Dessert

Hot Peppermint Coco

/ andreah94 / Leave a comment

Rainy winter days beg for an excellent cup of hot coco. Granted we have only had rainy days with no winter in sight in Texas, however hot coco is really pretty darn good at any time of the year. My love of hot coco was elevated upon tasting my friend K-bear’s happy hour drink at Shady Grove last week – hot coco with Rumplemintz (peppermint Schnapps). It tasted like a Thin Mint. I nearly died – how have I never indulged in this before? I remedied this serious void in my life last night as a surprise for D, who loves Rumplemintz  (Rumplemintz was frequently ordered when we first started dating, but has since been a rarity due to my desire to not have persistent headaches) and chocolate. I believe I will also continue filling the void tonight and tomorrow….and you can see Pandora’s box has been opened. I have not tried it – yet – but I think that these would be excellent with a homemade peppermint marshmallow floated into them.

Note: My dad makes wonderful hot coco with steamed milk. I go an opposite direction due to a pseudo-dairy issue and just used good ole Swiss Mix or 365 Organic Hot Chocolate Mix. Use whatever type of hot chocolate you prefer, just be sure to leave enough room for the liquor. Also, this drink will sneak up on you quickly so please be careful and leave your keys elsewhere.

Hot Peppermint Coco

Serves Two 

Two Packets Swiss Mix (or favorite hot chocolate)
Steamed Water or Milk (enough to almost fill two coffee cups)
Two Shots Rumplemintz Peppermint Schnapps, divided

Prepare Hot Coco according to package instructions. Add a shot glass full of Rumplemintz. Mix well and allow to cool before (hiding your keys) and drinking.

Granny’s Rum Balls

/ andreah94 / Leave a comment

In addition to noodles and sausage balls, rum balls have been part of my family’s Christmas tradition for decades. The funny thing is that I do not remember loving rum balls (though I am sure that I was reprimanded more than once for sneaking them around the holidays) before my Granny passed away. The past few Christmases it seems that there have not been many rum balls for various reasons. This year, as I was decorating my tree with my lifelong collection of ornaments (my Granny gave me one per year since birth), I had a strong nostalgic urge to have rum balls lying around. So I bought corn syrup for the first time in my life and proceeded to the liquor store with my passport (lost my license around Thanksgiving) and my gigantic dog to buy Rum. Overall, everything was successful – of course, I am judging success based on D’s refusal to share any rum balls – and Christmas is a little sweeter for me with the edible memory of Granny in the house.

Note: These make a great edible present or office treat. They are fairly cheap and pretty darn simple to prepare and keep well. You can also make these well in advance and freeze them to lighten your workload during the holidays.

Granny’s Rum Balls

Makes between 25- 35 balls (depending on how big you make yours)

Two and a half cups vanilla wafers, finely ground
One cup powdered sugar
Three to Four tablespoons cocoa powder
One and one-half cup chopped walnuts and  macadamia nut (optional or use other nuts of choice)
Half Cup shredded coconut (optional and adjust according to taste)
Three to four tablespoons white Karo Syrup
Half pint (or more if desired) Rum
One Cup Powdered Sugar, plus a few tablespoons sanding or raw sugar and extra Cocoa powder for dusting

Finely grind vanilla wafers in a food processor. Quickly pulse the nuts so that they are chopped but not finely ground. Combine the wafers, sugar, buts, coconut, and cocoa powder in a large bowl – mix well. Add a heavy three tablespoons of white Karo syrup ( I think I went with about three and a half – add more after mixing if necessary). Add rum to mixture and mix well, until all elements are combined and pliable. Make balls about a half-inch in diameter and reserve. Pour powdered sugar (and whole sugar and a bit of extra cocoa powder) on a baking sheet or wax paper and roll the prepared rum balls through it, coating well.

Nutella laced Rice Krispie Treats

/ andreah94 / Leave a comment

 Who doesn’t love  rice krispie treat? Treat is not a misnomer in these bad boys. Good luck getting through the night without eating the whole bunch of them – I cannot say that I did.

Note: You MUST use real butter in these – no margarine or vegetable fake butter silliness. There is too much oil in those products and the treats will be affected. Another important note – wet your hands to handle the mixture and it will stick much less. Lastly, use a slightly wet silicon or soft rubber spoon to mix and it will stick less.

