Ice Cream Filled Dutch Chocolate Cupcakes

right outta the freezer - still a little frosty!

I scream, you scream, we all scream for…cupcakes? Well yes, when they’re filled with ice cream! After making some cupcakes for my friend’s birthday a few days ago, I caught the cupcake bug. This time yellow cupcakes wheren't going to cut it. I finally decided on Dutch chocolate cupcakes with an ice cream filling - mint chip ice cream, to be exact - but you could use any flavor you want. (I think next time I’d try coffee ice cream). But for now, I’ve got 18 of these lil puppies sitting in my freezer. At least they keep for about 3 months! Warning: any visitor at my apartment will be force-fed these cakes. They take up a lot of room in there! Visitors, welcome!

For the cupcakes:

1 cup (two sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1-1/2 cup self-rising flour
4 tablespoons Dutch-process cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking powder
4 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

For the Filling:

1 pint of your favorite ice cream flavor

For the Icing

1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
2/3 cup heavy cream

In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, cocoa and baking powder, and set it aside. Next, fill your cupcake tins with 18 paper liners. Set that aside as well.

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

In a large mixing bowl, using an electric mixer, cream together your softened butter and sugar until it is light and fluffy (about 2 to 3 minutes). Add in the eggs and vanilla until well incorporated. Dump in 1/3 of the flour mixture, blend and repeat by adding 1/3 at a time until all the flour is used.

Next pour the batter into the paper liners and bake the cakes for about 20 minutes. A tooth pick inserted into the center of the cakes should come out clean. That’s when you know they're done!

Allow the cupcakes to cool to room temperature, and then store them in Tupperware containers. I found it useful to put the cakes in the refrigerator to make them a bit more firm. This will be important for the next steps: hollowing and filling!

Using a paring knife held at a 45 degree angle, gently carve out a cone-shaped piece of cake from the center of each cupcake. Eat the crumbs or discard them. Allow your ice cream to soften on the counter for a few minutes. Drop spoonfuls of softened ice cream into the holes in the cupcakes. Place the ice cream-filled cupcakes in the freezer for about a half an hour to allow the ice cream to re-harden.

In the meantime, melt the chocolate chips and the cream in a microwave safe bowl. It will only take about 2 bursts of 30 seconds each to melt the chocolate. You may need to mix the cream/chocolate for a few minutes to thoroughly incorporate the two. The mixture may look a little thin at first, but it will thicken as it cools.

Now, remove the ice cream cakes from the freezer. Cover the top of the ice cream and cakes with the melted chocolate. Return them back to the Tupperware and freeze again. These will last about 3 months - tightly covered - in your freezer.

(recipe modified from 500 Cupcakes by Fergal Connolly)

Yellow Cupcakes with Chocolate Buttercream

Happy Belated Birthday, Melissa! It’s a little late in coming (about two weeks), but we finally got together for dinner to celebrate last night. Since everyone knows that cupcakes make the best appetizers (wink), I told Melissa to pick whatever cupcake she wanted, and I’d bring them over before dinner. She had all the choices in the world, but she chose a classic – yellow cupcakes with chocolate buttercream icing. So I whipped up a batch and carted them over to her place before dinner at our favorite tapas restaurant, Meze, in the West Loop. She could have killed me for bringing over a dozen of them (it was only her, her husband, and me) around to devour them before heading to dinner. Then she really could have killed me for leaving all the leftovers with her. But now she can continue to celebrate for the next few days. HAAAAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Ingredients:

1-1/4 cups flour (spooned and leveled)
1-1/4 teaspoons baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
¾ sugar
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/3 cup milk

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

Whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt in a bowl. Set it aside. Place 12 cupcake liners in your cupcake pan. Set that aside too.

Using an electric mixer, cream together the butter and sugar until it is light and fluffy. Add the eggs and vanilla and blend again to combine. Add about 1/3 of the flour mixture and blend. Then add half the milk and blend again. Continue to rotate the rest of the flour (1/3 at a time) and milk until it is thoroughly mixed.

Fill the cupcake liners until they are about 2/3rds full. Bake the cupcakes for about 18 to 20 minutes. The tops will be golden and a toothpick inserted into the centers will come out clean.

Allow the cupcakes to cool in the pans for about 5 minutes. At this point, they’ll be cool enough to handle. Remove the cupcakes from the pan and allow them to cool completely on a cooling rack.

