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Giant American Flag Candy Bar for the 4th of July Dessert

June 28, 2014 by Jenn

The American’s are coming!  The American’s are coming!  My brother and his family from Minneapolis are coming!  They’re “the American’s” in my world.  I can wait to see them and celebrate Canada day AND the 4th of July! 

Since we have family, friends and lots of viewers from the United States, I wanted to do another 4th of July video for all of them.  Last year I did an American Flag surprise inside cake, so I knew topping that would be a challenge.  What’s better than cake?  CHOCOLATE! 

In Canada we call small bars covered in chocolate “chocolate bars” but my research told me that in the States, they are called “candy bars”.  They’re the same thing though.  This candy bar uses my sugar cookie recipe for the crunchy base, and a chewy nougat for the top.  Cover the entire thing in chocolate, and you have your own giant chocolate bar!!  I found red and blue M&M’s easily (they come in the regular pack of M&M’s), but I had to order the white M&M’s off of Amazon. 

I had never experimented with making candy before this recipe, so I was a little intimidated.  Turns out, it’s only a lesson in patience!  Watching the candy thermometer slowly climb seems as effective as watching paint dry.  It takes a long time to get to 250F!!  Ok, well, maybe it was only 10 minutes, but it seemed like a long time.  The only caution I have is that the candy is HOT, so be careful. 

Since this is a chocolate bar of sorts, I strayed away from my usual candy melts, as I wanted to have a true chocolate coating.  Working with real chocolate (as opposed to the candy melts) is a little bit more tricky as the real stuff takes longer to solidify, so time in the fridge was necessary when I was shaping the sides to be vertical.  Cover, swipe sides, fridge, repeat.

When you’re ready to serve your guests, slice off a piece of the candy bar, and each person will get their own American flag!

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Filed Under: Holiday Baking, Other Baked Goodies, Tutorials, Videos Tagged With: 4th of July, 4th of July dessert, American flag dessert, American Flag M&M, blue, candy bar, chocolate, chocolate bar, forth of July cake, forth of July dessert, red, red white blue, USA, USA bar, USA cake, USA dessert, white, white M&M's

How to Make Chocolate Tacos

May 17, 2014 by Jenn

 I thought that I liked tacos before I worked on this chocolate taco recipe. 

I LOVE tacos now!  Especially chocolate tacos . . . with ice cream, and sprinkles, and M&M’s, and chocolate chips, and marshmallows, and chocolate sauce . . . you get it!

When I was doing my research for this recipe, I encountered many recipes for hard tacos shells that were simply dipped into chocolate, and left to harden.  I thought that those would be a great salty/sweet combination, but I wanted a taco with a FULL chocolate shell.  This chocolate taco shell is so chocolatey that you need the ice cream combination to settle it down!!  That is, if something being “super chocolatey” is a problem for you.  I loved it. 

Making the chocolate shells is a bit time consuming, but if you have an assembly line of set up prepared, you’ll be flying through the process.  The chocolate shells harden and are relatively delicate, but most of mine stayed together and survived cracking.  I only had one casualty . . . I missed the wooden spoon and it dropped into the bowl. 

When dipping the shells into the melted chocolate make sure that you have a large container for dipping.  I went immediately to sprinkles (because they make me HAPPY!), but I think that crushed up Oreo’s or peanuts would be delicious too!  You could add peanut butter cups, or crushed Oreo’s as the toppings as well. 

Try using frozen yogurt and fresh fruit if you’re looking for a more healthier dessert.  Strawberries and bananas would go fabulously with the chocolate shells.  There are so many possibilities!!  Let me know in the comments section what flavour combination you would like best.

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Filed Under: Cookies, Other Baked Goodies, Tutorials, Videos Tagged With: chocolate, chocolate taco, Chocolate Tacos, dessert, dessert taco, ice cream, sweet taco, taco

Neapolitan Checkerboard Cake

March 22, 2014 by Jenn

Hello world, it’s nice to see you again!  I’ve been in the crawl space of our “basement” for the last two days, while we have been cutting cement, digging cement, carrying cement, and digging dirt out of two trenches so we can protect the house from water damage.  Water has been coming in the basement every time the snow melts, which has been about 5851456 times this winter, and every time it rains. It’s looking like we have one more day to be down in the dungeon to lay gravel and pipes, and then we should be finished.  For now.  There are a couple more things to do, but my brain can’t handle the thought of crawling on my knees for much longer. 

 

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Filed Under: Cakes Tagged With: cake, checkerboard, checkerboard cake, chocolate, chocolate cake, Neapolitan, Neapolitan cake, strawberry, strawberry cake, surprise cake, surprise inside, surprise inside cake, three layer cake, vanilla, Vanilla Cake

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cake: Reeses Cake

February 8, 2014 by Jenn

This cake is a chocolate peanut butter lovers dream.  If you need more convincing than that, feel free to keep on reading, but if you’re sold, just skip to the recipe and video!

