or honey)
1 Tablespoon cocoa powder
1 Teaspoon baking powder
1 Teaspoon baking soda
Pinch of salt
2 eggs
1 Cup Greek yogurt
3 Tablespoons vegetable oil
1/2 Cup skim milk

Directions:

1) Combine all the dry ingredients and wet ingredients in separate bowls.

2) Stir wet ingredients into dry ingredients. Try not to overmix. If batter is really dry, add in a bit more milk.

3) Lightly grease a few muffin tins with nonstick spray, oil, or butter.

4) Spoon batter into muffin tins. They should be a bit above 3/4 full. Sprinkle on some flax if you want.

5) Bake at 375 degrees for 16-20 minutes.

6) Cool and serve with some butter or honey!

Get with the flax

Betsy and I are on a huge flax kick lately. We put it in our oatmeal everyday and are just generally in love with it. It has this kind of nutty flavor that’s really unique. Not to mention it’s really good for you. Here’s a good breakdown on some of the nutritional benefits of Flax.

If you just get the seeds though, you can’t digest them, so it’s important to grind them up or buy the flax meal if you’re interested in getting any nutrients out of the stuff.

I was able to find this big bag of it for just a few bucks.

Health in a bag.

The Muffin Mix

There are some things that I just don’t understand why they exist. One of them is pre-packaged muffin mix. It’s not like the mix removes any of the work. You still have to add the liquids and mix it and cook it.

So basically you are paying more to have someone else mix flour with baking soda, baking powder, and a few other very basic things and box it up for ya. Not to mention most mixes have a whole bunch of preservatives that you could probably do without.

Sorry. End rant.

My point is that muffins are really easy to make from scratch. I like to use some Greek yogurt in mine which keeps the muffins really moist.

Plus some milk...

To get your muffins together, just combine all your dry ingredients in one bowl and all your wet ingredients in a second bowl.

Not to hard right?

The wet and the dry.

Just stir in the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients!

When I first mixed this up I tried it with just yogurt and no milk, but my batter came out looking really dry. This would create some brick muffins.

Oops.

So I added some milk to the batter and got a really good muffin batter.

Muffins are really flexible things so don’t worry too much about whether or not your batter is perfect. It’ll work out in the end.

Better batter.

Cooking the muffins

Spoon the batter into some prepared muffin tins. By prepared, I mean lightly greased. You can use nonstick spray for this, or if you’re me, butter.

Fill up the muffin tins somewhere between full and 3/4 full.

I sprinkled some flax meal on top of each muffin just for some flare.

Ready for the heat.

Bake these guys at 375 degrees for about 16-20 minutes. Test them by inserting a toothpick in the center of a muffin and if it comes out clean then your muffins are ready!

Dome muffins!

Let these cool for a few minutes and you’re ready to go.

I like mine with a dab of butter or maybe some honey.

Great with butter or honey.

These have a great texture and flavor with a hint of chocolate. They ended up being much lighter than I was expecting, which is a good thing. If you’re looking for a good wholesome muffin, give these guys a shot.

You could of course add in all kinds of things like dried fruit, oatmeal, or any number of other muffin standard ingredients!

That said, I did want to make something. Betsy is from Pennsylvania originally and they have this tradition there of doing cookie tables for desserts at weddings instead of a big expensive wedding cake. Basically you just get a few family and friends to make a bunch of cookies and people can eat as many as they can stand.

We used that idea for our wedding, but had other desserts besides just cookies. For example, my one contribution to the wedding food was these cute little red velvet cupcakes.

How cute are these?

I really like red velvet cupcakes because well A) they are delicious but B) they are a prime example of the old motto that you eat first with your eyes. One time I made a batch of these and ran out of red food coloring so my cupcakes were more rust colored than RED. They somehow did not taste as good.

Red Velvet Cupcakes

Yield: 2 dozen cupcakes

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour 30 minutes

Ingredients:

3/4 Cup unsalted butter, room temp.
287 grams cake flour (not self-rising). About 2 1/2 cups.
3 Tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 Teaspoons Baking Powder
2 Cups sugar
3 large eggs
1 Teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 Teaspoon salt
1 1-ounce bottles of red liquid food coloring
3 Tablespoons lukewarm water
1 Cup buttermilk (very important)
1 Teaspoon baking soda
1 Tablespoon white vinegar

Basic Cream Cheese Frosting:
8 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
1/2 Cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 Teaspoon vanilla extract
2 Cups confectioners sugar, sifted

Helpful Equipment:
Stand Mixer (Not essential, but it sure does make it easy.)
Digital Scale (Essential if you want consistent results.)