For the Icing:

6 tablespoons butter, softened
1 cup powdered sugar
5 tablespoons cocoa powder
3 tablespoons milk
¼ cup chocolate chips

Whisk together the sugar and the cocoa powder, and set it aside. Cream the butter (either by hand or using an electric mixer). Add the sugar/cocoa and stir it in until well combined. Pour in the milk and beat together removing all the lumps. In the microwave, melt the chocolate chips and add that to the icing as well. Mix again one last time. Now you are ready to frost your cooled cupcakes. This icing recipe will be enough for your 12 cupcakes.

For Devouring:

1 bottle Cristalino Cava Brut Champagne (add more bottles, if desired)

Peanut Butter-Chocolate Chip Cookies

Hello my name is Natalie, and I’m an addict. I’ve had a sustenance abuse problem for about 20 years. My drug of choice? Peanut butter. I was a very picky eater as a kid. I would have peanut butter toast and peanut butter Cap’n Crunch cereal for breakfast every day. For lunch…always PB&J (lunchmeat still grosses me out). And for dinner, if I didn’t like what my mom was making, I’d make myself another peanut butter sandwich. Did I mention that at age 8, I had the metabolism of a cheetah?

By the time I was in 7th grade, I was getting regular migraines. Not just any migraines – blinding, vomit-inducing migraines (just what you wanted to read in a food blog, right?). The doctors ran a whole bunch of tests, but all they could attribute these down-for-the-count brain-aches (the level of pain above a headache) was my diet. As soon as I cut out peanut butter, I stopped getting migraines. I should have been happy, but I wasn’t. I missed the sweet, creamy-crunchy food of the gods. It was only in college that I took the risk and starting introducing peanut butter back into my diet. I have only one word for you: RELAPSE!

Ingredients

1 cup creamy peanut butter
½ cup white sugar
½ cup packed brown sugar
½ cup chocolate chips (I used both chocolate chips and Reese’s Pieces candies)
1 egg, beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla

(Recipe adapted from Martha Stewart’s Cookie of the Day).

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. In a mixing bowl, hand mix all your ingredients (no electric mixer necessary). Real tough, huh? The dough is pretty thick, so instead of a mixing bowl, I used an 8-cup glass Pyrex measuring bowl. It was easier to hold on to the handle while mixing.

Next, scoop out teaspoon-sized balls of dough and roll them in your hands and pat them flat - like you are making hamburger patties. Place the dough disks on parchment lined cookie sheets. Take a fork and press criss-cross indentations into the cookies. Bake for about 12 minutes. The cookies will puff-up a little and the color will be a lighter brown when they are done. Don’t expect the cookies to spread-out while they bake. Since there is no flour, they retain their shape.

When the cookies are done baking, remove the pans from the oven and allow the cookies to cool for a few minutes on the pans. If you try to move them to cooling racks right away, they will crumble and fall apart. Just be patient – I know – it’s hard for me too.

This recipe makes about 2 dozen cookies.

Cherry Almond Granola

I’m having a fatty boom-bah day. I spent this past weekend traveling to Iowa for my boyfriend’s cousin’s wedding. I should preface this by saying that I chose to give up meat for Lent. Because of this, my grab-n-go choices for meals while traveling where fried fish sandwiches or mayo-heavy tuna sandwiches. Top that off with wedding cake and you’ve got a nice little recipe for cellulite. Lovely. Why did their wedding cake have to be so darn good??!! I just couldn’t help myself!

After a super fun wedding, I still wasn’t nearly as exhausted as I should have been and decided I was in the mood to bake. This is obviously not an uncommon feeling, but I just couldn’t bring myself to start measuring sugar and butter (now THAT is uncommon). I was flipping through my new Real Simple magazine and came across a granola recipe. It claimed to be “Easy Granola.” Perfect. I think the hardest part of the whole thing was walking to the grocery store to get the old fashioned oats and coconut I didn’t have. I like this recipe because it doesn’t use a lot of sugar. You get the sweetness from your maple syrup – yes I realize that is in fact sugar – and the coconut. But it has significantly less sugar than a store-bought granola. PLUS you can pronounce all the ingredients. Score!

Ingredients

4 cups old-fashioned rolled oats (not quick oats)
1 cup sliced almonds
½ cup flaked coconut (use unsweetened, if available)
¼ cup pepitas or shelled sunflower seeds
½ cup real maple syrup OR use 3/4 cup honey
2 tablespoons canola oil
1 cup dried fruit (I had dried cherries on hand, but raisins or apricots would work well too)

(Adapted from a Sara Quessenberry recipe in Real Simple).

