ROUND FIVE REBUTTAL: Mini Cakes

OK, to finish a rather decadent round of Foodie Wars, I give you my Mini Cakes. Yes, they are the smaller, more albino cousin of the yummy cakes Susan and Beth baked up. The reason for the petite-ness is that my husband and I are trying very hard to watch what we eat and I wanted to make something small so I didn’t feel bad about eating it.

Mini Cakes
Yields ½ Dozen

1 ¼ c. flour
½ t. baking soda
½ t. salt
½ c. butter melted (1 stick)
½ c. brown sugar firmly packed
¼ c. white sugar
1 egg
1 T. vanilla extract
jumbo chocolate chips

Combine flour, baking soda and salt and set aside. In a mixer, mix butter and sugars until creamy. Add egg and vanilla and mix some more. Slowly add the flour mixture until you have a nice batter. In a lightly greased muffin pan, fill the muffin ‘holes’ or whatever they are called about ¼ the way up. Do one at a time. Place 6 or 7 jumbo chocolate chips in the center of the batter. Don’t press them down. Then cover the chocolate chips with a spoonful of batter and move onto the next ‘hole’. Bake for 25 minutes at 350 degrees.

ROUND FIVE REBUTTAL: Gainesville Chocolate Lava Souffle

I know that playing fast and loose with baking recipes does not generally yield good results. Whereas cooking is pretty abstract and substituting X for Y and goofing around with proportions and measurements will usually not result in total disaster, baking is chemistry. You get the formula wrong and it is likely that your product will literally blow up in your face. The Baking Fates were smiling upon me today, my friends.

I started with a recipe similar to Susan's except it yielded four cakes instead of six (because single girl + house full of chocolate cake = bad idea). This recipe also called for super fancy dark chocolate, which I did not have. So I decided to make do with my store-brand semisweet chocolate chips and intensify the chocolatey-ness with cocoa powder, instant coffee, and bourbon. Behold, Gainesville Chocolate Lava Souffle:1/2 C butter

4 oz semisweet chocolate chips
1 T cocoa powder
1 T bourbon
1 t instant coffee
2 eggs
2 egg yolks
1/4 C sugar
2 T flour

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

Melt butter and chocolate chips together in microwave (1 minute, stir, then another 30 seconds - I'm way too lazy for a double boiler). Add cocoa powder, bourbon, and instant coffee and mix completely into chocolate.

In a stand mixer, beat eggs, egg yolks, and sugar on high speed until light-colored and thick (this took about 5 minutes on highest setting on Kitchenaid mixer). Turn mixer down a couple notches and stream in chocolate mixture (the eggs will deflate a bit when the warm chocolate is added, but that's okay). Put mixer on lowest setting, add flour and mix just until combined. Divide batter among four four-ounce ramekins and bake 7-8 minutes. The souffles will rise an inch or so out of the ramekins but the middles will still look shiny and jiggly.

Remove from oven, let sit a minute or two and then tip onto serving plates, setting them upright again as quickly as you can. Dust with confectioner's sugar and serve immediately (with LARGE glasses of cold milk)!

ROUND FIVE: Sinfully Decadent Desserts

Valrhona Chocolate Cake

I've had the pleasure of having Valrhona Chocolate Cake three times at the California Grill at Disney's Contemporary Resort. Each time that I've had it, it has been paired with a different sorbet or ice cream. The first time it was along side cherry sorbet (pictured above), the next was strawberry ice cream and the last time was blood orange sorbet (my personal favorite). I wasn't able to procure a blood orange here in Panama City so I decided to be a purist and serve vanilla ice cream with my Valrhona Chocolate Cake. I hope you enjoy it as much as I have...and will continue to for the rest of the week! Yum!

Here is my "beauty plate" as they say on The Next Food Network Star.

The name of this cake comes from the chocolate that was originally used in the dessert. I haven't been in France lately to buy any Valrhona chocolate so I used 60% Cacao Ghirardelli Bittersweet Chocolate instead.