Directions:

1) To make batter, whisk cake flour, baking powder, and cocoa powder in a bowl.

2) Cream together butter and sugar in a stand mixer or in a large bowl with a hand mixer until it's nice and fluffy.

3) Add eggs, one at a time, to the creamed butter. Then add water, salt, vanilla, and red food coloring.

4) Add 1/3 of your dry ingredients to the mix, followed by 1/2 of you buttermilk, then another 1/3 of your dry stuff, followed by the last 1/2 of your buttermilk. Finally, stir in the last 1/3 of the dry stuff.

5) Combine the baking soda and vinegar in a separate bowl and then stir that into the batter.

6) Fill cupcake tins with liners and fill 2/3s full.

7) Bake at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes.

8) For the frosting, cream together the butter and the cream cheese until it's very light and fluffy. Definitely whip it for 3-4 minutes. Then stir in the vanilla. Stir in the powdered sugar in 2 or 3 batches.

9) Let cupcakes cool completely and then frost with the buttercream frosting.

Adapted from Martha Stewart.

Making the batter

I’m not a huge fan of box cake mix. My deal with it is that if I’m going to be eating something sweet and fattening, I want it to be as good as possible and I just really feel like that the made-from-scratch version of most baked goods is substantially better than the boxed version if you have the time to do it.

The line up.

What you’ll realize after you start making stuff like this from scratch is that the whole boxed cake thing is kind of a scam. I mean, it doesn’t take that much longer to just make it from scratch and assuming you have a decently stocked pantry, it’s not necessarily more expensive either.

Anyway, to make this batter, start by whisking your cake flour, baking powder, and cocoa powder in a bowl. Cake flour is extremely important for any cake recipe hence the name.

Just to make sure that I have no clumps in my dry ingredients, I usually sift them once, but I’ve made these by just whisking them for a bit to combine well and it worked fine also.

A whisk is what you need.

The only other thing I’ll mention about the dry ingredients is that it’s pretty hard to measure out the flour correctly without a digital scale. If you’re baking even occasionally, this is a kitchen tool you should have. If you don’t have one then check this one out!

Back to the batter… once your dry ingredients are combined, add your butter and sugar to your mixer and mix on medium for about 3-4 minutes until the butter and sugar are combined and really fluffy. This is the creaming step.

If you don’t have a stand mixer you could definitely use a hand mixer.

Light and fluffy!

Next, slowly add your eggs, one at a time and then add the water, salt, vanilla, and red food coloring.

This will stain your counters...

Be careful with the red food coloring. It’ll stain anything it touches. It especially stained the white shirt I was for some reason wearing while I was making these…

Once you have the base for your batter done, you just need to incorporate your buttermilk and dry ingredients. Start by slowly adding 1/3 of your dry ingredients, then 1/2 your buttermilk, then 1/3 of your dry ingredients, then the last half of your buttermilk. Finally, the last of your dry ingredients. So: dry, wet, dry, wet, dry.

At the very end, you’ll want to combine your vinegar and baking soda to provide some fizz to the finished cakes.

Fizzzz.

You’re final batter should be really light and fluffy and very, very red. If you’re using a stand mixer, remember to scrape down the sides of your bowl occasionally. This was something that I did a kind of bad job at for this batch.

There ya go!

Baking the cupcakes

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and line your baking cups with cupcake liners. Fill up your cupcakes until they are about 2/3 full. I also, without fail, overfill my first batch.

For example, these are overfilled.

I always overfill the first batch.

Assuming you fill them correctly, they’ll need to bake for about 20 minutes at 350 degrees.

These were my overfilled ones.

My cake overfloweth.

The good news about cupcakes is that even if they overflow a bit they’ll still taste good as long as you slather on some good cream cheese frosting.

The Frosting

In my opinion, there’s really only one option when it comes to frosting a red velvet anything: cream cheese frosting. It’s sweet and tangy and just perfect with the subtle chocolate flavor of the cake.

This frosting is about as easy at it gets to make.

A simple frosting.

Just add your butter and cream cheese to a stand mixer or bowl with a hand mixer and start mixing until the mixture is light and fluffy. Don’t be afraid about over-whipping. I whipped mine for 3 or 4 minutes. Then add your vanilla and mix it in.

Next, start adding your sifted confectioner’s sugar in two or three batches. Mixing it in well after every batch. You should end up with a fluffy but very flavorful frosting.

I put mine in a pastry bag to pipe it onto the cupcakes, but you could definitely just smear it on.

