Halloween Spookiness

For Halloween, we had "spooky" chili, cornbread, and a spooky dessert.

The chili contained all ingredients from Suzie's Farm except for the beans. I cut out bat shapes from cheese to make it "spooky." Heh.

For the spooky dessert, I made these Devil's Food Cake cupcakes from Martha Stewart. I generally don't like making cupcakes because they tend to come out dry when I make them, but these were moist and fudgy. My original plan was to fill them with strawberry preserves to make them ooze "blood" when bitten into, but I ran out of time to do this. They were still yummy on their own. And of course, they tasted even better with spooky faces on them!

2010 Holiday Goodies

Every year I bake cookies for The Wong Family + friends. This year was no exception. I usually spend hours perusing various sources (magazines, cookbooks, forums, blogs) for holiday worthy treats. If I were more organized, I would actually try some of these out ahead of time, but I'm not that organized. :) I trust most of the sources will yield deliciousness. If not, there is always the almond toffee I make yearly.

Here is what I made:

Espresso-Chocolate Shortbread
(Dorie Greenspan)

These were very popular on the internet. They are a sturdy shortbread cookie containing espresso powder that yields a "cookies and cream" appearance. The chunks of dark chocolate scattered into the dough give the cookie a good chocolate bite without the cookie tasting like a decidedly "chocolate cookie". They tasted great with coffee... or a latte.

Very easy to make. The idea of using a zip-loc bag to roll out the dough is brilliant. I couldn't get mine to look particular "pretty" but they still tasted great.

Ina Garten's Rugelach

I've made rugelach in the past and always swear it is the LAST time. It is time-consuming, the dough is always hard to work with, and mine always seem to break and/or look ugly. But they taste divine! I have made Lora Bordy's Rugelach many times in the past but this year I decided to try Ina Garten's wondering if it would be any easier.

I'm not sure if it was the recipe (they actually look very similar when you compare the two) or if I just resigned myself knowing it would take a long time and therefore had more patience this year, but the process of making them was "not bad." I did lots of chilling though... I chilled the dough after it had been divided into 4 parts... then chilled it again after it had been rolled out into 9" circles... then chilled the cookies themselves before baking. It saved some frustration with the dough falling apart while I tried rolling them up.

Mine still never come out as picture-perfect or pretty as I've seen elsewhere, but they taste divine. :)

Nutella Nutters
(St. Petersburg Times)

When I saw this recipe, I knew I was making this one. Nutella + Peanut Butter cannot equal anything but awesomeness. These cookies also contain no flour which make them a naturally gluten-free cookie. They were easy to make with all ingredients I had on hand. These are rich, sweet, chocolate-y and chewy -- tasting of all things good: nutella and peanut butter!

Curry Coriander Shorties

(Gourmet, September 2009)

These were my surprise favorite of the bunch. I had read about this cookie on an online forum thread about unusual Christmas cookies. These shortbread cookies use savory spices to make them taste different. They smelled lovely while baking and had a really different complex flavor to them. I'm wondering if anyone will guess what it is, since I didn't label the cookies this year. Definitely my favorite of the bunch, but we'll see what everyone else thinks...

Surprise-Filled Cookies (Jam Thumbprints)

(Mrs. Fields cookbook)

I wanted another fruity cookie to add to the assortment and settled on these. I had made one in the past with a cream cheese dough that wasn't very easy to work with and decided to try this recipe from Mrs. Field's instead. There is no cream cheese in the dough and the resulting cookie tastes somewhere between a sugar and butter cookie.

I didn't follow the directions to use a melon baller for depositing the jam and instead used my fingers as I would in a normal jam thumprint. I used a mixed-berry jam which contained raspberries, cherries, and boysenberries. The cookies looked pretty and tasted as one would have expected -- fruity and sweet -- but I wasn't wowed by them.  Still would like to find a good jam thumbprint...

