Open Thread Feedback

Thank you all for your comments! I would most definitely eat all of the chocolate desserts you described, and I would love to try making them (my baking skills being brought into account of course). I think it's awesome that some of you like to keep it super simple with chocolate ice cream, brownies, and fudge. If the classics aren't broken, you don't have to fix them all the time I suppose. Rolo Cheesecake Bars and chocolate pudding creations are special because you share them with family and have memories built around them which is great. I can't to take your favorites and try making creations of my own to share. Thanks again for reading guys!

Open Thread: Your Favorite Chocolate Dessert

Throughout my blog so far I've been randomly selecting chocolate desserts. What I really want is to get your feedback about what I should continue to make. Tell me, what's your favorite chocolate dessert and why? Is it a childhood favorite? Or perhaps you've tried it for the first time recently and fell in love? I wanna hear all about it!

Thanks for reading/following my blog!

Chocolate Chip Cheesecake

Finally time to make some cheesecake! I love cheesecake so I am thrilled to try a new kind that I've never encountered before. I attempted Chocolate Chip Cheesecake mainly because I had almost every ingredient already on hand (being a broke college student makes you appreciate not having to buy more ingredients).

The ingredients needed are:

1 cup sugar

3 tbs melted butter

2 (8-ounce) packages cream cheese

4 eggs

2 tsp vanilla extract

3/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips

*An option for the recipe was to create your own pie crust, but I opted to use a graham cracker pie crust that we had at home. 

The first step was to preheat the oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit. Easy enough. Then it was just a matter of adding all of the ingredients listed above (besides the chocolate chips, they come later!) into a blender and blending it for around a minute. Then I poured the filling into the pie crust and added the chocolate chips to the top of the filling. 

The recipe called for the cheesecake to be cooked for 60 minutes, however in hindsight I'm not sure if that was too long since the cheesecake came out a bit darker than I'm used to when it comes to making cheesecake. It was easy to make though, and took around 2 hours to chill when I put the cheesecake in the refrigerator. 

Chocolate Buttermilk Cake

For my second creation I wanted to bake a cake as a surprise dessert for my family. I found one of the easier recipes for a Chocolate Buttermilk Cake. Yum! According to the book the prep time is 20 minutes, it cooks for 40 minutes, and it serves 8 to 12 people. Since the serving amount is so large I decided to halve the ingredients so that it make enough for 4 to 6 instead.

The ingredients are as follows:
1 stick softened butter, 1 cup sugar, 2 eggs, 1 1/2 cups flour, 1/2 cup packed unsweetened cocoa powder, 1 tsp baking soda, 1/2 tsp baking powder, 1/2 tsp salt, and 3/4 cup buttermilk.

Before I began prepping I preheated the oven to 350 degrees and greased a 9-inch cake pan. Then I beat together the butter and sugar with an electric mixer for around 2 minutes until the mixture was light and fluffy. Then I beat in the 2 eggs for around 30 seconds. Then I sifted together the cake flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Once they were combined I added this mixture to the butter mixture  while adding the buttermilk and flour. Once all of the ingredients were together I used the electric mixer on medium speed just until it was well blended, around 2 minutes.

After pouring the mixture into the pan I put the cake in the oven and set the timer for 40 minutes. To be sure it was done I inserted a toothpick and it came out clean with no batter/cake on it. The cake cooled for ten minutes and then voila, ready to eat!



Ease of prep: 4/5 I had to go to the grocery store to pick up buttermilk because it isn't a staple in our house, but other than that I had the other ingredients on hand. The prep time was also pretty accurate, it took around 13 minutes to prepare.

Taste: 2.5/5 I'm sure my baking skills contribute to this lower score, but the cake wasn't as sweet as I assumed it would be, and it was fairly dry as well. Hopefully the icing will help!

_____________________________________________________________________________

To create the icing I needed all of the same ingredients that were needed for the cake, so it was great to have the ingredients close at hand.

The recipe called for:


Ease of prep: 5/5 I had all the ingredients on hand, plus it only took 3-5 minutes to make and then ice the buttermilk cake.

Taste: 4/5 the icing was very sweet, so it brought a much better flavor to the buttermilk cake. On its own the icing isn't very amazing or special, but tied with the cake it greatly improves the overall taste.

Favorite Icing Flavor?

My next chocolate creation will feature icing as the finishing touch!

What icing flavor is your favorite to go with chocolate desserts?

Vanilla

Chocolate

Strawberry

Other flavor (please specify)

Please feel free to leave your vote in the poll above and an explanation in the comments if you vote for "other flavor.". 

Double Chocolate Brownie Cookies

Time for my first creation! I flipped through the pages to find one of the simpler recipes to start out with, and happened upon the double chocolate brownie cookies which sounded amazing and quite simple to make. The first picture below shows the exact recipe given in 365 Great Chocolate Desserts. 

I gathered the necessary ingredients which I already had without needing to go out to buy more supplies (a definite plus of this recipe). The ingredients include: 2 cups of semisweet chocolate chips, 4 tbsp butter. 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder, 2 eggs, 1 tsp vanilla extract, 3/4 cup sugar, 1/4 cup flour, 1/4 tsp baking powder, and 1 cup chopped pecans. For my cookies I did not add the pecans because one of the people I was baking the cookies for has a peanut allergy, but if that isn't an issue feel free to add pecans/nuts.

Although the prep time according to the recipe was 15 minutes, it only took me around 10 minutes, so if you need to bake something in a snap this recipe is a good choice.Following the directions I had no trouble until it came time to placing the mixture on the aluminum foil to be baked. My dollops were too large for the first batch so my cookies ended up being around 3 inches in diameter. For the second batch I corrected this problem and the cookies turned out great! The outside was flaky and crispy like a cookie while the inside was soft like a brownie. For anyone torn between making brownies or cookies and needing a chocolate pick-me-up these are brownie cookies to bake.

Overall, these brownie cookies were easy to whip up, and quick to make. When baking be sure to place small dollops on the baking sheet to avoid huge brownie cookies (unless of course you prefer large desserts and in that instance bake away). Below are the ratings I have given this particular recipe.

Ease of prep: 5 out of 5. The prep time was around ten minutes and I had all of the ingredients at hand. Even if I didn't have every ingredient, quickly purchasing an item at the store would be simple and easy to find.

Taste: 3 out of 5. My friends and family and I found the brownie cookies to be pretty ordinary yet relatively tasty so I decided to give it a 3 out of 5 rating.

Welcome!

"All you need is love. But a little chocolate now and then doesn't hurt."    -- Charles M. Schulz

Hello everyone who either stumbled upon this blog by some twist of fate or who was randomly searching for a blog with the word "chocolate" in the title and suddenly found yourself here.

At a book sale a few months ago I discovered a cookbook just about chocolate desserts! I wanted to create this blog to share with you the trials, errors, and hopefully many successes of baking my way through this book filled with chocolate treats. I am by no means an expert at baking, but I will try my best for my sake, your sake, and the sake of the dessert's success! I will share with you pictures of the outcome (yes even the disasters) and let you know which ones are my faves so please feel free to follow and attempt these chocolately creations as well.

If you want to ask me a question or send words of encouragement and support (I may very well need those too) please leave a comment or shoot me an email at kirstenaliciadefrank@gmail.com. Oh and in case you want to find this marvelous book for yourself it's entitled 365 Great Chocolate Desserts and it was written by Natalie Haughton copyright 1991.

Stick around for my first chocolate dessert post coming within the next few days!