Nutella-laced Rice Krispie Treats

Five cups Kellogg’s Rice Krispie Treats
One 10 oz package of Jet-Puffed Marshmallows (name brand not generic)
Four tablespoons butter (one-fourth cup)
Pinch Salt
Three to Four Heaping Tablespoons Nutella
One and one half teaspoons Vanilla Extract

Melt butter on low heat in a large saucepan or saute pan. Add marshmallows and melt through, stirring frequently. Add salt, vanilla extract, and Nutella and mix well. Combine in a greased dish with rice krispies and stir well. Press down with your fingers to  make an even surface. Allow to set and enjoy….preferably with your hands. Also, you may not want to be on a road trip for the entire batch because they are very likely vanish before you reach your destination. Feel free to cut these into squares, I didn’t (I did offer but everyone was fine with a hands or spoon option)!

Wine-Soaked Strawberries

/ andreah94 / 1 Comment

I am not a fan of traditional dessert, but I do have every affection desserts composed of fruit drizzled with something (or soaked in something). This is an adaptation of a recipe in Cooking with Italian Grandmother’s, which is the best cook book I have read since Ad Hoc. This dish was the capstone to girls night, which of course means that we served it with ice cream, in one bowl with four spoons. It was perfect with the summer sweet strawberries and the heavenly vanilla bean ice cream (thanks for picking that up Sarah).

Wine-Soaked Berries

Serves Four

One cup red wine (I used Malbec)
One carton Strawberries, cleaned and de-greened
Two Tablespoons Sugar
Cinnamon, to taste
Freshly torn basil or mint, chiffonade

Combine berries, wine, and one tablespoon sugar in a bowl. Soak for three to four hours. When ready to serve, strain berries and place in a bowl. Sprinkle with cinnamon, extra sugar (for crunch), a couple turns of ground black pepper; and basil. Serve with vanilla ice cream, whipped cream or on its own.

 

Balls of Joy aka Oreo Cake Balls

/ andreah94 / Leave a comment

For those of you who roll your eyes when I talk about the importance of organic food and aversion of processed food – eat your heart out (though I have to admit, I will not be eating these – they are presents). I first had little Balls of Joy over the weekend at a shower (see previous baked tomatoes post). Not being a sweets person, I really intended to just try a bite and see what it was (I mean even if you aren’t a sweets person, when you see something dipped in white chocolate your brain says EAT). I had two. They were so good. Soooooooo good. So good that I decided they would make lovely mother’s day treats for our wonderful Mommas! So it was decided, I was going to make sweets. I honestly do not remember the last time I made dessert or sweets of any kind. I know what it was (a chocolate and amaretto pear torte with orange infused whipped cream), but that had to be at least three years ago – and I did not eat it (though I was told it was very good). I was shocked to find that there are more than ample recipe ideas for these little guys online. So I read one, got the basic method down and planned to make little Balls of Joy. Enter Cinco de Mayo and skinny-girl Margaritas and I start this process at about 7:30, thinking it won’t really be that messy or take that long. It wasn’t any more messy and did not take any longer than I usually take to do things – take that for whatever it is worth. D also helped out, something I rarely allow him to do (not because I don’t want him to just because I micromanage and tend to take over). We learned an important lesson last night – that is do not put too many balls in the warm chocolate – they will melt and look funny. This is for aesthetic purposes only – they still taste great, I am told, they just look a little sad. Now that I have the basics of this down, I cannot wait to make more and add my own little twists to them. I am willing to bet that these would be awesome with mint oreos, with little bit of cherry mixed into the Mud, or with some crushed nut sprinkled over the top. Oh the world of experimentation=)

Balls of Joy


One package Oreos
One 8 ounce package of cream cheese, at room temperature
3-4 Ghirardelli White Chocolate Baking Bars
3-4 Cadburry Milk Chocolate Bars