Aunt Anne's Sesame Cookies

(allrecipes.com)

I have to admit I was a bit worried about these after I bought the anise extract. I wasn't quite sure what anise was and when I opened the bottle and took a whiff, I didn't think I liked it. The anise flavor is very subtle though. These are a slightly sweet, butter cookie with a very slight hint of anise and sesame seed flavor. They were easy to make and looked pretty when done. They're a nice addition to round out the sweetness of most holiday cookies.

Whew, that was one big baking extravaganza. No more cookies for a while...

Molten Spiced Chocolate Cabernet Cakes

I felt like baking something new yesterday and came across a recipe that I tore out of 2008 Martha Stewart Magazine. I have made Molten Chocolate Cakes, also known as Lava Cakes, before but I can't ever seem to get the baking time right. Some cakes are overcooked and don't have chocolate flowing out when you cut into them. Other cakes are undercooked and I can't get them out of the dish without them falling apart. This recipe came out great! The timing was just right and the cakes came out of the ramekins easily. And the cakes weren't overly sweet, which is often the case with the standard Lava Cakes. I'd probably add a dash more ground ginger for more of that spice but other than that, this recipe is a keeper.

Ingredients:

4 oz semi-sweet baking chocolate
1/2 cup butter
2 tbsp Cabernet Sauvignon or other wine
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup confectioners' sugar
2 eggs
1 egg yolk
6 tbsp flour
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground ginger

1) Butter 4 6oz ramekins.
2) Microwave chocolate and butter in a bowl for 1 minute or until butter is melted. Whisk until chocolate is completely melted.
3) Stir in wine, vanilla, and sugar until blended. Whisk in eggs and yolk. Stir in remaining ingredients. Spoon evenly into prepared dishes.
4) Bake at 425 degrees for 15 minutes. Let stand for 1 minute. Loosen edges with knife. Invert onto serving plates. Sprinkle with confectioners' sugar and enjoy.

After they came out of the oven

Inverted cake

Dusted with powder sugar

Taking the first bite and watching the spiced chocolate flow out

Cadbury Creme Eggs Benedict

I saw this on Serious Eats and had to make it. It is completely gross yet terribly funny. I originally planned on making it for April Fools Day but as you can see, it's April 18th so we'll just say I made it for April Fools Month.

The instructions are detailed on Serious Eats and I made only slight modifications:

• I didn't have a pound cake and wasn't going to buy one just for this purpose but I did have very thick slices of a sweet white bread. I fried that in the frying pan and sprinkled a mix of cinnamon and sugar on it.
• I used cream cheese frosting instead of buttercream because it's what I had leftover from a recent cake I made. Cream cheese frosting beats buttercream frosting out anytime anyway. I should have warmed the frosting a bit more so the consistency would have looked more like the sauce.

And here are the steps in picture form:

Oh Cadbury eggs do I have a use for you...

The breakfast "potatoes":

The gooey, melty, "eggs" atop the brownie "hams" and "English muffin":

The final plate - it looks so appetizing! 

The dissection: the "English muffin" is a cake doughnut, the "ham" is a brownie, the "eggs" are Cadbury Creme Eggs of course, the "Hollandaise sauce" is cream cheese frosting, and the "breakfast potatoes" are pieces of white bread toasted with cinnamon and sugar.

It was a fun project! I was prepared to throw it in the trash but surprise (or maybe not), the BF wanted to eat it. Ew.

King Arthur Flour's Fudge Brownies

My tried-and-true brownie recipe is usually the one by Ina Garten but I was looking for something with a bit different texture (more "classic brownie") and decided to try a new recipe from KAF. This one is "KAF Guaranteed" and had a lot of good reviews which was a positive sign. The guarantee promises:

These brownies, deep chocolate brown inside with a lighter-colored top crust, will be about 3/4" to 1" tall when cut. They'll be ultra-moist without crossing the line into gooey/underbaked.

I wasn't sure if it would measure up to my usual brownie recipe but it passed all expectations and then some.

It was also easier and faster to make - definite plusses.