5 1/2 oz of chocolate

11 T unsalted butter, cut into cubes

3 large eggs

3 large egg yolks

1/4 c plus 2 T sugar

5 T all-purpose flour

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Butter and flour six 6-oz ceramic ramekins. In a double boiler, melt the chocolate and the butter until smooth. Set aside to cool.

Using an electric mixer (stand would be easier than trying to balance everything while using a handheld mixer like I did), beat eggs, yolks and sugar in a bowl until lighter in color and thicker (5 minutes or so). Gradually add flour. Add chocolate and continue to beat until glossy. Divide the mixture among the prepared ramekins. Bake until set around the edges but center moves slightly when ramekin is moved. Cool slightly and run a sharp knife around the edge of the ramekin. Turn out onto plate and serve with ice cream.

This recipe was developed by Chef JoJo Vongerichten and appeared in the June 1992 issue of Bon Appetit (pg. 102). I changed a few things here and there but wanted to give credit to whom it was due.

ROUND TWO REBUTTAL: Chocolate Mousse & Caramel Trifle

Okay, so I didn't get too crazy with this one. I have a dinner party tonight for which I'm supposed to provide dessert, so I didn't want to chance making a huge gamble, tossing the result in the azalea bush and bringing a Publix pie to the party.

I know first-hand that Susan's Brownie Trifle is a home run, so I only changed it slightly. Here goes:

Chocolate Mousse & Caramel Trifle

1 recipe brownies (homemade or from mix, whatever)
1 recipe chocolate pudding (the large box)
1 container whipped topping
1/2 bag of Heath Bits o' Brickle (b/c I'm too lazy to crush Heath bars)
1 recipe caramel sauce (recipe below or just use a jar of caramel topping)

Fold whipped topping into chocolate pudding to create chocolate mousse. Crumble brownies into a bowl and alternate layers of brownie, caramel, brickle, and mousse.

Caramel Sauce:

1/2 C sugar
1/2 packed brown sugar
3/4 C water
1/4 C yogurt, heavy cream, or sour cream (I used sour cream)
1 t vanilla extract

Place in heavy saucepan, bring to boil over medium heat. Boil, WITHOUT STIRRING, for about 10-12 minutes and remove from heat. Let cool and stir in yogurt/heavy cream/sour cream and vanilla.

I even took a bunch of pictures for this one, but I'm an idiot and can't figure out how to upload them so that they're not the size of a postage stamp and aligned to the right. Oh well.

ROUND TWO REBUTTAL: Toffee Blondies

Once I saw Susan's Heath Bar Trifle, I knew that I was going to have to put together something good. I immediately thought of brownies, but then I thought, why not make blondies with toffee and chocolate chips! So that is what I did. Trouble was that the toffee bits seemed to have melted while baking so there are no crunchy toffee pieces in the blondie, yet the whole blondie has a toffee flavor. Another problem I ran into was that chocolate chips seemed to have gone straight to the bottom while baking. But overall, it was a good experiment, and the blondies tasted good.

Toffee Blondies

1 c. flour
½ t. baking powder
½ t. salt
1/8 t. baking soda
1 c. brown sugar
1 stick butter melted
1 egg
½ t. vanilla extract
½ c. toffee bits
½ c. chocolate chips

Mix flour, baking powder, salt and baking soda together in a bowl. Set aside. In a mixing bowl, mix melted butter and brown sugar. Once mixed, add egg and vanilla. Slowly add the flour mixture to the butter mixture. Once a nice batter is formed, add toffee bits and chocolate chips. Pour batter into a greased 8”x 8” baking pan and bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes. These would be darn good with some vanilla ice cream.