The Most Important Thing

The most important thing to remember before frosting these guys is to make sure they’re completely cool. I cooled mine on a wire rack for about 30 minutes before I even thought about frosting them.

I think these were sellable honestly.

These were really good. For the wedding, I even made them two days in advance and they were still one of the first desserts to be devoured!

So if you’re in the market for a good cupcake recipe, give this one a shot!

It was a hard decision, but the thing that caught my eye the most were these mocha brownies. They have a huge layer of mocha icing on top of the brownie. It’s basically half brownie and half frosting. Plus it has all the major dessert food groups: butter, chocolate, sugar, coffee.

THICK.

These were so very delicious. Betsy and I had one each and then resolved to get them out of the house as soon as possible. I took half to work and she took half to her law clinic.

Mocha Brownies

Yield: Makes a 9x13 pan.

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour 15 minutes + chill time

Ingredients:

4 ounces unsweetened chocolate, melted
1/2 pound (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temp
2 Cups sugar
4 large eggs
3 Teaspoons vanilla extract
1 1/4 Cups all-purpose flour

Mocha Icing:
1/2 pound (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temp
1 (about 4 cups) pound powdered sugar
1/4 Cups cocoa powder
1/4 Teaspoon salt
3 Teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 Cup brewed coffee, cooled to room temp

Helpful Equipment:
Stand mixer or Hand mixer

Directions:

1) Add butter and sugar to a bowl and beat it on medium speed with a hand mixer or in a stand mixer. After a few minutes the mixture should be light and fluffy.

2) Carefully and slowly melt chocolate in the microwave on low. 30 second increments is ideal.

3) Add eggs one at a time to the creamed butter and mix together. Then mix in chocolate and vanilla.

4) Mix in your flour in a few batches. Try not to overmix. Just mix enough so the flour is incorporated.

5) Bake the brownies ina 9x13 inch baking pan that's been lightly buttered. Bake at 325 degrees for 40-45 minutes.

6) Let brownies cool completely to room temperature before frosting them.

7) For frosting, mix butter, salt, vanilla, cocoa powder, and powdered sugar in a mixing bowl until well combined. Then stir in brewed coffee and mix until it's light and fluffy.

8) Frost the brownies heavily. It will be a thick layer. Serve immediately or let them chill in the fridge for an hour to firm up a bit.

Adapted from The Pioneer Woman Cooks.

Slight Modifications…

I made changes to her recipe which I’ll be careful to disclose so I don’t get flack from The Pioneer Army. First, the original frosting recipe calls for 5 Cups of confectioners sugar, but it doesn’t say sifted or non-sifted so who knows how much she uses. I used 1 pound of sugar which is a full box. This worked out to be about 4 cups of sugar for me. She also calls for 1/2 Cup to 3/4 Cup of coffee so I just used the lower estimate and my frosting was perfect.

If you wanted to go buy a second whole box of sugar though just for that extra cup, then by all means use the higher estimate of coffee.

Second, and I think this was a legit oversight, she says to bake the brownies in an 8 inch pan. I tried pouring my mix into an 8 inch pan and it almost overflowed. That’s before even baking it. I think I would’ve had a brownie explosion on my hands if I had followed the recipe exactly. Instead, I baked it in a normal 9×13 inch pan with excellent results.

The Brownie Batter

I must say I don’t really get the fuss with boxed brownie mix. I mean, making it from scratch just isn’t really that hard. It’s one of those things that I definitely don’t see the appeal of taking shortcuts on. I mean, to make really good homemade brownies, this is all you need!

The basics.

You probably have almost everything you need if you have even a halfway stocked kitchen. You’ll probably just have to pick up some chocolate and maybe some vanilla.

To get started, add your butter and sugar to a bowl and beat it on medium speed to cream the butter and sugar together. You can use a hand mixer or stand mixer for this. After a few minutes, you should have a very light and fluffy mixture.

Look ma. No hands!

Next, slowly melt your chocolate in the microwave. What I mean by slowly is that you shouldn’t zap it all at once for like 4 minutes. That would completely burn your chocolate. Instead, zap it in 30 second increments and stir it in between.

Once the chocolate is about 75% melted you can take it out and the rest of the chocolate should melt with residual heat. Mine took about 1 1/2 minutes of zapping to get here.

Bitter stuff.

Back to your mixing bowl, add your eggs one at a time and then your vanilla and chocolate. Mix this all together until it’s well incorporated.

Then slowly add your flour in a few batches. Be sure to turn your mixer down to low for the flour part or you will just dust your entire kitchen in flour.