My changes were to use normal Dutch process cocoa (not the Double Dutch process cocoa) they recommend, and to leave out the espresso powder. Some people in the group don't care for coffee. It was still excellent. I was hesitant to add chocolate chips into the batter because I don't normally like chunks of hard chocolate in the brownie. KAF says you have the choice of adding the chips right away to the warm batter so the chocolate melts and gets incorporated or waiting 20 minutes and adding the chocolate so that there are firm chunks after the brownie is baked. I opted for somewhere in between and added the chips when the batter was still slightly warm, but not warm enough to completely melt the chips.

My brownies took a bit longer than the recommended time - about 38 minutes. They looked beautiful! The crust was shiny as promised, and when I cut them, the chocolate bits melted, making the brownies just slightly moist.  These were fantastic right out of the oven. They have a good chocolate taste, without being overly sweet. The texture is perfect... slightly chewy and fudge-y but not too dense. I did not find them cakey.

I saved a few for a special "project" I want to make in the next week or two... stay tuned!

Orange Chocolate Chunk Bundt Cake

It's Easter and we were celebrating at my brother's palace today. My contribution was dessert. I decided I was in the mood for chocolate. I have been making a variety of healthier options -- cookies with dried fruit, breads with vegetables, and muffins with fresh fruit -- and needed to go back to my "core" chocolate. For whatever reason, the combination of orange chocolate came to my taste buds. I was in search for some orange chocolate cake. But I didn't want to bake a chocolate-based cake with a flavoring of orange. I wanted an orange cake with chocolate flavoring. And what do you know, Ina Garten makes a Orange Chocolate Chunk Cake.

The recipe takes a little bit of time due to the zesting of oranges and making the syrup and ganache. However, this is a recipe to keep. It was moist and delicious. It got 5 stars from 93 reviewers and it difficulty level was moderate. For those who bake regularly, it's fairly easy. It just takes a little more time.

The only change I made was using 1/4 cup of grated orange zest versus the 1/8 cup. I wanted a more orange flavor. And if I made this again, I would double the recipe for the cake and syrup. The cake turned out dense so doubling the recipe would lead to much happier bellies. The ganache amount can be left as-is. It is enough for us Wong's who aren't that into the "frosting".

In the bundt pan

Out of the bundt pan

Making the ganache

Ganache is finished

The final product!

My brother got a picture of the cake after it was cut! It shows much better than this picture above because you can see the chocolate chips amongst the orange cake.

Rocky Road Crunch Bars

Did you know that Rocky Road is more than just an ice cream flavor? I didn't. Somehow I got it into my head that I wanted to make something with marshmallows (don't ask me how anything gets into my head). I don't even know why since I don't particularly care for marshmallows. But when the email came announcing a work potluck, the mission was clear:

What dessert can I make with marshmallows?

I did my usual searching online and found out that not only is rocky road more than just an ice cream flavor, but it is also a candy bar. Who knew?! You learn something new everyday! And totally not useless knowledge. Heh.

Rocky Road Crunch Bars

I mostly followed the recipe, except I doubled it and made it in a 9x13" pan. I lined the pan with wax paper to make them easier to cut. That didn't work so well. They were stuck in there, so it did take some knife squeezing to pry them out.

You could probably use any kind of crunchy cookie, but I used Nilla Wafers. I didn't dust them with powdered sugar at the end, though that would have been pretty.

They stayed crunchy for the first few days (about how long they lasted). They taste very rich and sweet and the crunch of the cookies is a nice contrast. Well-received by all!

Almond Butter and Chocolate Chunk Cookies

I used the classic peanut butter cookie recipe and mixed it up a wee bit using almond butter, oat flour (rolled oats in a food processor), and chocolate chunks from some almond Ghirardelli squares I had lying around the house. (I think that's a run-on sentence.)

Makes 64 cookies

Approximately 83 calories each

1 cup butter

1 cup almond butter

1/2 cup sugar

1 cup packed brown sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

2 1/4 cups oat flour

2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

10 Ghirardelli squares, chunked into pieces

1) Beat together butter, almond butter, and sugars. Mix in eggs and vanilla.

2) Combine oat flour, baking soda, and salt. Mix into almond butter mixture.

3) Stir in chocolate chunks.