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

Like one-pot recipes? Well, this is a one-pan recipe. My kitchen is just big enough for a pint-sized oven, so a dishwasher is completely out of the question. I can truly appreciate a recipe that doesn’t need a thousand pots and pans.

Anyway, mix together all the ingredients directly on a rimmed baking sheet. I didn’t have a rimmed baking sheet (I had a run-in with the molten lava caramel from my caramel corn and the baking sheet had to be tossed. It was a sad day). Instead, I just used a cake pan. This worked fine too. Once all the ingredients are well combined, pop it in the oven for 25 to 30 minutes. You’ll want to stir it about half way through to make sure it’s toasting evenly. (In my case, I stirred it 2 or 3 times…)

After you’ve removed the granola from the oven and while it’s still warm, mix in your dried fruit and allow it to cool.

There.

Done.

It’s really that easy.

Well, maybe you aren’t completely done. You’ll have to transfer the granola from your baking sheet to a zip lock plastic bag or Tupperware. Stored this way, it’ll keep for about 3 weeks.

Bailey's Chocolate Truffles

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! I’ve got another boozy recipe to help you celebrate St. Patrick’s Day: Bailey’s Truffles. So apparently, I’m on a truffle kick this month. (Yes, I'm aware I have no self control). The first batch (posted March 3rd) was just a test to see if I could even do it. Since I’ve got the basic recipe down, I felt a little cocky. How very un-Irish of me…

Anyway, I thought I’d try an alcohol-laced truffle…so here goes!

For the ganache:

8 ounces couverture chocolate in block form
¾ cup heavy whipping cream
3 tablespoons Bailey’s Irish Cream liquor
Cocoa powder (for rolling)

For the coating:

8 ounces couverture chocolate
St. Paddy’s Day sprinkles

**Chop, chop, chop all day long…chop, chop, chop while I sing this song** (Yes, I was actually humming this while I chopped all my chocolate).

Once you’ve chopped your chocolate, set it aside while you warm your cream. You don’t want the cream to come to a boil, so remove it from the heat at the first signs of bubbles. Add the chocolate to the cream and cover the pan with plastic wrap for about 5 minutes. Mix the melting chocolate into the cream. Next, fill a highball with ice and pour a few ounces of Baileys over it. Sip. (Okay, this isn’t part of the recipe, but I couldn’t resist). No seriously, once the chocolate is melted, stir in the 3 tablespoons of Bailey’s Irish Cream. Place the mixture into a separate shallow bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Allow the ganache to set overnight at room temperature. If the next day the ganache is still a little wet, pop the dish into the fridge for an hour or so until it’s firm.

Once the ganache has reached the desired consistency, roll tablespoon-sized balls of the ganache. (Coating your hands in cocoa powder helps to keep the ganache from sticking to your hands). Once you’ve made all the balls, stick them back in the refrigerator to firm them up a bit.

In the meantime, chop the other 8 ounces of chocolate (repeat song, if necessary), and melt it in a microwave-safe bowl. Drop the chilled ganache balls into the melted chocolate and coat thoroughly. Place the truffles on waxed paper and top them with sprinkles. These will set up within a few minutes. Place each truffle in a mini muffin cup, if desired.

This recipe makes about 25 truffles. Store the truffles in an airtight container for a week at room temperature. These will last longer (about 2 weeks) in the refrigerator. Just remember to bring them to room temperature before serving them so the centers are creamy.

Beer Bread

In honor of my Irish roots, I felt I needed to make an alcohol-based recipe for St. Patrick’s Day. I’ve tried to make beer bread in the past, and it’s always come out SUPER dense - more like a brick than bread. But I found this recipe on allrecipes.com. The reviews were good, so I decided to try it out. The first time I made it, my boyfriend ate two slices before we even sat down to eat dinner. I’d say it has his approval!

Ingredients

2-1/2 cups self-rising flour (spooned and leveled)
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon onion powder
3/4 teaspoon Italian seasoning
1 (12 oz.) can beer (I used good ol’ MGD – it’s all that was in the fridge)
1/4 cup butter, melted

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

Grease a standard loaf pan, and set it aside.

Measure out all your dry ingredients, and whisk them together in a large bowl. Pop the top to your favorite brewski and pour it in. Allow it to bubble and foam up. Using a spoon, mix all the ingredients together until just combined. DON’T OVER MIX. You will end up with a brick. Not appetizing-trust me.

In a microwave-safe bowl, melt the butter. Place the batter in the loaf pan and pour the melted butter over the top.