Mix it until your flour is incorporated but don’t over-mix it or you’ll have tough brownies! When you can’t see any flour, you’re done.

Who wants to lick the spoon?

Baking the Brownies

Add your brownie mix to a 9×13 inch baking pan that’s either been sprayed with non-stick spray or lightly buttered. Bake the brownies at 325 degrees for 40-45 minutes or until the center is set. A toothpick should come out clean.

Don’t worry if the brownies do what mine did which is inflate slightly around the edges and then crack. Remember we are adding an inch of frosting to the top so whatever.

A little collapse is okay.

The Important Part

The most important part of this recipe is to make sure you let your brownies cool completely to room temperature before frosting them or your frosting will just melt. This will probably take at least an hour so plan accordingly.

The Frosting

This is actually one of the easier frostings I’ve made. Start with these things:

That's one pound of sugar.

Add them to a mixing bowl with the salt, vanilla, and butter and start mixing on medium-low until everything is starting to come together. Then add your coffee slowly and once it’s all added, increase the speed to medium and beat it for a few minutes until it’s very light and fluffy.

This stuff is the money.

Drop this huge amount of frosting onto your brownies and spread it out as evenly as you can.

Craziness.

Once the brownies are frosted, you could eat them right away, but I recommend sticking them in the fridge for at least a few hours so the frosting hardens a bit. That’ll make them easier to cut.

Diabetes in a dish.

These brownies have a great coffee flavor. Be sure to use pretty strong coffee for them. Also, the actual brownie part is super dense and almost fudge-like which I appreciate.

Minus the baking dish mess-up, I’d say this is one of the better dessert dishes I’ve made in awhile. It was a huge hit at my office. And while my coworkers aren’t at all picky about free desserts, they know a good brownie when they see one.

My only issue with tiramisu is it generally uses Brandy which isn’t something I have laying around. Bourbon, however, I do normally have and tend to like more anyway. So I figured I’d try a version of tiramisu with bourbon instead of brandy. It had a much stronger flavor, but was still very tasty.

You want this.

The hardest part of this recipe, if you ask me, is actually finding ladyfingers. At least in DC, they are incredibly hard to find. I went to three different grocery stores before finally throwing in the towel and just deciding to make them myself.

Bourbon Tiramisu

Yield: Makes a 13x9 pan.

Prep Time: 45 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour + chill time

Ingredients:

Ladyfingers
Makes 40ish ladyfingers
1 1/4 Cups cake flour, sifted
1 Tablespoon sugar (for flour)
1/8 Teaspoon salt
2 eggs
4 egg yolks
1/2 Cup sugar + 1 Tablespoon (for eggs)
1 Teaspoon vanilla
3 Tablespoons unsalted butter, melted but not hot
Powdered sugar (for dusting)

Tiramisu:
About 40 ladyfingers
2 Cups very strong coffee
2/3 Cup Bourbon (original recipe was 1/2 Cup but come on...)
1 Cup heavy cream
1 pound mascarpone cheese
1 Teaspoon vanilla extract
1 Cup powdered sugar
Cinnamon (for dusting)
Cocoa powder (for dusting)

Helpful Equipment:
Stand Mixer
Pastry Bag

Directions:

1) Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Sift cake flour, then measure and add sugar and pinch of salt. Then sift everything again on some wax paper so you can easily transport the flour.

2) Add eggs and 1/2 Cup + 1 Tbsp. sugar in a mixing bowl. Whisk until sugar is mostly dissolved. Then beat egg mixture on medium high for 5 minutes until you have a very light and fluffy meringue. The batter should form a ribbon that rests on top of the other batter when it drips.

3) Gently fold the cake flour into this mixture. Fold the flour in 1/3 at a time until it's well mixed. Think of the batter as a foam and you want to keep as many bubbles as possible.

4) Once your flour is incorporated, gently fold in your room temperature melted butter.

5) Add the batter to a pastry bag and pipe onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Coat heavily with powdered sugar.

6) Bake the ladyfingers at 400 degrees for 12-15 minutes.

7) For tiramisu, mix your cofee (cold) and brandy in a bowl.

8) For filling, add mascarpone (or cream cheese in a pinch) and heavy cream. Mix on high until it forms stiff peaks. Then add in vanilla and slowly stir in powdered sugar.

9) Dip a ladyfinger in the bourbon-coffee mixture for a few seconds. Layer dipped ladyfingers in the bottom of a 13x9 baking dish.