4) Bake 9 minutes at 350 degrees.

I chilled the dough for a few hours before working with it because it was very creamy. These cookies spread out quite a bit as well so make them small.

Monster Bars

I was in the mood for some baking and I was trying to decide amongst zucchini bread, blackberry oat muffins, caramel apple cookies, and magic bars. When I looked in my refrigerator, the choice was easy... I had no zucchini, no milk, and no apples - ingredients that the other three recipes called for. So magic bars it was. I changed the recipe for fun and tried to save a few calories but these definitely aren't good for the diet. Oh, and I renamed the bars to "Monster Bars" for Miss Monster Maddie.

Monster Bars
Makes 36 servings
120 calories per bar

1/2 cup of butter
1.5 cups of crushed graham cracker
1 14 oz can of sweetened condensed milk
1 cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 cup of unsweetened chocolate chunks
(This is a substitute. Feel free to change the 2 cups of chocolate chips to white, dark, or bittersweet chocolate, butterscotch, peanut butter, M&Ms, etc. Anything will work.)
1 1/3 cup of coconut flakes
1 cup chopped nuts (original recipe calls for walnuts but I used roasted puts)

1) Melt butter in 9x13 inch glass pan over 350 degrees in the oven. (Or melt the butter in the microwave and poor it into the pan.)
2) Sprinkle graham crackers into pan. Poor condensed milk evenly onto crackers. Layer the ingredients evenly in the order listed above. Press down firmly so the ingredients stay together when baking.
3) Bake for 25 minutes over 350 degrees. Completely cool bars and cut into pieces.
4) EAT WELL and Enjoy!

Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars

It's only been a week since I baked something and already I wanted to bake again... despite the "but you're making me faaaaaat!" laments.

I wanted to bake something as a thank-you to a friend who did something SUPER nice for me recently and since these would be put through the mail, I figured what travels better than bar cookies?

And what's better than classic chocolate chip cookies? But... in BAR FORM!

With nuts!

BTW, all you plain chocolate chip cookie lovers are crazy. Chocolate chip cookies WITH NUTS is where it's at.

And if it couldn't get better...

With m&ms!!!

What can I say - I get excited about baking...

Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars

from King Arthur Flour

My only change was to use less chocolate chips (probably about 5 oz and handfuls of m&ms mixed in).  I also used toasted pecans for the nuts.

I baked for exactly 30 minutes and they are right, the cake tester isn't clean. They are DELICIOUS. Gooey, chocolate-y, and perfect. They are reminiscent of a chewy brownie in texture.

They are safely packed away for travel tomorrow morning and thankfully, I only saved some of the ugly edges for myself ... because they will be gone by tonight!

I hope she likes them!

Grand Prize Coconut-Caramel Bars

I missed the Girl Scout cookie sales window and was craving my favorite cookie, the mighty Samoa. Chocolate, caramel, coconut -- the entire tiny box is typically devoured in very little time. I have tried a couple of Samoa-type of cookies in the past: Baking Bite's Homemade Samoas and King Arthur Flour's Ginger's Coconut Caramel Candy Bars. Both were okay, with the Baking Bites recipe being closer to the real thing, but also too time-consuming for me.

While looking through recipes, I had noticed another one on the King Arthur Flour's website advertising Samoa-like flavors. The reviews were stellar, with one "gourmet" cook saying it would be too dangerous for her to make them again. With a review like that, I had to give this one a try.

Grand Prize Coconut-Caramel Bars

The verdict? Definite Samoa-like flavors, but I wouldn't ever confuse this with an actual Samoa cookie. It doesn't have the shortbread cookie bottom. The cookie itself is caramel-like and chewy. Though the recipe says not to line the pan and that it shouldn't stick, it did stick quite a bit to my pan! I used a glass Pyrex 9x13" pan. Maybe a metal pan would have been better?

Because of the problems I had removing the bars, the resulting cookies weren't quite pretty either. We ended up consuming quite a few "uglies." :)

I like this one the best of the 3 Samoa recipes I've tried so far because it's easy enough and the flavors are there. I'd still be willing to test a few more though...

