I don't enlist the help of caterers very often. I hate to admit it but, it's partly because of my pride.😬 I'm in the food business and I feel like I should be able to handle the food for my own parties. 🌮It's also because it's not always in my budget to order food from an outside source. Not to mention the fact that I really enjoy making party food. I wouldn't have chosen a career as a caterer if I didn't love it. 💁🏻♀️ Even though it pains me to admit it, there are times when even this self-proclaimed catering superwoman needs to call in reinforcements. I don't take for granted all of my family and friends that pitch in to help every single time that I get over ambitious and get in over my head. (And trust me - it happens a lot.) 😅 But, I have to be careful not to wear out my generous team of volunteers. Hold onto your hats friends - cause your girl did something completely radical. I hired not 1 but 2 caterers to help me with a party next month! I realize that this isn't an extraordinary feat for most people, but for me - it's absolutely un-heard of. 😂 Perhaps even more astonishing is the fact that I'm completely at peace with my decision to pay for catering help because I know how much stress it will take off of me. 🤗 I actually found it really fun (and somewhat enlightening) to be on the other end of the food ordering pendulum. I quite enjoyed being the cateree instead of the caterer, for a change. (Is that a word? 😅) It forced me to look at things from a whole new perspective. I will never again question when someone orders a tray of simple dark chocolate brownies because I realize that quite honestly, sometimes a brownie really is just the perfect dessert. With that being said - please enjoy my latest dairy-free chocolate brownie recipe. It's rich and chocolatey and delicious and amazing. 🍫 Olive Oil Brownies 3/4 cup cocoa powder 1/2 teaspoon baking soda 1/4 teaspoon coarse salt 2/3 cup olive oil, divided 1/2 cup boiling water 2 cups sugar 2 large eggs 2 teaspoons vanilla extract 1 1/3 cup all-purpose flour 1 1/2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
Bake 35 minutes at 350. Cool 30 minutes in pan before slicing. Does the world really need another brownie recipe? If you ask me, the answer is a definitive, YES! Brownies make the world a better place. A rich, fudge, gooey brownie can satisfy a sweet tooth like nothing else. So here I am - putting just one more - necessary - brownie recipe out there into the world. You're welcome.
Ciao!
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Can we really be just 8 days away from Easter? Yikes! I guess it's time to hop to it and get myself in gear. 😅🐰 It will probably come as no surprise to you that we do Easter BIG in this house. 🐣Even though my kids are adults, we still have annual family egg dyeing parties. The older my kids get, the more fun it is to get creative with our egg dyeing techniques. We've used everything from shaving cream to bubble wrap to chalk to decorate our hard boiled eggs. Some of my favorite eggs were the ones we dyed with kool-aid. They tasted a little fruity but they smelled AMAZING! 😂 On Sunday morning the Easter bunny hides all the eggs for the kids to find, and every year egg hunting competition seems to get a little more intense. (It usually ends with wrestling in the front yard.) 😅 Once all the eggs have been accounted for, we get dressed in our Sunday best, go to church and then hurry home and for a great big Easter feast. 🥕 I feel like we have a traditional Easter celebration every year - minus the front yard wrestling. Easter might just be my favorite holiday. I love the weather, I love the new blooms that pop up in my yard at Easter, I love the Easter brunch/lunch and I especially love gathering up goodies to fill up baskets for everyone. This year, I've got several Easter baskets to assemble so I decided to tuck in a few homemade treats alongside the chocolate bunnies and jelly beans. My family loves biscotti so decided to up my game and make some biscotti that was "Easter basket worthy". I don't normally decorate the tops of my biscotti but this occasion just seemed to call for something a little "dressier" so here's my 2021 Easter biscotti recipe - Chocolate Peanut Butter Marbled Biscotti with a White Chocolate Peanut Butter and Dark Chocolate Top. 😋 Chocolate Peanut Butter Marbled Biscotti PEANUT BUTTER DOUGH: 3 Tablespoons butter room temperature 3 Tablespoons peanut butter ⅔ cup granulated sugar ¼ teaspoon salt 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder 1 Tablespoon vanilla extract 2 large eggs 2 cups all-purpose flour ½ cup peanut butter chips CHOCOLATE DOUGH: 6 tablespoons butter ⅔ cup granulated sugar ¼ teaspoon salt 1 Tablespoon vanilla extract 2 large eggs 1 ¾ cups all-purpose flour 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder ¼ cup Dutch-process cocoa powder 1 teaspoon espresso powder ½ cup mini chocolate chips CHOCOLATE-PEANUT BUTTER TOPPING 2 cups dark melting chocolate 1 cup white melting chocolate ¼ cup peanut butter
Bake 25 minutes at 350. Let cool 30 minutes to overnight.
