Baking My Way: Rocky Road Fudge Bar

 I don't normally like recipes that have so many steps because when I bake I usually don't have a lot of time or patience but that's another thing I'm trying to work on with this project- take my time, and follow the steps exactly and just relax and bake. It's working out pretty well so far and I enjoyed making this. And wow, do these taste good! I've had rocky road ice cream before and didn't like it but I think that's because it wasn't pieces of the bar in chocolate ice cream (which I'm going to do because I now have an ice cream maker!!!) and I've had other people's rocky road and wasn't a huge fan but I LOVE this recipe and will most defiantly be baking this again!!


This bar gets a 5 out of 5 from me! It's now one of my favorites!

INGREDIENTS

Base

1/2 cup margarine or butter

1 oz. unsweetened chocolate, chopped

1 cup Flour

1 cup sugar

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 eggs

3/4 cup chopped nuts

Filling

1 (8-oz.) pkg. cream cheese, softened, reserving 2 oz. for frosting

1/4 cup margarine or butter, softened

1/2 cup sugar

2 tablespoons Pillsbury BEST® All Purpose or Unbleached Flour

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1 egg

1/4 cup chopped nuts

1 (6-oz.) pkg. (1 cup) semisweet chocolate chips

2 cups miniature marshmallows

Frosting

1/4 cup margarine or butter

1/4 cup milk

1 oz. unsweetened chocolate, cut up

Reserved cream cheese

3 cups powdered sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

DIRECTIONS

• Heat oven to 350°F. Grease and flour 13x9-inch pan. In large saucepan, melt 1/2 cup margarine and 1 oz. unsweetened chocolate over low heat, stirring until smooth. Remove from heat. Lightly spoon flour into measuring cup; level off. Stir in 1 cup flour and all remaining base ingredients; mix well. Spread in greased and floured pan.
• In small bowl, combine 6 oz. of the cream cheese, 1/4 cup margarine, 1/2 cup sugar, 2 tablespoons flour, 1/2 teaspoon vanilla and 1 egg; beat 1 minute at medium speed until smooth and fluffy. Stir in 1/4 cup nuts. Spread over chocolate mixture; sprinkle evenly with chocolate chips.
• Bake at 350°F. for 25 to 35 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Remove from oven; immediately sprinkle with marshmallows. Return to oven; bake an additional 2 minutes.
• While marshmallows are baking, in large saucepan, combine 1/4 cup margarine, milk, 1 oz. unsweetened chocolate and reserved 2 oz. cream cheese. Cook over low heat, stirring until well blended. Remove from heat; stir in powdered sugar and 1 teaspoon vanilla until smooth. Immediately pour frosting over puffed marshmallows and lightly swirl with knife to marble. Refrigerate 1 hour or until firm. Cut into bars. Store in refrigerator.

Recipe Source

I shared this recipe at:

Made from Scratch Tuesday

Tuesday Time Out
Tempt my Tummy Tuesdays
Slightly Indulgent Tuesday
Tasty Tuesdays
Tutorial Tuesdays
Show me what ya got 
Dr. Laura’s Tasty Tuesday
Take A Look Tuesdays
Tuesdays at the Table
Hand Made Features
Two Maids A Baking
Whatever Goes Wednesdays
Whisking Wednesdays
Sweets for a Saturday
Check Me Out Saturday
Whatcha Got Weekend
Sweet Indulgences Sunday
Savory Sunday
Sundae Scoop
A Themed Baker Sundays
Bake with Bizzy 
Not so Baaad Sundays 

Mother's Day Dessert: Vanilla Bean Cheesecake

 

I've decided I'm going to make this for Mother's Day this year. We're going to have a BBQ and well, it's not exactly the dessert you'd have at a BBQ but this is my Mother-in-laws favorite dessert and I know my mom will love it so I'm going to give it a go! I'll be sure to post all about it and all the other great food we have! 