10) Next, spread on a layer of the filling. You should use about half of it. Then dust on a general layer of cocoa powder and a sprinkle of cinnamon.

11) Do another layer of soaked ladyfingers, followed by the rest of the mascarpone filling, and another good dusting of cocoa powder and cinnamon.

12) Let chill in the fridge for at least 4 hours before serving.

Adapted from a Young and Hungry recipe.

After some research, I decided to go with Julia Child’s Ladyfingers Genoise. If you plan on making these, I’d recommend watching that video. She makes it pretty easy to follow.

Making the ladyfingers

This batter is called a Genoise batter, which is actually a bit tricky. The problem is that when the batter is finished it’s in a pretty fragile state, so you want to bake it as soon as possible. More on that later.

First thing to do is get all your ingredients ready and preheat your oven to 400 degrees. For your cake flour, sift it (very important for this recipe), then measure it and add 1 Tablespoon of sugar and 1/8 Teaspoon of salt to it, and then re-sift the mixture onto some wax paper which will make it easy to transfer into your batter later.

Sifting is important

Then add your eggs and your 1/2 Cup + 1 Tbsp. of sugar into a mixing bowl. Whisk together the eggs and sugar just to make sure the sugar is mostly dissolved. Then, with either a stand mixer or hand mixer, beat the eggs on medium-high speed for about 5 minutes until they form a light and fluffy meringue. The key is that when you lift the whisk, it should form a ribbon of batter and that ribbon should rest on top of the rest of your batter.

The ribbon!

I think I actually could have beaten mine for another minute. Once your egg mixture is nice and light and fluffy, you need to fold in your cake flour. At this point your batter is in its most stable form, a meringue. From here on out, time is working against you, but that doesn’t mean RUSH. Just work gently but quickly.

FOLD your flour into your batter using a flat spatula, 1/3 of your flour at a time. Do this by pushing your spatula all the way to the bottom of the bowl, turning the bowl, and gently lifting and folding. Think of the batter like a foam and you want to keep as much of the air bubbles intact as possible. Stirring would just pop them all! Again, if you haven’t folded something like this before, check out this video. At about minute six she does some serious flour folding.

Careful!

Once all your flour is folded in, gently fold in your melted butter. It’s very important that your butter isn’t too hot or it will just melt your batter. It should be a bit over room temperature. Once your butter is folded in, your batter will be at its most fragile state.

At this point, we need to make the ladyfingers! If you have a pastry bag, more power to ya. I use a gallon-sized plastic bag and just cut off the corner.

Ghetto pastry bag.

Gently pipe these onto baking sheets that have been lined with parchment paper. Work quickly and try to make them as uniform as possible. One tip is to draw lines 3 inches apart on the backside of your parchment paper before you start. That way you’ll have guides for when you are piping.

After you pipe them, dust the ladyfingers with a serious coating of powdered sugar. This will help them stay in place! I got better at piping as I went a long.

Hurry!

Bake these guys at 400 degrees for about 12-15 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through if necessary. They should be a nice golden brown color. I’m really proud of the middle row of ladyfingers in the below photo. Most of those turned out pretty nicely. The top and bottom rows are a bit rough.

Not bad.

Honestly, I wasn’t too worried about the shape because I’m dipping them in coffee and bourbon and then layering them between layers of filling. So whateva.

Tiramisu is actually one of the easiest things to make once you get the ladyfinger situation worked out. Just combine your coffee and bourbon (or brandy) in a bowl. The only important part to remember is that your coffee is cool or at least room temp before starting.

Best dessert ever.

For the filling, add your mascarpone (or cream cheese in a pinch) and heavy cream and mix on high until it forms stiff peaks and holds its shape. Then add in your vanilla and slowly add in your powdered sugar. The final mixture should be pretty stiff.

I’ve done this by hand before with a whisk and it’s definitely possible. It takes some elbow grease though and about 10 or 15 minutes. If you have a mixer, use it.

Light and fluffy

To make the dish, dip a ladyfinger in your bourbon-coffee mixture (make sure the liquid is room temperature) for a few seconds. Let the ladyfinger soak up some of the mixture. Then layer them in the bottom of your baking dish. Squeeze in as many as you can.

Bourbon and cofee soaked...

Then do a layer of your mascarpone filling mixture. Use about half of it. Then give the filling a generous dusting of cocoa powder and cinnamon. I probably sifted on about 1/2 Tablespoon of cinnamon and 3-4 Tablespoons of cocoa powder.

After that, do another layer of your soaked ladyfingers, followed by the rest of your mascarpone filling mixture. Finally, give the top another good dusting of cocoa powder and cinnamon. The white filling should be completely covered.