Chocolate Caramel Paisley Blondies

On a rainy day, sometimes all I want to do is bake some goodies and warm food and watch a movie by the fireplace. Well, we had some friends come over last night so nix on the movie and fire. But I did happen to get a little adventurous and make some Chocolate Caramel Paisley Blondies. Considering all the butter in them, I was surprised that they were a little drier and cakier than I expected. Although, I'd have to admit, they are pretty darn good and great for sharing with friends.

Chocolate Chip Paisley Blondies

Makes 32 bars, 142 Calories each

3/4 cup butter (1 1/2 sticks)

3/4 cup sugar

3/4 cup packed light brown sugar

3 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

2 cups flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips

1/2 cup chopped nuts

1/2 cup caramel syrup

1) Beat butter, sugar and brown sugar until well blended. Add eggs one at a time, beating thoroughly after each addition. Stir in vanilla.

2) Mix flour, baking powder and salt in separate bowl. Beat into the butter mixture. Stir in chocolate chips and nuts.

3) Spread half the batter in a greased 13x9" baking pan. Drizzle caramel over the top. (I don't really know how much I used but it was maybe 1/3-1/2 cup of caramel.) Spoon over the remaining batter. It's important to use a spoon because you want the caramel to stay in the middle so that the syrup showing in the spaces between the batter will form a paisley effect.

4) Bake for 30-35 minutes. Cool completely in pan and cut into bars.

Chocolate Chunk and Walnut Oatmeal Cookies

I was a little frustrated yesterday after the second week in a row I wasn't able to dance. Last week, the door was locked and I couldn't get into the classroom. No one cared that I knocked for 10 minutes... And then yesterday, the class was canceled or moved to a different classroom. I still don't know and there was no note on the door. I even went with another student to check out the other dance studios on campus and the class was no where to be found. Needless to say, I was a little irked. So what better than to come home and bake cookies...

I was looking for a healthier cookie since I didn't exactly workout and burn the 500 or so calories I expected to in the 90 minute dance class. This recipe came from my health magazine and is supposedly good for women. It has dark chocolate, walnuts and oats... yum, yum, and yum... But after calculating the calories on my trusty iPhone, it turns out that each cookie is 120 calories each. Wow! They taste good so here's the recipe...

1) Melt 6 tbsp unsalted butter. Remove from heat and add 3/4 cup packed light brown sugar; stirring until smooth.

2) Combine 1/3 cup all purpose flour, 1/3 cup whole-wheat flour (I just doubled the all purpose flour since I don't keep whole wheat flour on hand.), 3/4 tsp baking soda, 1 1/2 cups old-fashioned oats, and 1/2 tsp salt in a medium bowl.

3) Combine butter misture with the dry ingredients. Add 1 egg, lightly beaten, and 1 tsp vanilla.

4) Fold in 1/2 cup walnuts and 3 oz of bittersweet, dark, or unsweetened chocolate, coarsely chopped.

5) Bake for 11 min at 350 degrees. Makes about 2 dozen cookies.

Enjoy!

Caramel Chocolate Chunk Bread Pudding

I am a big fan of Chocolate Croissant Bread Pudding but it turns out that Ryan likes this recipe for Caramel Chocolate Chunk Bread Pudding better. It is a little less sweet. I can't decide. I love the croissant taste but I agree that this recipe with caramel is a little less sweet which is more to my taste buds... perhaps a mixture of both recipes.

Caramel Chocolate Chunk Bread Pudding

1 pound french or broiche bread cut into 1" cubes

2 oz melted butter

1 1/3 cups heavy whipping cream

4 eggs

2 egg yolks

1/4 cup sugar

2 tsp dark rum

1 tsp vanilla extract

3.5 oz dark chocolate

3.5 oz caramel sauce

1) Combine bread and melted butter. Spread cubes in a 9x13 baking pan and place in oven (350 degrees) until toasted (4-5 min). Remove from oven and let cool.

2) Mix cream, eggs, egg yolks, sugar, rum and vanilla. Pour over bread cubes and coat bread until completely soaked.