Bake it for about 45 minutes or until a knife inserted into the bread’s center comes out clean. I used a knife instead of a toothpick because 1) my boyfriend didn’t have toothpicks at his place and 2) the bread rises and is pretty deep.

Cranberry Orange Scones

I’ve been fighting off a sore throat this week, which means I’ve been drinking gallons of tea. In doing so, I’ve discovered that tea must have some hidden property that makes you crave scones. The English do have a point – they go really well together. But with my favorite holiday just around the corner, I better get my priorities straight! By St. Patrick’s Day I vow to not have a sore throat! I also vow to start drinking less tea and more beer! Erin go bragh!

Scone Ingredients

2 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 stick (8 tbsp.) cold, unsalted butter
3/4 cup orange flavored craisins
zest from one orange
1/2 cup sour cream
1 large egg

Glaze Ingredients

1 cup powdered sugar
juice from one large orange
zest from one large orange

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees.

In a large bowl, whisk together all your dry ingredients. Using a pastry blender, cut the cold butter into the dry ingredients. You know you’re on the right track when it starts to resemble coarse crumbs. Mix in your zest and craisins.

In a separate bowl, stir together the sour cream and egg until creamy. Stir in the sour cream/egg mixture into your butter/flour mixture using a fork. I found that the fork was fine to use at first, but being the super-patient person I am, I quickly tossed it aside and went at it with my hands. Don’t worry if you think the dough is too dry at first. Squeeze it, pat it, thump it if you have to – until you form a big, sticky ball.

Flour a flat surface (for those of us without granite countertops, I grabbed a large cutting board) and dust it with flour. Pat the ball of dough into a disk on this floured work surface. You’ll want it to be about ¾ to 1 inch high and about 10 to 11 inches in diameter.

Line cookie sheets with parchment paper. Do it. Trust me. Using a pizza cutter, make 8 wedges of equal size, and place the wedges on the cookie sheets a few inches apart. Bake for about 15 minutes or until the tops become golden brown.

Allow the scones to cool and then start your glaze.

Whisk together the powdered sugar and the orange juice and zest. It’s always handy to keep extra powdered sugar and another orange on hand. If the glaze is too runny, add more powdered sugar. If it is too thick, add more juice. Got it? Good.
Now, drizzle the glaze over the scones and sprinkle on additional zest, if desired.

Espresso Double Chocolate Chip Cookies

(adapted from Martha Stewart)

One cookie for you…two for me.
One cookie for you…two for me.

I planned to make these cookies and take them to work so they wouldn’t be sitting at my apartment tempting me. But I found myself hoarding them! I love coffee, but even if you aren’t a fan, you’ll still find yourself gobbling these up. The instant espresso doesn’t really make the cookies taste like coffee. It just gives the chocolate a deeper, richer flavor. I recommend that you serve them with coffee instead of milk. You know you wanted them for breakfast anyway!

Ingredients:

1 cup all-purpose flour (spooned and leveled)
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (spooned and leveled)
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter at room temperature
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon instant espresso powder (I was able to find Medaglia D'Oro Instant Espresso at my local supermarket)
1 cup bittersweet chocolate chips – ½ cup melted and 1/2 cup coarsely chopped

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt and set it aside. (I find whisking so much easier (and less messy) than sifting). Using an electric mixer, blend the room temperature butter and sugar together until fluffy. Add in one egg at a time and thoroughly combine after each addition. Then add in your vanilla and give it a good mix again.

Put the ½ cup of semi-sweet chips in a microwave-safe bowl and heat for bursts of 20 seconds. Add the espresso powder to the melted chocolate, and stir it all together. Now add the chocolate/espresso to the butter mixture and combine.

Remember the flour/cocoa mixture we set aside earlier? Grab that and add it in a third at a time to the butter/chocolate mixture. Blend thoroughly after each addition. Lastly, mix in the other half cup of semi sweet chips. (okay, I snuck a bit more than just a half cup…)

Line your cookie sheets with parchment paper and scoop out two-tablespoon size balls of dough. Bake the cookies for about 15 minutes or until the tops slightly crack. The cookies will be crispy around the edges with a chewy center.

This recipe makes about 2 dozen cookies.

Dark Chocolate Truffles

I LOVE chocolate truffles. So much so that I secretly dream of having a truffle-sniffing pig. I’d name him Earl. Yes, I do realize that these pigs are for real truffles, not the chocolate kind, but a girl can dream, right? I love white chocolate truffles, dark chocolate truffles, and all varieties in between. I love them coated in chocolate and nuts, with fruity flavors and laced with alcohol. Did I mention I love them? Just about the only thing I don’t like about them is that they are so darn expensive. Brands like Fanny May, Vosges, and Frango are my tummy’s personal favorites, but not so much my budget’s. So I figured I’d try my hand at making some at home. Now I can talk a pretty big game, but secretly I was a little intimidated. Determined, yes, but intimidated.