This is what I mean by a good dusting:

Don't skimp on the cocoa people.

Set this all in the fridge to cool for at least 4 hours and then serve it up! I think it’s best the next day after all the flavors meld together a bit.

Fantastic.

Tiramisu is so good. You’ve got to try this if you’ve never made it. If the ladyfinger situation is stressful, I’ve used store-bought pound cake in a pinch also. You won’t really be able to dip the pound cake in the bourbon-coffee mixture though. Just cut slices of it about 1/2 inch to 1 inch thick, make a layer, then pour over a bit of your coffee mixture. That works also!

I’m telling you. Tiramisu is good stuff.

Why did I organize the week like this? I have no idea. I like patterns I guess. The real question though is what will I keep from this recipe and use tomorrow?!

These are called thumbprint cookies, but I made mine pretty large so they are more like palm print cookies.

I have huge thumbs.

Even if you make these smaller, they pack a punch! The ganache filling is pretty rich and the chocolate and vanilla flavors are really cranked to 10.

Chocolate Thumbprint Cookies

Yield: Makes 40.

Prep Time: 45 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour 15 minutes

Ingredients:

The cookie: (A Martha Recipe.)

2 Cups all-purpose flour
1 Cup plus 1 Tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder (high quality)
2 teaspoons Kosher salt
1 Cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temp
1 1/3 Cups sugar, plus more for rolling the cookies in
2 large egg yolks
2 Tablespoons heavy cream
2 Teaspoons vanilla extract

Chocolate and Vanilla Bean Ganache: (Adapted from a different Martha recipe.)
This makes a perfect amount of ganache for the cookies

1/2 Cup honey
1/2 Cup heavy cream
1 whole vanilla bean, split and scraped
5 ounces bittersweet chocolate
3 Tablespoons unsalted butter, room temp and cut into pieces

Directions:

1) Sift flour and cocoa powder.

2) In a stand mixer (or in a large bowl with a hand mixer), mix together your butter and sugar. Cream these two things together until they are light and fluffy – about 4 minutes. Then add your vanilla, egg yolks, and cream.

3) Turn the mixer down to low and slowly add dry ingredients. Mix it just until everything is combined. Be sure to scrape the sides of the bowl, but don’t over mix it.

4) Measure 1 tablespoon-sized balls of dough. Roll each ball of dough in sugar to give it some nice texture.

5) Lay out these balls on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.

6) Using the back of a metal spoon, make a thumbprint in each cookie.

7) Bake at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes. Rotate the pans halfway through for even baking.

8) When you take the cookies out, they may have puffed a bit during baking. If that happens, take your divet-creating device and softly press back into the cookies, reforming the thumbprint. This is another reason why you wouldn’t want to use your actual thumb.

9) For ganache, combine honey, cream and vanilla bean in a small saucepan. If using extract instead of beans, use approximately ½ Teaspoon.

10) Bring these ingredients to a simmer in a pot and make sure to stir them to dissolve the honey. Once everything is dissolved, take the pan off the heat and let it sit for 20 minutes to let the vanilla get infused. No need to wait if you are using extract.

11) Roughly chop up chocolate and add it to mixing bowl.

12) If you left your cream mixture to rest for 20 minutes, bring it back to a simmer over medium heat (be careful not to burn the cream). Pour the hot cream mixture over the chocolate.

13) Let it sit for a minute to start melting the chocolate and then mix on medium speed until everything is melted and combined.

14) While the mixer is running on medium, add in butter, a few chunks at a time. Keep mixing for a few more minutes until the mixture is slightly cooled. It will be very silky and smooth and have the consistency of a loose frosting.

15) Spoon that mixture into thumbprint cookies.

16) Let them sit at room temperature and the ganache will firm up even more. It will end up getting pretty thick.

Making the cookies

Martha says to sift dry ingredients here and I think it’s important just because of the cocoa powder. It has a tendency to clump up if you don’t sift the stuff. So start by sifting your flour and cocoa powder. You can sift your salt too if you want, but that’s a bit OCD.

I like to sift.

You should end up with a pretty little mound. Just by looking at it, it’s pretty easy to tell why sifting will make a better cookie.

Making mountains of awesome.

In a stand mixer (or in a large bowl with a hand mixer), mix together your butter and sugar. Cream these two things together until they are light and fluffy – about 4 minutes. Then add your vanilla, egg yolks, and cream.

Turn the mixer down to low and slowly add your dry ingredients. Mix it just until everything is combined. Be sure to scrape the sides of the bowl, but don’t overmix it! We’re making cookies, not bread. Gluten is not your friend.