3) Layer bread in 9x5 loaf pan. Sprinkle chocolate chunks and drizzle caramel. Repeat layers with the remaining bread, chocolate and caramel.

4) Bake at 350 degrees until custard is set. About 20 min.

Christmas Treats, Part 2

In part 2 of the Jen Wong Christmas Treats story, I bring you the second candy-like item I made for the holiday ...

Oreo Truffles!!

Sooooo easy! I had seen the recipe floating around the internet for a couple of years now but never had an opportunity to make them. I seem to be a last-minute baker who is making something the night before an event and since these required refrigeration, they usually got pushed off for another occasion.

Like the peanut butter cups, there is no baking required and they are super easy. THREE INGREDIENTS! Just Oreos, cream cheese, and chocolate.

Since I'm a Trader Joe's fan, I bought Jo-Jo's, the chocolate-sandwich cookies that strangely resemble Oreos... This time of year they also have a mint version so I decided to make mint oreo truffles as well.

Oreo Truffles (from Kraft)

1 package (1 lb. 2 oz.) Oreo Cookies, finely crushed, divided
1 8 oz package cream Cheese, softened [I used light]
1 lb dark chocolate

Remove 6 Oreos. Grind in a food processor into crumbs. Set aside.

Grind the remaining Oreos and cream cheese in a food processor. Refrigerate at least one hour.

Roll into 1" balls.

Dip balls into melted chocolate. Coat until covered, then remove and let dry on waxed paper. Sprinkle reserved cookie crumbs on top of truffle. Refrigerate until set.

Store leftover truffles in a tightly covered container in the refrigerator.

Peppermint variation!

For the mint version, I used mint Jo-Jos, and added about a teaspoon of peppermint extract to the chocolate coating. I sprinkled crushed peppermint candies on top for decoration.

I used forks to roll the balls around in chocolate, which worked well, but I had some trouble with fork tine-marks along the sides of some of them. Just noting in case beauty is an issue...

They were so well-received, I had to make more the following weekend!

Cereal in a cookie?

I read about these cookies in a reader's request column in an online newspaper. They were intriguing because they contained cereal... and not just any cereal, but Frosted Flakes! I had to try them.

Also interesting was the lack of eggs or any kind of leavener. Maybe this keeps them crunchy? The cookies looked slightly puffy when they came out of the oven but set up better after cooling. They have a crunchy and slightly crumbly texture, but are not hard enough to scrape your mouth. The slight addition of chocolate chips (only 1/2 cup for the entire recipe) gives just a hint of chocolate without making the cookie overly sweet. Thumbs up!



Frosted Flake Chocolate Chip Cookies

4 cups Frosted Flakes
2 sticks (1 cup) butter
3/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Line a cookie sheet with parchment.

Crush frosted flakes lightly (until they compress to about 3 cups; don't make them too fine).

Cream butter and sugar until fluffy. Add vanilla.

Combine flour and baking soda; gradually add to butter mixture and stir to combine. Fold in crushed frosted flakes and chocolate chips. Mixture will be crumbly. It's best to use your hands to make sure ingredients combine evenly. Roll 2-tablespoon portions of dough into balls and place on cookie sheet. Flatten slightly.

Bake about 20 minutes, until lightly brown. Cookies will be soft but will firm up as they cool. Don't overbake or cookies will become very hard. Makes about 2 dozen.

Fabulous Orange-Chocolate Cake

Because of recent social activities, I had some leftover items in the fridge that needed to be used: sour cream, melted chocolate, and candied orange syrup. I found a cake recipe on allrecipes that I was able to adapt to use everything up.

It was super easy to put together because of the prepared items used. The directions said to bake the cake for an hour, but when I checked at 50 minutes, the cake was already done! I was afraid I had overcooked it, since it had browned by then, but it was still moist and the orange syrup I added enhanced the texture.