Pipe stripes of alternating flavors down each biscotti. Drag a toothpick through stripes at 1/2" intervals to create a Napoleon design. Now I need to take an unofficial survey. Do you still make Easter baskets for your adult children? What do you put in them? What kinds of homemade treats do you tuck inside their baskets to be unveiled on Easter morning? Send me your ideas and suggestions. TIA
Ciao! I'm a numbers person. I am the absolute worst at remembering names but if you tell me a number - it's permanently written on my brain. For a long time, I assumed that everyone memorized their drivers license number, license plates number, credit card numbers and the phone number of the best pizza place in town. 💁🏻♀️ Like I said - I like numbers. So here are the numbers for my newest chocolate cupcakes: 10 the number of minutes that it took to consume all of these delicious cupcakes 9 the number of times I walked past these cupcakes and snatched a chocolate curl 8 the number of cupcakes that I made in a half batch 7 the number of pictures of these cupcakes that I posted on my blog 6 the number of times I said "mmmmm" while eating this cupcake 5 the minutes that I let these cool before sinking my teeth into one 4 the number of eggs that it takes to make a batch of these decadent cupcakes 3 the trifecta of chocolate in these beauties: cake, frosting and sprinkles 2 different types of chocolate are combined to make these amazing cupcakes 1 the ranking that I would give this cupcake against all other recipes I've been making chocolate cupcakes from scratch for a long time. Why change up my tried and true recipe now? In short: thecupcakeproject.com is boldly claiming that they have created the "perfect" chocolate cupcake recipe. Obviously - I had to try it for myself. 🧁 I honestly expected to find something very similar to my old standby chocolate cupcake recipe when I checked out the "perfect" chocolate cupcake recipe. I was super surprised to discover a list of ingredients that were actually quite different from my recipe. It certainly peaked my interest enough to give them a try. Chocolate Cupcakes 1 cup all-purpose flour 1/4 teaspoon salt 1/2 teaspoon baking soda 1/2 cup cocoa powder 1/4 cup butter room temperature 1 cup sugar 2 ounces chocolate 2 large eggs room temperature 2 large egg yolks room temperature 1/2 cup + 1 tablespoon canola oil 2 teaspoons vanilla extract 1/3 cup sour cream 1/2 cup water room temperature
Bake 18 minutes at 350. Frost these beauties with your favorite frosting. I chose a chocolate, whipped cream and cream cheese frosting. 😋 I decided to only make a half batch of cupcakes because - well, honestly - I have zero will power when it comes to chocolate cupcakes and I didn't trust myself to have too many sitting around the house. 😅
Ciao! They say the way to a person's heart is through their stomach. If that's true, one of the best expressions of love is to cook something special for your loved ones. Food is my love language so I naturally gravitate towards expressing my love for others with food and I don't think there's any better day to show some love through food, than on Valentine's Day. 💘 There is a longstanding tradition of giving your Valentine a box of chocolates carefully packaged into a red heart shaped box on February 14th. But if you're feeling like you want to show your love with a homemade sweet this year instead of a store bought Valentine, there's actually a whole lot treats that you can make in your very own kitchen. Just remember that your edible Valentine doesn't have to be fancy or elegant. #itsthethoughtthatcounts A simple brownie or rice crispy treat cut into a heart with a cookie cutter can make the perfect sweet treat for your favorites. If you're looking for a little Valentine culinary inspiration, I've rounded up some of the sweet treats that I've made for my valentines in years past. So for a couple who loves to dessert almost as much as we love each other, you better believe that we celebrate Valentine's Day and all the other holidays with sweet-tooth satisfying treats. 😂 Doesn't everyone eat green ice cream on St. Patrick's Day, monkey bread for breakfast on birthdays and cereal treats shaped into tiny pumpkins on Halloween? 🎃😅 We even celebrate Chinese New Year with homemade fortune cookies, so you better believe that we celebrate big on Valentine's Day. It doesn't matter how old my kids get, I will always make them homemade treats for Valentine's Day. I get it honestly - My mom still mails us a box of Valentine goodies every year. #thanksmom Our plans for V-Day are still up in the air for this year but I know that whether we end up dining in our own kitchen or going out for a meal, there will be deliciously decadent ganache filled brownies waiting for us at the end of the day. I can't think of a more perfect way to celebrate Valentine's Day. Chocolate Ganache Brownies Brownies 1/3 cup bittersweet chocolate chips 1/3 cup cocoa powder 1/2 cup boiling water 2 cups sugar 2/3 cup oil 2 eggs 2 teaspoons vanilla 1 1/3 cups flour 1/2 teaspoon salt Chocolate Ganache 1 1/3 cup bittersweet chocolate chips 1/2 cup heavy cream 1 teaspoon sea salt Chocolate Peanut Butter Ganache 1 1/3 cup chocolate chips (milk, dark or semi sweet) 1/2 cup peanut butter
Spoon 1 Tablespoon of ganache into center of each brownie. I made two different fillings for these brownies - a dark chocolate ganache and a chocolate peanut butter ganache. Choose which one you like best OR make a half batch of each, like me, so your Valentine's can choose own their filling.
Ciao! Baking is always more fun when I get to do it in someone else's kitchen --- and my mom's kitchen is one of my very favorite places to bake. She's the one who taught me to bake so it makes sense that I would find comfort in her kitchen. I spent last week at my parent's house and since the weather in Northeast Ohio was less than cooperative (aka. cold and windy) - we spent a lot of our time inside making yummy meals and scrumptious desserts. (Not so good for the waistline but oh so good for the soul.) 😉 Biscotti is one of my family's favorites. We eat it for breakfast with a cup of tea. We snack on it in the afternoon between lunch and dinner and we eat it for dessert with a cup of coffee after a big meal. Biscotti is the perfect excuse to eat cookies - all day long. Dairy free biscotti has really peaked my interest lately. Sometimes, leaving the butter out of a biscotti recipe can make the cookies super ... "crunchy". 😅(like - hard as rocks.) I've also experimented with swapping the butter for oil in my favorite recipes with only marginal success. So when I ran across this recipe for a Dairy Free Double Chocolate Biscotti - I was super excited to give it a try. Double Chocolate Chip Biscotti 3 cups all-purpose flour ½ cup cocoa powder 1½ teaspoons baking powder ¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon ¼ teaspoon salt ½ cup olive oil 1 cup packed light brown sugar 2 eggs 1 egg yolk ⅓ cup unsweetened dairy-free milk beverage 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar 1 cup dairy-free chocolate chips
Ahhhmazing. The cinnamon, the brown sugar and the balsamic vinegar all worked together to deepen the flavor of the chocolate to create a beautifully rich and decadent biscotti. I absolutely loved these chocolate biscotti and I can say with all honesty - they weren't too "crunchy". 😂
Ciao! |
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