Thanksgiving dessert: Chocolate Pecan Pie Bars

For my second homemade dessert for Thanksgiving I wanted something with chocolate. Traditional Thanksgiving desserts do not normally contain chocolate (at least not the ones I always had growing up), but I love chocolate. I came across a recipe for Chocolate Pecan Pie Bars (Pinterest, of course). Tada!

Chocolate Pecan Pie Bars

Ingredients
1 cup unsalted butter, cold and cubed
1/3 cup powdered sugar
1 1/4 cups flour
1 14oz can sweetened condensed milk
3 T unsweetened cocoa powder
2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 8oz bag pecan halves
1/3 cup mini chocolate chips (I think I just used more regular sized chocolate chips)

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9x13 pan or line with foil and then grease.
In a large bowl, use a pastry cutter or fork to cut the butter, sugar and flour together until crumbly. Press the crust into the pan and bake for 12 minutes.
Meanwhile, combine sweetened condensed milk and cocoa powder in a small bowl and set aside.
Once the crust has finished baking, remove from the oven and sprinkle with 2 cups chocolate chips and the pecans.
Pour the chocolate condensed milk mixture evenly over the top. Return the pan to the oven and bake for another 15 to 18 minutes.
Immediately sprinkle with chocolate chips (mini or regular).
Cool bars on a wire rack before cutting into bars. Store in an airtight container.  

Fondue!

One of our many wonderful wedding presents was a fondue pot. At least once a year I like to pull it out to justify keeping it. When you move so much you want to make sure that everything you have is useful. For Valentine's Day dessert (which we didn't end up having until the day after Valentine's Day) I decided to make fondue. I chose a recipe called Flaming Turtle Chocolate Fondue from the blog For the Love of Food. It was soooooo yummy! I did not get any pictures, but I wanted to share the recipe with you anyway.

Ingredients
12oz milk chocolate (chips or finely chopped)
2 Tablespoons heavy cream (I actually used half & half and I ended up using more than 2T)
1/4 cup caramel ice cream topping (see below for a homemade recipe)
1 Tablespoon rum
3 Tablespoons pecans, chopped
Fondue dippers, examples: pound cake, strawberries, apples, pineapple, marshmallows, pretzels

I always melt the chocolate in the fondue pot, but you can do it over the stove or in the microwave. Once your melted chocolate/cream mixture is all melted and smooth, make sure it is in your fondue pot. Then pour the caramel into the center of the mixture. Do not stir.

Add the rum and ignite carefully using a lighter. This was the fun part!

Allow the flame to burn out and stir gently to combine. Sprinkle with pecans. Keep fondue warm over low heat.

Caramel Topping Recipe

Ingredients
5 Tablespoons butter
1 cup brown sugar, packed
1/4 cup half & half
pinch of salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Melt butter and brown sugar in large saucepan over low heat, stirring constantly until mixture is smooth. Add half & half, then salt; simmer 4 minutes. Remove from heat; stir in vanilla.

We used the leftover caramel over the leftover pound cake, but it would be amazing on all kinds of things. Or by itself. :)

Cream Cheese Pound Cake

Can I just say yum, yum, yum! For our Valentine's Day dessert we planned to have fondue. One of my favorite fondue dippers is pound cake. Yes, it is a LOT easier just to buy a loaf of pound cake at the store. But if you've been following my blog you probably understand why I would have an issue with that. Who knows what is in store bought pound cake? I would rather make it myself. I am SO glad that I did. This recipe makes a delicious pound cake. Beside eating it with fondue, we have enjoyed it with ice cream and with homemade caramel sauce. It has been delicious every way.

The recipe was found on Pinterest and is featured on the blog This IS How I Cook.

Ingredients
3 sticks butter, room temp
1 8oz package of cream cheese, at room temp
3 cups sugar
pinch of salt
2 teaspoons vanilla
6 large eggs, at room temp
3 cups flour, at room temp ;)

Grease and flour (or just grease if you're lazy like me) 2 8x4 loaf pans or one 10" tube pan. I used a bundt pan. Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Cream butter, cheese and sugar until light and fluffy. Add salt and vanilla, beating well. Add eggs one at a time, beating after each addition. Gradually beat in flour on low speed. Spoon mixture into pan(s). Make sure not to overfill your pan(s).

Bake about 1 1/2 hours or until a skewer comes out clean.

Pecan Pie Bread Pudding

As I mentioned in my last post, I recently made bread pudding. It is not the first time, but my first bread pudding was made with croissants. From what I remember it tasted good but was really rich. And coming from me that means the average person would go into a sugar coma from eating it.

This time I gave Charles two recipes to choose from. One had a ton more ingredients which probably means it was extra yummy. He did not choose that one. He chose Pecan Pie Bread Pudding. The recipe is from Something Swanky. 

Mine did not turn out like what I imagine bread pudding to be. It was VERY dry. I may have used a little  more bread than called for, but I don't know if less bread would have helped out that much.

Picture borrowed from Something Swanky

Ingredients
8 cups bite-sized bread pieces
3 large eggs
1 1/4 cup light corn syrup
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
 1/4 cup sugar
2 Tablespoons butter, melted
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 cup pecan, halved and chopped
(I also threw in about a cup of chocolate chips because I love chocolate)

Prepare an 8x8 or 9x9 baking dish by spraying with cooking spray. Place all of the bread pieces into the baking dish. Pour the melted butter over the bread.

In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs, corn syrup, brown sugar, granulated sugar, vanilla extract, cinnamon, and salt. Stir in the pecans (and chocolate chips if you are like me).