ROUND TWO: Chocolate Heath Bar Trifle

I took this creation to my MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) meeting yesterday and I won best dish! There was some pretty stiff completion up on that buffet table too. I must admit that I took it two years ago and walked away with the same award. Let's see what my fellow Bloggin' Beauties can do to this one! It's a crowd pleaser...or at least it's a women who-are-sleep-and -chocolate-deprived pleaser!

Chocolate Trifle
Brownies- I use a box mix and follow the instructions and bake it in a 9x9 pan. After they cool, I cut the brownies into about 1 inch cubes.

Chocolate pudding- I use the big box of Jello Chocolate pudding and follow the directions for a pie filling. It's just less milk so the pudding is thicker.

1 tub of Cool Whip

Heath Candy Bar pieces- I haven't been able to find the large size Heath bars lately so I've been using the mini bars. I bought mine at Target and I've seen them at Publix too. I used about half of the bars in the bag. You can either put them in the food processor to crunch them up or put them in a heavy duty Ziploc and hit them with a rolling pin...good to get out frustration too!

Layer 1/2 of the brownies in a clear bowl (it looks neat when it's finished that way), followed by 1/2 the pudding mixture, 1/2 the Heath bar bits, and half of the Cool Whip. Then repeat the layers.

I didn't think to take a picture of it before I left yesterday morning but here is what I came back home with!

Get it...everyone liked it so much they licked the bowl clean!

ROUND ONE REBUTTAL: Rimocha

You are wondering what in the world I am talking about right...rimocha? I will tell you right now it is something I just made up. I am going out on a limb on this one, but I think it's pretty good. I felt pressured to post my recipe this evening because Susan and Beth were totally on the ball with theirs. So, I thought to myself, its 10:30 pm ET, all I have is regular coffee to tinker around with and with that being the case, I would be up to at least 3:00 am from the caffeine. I looked in my refrigerator and low and behold, I had half a container of ricotta cheese left from making Susan's Chicken Capri. So I had a thought.


Rimocha
(single serving)

½ c. part skim ricotta cheese
2 t. cocoa powder
½ t. instant coffee grounds
3 packets of splenda
mini chocolate chips for a topping

Mix all ingredients together. Sprinkle chocolate chips on top. That's it!

ROUND ONE REBUTTAL: Peppermint Mocha Coffee

This is my take on Starbucks Peppermint Mocha Latte, which I was introduced to last Christmas. I don't have the time, money or gumption to go to Starbucks every time the mood strikes me for for one of these. Can you imagine me throwing two children into a mini-van, driving to Starbucks while they sing "it's a small world," putting said children in a double stroller and hauling that into the tiny Panama City Starbucks! I think not! For those without money or time...I give you Susan's Peppermint Mocha Coffee!

1 cup brewed coffee (8 oz)
2 oz milk (or coffee creamer)
2 tsp cocoa powder
2 T peppermint simple syrup (recipe follows)

Peppermint Simple Syrup
1 cup water
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 tsp peppermint extract
Bring the mixture to a simmer until all the sugar is dissolved. Let cool and put in a container in the refrigerator.

I don't have a picture either because Susan doesn't do caffeine after...um...3pm. Must be genetic, right Beth? This just in...I took a picture of my coffee this morning so all could view it's chocolate, caffeine wonderness!

ROUND ONE: LET'S GET THIS PARTY STARTED RIGHT!

Okay, so I brought it up in the rules, so I'm probably asking for it. Stand back, Bobby Flay, because Beth is about to...THROW DOWN!

Iced Mocha Cofferino

2 t instant coffee
1 T granulated sugar
1/2 t cocoa powder
3 T hot water

Dump all in a small jar with lid (or without lid, if you happen to hate your kitchen walls). Shake it like a Polaroid (R) picture.

Dump over glassful of ice. Fill to top with milk and stir. Drink. Then ask yourself...why do people pay $4 for this at a drive-thru? Darn tasty, though - am I right? RIGHT???

Yeah, I don't have a picture. Because it's 9:15 pm and Beth does not deal well with caffeine after 6pm. Sad but true.