Peanut butter is something that I cannot live without.  I have it for breakfast, I have it for a snack with celery, I have it on my frozen yogurt.  I love it.  If I suddenly woke up one day with a peanut allergy.  I would be crushed!  My school is a peanut free facility, and thankfully for parents there are lots of peanut-free peanut butters.  Um, what?  Peanut butter sans peanuts.  I’m glad I’m not five and having to eat that!  I can’t imagine that it tastes very good . . . maybe I’ll just have to ask one of my kids if I can have a bite of their sandwich and try it.  Hahahahahaha.  I wouldn’t, don’t worry. 

I can remember loving Reece’s Peanut Butter cups as a child but now, I don’t really care for them because I’ve had many peanut butter and chocolate themed desserts that are better.  We’re talking buckeyes, mousse cups, fudge, cookies, brownies, pies!  So many choices.  When I set out to make this recipe, I wanted it to be completely over the top, encompassing all of my favourite aspects of each of these peanut butter chocolate recipes.  I wanted the peanut butter flavour to be light, fluffy, inside and outside of the cake.  I wanted it to be dripping chocolate!  I wanted it to be pretty and I wanted it to be tasty.  I definitely achieved my goals with this cake! 

 

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Filed Under: Cakes Tagged With: chocolate, chocolate peanut butter, chocolate peanut butter cake, chocolate peanut butter ganache, ganache, Mousse, peanut butter, peanut butter cup cake, peanut butter cups, peanut butter ganache, peanut butter mousse, reece's, reece's cake, reece's peanut butter cup cake, reece's peanut butter cups, Reeses Cake

How to Make a Box of Chocolate Cupcakes for Valentine’s Day

January 21, 2014 by Jenn

What would you say is the most stereotypical Valentine’s day present to give?  Flowers?  Candy?  Jewellery?  CHOCOLATES?  According to my research on amazon, people even give perfume!  What a thoughtful gift . . . I love you but you could smell better.

Well, I thought that playing on the idea of giving chocolates as the most popular Valentine’s Day gift to give (not determined by any research!), I would make a box of chocolate CUPCAKES instead.   The cupcakes look like a box of regular holiday treats, but upon closer inspection, you realize they’re so much better and they’re in cupcake form!  By the way, if your “sweetheart” gives you candy, leave him.  You can get that stuff at the dollarstore.  I would know . . . it’s where I bought some of the ingredients for the Box of Chocolate Cupcakes I made.  Note to self:  don’t shop at the dollarstore and then tell people.  Oops.  

Do you think Valentine’s Day is overrated?  Commercialized to the point of nausea?   It seems as though the second that the Christmas decorations are put away, the stores are filling the shelves with pink and red Valentine paraphernalia.  I guess they all have to make their quota’s, or whatever it is stores do.  As do people on YouTube, which is why we have a Valentine’s day video going live in January.  Oops again. 

What is happening here?  I think they had me at “Cupid Corn”.  How I could I resist THAT!?!? 

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Filed Under: Cakes, Cupcakes, Holiday Baking Tagged With: box of chocolates, box of cupcakes, chocolate, chocolate cupcakes, valentine, valentine chocolate, valentine cupcake, valentine's cupcakes, valentine's day

Melted Snowman Smores Cookies

December 13, 2013 by Jenn

The melted snowman cookie and cupcake has been making it’s rounds around the internet for quite awhile now.  Being that it is such a cute idea, I knew I had to do it, but I wanted to make sure that I had my own spin on it.  So instead of simply making a melted snowman, I thought that a SMORES version of it would be fabulous!  It may not be summer, but nothing goes better with warm gooey marshmallows than chocolate!  

 

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Triple Chocolate Mousse Cake Recipe

November 12, 2013 by Jenn

If you are a chocolate lover (like me) you are going to DIE for this recipe.  When I took this cake to the staff room at school, one of my coworkers said it was the best cake she had ever had.  I brought three of these cakes in, and they were gone in a day.  That’s gotta be a record somehow!  Each layer of the mousse has a unique flavour.  The bottom is a light, flourless chocolate cake with a hint of espresso.  The espresso brings out the richness of the chocolate, so make sure that you don’t leave it out.  The middle is melt in your mouth delicious.

This cake is time consuming, so make sure you have lots of time for each layer to set and/or cool as needed.  You want it to be completely set before you cut it, or you won’t have the layers set enough for them to stay standing up.  It’s definitely worth the effort, so don’t let the time turn you off.

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Filed Under: Cakes, Tutorials, Videos Tagged With: cake, chocolate, chocolate cake, Chocolate Mousse, Mousse, mousse cake, triple chocolate, triple chocolate mousse cake

Chocolate Macarons with a Nutella Filling

October 24, 2013 by Jenn

Macarons have been on my baking bucket list for forever!  They are something that as soon as I saw them, I knew I had to learn how to make them.  So about a year ago, I decided I would try.  I NEVER fail at baking.  Ever.  I’ve failed at decorating many times, but the actual baking process has always been successful for me.

I failed at making macarons.  THREE times.  THREE!  How can an experienced baker, FAIL at something so little and cute?  It has to be easy.  Well, after experimenting with recipes three (did I mention that) different times, I finally found one that worked!  On the first try.

So as a gift to you, I am sharing it!  Happy day!

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Filed Under: Cookies, Tutorials, Videos Tagged With: chocolate, Chocolate Macarons, cookies, freanch Macarons, Macaron recipe, Macarons, Nutella
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