Posts Tagged ‘chocolate’

Chocolate Chip Mocha Cookies

Posted: 3rd March 2014 by doomthings in Dessert, Holiday, The Foodening
Tags: , , , , , ,

These are my go-to holiday (or travel, or event, or anytime) cookies.  They had the nickname “Pandora cookies” during an 8-hour road trip with friends because of, well, their seriously addicting nature.  That and something about opening Pandora’s box.  I liked the name, but it didn’t stick.  They are regular old chocolate-chocolate-chip cookies with a spoonful of chocolate mocha powder in ’em.  They’re dangerous so don’t eat then at night unless you have the desire to stay up 5 hours past your bedtime.  They’re like coffee in cookie form, except they don’t taste like coffee, because coffee is gross.

Behold the cookies, Christmas-style.

Chocolate Chip Mocha Cookies |doomthings

Ingredients:

  • 2 sticks butter, softened
  • 1 cup brown sugar
  • 3/4 cup sugar
  • 3 eggs
  • 2 1/4 cups flour
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp salt (omit if using salted butter)
  • 1/2 cup cocoa powder
  • 2 tbsp chocolate mocha powder

Directions:

  1. Cream butter and both sugars until light and creamy.
  2. Beat in eggs until combined.
  3. Mix in flour, baking powder, salt, cocoa, and mocha until thoroughly combined.
  4. Stir in chocolate chips.
  5. Bake at 300 degrees F for 20 – 25 minutes on parchment-lined/silpat-lined/greased baking sheets.

This is a milkshake without added sugar.  Yeah, yeah, bananas are lots of sugar, but the key here is no added sugar.

Behold:

  1. Make one (or two) servings of banana chocolate ice cream with desired add-ins.
  2. Transfer to blender (or continue in food processor) and add small amounts of milk between blending.
  3. Continue until you reach the desired consistency.
  4. Transfer to glass and put in fridge for 10 – 20 minutes.  The longer you leave it, the more it will have a milkshake consistency.
I feel like making chalk drawings on the sidewalk.  And like I'm 5.

I feel like making chalk drawings on the sidewalk. And like I’m 5.

This is not healthy for you.  You could argue that is “healthier” than store-bought chocolate syrup only because this version doesn’t have high fructose corn syrup in it (which I think makes it taste SO much better).  Too bad pictures don’t do this stuff justice.

Ingredients (from Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook, 1968):

  • 1 1/2 cups sugar (UPDATE: or substitute w/ 3/4 cups honey)
  • 3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
  • 1 cup water
  • dash of salt
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla

Directions:

  1. Combine sugar, cocoa powder and salt in a small saucepan and whisk together.
  2. Add water and bring mixture to a boil, stirring occasionally.
  3. Reduce heat and cook for one minute.
  4. Remove from heat and add vanilla.
  5. Refrigerate until ready to use.

Suggested Uses:

  • Over ice cream.
  • Chocolate milk (2 tbsp sauce to 8 oz glass of milk).
  • Hot chocolate (heat chocolate milk).
  • Milk shake (combine vanilla ice cream and milk with some sauce to taste).

This stuff is kind of sweet, so the amount of sugar could probably be reduced to taste.  Of course, this could just be the difference between fake sugar and real sugar.  I think this stuff is brilliant.  I’ve had my batch for two weeks already and it’s still delicious.  Because it was made with real cocoa powder (which can be fairly potent) and sugar, you don’t need nearly as much on your desired dessert as you do using store-bought chocolate syrup.  It’s win-win!  Delicious, rich, chocolate syrup, less of it and seriously cheaper than what the store can get you.  Eat it.  Eat it all. + 15 just cuz

Nutritional information from Calorie Count's Recipe Analyzer.

Serving size is roughly 2 tablespoons.

This is no ordinary chocolate pudding.  It’s baked, smooth, chocolaty goodness.  The best part is that add-ins are easy and almost always add a delicious twist.  Also, it’s my husband’s very favorite dessert, which makes it even more fun to make.  The original recipe was a bit more complicated and had nuts in it (and serves 6).  We prefer much smoother desserts so the nuts are swapped out with cocoa powder, making it much more chocolaty and super smooth.  Also, this recipe serves 2.  Perfect for fancy food date nights.

Chocolate Pudding | doomthings

Ingredients (adapted from Donna Hay’ “Modern Classics Book 2”):

  • 4 tbsp chopped chocolate (chocolate chips or dark is best)
  • 4 tbsp butter
  • 1 egg
  • 4 tbsp sugar
  • 3 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
  • 1 tbsp flour

Directions:

  1. Melt chopped chocolate and butter in a saucepan over low heat and stir until well combined and smooth.
  2. Beat egg and sugar in a small bowl until light and creamy.
  3. Mix in cocoa powder and flour until smooth and glossy.
  4. Stir in the chocolate/butter mixture and stir until smooth.
  5. Grease 2 oven-proof cups or ramekins and divide the chocolate mixture evenly between them.
  6. Place the cups in a baking dish and fill the dish with enough hot water to come halfway up the sides of the cups.
  7. Bake for 25 minutes at 350 degrees F.

When they’re done, the tops of the puddings will have pulled slightly away from the edges and look sort of like brownie tops.  The cups stay hot for a while, so we use those oven gloves.  (On a side note, oven gloves were one of our favorite Christmas gifts ever.  Wow, that statement made me feel old.).

Excellent Add-Ins:

  • Peanut butter
  • Cherries (real ones)
  • Raspberries
  • Strawberries

Death by chocolate.  That is all.

I’ve updated the Banana Ice Cream post to include the following amazing discovery.  If you’ve already discovered this, I’m just a little slow…

Out of laziness, being full, and forgetfullness, I did two things:  1) I left my chopped up banana in the freezer for over a week.  2) When I finally made the banana ice cream, I left that in the freezer for over a week.

You can guess how number one was resolved.  I took it out of the freezer, let it sit about 10 minutes and made my ice cream.  I tasted it, and it worked just fine.  Horray!  I was actually pretty full, so I put the newly created dessert into a sealed container and put it back in the freezer.  About 9 days later, I remembered it was in there and pulled it out.  It was pretty frozen, so I left it sitting on my counter for a while.  I honestly can’t remember how long, but I would guess anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour.  By the time I sat down to devour it, I found that it actually had the texture of something between frozen yogurt and ice cream!  When I made it the first time, it was definitely on the other side of frozen yogurt, away from ice cream, as far as texture was concerned.  That was definitely not a bad thing, but this “new” texture made it taste and feel more like chocolate ice cream than just creamed banana with chocolate in it.  I highly recommend this strategy.  It takes a little more planning, particularly if you have more than one mouth to feed, but it’s worth it.  It is worth nothing that all my banana ice cream trials have been single serving.  If you were to say, make multiple servings, I would put them in single serving containers before freezing so they thaw faster when pulling them out for a treat.

Texture is almost just like ice cream.

Texture is almost just like ice cream.