Pour evenly over the bread pieces. Use a spatula to push the bread pieces around in the dish until all are coated in the syrupy mixture. Bake at 375º for 45 minutes.

Easy Cannolis

I love Italian food! Charles and I were just discussing this over chicken parm and Gorgonzola risotto on Saturday. (We found what is to be my favorite Italian place in town). It always surprises me when people say they do not care for Italian food. Who does not love pasta, cheese and tomato sauce? I know there is a lot more to it than that, but so much of Italian food is some variation on those three things.

One of the best Italian desserts is cannolis. I have never attempted to make real homemade cannolis. I think my aunts on my Dad's side do. It would just be too much work, although probably well worth it. I saw a recipe on Pinterest (of course) for mini cannoli cups and it looked pretty easy so I gave it a shot.

They turned out to be just as easy as they looked and quite yummy. Visit Cooking with Sugar's blog for the directions: Mini Cannoli Cups. Here is the recipe again.

Ingredients
For cups
1 refrigerated pie crust (if you're smart you'll use Immaculate Bakery or Trader Joe's and not Pilsbury)
3 Tablespoons Turbinado sugar (I just used regular sugar because I didn't want to buy one more thing)
1 teaspoon cinnamon

For filling
1 15oz container of ricotta cheese
1/2 cup powdered sugar
2 Tablespoons white sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
mini chocolate chips or whatever else you want to sprinkle on top

To summarize the steps, you roll out the pie dough and sprinkle the cinnamon and sugar on top. Roll it in. Cut out circles and put into a mini cupcake tin. Bake. Then you mix the filling ingredients, except for chocolate chips. Pipe into cups and enjoy. For her steps, check out her blog. The end result is a simple and delicious Italian dessert!

Chocolate Pecan Pies

I was in the mood for some pecan pie the other week. I checked Pinterest for a good recipe and came across one from Paula Deen. I figured a full-figured Southern lady like herself would make a pretty good pecan pie. And even better it was for Chocolate pecan pie.

So I made it... I have issues either with my oven or my pie pan. My pies usually come out runny. I should have remembered this and lowered the amount of corn syrup and should have baked it longer. But I didn't. The pie tasted good. It was just really runny.

Here's a link to her recipe.

This week I tried a different recipe. I used my good ol' Betty Crocker Big Red cookbook. Their recipe is for traditional pecan pie, but I added some chocolate chips to mimick the Paula Deen recipe. I reduced the corn syrup a little and turned the oven up 5 more degrees. It came out a little more brown than I was going for, but it tastes very good. The pecans, because they were mixed into the syrup/sugar mixture, have a nice crunch on them--similar to the Nutty Bavarian nuts. Yum! I think I'll stick with this recipe from here on out.

Betty Crocker Pecan Pie Recipe

one crust (if you're a follower, you know I used Immaculate Baking crust)
2/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup butter, melted
1 cup corn syrup
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 large eggs
1 cup pecan halves or broken pieces
1/2 to 1 cup chocolate chips (optional)

Heat oven to 375 degrees. Line pie pan with crust

Beat sugar, butter, corn syrup, salt and eggs in bowl with wire whisk or hand beater until well blended. Stir in pecans and chocolate chips. Pour into pie pan.

Bake 40-50 minutes or until center is set.

While reading further down on the page, you can make it "Kentucky" style by adding 2 Tablespoons bourbon and 1 bag chocolate chips.

Dessert Cheeseball

I love cream cheese! My husband, however, thinks cream cheese is gross. For the Friday before Christmas, we had a mini potluck at work. This gave me a great excuse to make a cream cheese based dessert--Chocolate Chip Cheeseball. Everyone at work loved it! (It is pretty tasty, if I must say so myself). It's probably been around blog world a million times, but just in case, here's the recipe:

Ingredients:
1 8oz package cream cheese
1/2 cup butter, softened
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup powdered sugar
2 Tablespoons brown sugar
3/4 cup mini chocolate chips (it's OK to use regular chocolate chips if that is all you have)
3/4 cup chopped pecans (optional)

Beat cream cheese, butter and vanilla until fluffy. Gradually add sugars; beat until combined. Stir in chocolate chips. Cover and refrigerate for 2 hours.

After two hours, place mixture in plastic wrap and shape like a ball. Refrigerate for an hour.

Before serving, roll ball in pecans (optional). Serve with graham crackers. (Or just eat it straight...it's that good).

Oatmeal Pie

I have finally made the Oatmeal Pie! I've been talking about making this pie since our visit to Amish country last month. I did a simple search on Google for a recipe and came across one that claims to be from Charleston during the Civil War era. As most people know, pecan pie is a very popular pie, especially in the South. But according to this person, pecans were hard to come by during the Civil War so people substituted oatmeal. I did make one tiny adaptation to the recipe and added chocolate chips. I love anything chocolate and thought it would be good in this pie. This pie tasted so yummy and you feel slightly less guilty eating it because of the oatmeal.

Ingredients:
one pie crust
4 eggs
1 cup granulated sugar
2 Tablespoons flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup light corn syrup
1/4 cup melted butter
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup quick-cooking oatmeal (uncooked)
1 cup chocolate chip

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Beat eggs until frothy.

Combine sugar, flour and salt in small bowl. (If not using chocolate chips, you can add 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon at this point). Add eggs; mix well. Add corn syrup, melted butter and vanilla. Mix in oatmeal and chocolate chips. Pour into uncooked shell and bake for 45 minutes.