I love the combination of chocolate and orange so I expected to love this cake. I wasn't too impressed when it initially came out. Taste is more important than how something looks but this cake will not win any beauty awards. Perhaps it was its browned appearance, but it didn't look particularly appetizing. When I initially tried it, I just thought it was "okay." I thought maybe I had overdid it with the addition of orange syrup because it tasted like there was too much going on.

When I tried it a day later, I enjoyed it more. I'm not sure if it mellowed (or I did!) but the cake stayed moist (important!) and the chocolate flavor won me over.

The recipe is below with my changes in brackets.

Fabulous Orange Cake
(adapted from allrecipes)

1 (18.25 ounce) package yellow cake mix
1 (3.4 ounce) package instant vanilla pudding mix
2 cups sour cream [I used 1 3/4 cup since that was what I had leftover]
2 eggs
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup orange liqueur
1 cup white chocolate chips [I used a combination of chocolate chips and chopped chocolate -- the remnants of my melted chocolate]
confectioner's sugar, for dusting [I used about 1/2 cup of an orange-infused syrup I had made]

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F(175 degrees C). Grease a 9 inch Bundt pan.

In a medium bowl, stir together the cake mix and pudding mix. Add the sour cream, eggs, oil and orange liqueur. Mix until smooth and well blended, then fold in the white chocolate chips. Pour the mixture into the prepared pan.

Bake for 1 hour in the preheated oven, until cake springs back to the touch. Allow cake to cool for 10 minutes in the pan, then turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely. When cake is cool, dust with confectioners' sugar and serve.

[After the cake cooled, I poked holes in it, and drizzled the candied orange syrup over it.]

Malted Milk Ball cookies

Because I couldn't get enough of Dorie Greenspan, I chose to make another of her recipes... this time it was Chocolate Malted Whopper Drops. There was a potluck at work and who can resist a childhood favorite like Whoppers?!

I lived on the dangerous side again, not testing the recipe before presenting it, but I wasn't too worried even if they turned out badly. I work with a bunch of fast food-eating, non-foodie guys so they're generally happy with anything I make.

It's a good thing there was no need to impress because I didn't feel that this recipe lived up to my expectations. It's quite possible that there was some operator error involved as I did tweak a few things, but I'm not sure that I would have liked the original version either.

The recipe called for 6 oz of semi-sweet chocolate chips, which was the same amount of Whoppers added to the mix. I didn't want the chocolate to overpower the malt flavor so I used less. What I should have done is increased the amount of Whoppers at the same time. Doh. I also couldn't find malted milk powder so I ended up Ovaltine. Other bloggers did this as well, but I felt it didn't give the dough a good malt flavor. Maybe because it was chocolate-flavored Ovaltine? These cookies had a cakey texture, which am I not overly fond of. The dough tasted like chocolate cake, with bits of caramelized sweetened candy dispersed randomly.

The work crowd liked them well enough, but they couldn't quite figure out the "mystery" ingredient. Someone guessed Honeycomb cereal. Really?! Um yeaaaah... more malt flavor next time!

If I make them again, this is what I'd do differently:

• I'd use more Whoppers and less chocolate... probably close to a ratio of 4:1 (Whoppers : chocolate chips).


• I'd try harder to find Carnation malted milk powder.


• I'd bake them for slightly less. Mine were done around 11 minutes, but maybe next time I'd try 9-10 for a chewier texture.
  

At last, World Peace is mine!

I had been wanting to make these cookies for quite some time, after reading about them on several blogs. Who can forget a name like "World Peace Cookies"? When a friend's birthday came up and he requested "anything chocolate", I knew we had a winner!

I'm always reluctant to give away treats without a "test run" first, but with so many positive reviews, I didn't think it would be a problem. I'm glad I was right. These were a big hit at the party and with the birthday boy. I only wish I had made more...

They have a rich, dark chocolate taste. I found them sandy in texture -- not quite cakey, chewy or even fudgy (I was reminded of pecan sandies). I used 72% dark chocolate from Trader Joe's and normal sea salt because I couldn't find fleur de sel. The dough does have a tendency to crumble a bit when slicing but no fear, it was easy enough to push back together.

You can find the recipe here.