A week ago, my mom and sister spent the weekend at my apartment. While they were here we baked about ten different recipes, some to send as care packages for friends and family and some we made just for us. Among the products we made were two great desserts made with chocolate, that I thought I’d share with you.

The first one we made was an old favorite, chocolate brownies. A specialty of my mom’s. This is an easy recipe that comes on the back of Baker’s chocolate boxes, all you need to do is to microwave butter and chocolate together until melted and stir in sugar, eggs, vanilla, and flour. We normally then bake our brownies in a 13×9 in. pan, but since we had cute Valentine’s Day mini baking cups (from Sur La Table) we decided to make brownie bites-which are a perfect poppable size. Since we changed the brownie size, it is important to keep an eye on these guys since they are much smaller, it took 10-15 min. in my oven to bake. Once cooled, we then packed them in small clear bags for care packages.

My sister is responsible for finding the recipe for Tyler Florence’s chocolate banana bread. The combination of cocoa powder, melted bittersweet chocolate, and bananas makes this my favorite banana bread recipe. Since we were giving these loaves away we baked them in four mini loaf paper molds that we also found at Sur La Table. This bread baked up beautifully, with a crackly rustic top. When the loaves cooled we wrapped them in plastic wrap and packed them in clear plastic bags to keep them as fresh as possible.

The weekend spent with my mom and sister was one of the best weekends I’ve had at my apartment. It was amazing how much we accomplished, it was so much fun! I hope you try these recipes, especially if you like chocolate!

Baker’s One Bowl Brownies

4 squares BAKER’S Unsweetened Chocolate

3/4 cup  (1-1/2 sticks) butter

2 cups sugar

3   eggs

1 tsp. vanilla

1 cup  flour

PREHEAT oven to 350°F. Line 13×9-inch baking pan with foil, with ends of foil extending over sides of pan. Grease foil. (Or line muffin tin with baking cups)

MICROWAVE chocolate and butter in large microwaveable bowl on HIGH 2 min. or until butter is melted. Stir until chocolate is completely melted. Stir in sugar. Blend in eggs and vanilla. Add flour; mix well. Spread into prepared pan.

BAKE 30 to 35 min. or until wooden toothpick inserted in center comes out with fudgy crumbs. (Do not overbake.) Cool in pan on wire rack. Remove brownies from pan, using foil handles. Cut into squares. Store in tightly covered container at room temperature. (Bake 10-15 if using mini muffin pan)

Chocolate Banana Bread (Tyler Florence)
Makes 1 loaf (or 4 mini loaves)

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened, plus more for the pan
2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon kosher salt
4 ounces bittersweet chocolate, melted
2 large eggs
3 very ripe bananas
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 350˚F. Butter a 9 x 5-inch loaf pan. Mix together the flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl. In another bowl, cream the butter until lightened, then beat in the chocolate, eggs, bananas, and vanilla. Stir in the dry ingredients just until combined; do not overbeat.

Pour the batter into the loaf pan and bake until a toothpick stuck into the center of the bread comes out almost clean, 50 to 60 minutes.  Transfer the pan to a rack and cool for at least 15 minutes before unmolding.

Post from: Eat My Blog

What I’ve Been Up To: Chocolate Desserts

The first thing that I did to make this cake  was draw out a diagram of how I wanted it to look inside and out. It’s dorky, but it helps! I also wrote out a list of the components of the cake and a timeline for when they needed to be completed as a guideline for production. I also decided to make my own addition to the cake: raspberry jam (to cut the richness of the cake and buttercream).

Once I had done that, I set out to find the recipes I would use for the cakes and the buttercream icing. After researching I decided to use Martha Stewart’s recipes for chocolate and vanilla cake and a tradtional buttercream recipe from the Magnolia Bakery cook book. Since this cake was going to be six tiers high, i thought it was best to make the cakes a smaller size and used 6 in. cake pans instead of the more common 9 in. cake size. This created a cake that had a really cute appearance, especially when placed on my small pink cake stand. (The recipes made more cake than I needed so instead of wasting the batter, I baked some cupcakes)

So the Friday before Annie’s birthday party I baked each of the three cakes, let them cool, cut off the tops to even them out, sliced them in half and wrapped each one individually to freeze until the next day (so they wouldn’t dry out). I also made a fresh batch of raspberry jam and refrigerated it until I was ready for assembly of the cake.

On Saturday, with most of the components already completed, I mixed a double batch of buttercream and set out to assemble the cake. With the aid of my diagram and my great sous chef, I started icing and layering the cake on top of a cardboard cake round. First layer down was vanilla, then I piped on some pink buttercream. Then it was topped with pink vanilla and an outer ring of buttercream (or moat- to prevent jam from leaking) and jam inside, then topped with chocolate cake. After that, I just repeated the process until all six of my tiers had been layered. I then covered the outside of the cake with two layers of buttercream and let it rest in the refrigerator before decorating.

To decorate the cake I piped vertical lines of frosting a half inch apart down the sides of the cake. At the end of each line I placed a pink draget (decorative sugar ball) and also used them to decorate the top. I was happy with the result of the cake. It was really fun to make and I was really happy to make it for Annie!

Post from: Eat My Blog

What I’ve Been Up To: Annie’s Birthday Cake