 

Ingredients (Recipe adapted from All Recipes)

• 1/2 (18 ounce) package vanilla sandwich cookies
• 1/2 vanilla bean, split lengthwise and seeds scraped
• 1/8 cup butter, melted
• 1 pounds cream cheese, softened
• 3/4 cups white sugar
• 3 eggs
• 1 vanilla beans, split lengthwise and seeds scraped
• 1/2 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
• 1/3 cup sour cream
• 1/4 cup heavy cream

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees F (150 degrees C), and lightly butter a 6 inch spring-form pan.
2. Place the sandwich cookies into a plastic bag, and crush with a rolling pin. Pour the crumbs into a bowl, and mix with the scraped seeds of 1 vanilla bean. Drizzle the crumbs with melted butter and stir to combine. Press the crumb mixture firmly into the bottom and up the sides of the spring-form pan, and set aside.
3. Place the softened cream cheese and sugar into the work bowl of an electric mixer, and beat for about 3 minutes on Medium speed, until the mixture is smooth. Beat in the eggs one at a time, incorporating each egg before adding the next one. Add the scraped seeds of 2 vanilla beans, the vanilla extract, sour cream, and heavy cream, and beat on Medium-High speed for about 1 minute, until the mixture is blended and smooth.
4. Pour the mixture into the cookie crumb crust, leaving about 2 inches of space from the top of the pan for the cake to expand as it bakes.
5. Place a baking dish onto the bottom rack of the preheated oven, and fill it halfway with boiling water. Place the cheesecake onto the middle rack, above the pan of boiling water, and bake until a small knife inserted into the middle of the cheesecake comes out clean, about 1 hour and 20 minutes.
6. Turn the oven off and let the cheesecake cool down inside the oven for 1 hour. Cover the cheesecake with plastic wrap, then aluminum foil, and refrigerate at least 4 hours or overnight before serving.

I think I might try this crust and add this topping to it:

Topping:

2 cups sour cream 

1/4 cup sugar 

1 vanilla bean 

For topping: in a small bowl, combine sour cream and sugar. Scrape the seeds from the vanilla bean and add to the bowl, stirring well.

I think I might also make a Vanilla Bean Butter Cream Icing, you know add a little more decadence to this cake!

1 1/4 sticks unsalted butter, softened (helpful hint: one stick of butter is 1/2 cup)
1/2 vanilla bean, halved lengthwise

1 1/4 cups confectioners’ sugar (5 ounces)
Pinch salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 Tablespoons heavy cream

1. In a standing mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, beat the butter at medium-high speed until smooth, about 20 seconds. Using a paring knife, scrape seeds from vanilla bean into butter and beat mixture at medium-high speed to combine, about 15 seconds.

2. Add confectioners’ sugar and salt; beat at medium-low speed until most of the sugar is moistened, about 1 minute. Scrape down the bowl and beat at medium speed until mixture is fully incorporated, about 30 seconds; scrape bowl, add vanilla and heavy cream, and beat at medium speed until incorporated, about 20 seconds, then increase speed to medium-high and beat until light and fluffy, about 4 minutes, scraping down bowl once or twice.

(Recipe adapted from Brown Eyed Baker)

I shared this recipe at:
Show & Tell Wednesdays 
Whatever Goes Wednesdays
Recipes I Can't Wait to Try
What's Cooking Wednesday
Wandering Wednesdays
Whatcha Makin' Wednesdays
Swing Into Spring

Joy of Desserts
Mangia Mondays
Made by you Mondays
Make a Food-e-Friend Mondays
A Marvelous Mess Monday

 

For Next Easter: Cadbury Cream Egg Cupcakes

Don't these look wonderful? I know Easter is long past now but I keep finding all these wonderful recipe I want to try next year!

Check out the recipe at My Baking Addiction

Sucre a crème (Caramel Sauce)

My good friends Roxy and Jazzy make this sauce when we do crêpes and it is by far one of my favorite things ever! They are French and have introduced me to this and many other wonderful French things, but this is still one of my favs.

1 cup 35% Whipping Cream
2 cups Brown Sugar (gently packed)


Mix together in a pot and bring to a bowl; stir constantly. Continue to boil for 10-20 minutes (the longer your sauce boils the thicker it will be once it sets).