I quickly found out that the hardest part of making truffles is finding couverture chocolate. Even in Chicago, I was shocked at how hard I had to search. Maybe I just didn’t know where to look, but I knew I was in trouble when I couldn’t get a full pound at Whole Foods. Maybe it was the location or maybe Whole Paycheck was out to get me that day, but two days and three stores later, I finally got my mitts on some! Making truffles was actually pretty easy – you just need the right ingredients and a little time to make sure everything sets-up properly. Watch out, Fanny May! Earl and I are coming after your market share!

Ingredients:

1 lb. couverture chocolate in block form
1-3/4 cup heavy whipping cream
Cocoa powder – Dutch process or natural
Fluted paper cups (aka mini cupcake wrappers)
Possible garnishes: shaved chocolate, cocoa powder, finely chopped toasted nuts (I used pecans)

To get started, grab a sharp knife and chop the pound of chocolate finely. It felt like I was chopping for days, but the finer the chop, the easier the chocolate will melt.

Once you have a huge pile of chopped chocolate, bring the cream to a soft boil in a sauce pan over medium heat. You don’t want to burn the milk, so you’ll need to watch it fairly closely. Once the milk is almost boiling, pull the pan off the heat, add all the chopped chocolate, give it a quick stir and immediately cover the pan with plastic wrap. Let the covered pan sit for about 5 minutes, then remove the plastic wrap and stir the cream/chocolate (technically called ganache) mixture until all the chocolate is melted and the texture is silky. Grab a shallow baking dish and pour in the ganache. Again, cover it with plastic wrap and allow it to sit at room temperature overnight. If you don’t have the time, you can also put it in the fridge for about four hours.

Since you’ll have all this down time while the ganache is setting, you can toast and chop some coconut or nuts or shave some chocolate – whatever you fancy for your outer truffle coating.

Returning to the ganache the next day (or four hours later), coat your hands in cocoa powder (this keeps the ganache from sticking) and form 1 tablespoon-sized balls of ganache and place them on a cookie sheet. Once you are done making all the truffles, put the cookie sheets in the fridge for about 10 to 15 minutes to make the ganache firm again.

In the meantime, pull out the ingredients you want to use for the coatings. I used shaved chocolate, cocoa powder and toasted pecans. Once the balls of ganache are firm, roll them in the coatings and place each truffle in a fluted paper cup. If coatings like nuts do not stick immediately, roll the balls of ganache in your palm for a minute to soften the outside. You may need to apply some pressure to make sure the nuts stick to the truffle.

You can store truffles in a single layer in an air-tight container for up to a week in the refrigerator. Make sure you bring the truffles to room temperature before serving so you get the creamy consistency truffles are known for.

This recipe makes about 50-60 truffles.

Green Chile and Cheese Cornbread ala Lindley

Being the girl that I am, sometimes I find comfort in food. Today is another dreary, gray Chicago winter day. After a pretty manic start to my week, I came home from work and needed either a) an IV of Miller Lite or b) some comfort food. Since I’m not one for needles, I opted for a big pan of cornbread. But not just any cornbread - green chile and cheese cornbread. My sister will be the first to tell you that she lacks the “house wife” mentality, but she is damn good at making cornbread. I swiped this recipe from her a few months ago, hence the name of it: Green Chile and Cheese Cornbread ala Lindley. Now that’s a mouthful…no wait…I’ve got a mouthful.

1 (8.5 oz.) package of Jiffy corn muffin mix
1 (4 oz.) can of diced green chiles, drained (I use La Preferida)
1 egg
1/3 cup of milk
A few handfuls of grated cheese (yes, that’s the actual measurement)

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Spray an 8 inch x 8 inch pan with cooking spray, line the pan with foil (over the cooking spray) and then spray the top of the foil as well. Then set it aside.

Wisk the cornbread mix, egg and milk until combined. The batter will still be lumpy, but stir in the chiles and cheese and allow the mixture to rest for 5 minutes. Then pour it into your prepared pan and pop it in the oven for about 20 minutes. The top will turn golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the bread’s center should come out clean when it is done. Cut it into big squares and serve it warm. Or just go at it with a fork. There’s no shame in that...