You’re final dough will be pretty dry and sturdy.

A thick dough.

This next step is where I veered from the original recipe a bit. I didn’t want tiny little cookies, although you can definitely go that route. I wanted a more normal-sized cookie. Also, I didn’t really feel like making 90 of anything so I went with a bigger version.

I used about 1 tablespoon-sized balls of dough for mine. Roll each ball of dough in sugar to give it some nice texture.

Rolled in sugar.

Then lay out these balls on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. You should be able to fit about 18 or so on a baking sheet.

Like an army.

Next is making the thumbprint. You could actually use your thumb for this, but it’s a bit more uniform if you use the back of a spoon (I used a metal tablespoon.) If you are making the smaller version you can use the end of a wooden spoon to get the desired divet.

Talk about uniform!

Baking

Bake these at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes. Rotate the pans halfway through for even baking, especially if you are like me and using an oven from the 40′s.

When you take the cookies out, they may have puffed a bit during baking. If that happens, take your divet-creating device and softly press back into the cookies, reforming the thumbprint. This is another reason why you wouldn’t want to use your actual thumb.

Making the Ganache

I’ve only made ganache a handful of times. Basically it’s just beating together warm cream and chopped chocolate until it’s smooth. This version has some bonus ingredients though that really kick it up a notch.

You'll need some butter too.

Start this recipe by combining your honey, cream and vanilla bean in a small saucepan. If you need some help with the vanilla bean, check out my post on homemade coffee liqueur. If you don’t have beans, you could use extract, but go light on it. I’d say maybe 1/2 Teaspoon of extract would be enough. I highly recommend the bean though.

Bring these ingredients to a simmer in a pot and make sure to stir them to dissolve the honey. Once everything is dissolved, take the pan off the heat and let it sit for 20 minutes to let the vanilla get infused. No need to wait if you are using extract.

This smells amazing.

Meanwhile, roughly chop up your chocolate and add it to your mixing bowl. If you left your cream mixture to rest for 20 minutes, bring it back to a simmer over medium heat (be careful not to burn the cream). Then pour the hot cream mixture over the chocolate.

Let it sit for a minute to start melting the chocolate and then mix away on medium speed until everything is melted and combined.

Thick and decadent.

While the mixer is running on medium, add in your butter, a few chunks at a time. Keep mixing for a few more minutes until the mixture is slightly cooled. It will be very silky and smooth and have the consistency of a loose frosting.

Drip. Drip.

The next step should be obvious enough. Spoon that mixture into your thumbprint cookies!

Let them sit at room temperature and the ganache will firm up even more. It will end up getting pretty thick. You can definitely turn one of these cookies upside down and it won’t budge.

A few cracks are okay.

I took these cookies to a holiday party (I’ve been to possibly too many holiday parties this year) and they were pretty popular. They are really rich so it’s hard to have more than one, but the cookies are nice and flavorful and the ganache is freakin’ excellent.

Cookie week is really flying by! One cookie day left! Check back tomorrow for it.

That’s how much I love you guys.

Of course, you don’t have to make the filling on peppermint whoppie pies pink, but then they would just kind of look like a ginormous Oreo cookie. Not that that would be bad, but it’s just not what I was going for here.

Anyway, these turned out perfect!

Looks good in pink.

I have a coworker (Hi Sam!) that is actually a master of the whoopie pie. It’s a tricky balance with these guys so I decided to consult her as an expert. She sent me a few recipes and I went to work. I think they turned out pretty fantastic.

Peppermint Whoopie Pies

Yield: Makes 18-20 pies.

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour

Ingredients:

For cakes:
4 Cups all-purpose flour
1 Cup Dutch-process cocoa powder (high quality)
2.5 Teaspoons baking soda
2 Teaspoons salt
2 Cups well-shaken buttermilk
2 Teaspoons vanilla
2 sticks unsalted butter, room temp
2 Cups packed brown sugar
2 large eggs

For filling:
1.5 Cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter, room temp
3 Cups powdered sugar
1.5 Teaspoons peppermint extract
A few drops of red food coloring

Directions:

1) Sift dry ingredients (flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, salt) into a large bowl.

2) Add butter and sugar to a mixing bowl and cream them together.

3) Mix in vanilla and eggs.

4) Slowly add in flour and buttermilk in alternating stages to creamed butter. Start with dry ingredients and end with dry ingredients. It goes 1/3 of flour, 1/2 of buttermilk, 1/3 of flour, 1/2 of buttermilk, and finally the last 1/3 of flour.