Remove from heat and keep stir for a little while so it doesn`t burn. Let it cool and use it for crepes, waffles, with fruit and yogurt, over ice cream or a cake OR as part of a fruit dip which I will be post the recipe for soon!

Enjoy!

Have any good ideas, suggestions or experiences....share them, leave a comment, I’d love to hear from you!!

I've shared this recipe at: 

Sweet Tooth Friday, Friday Link Party, Frugal Friday, Simply Link Party, 
Feasting in Fellowship Friday, Joy of Desserts, Mangia Mondays, Made by you Mondays

Make a Food-e-Friend Mondays, A Marvelous Mess Monday

And just a side note my last recipe entered on Feasting in Fellowship was featured! Check it out here!

Chocolate Indulge & A Restaurant Review: The Ground Floor

We had a triple date on Friday and we were going to go to Champa Bistro, we get there and they are closed. The number is disconnected, no message or anything, the website is still totally active but it's closed. I'm not too sure if it's a temporary thing or not but either way we had to find somewhere else. We talked for a bit, tried calling a couple of places to get reservations but we ended up trying The Ground Floor. It's downtown, and well, not that nice on the inside. It looks they are tried to redo it without gutting the whole place which can sometimes work but I feel in this case it still looks pretty traditional (when I think they might have been going for modern).

As far as I know you can't smoke indoors anywhere in the city (restaurants I mean) but I kept smelling smoke.

Our waiter was fun and the food came pretty quick. I had the club house which was great. Marshall had the ribs which, well I've made better at home. Everyone else seemed to be pretty content with their meals but I can't say anyone would say "You have to check out The Ground Floor".

On a scale of 1-10 (1- Horrible, it should be closed down!! and 10- Amazing, would go back again and again) I give it a 5- Average, I wouldn’t go back, but at least I tried it!

This was the Chocolate Indulge dessert. I don't know if you can tell how big it is here but it was huge!! We didn't get through a lot of it (and that was me and Marshall sharing) and to be honest it wasn't that great. It was my least favorite one so far that I have tried. It was pretty dry, I don't know if that's because it was flour-less but it just wasn't that great. Quantity didn't make up for quality in this case.

Chocolate Indulge: Lilac Bakery Ltd.

(One of my girlfriends) Katie and I went on a little date (with my dog Ollie) to Lilac Bakery. We biked there and were so ready for cake when we go there. The store is a cute little shop with two glass displays of all the great desserts they have for sale. You can smell all the great things they are baking up in the bake as well. My favorite part? That they bake with butter. I think it was the owner (or one of them?) that was serving us and he said "If you're going to do it go all the way" and went on to say how they only use the best ingredients etc. I don't know about you but I can usually taste the quality difference when there was butter instead of margarine used and you can definitely taste it in this cake. It is one of my favorites on this chocolate fest!

Doesn't this icing look a lot like the icing on Our Best Bites? I'm going to try it sometime and see if it's the same, if so it's in my favorite books for life!

Sitting outside in the wonderful sun enjoying the cake. Wow, I think it was the best chocolate cake I have ever had. The icing was just fantastic!

Chocolate Goal...

Ok, so I thought seeing as Ciao is doing the Indulge thing this month I am going to try to go to as many of the places that I haven't been to before as I can. Of course I'm not going to go to the places that the desserts sound boring (and there are a few!) but here's the list of places I want to try and hit up!


Chocolate Zen- Dark Chocolate Coconut Macaroons
Joe Black Coffee Bar- Chocolate Mousse
De Luca's Bakery- Dulce De Leche Slice
High Tea Bakery- Brownie Duo
Lilac Bakery- Chocolate Cake
Steve's Bistro - Mud Pie
Sweet Impressions- Cupcakes & Cookies

I know, it's a but of a list to fit in all in April but I love trying new places and we have a few double dates so I'm hoping I'll have some other people wanting to try these places with me! (And considering that there's 30 different places I think I narrowed it down pretty good!)

If you haven't checked out the site yet here's the link again!