Special Equipment

Toothpicks
Double Broiler
Wax Paper

Put the Oreos into a food processor and process until finely ground. In batches (if you have a smaller food processor which I do) add  Oreo and cream cheese, blending until a big, giant, black, creamy substance. Repeat as necessary until smooth and all cheese and cookie has been incorporated. Pick up small handfuls of the black mound (which will be called Mud from now on) and roll into small balls with your hands. Place on a cookie sheet lined with Wax Paper or aluminum foil. Once all Mud is rolled into little balls of Joy, put cookie sheet into the fridge or freezer and chill for an hour or so. About ten minutes before you need to pull the Mud balls out, prepare a double boiler (if you do not have one, or in my case cannot reach yours feel free to place a oven proof bowl over a pan with water) and over a low heat begin to melt the chocolate – adding small handfuls one at a time until melted. If you have two double boilers, or the ability to create two double boilers, then feel free to heat milk chocolate in one and white chocolate in the other and decreased your time frame to finish. Once chocolate is melted, place one ball into the chocolate and roll gently with a spatula to coat well with chocolate. Remove quickly  with a toothpick so as to prevent melting and ball disfiguration (oh the horror). Return to wax paper and allow chocolate to cool. After about fifteen minutes drizzle chocolate of the opposite color over the balls and return to the fridge.

Gooey Butter Cake

/ andreah94 / Leave a comment
You might be aware from reading my previous posts that D loves and reveres Gooey Butter Cake, which is a St. Louis specialty that is served with breakfast and as snacks. I am willing to bet there have been fist fights over who makes the best GBC. D’s absolute favorite is his best friend’s mothers version which is also considered the best by a native St. Louis-an (this same person is an Italian grandmother in case a native to St. Louis did not hold enough weight for you). I was a bit of a brat over the weekend (sorry everyone) and so decided that I would try to make the Gooey Louis…look at me making dessert twice in two weeks. The thing with baking is that it has to be done precisely – measurements MATTER or the end result might have an off consistency. Considering my measuring cups have dust on them – or on their better days are used as spoon holders – baking is not a strong suit. Couple this “precision” weakness with my lack of desire for sweet treats and I just do not bake often. This aversion is apparent in my baking supplies: my flour was one year and two months expired – I wish I was kidding. All that said, I would like to start baking more and maybe one day I will smell less like garlic and more like cookie dough. =) Which brings me to the cake attempt. This was my first attempt with making a cake of anything other than Duncan Hines Red Velvet Cake (HEAVEN by the way) and I scoured recipes all day trying to devise a plan. I ended up using something like a combination of three recipes because there are two ways the cake is prepared. One is the traditional-but-made-in-bakeries method and the other is the home-kitchen-friendly method. The traditional uses corn syrup (which I just could not bring myself to buy) and also uses yeast for the crust dough. Sounds great in theory, but in reality, it was Wednesday night and I did not have time to make a yeast-dependent dough and deal with the rising process. In my pursuit of the perfect recipe (I was lacking D’s favorite at this point so I was trying to somehow develop telepathy and guess the ingredients), I ran across a blog that discussed both methods – traditional versus easy-to-make-at-home version. Traditional won. So I decided to do something of a hybrid. I did not buy yellow cake mix at the store and instead had to “make” my own. I then used the non-traditional filling for ease and to avoid buying corn syrup. What is ironic about all of this is the email I received with D’s favotire recipe (Mrs. Rodriguez was wonderful enough to send it to him whilst I was walking back from Whole Foods – in the rain) and she used ingredients I did not buy! Aw Shucks! I was not about to venture out in the storm that opened up right when I was leaving the store, so I intend on making this again soon. This time with a cohesive plan, flour that is not expired, with yellow cake, and without accidentally skipping a step. Minor flaws aside, this cake smelled absolutely incredible and tasted pretty good – though it was not exactly like the gooey that Mrs. Rodriguez makes (and D loves). I need a few more trial and errors but, who knows,  maybe one day I will get this baking thing down! Oh, in case you are wondering – I still do not really know what Gooey Butter Cake tastes like as I did not have any – it amazes me how I cannot get out of the preztel jar but this delicious thing I have no aversion problems at all. I have issues…
For Crust
2 cups Flour
1.5 cups Sugar
One Stick Butter, melted
1 tablespoon baking power
1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1/4 cup milk
For Filling
3 tablespoons butter, melted
2 eggs
1 (8oz) Cream Cheese (room temperature)
1 Box Powdered Sugar
1 1/2 tablespoon Vanilla Extract
One teaspoon Almond Extract
Add the crust ingredients to a mixer and mix well.  Spread into an ungreased 9×13 glass baking dish. In separate bowl mix remaining ingredients, minus 2 tablespoons for topping. Mix well and spread over batter.
Bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes, remove from oven to sprinkle remainder powdered sugar. Return to oven and bake an additional 25 – 30 minutes.