5) Mix it together on low until it all is combined.

6) Spoon dollops of it onto a parchment paper lined baking sheet.

7) Bake at 350 degrees for 11-13 minutes. Rotate pans once to make sure they cook evenly. They should be slightly springy when they are done.

8) Let cool on the sheet for a minute or two and then move them to a wire rack to cool. Let them cool completely.

9) For filling, add room temperature butter to mixer and mix on medium until it is creamy.

10) Add in tiny amount of peppermint.

11) Once flavoring is added, slowly add in sifted confectioners sugar.

12) Once all sugar is incorporated, add drops of food coloring.

13) Slather on as much of the mixture as you want between two of your baked cookie-cake things. Repeat!

Pie recipe from a Gourmet 2003 recipe. Filling recipe from A Bon Appétit Dec. 2005 recipe.

Making the cakes

To me, what makes a delicious whoopie pie is a light, airy cake (and it actually is closer to a cake than a cookie or pie). It’s not always easy to get right though, but when you do, you will definitely exclaim, “WHOOPIE!”

To start, sift all your dry ingredients (flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, salt) into a large bowl. It’s important to sift here or whisk furiously to make sure your dry ingredients are nice and light.

Whisked or sifted please.

Meanwhile, add your butter and sugar to a mixing bowl and cream them together. I let mine mix for about 3 or 4 minutes until it was very light. If you are using a hand mixer you might need to go even longer.

Look ma... No hands!

Next, mix in your vanilla and eggs. Then slowly add in your flour and buttermilk in alternating stages to your creamed butter. As always with cake recipes like this, start with dry ingredients and end with dry ingredients. So it goes 1/3 of your flour, 1/2 of your buttermilk, 1/3 of your flour, 1/2 of your buttermilk, and finally the last 1/3 of your flour.

Then just mix it together on low until it all is combined. The last thing you want to do is over-mix this. If you do that you’ll have tough, very non-whoopie worthy pies.

Very chocolatey.

Once it’s mixed well, spoon dollops of it onto a parchment paper lined baking sheet. You could make these as big or small as you want, but just try to get them as uniform as possible.

I went for about 2 Tablespoon-sized cakes. Keep in mind they will grow quite a bit while baking so leave an inch at least between each pie.

Kind of haphazard.

Bake these guys at 350 degrees for 11-13 minutes. Rotate your pans once to make sure they cook evenly. They should be slightly springy when they are done.

Let them cool on the sheet for a minute or two and then move them to a wire rack to cool.

Light and fluffy!

For some reason it didn’t dawn on me that making 20 whoopie pies is actually baking 40 individual mini-cakes. I was able to do 8 per baking sheet so it took me 3 rounds of baking to finish them all using two baking sheets at a time. I went ahead and reused my parchment paper even though that’s apparently a no-no. I didn’t notice any difference in the later rounds of baking.

Cool it down

It’s very important to make sure that your cakes are absolutely cool before icing them. Otherwise your frosting will just melt and you’ll have sad little pink pools of butter.

Anyway, while they are cooling (or baking), you need to make this bad-ass pink frosting.

Some whoopie filling recipes call for marshmallows, but I skipped that and just made a really thick butter cream frosting. It worked great!

4 simple ingredients.

Start by adding your room temperature butter to your mixer and mixing it on medium until it is, well, creamy. Then add in your tiny amount of peppermint. Be careful with this stuff. It’s very potent and too much of it will turn your whoopie pie into an Altoid (not a good thing for a huge cookie).

Once your flavoring is added, slowly add in your sifted confectioners sugar. It’s a lot of sugar. Go slowly or you’ll end up with a layer of the stuff all over your kitchen.

That might happen anyway, but you can at least try to avoid it by going slowly.

Once you get all your sugar incorporated, add just drops of food coloring. Just remember. It’s easy to add more. It’s impossible to remove it.

And after all that, you’ll end up with this lovely product, which might win the award for most colorful Macheesmo photo of the year.

FAB-U-LOUS!

I think you can probably imagine the next step, but it involves slathering on as much of this stuff as you want between two of your baked cookie-cake things.

Heavy on the frosting.

Repeat.

From the top.

You can of course go crazy with the frosting, but a little restraint is good I think. The frosting can be overpowering if you slather it on too thickly.

I like to go for a pretty even layer – like this:

Cross-section shot is crucial.

I brought these to a work lunch and they seemed to be popular. I even got approval from the queen of whoopie pies, so you know they are good.