Category Archives: Chocolate

Neptune brownies

View from my front door

This weekend brought another 16-plus inches of snow to the Boston area and So. Much. Shoveling. I thought brownies would be a slightly different twist on my tradition of baking during storms that start with “N” in February…see my recipes for Nika cookies (oatmeal chocolate chip pecan) and Nemo cookies (chocolate chip pecan). I mean, how can you resist a recipe that calls itself “the best brownies in the world.” After these, I’m not sure I will ever be able to go back to brownie mixes!

Neptune brownies

Ingredient prep

Serves: about 16
Source: Tasty Eats at Home and Cravings of a Lunatic via Pinterest

Ingredients
1 stick (1/2 cup) butter
2 ounces unsweetened chocolate
1 cup sugar
2 eggs, beaten
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup semi-sweet mini chocolate chips
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

2. Line an 8 x 8 baking pan with parchment paper. 

Delish!


3. In a medium saucepan melt the butter and unsweetened chocolate over low heat, stirring constantly.

4. Remove from heat and add the sugar. Stir well. Add eggs and vanilla, and stir until smooth.

5. Add chocolate chips, flour, and salt. Stir until well blended.

6. Pour into pan and place in oven. Bake for 35-45 minutes until done (when a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean).

7. Remove pan from oven and cool on a wire rack before cutting.



Pumpkin chocolate chip bread

Pumpkin bread!

It was a perfect morning for baking, especially something pumpkin-y. I tried to use the baking attachment on my Ninja, but since the recipe made two loaves, the bowl of the food processor only had the capacity for the wet ingredients. It made quick work of mixing those up, and then I mixed the wet and dry ingredients the old-fashioned way.

I only have one loaf pan so I made one loaf of bread and 12 muffins. For the bread, it was hard to tell when it was done. The edges looked a little overdone while the middle was still undercooked. My oven tends to run a little hot, so I was checking on it periodically and ended up pulling out at just around 60 minutes. I really hope it’s not overcooked because I’m giving it as a birthday gift. 

On a side note, my place smelled amazing for hours!


Ninja, pre-mixing

Pumpkin chocolate bread
Source: adapted from My Baking Addiction
Makes: 2 loaves or 24 muffins

Ingredients
1 (15-ounce) can pumpkin puree
4 eggs
3/4 cup canola oil
3/4 cup water
1 Tbsp vanilla extract
2 cups sugar
3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp kosher salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp allspice
1/2 tsp cloves
1 (12-ounce) bag semi-sweet chocolate chips

Directions

Ninja, post-mixing

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour two 8.5 x 4 x 2.5 inch loaf pans or two 12-cup muffin pans.
2. In a large bowl, combine pumpkin, eggs, oil, water, vanilla, and sugar. Mix with electric mixer (or use stand mixer) until well blended.
3. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, and cloves.
4. Slowly add the dry ingredients into the pumpkin mixture and stir until just blended. Fold in chocolate chips.
5. Pour batter into the prepared pans and bake for 60-70 minutes (bread) or 17-20 minutes (muffins) or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Chocolate zucchini muffins

Be careful what you wish for…since I haven’t been getting zucchini in my CSA, my friend donated a zucchini from her garden to my mission (to make these chocolate zucchini muffins). However comma, this was no ordinary zucchini…she super-sized it, and I still have half of it left!

Foot-long zucchini

I’ve had this recipe for a few years, and it has become my secret weapon against zucchini. I’m a big fan of the spiciness from the nutmeg, cloves, and cardamom. I have made a few changes: decreased the sugar, substituted applesauce for half of the oil, and added chocolate chips. I also usually do a mix of white and whole-wheat flour. I ran out of paper liners making this batch and the muffins that did not have liners burned a bit, unfortunately.

A six-pack of muffins for my coworkers

Chocolate zucchini muffins
Source: allrecipes.com
Makes: 24 muffins

Ingredients
3 eggs
1 1/2 cups white sugar
1/2 cup canola oil
1/2 cup applesauce
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups grated zucchini
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/4 tsp ground cardamom
1 cup chocolate chips

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Line two 12 cup muffin tins with paper liners.
2. In a large bowl beat the eggs. Beat in the sugar, applesauce, and oil. Add the cocoa, vanilla, zucchini, and stir well.
3. Stir in the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, nutmet, cloves, and cardamom. Mix until just moist (yup I don’t even like typing that word), then fold in the chocolate chips.
4. Pour batter into prepared muffin tins filling 2/3 of the way full. Bake at 325 degrees F for 15-17 minutes. Remove from pan and let cool on a wire rack. Store loosely covered.
5. Enjoy!

Spicy flourless chocolate cake

What Jerel’s cooking this week!

Hot off the Valentine’s Day presses, here’s a recipe that is Jerel-tested and Kendrin-approved. I hope everyone had a lovely Valentine’s Day, and if it was lame for whatever reason (poor planning, no planning, filler flowers, etc), perhaps this cake can make up for any missteps from yesterday. Chocolate can make everything better.

Spicy Flourless Chocolate Cake
Serves: 8 (it’s that rich!)
Source: I modified Emeril’s recipe (which looked a bit too tame)

Ingredients
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2-3 Tablespoons cayenne pepper (be brave!). If you want to go Emeril-style, use ancho chili powder instead and omit the cinnamon and nutmeg
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 to 1 tsp sea salt
8 ounces dark chocolate, chopped (I used 72% Cacao chocolate, and even grated in some 100% cacao from tablets my parents gave me for Christmas)
2 sticks unsalted butter, plus a small pad for the pan
1 cup of sugar (I used evaporated cane juice from TJ’s)
6 eggs, separated

Directions
1. Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Butter a 9-inch springform pan. Line bottom and sides with parchment paper and butter those, too. Can also dust some cocoa on the paper.

3. Sift or whisk together the cocoa, cayenne, cinnamon, and nutmeg

4. Over a double-boiler melt the chopped chocolate (+/- the extra cacao) and the butter

5. Whisk the cocoa powder mix into the molten chocolate. Add at least 1/2 tsp of salt.

6. In a separate bowl, whisk together egg yolks and 1/2 cup sugar until it’s a pretty pale yellow.

7. Carefully whisk the molten chocolate into the egg yolks. Add more salt to taste (I’m a fan of sea salt + dark chocolate, so I added an additional 1/2 tsp). You can also adjust the cayenne here to your taste (so you might want to start with just 2 tbs, then increase it up to 3 if you want it spicier). This mix should taste sweet at the start, then have a hot aftertaste.

8. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until they form soft peaks. Whisk in about 1/4 cup of sugar. Beat the whites. Add the rest of the sugar and beat until it forms a soft meringue.

9. Carefully fold the chocolate mixture into the meringue. Don’t lose any of the volume!

10. Transfer batter to pan and bake for about 45 minutes. Check the cake at 40 (that’s when mine was ready). The sides should be set but the middle should still be MOIST. A few crumbs will still stick to the cake tester.

11. Cool on a wire rack before removing from the pan. You can dust this with some more cinnamon and/or powder sugar, or even some whipped cream.