Chocolate Pecan Pie

I've been relying on Martha's recipes quite a bit lately. Particularly for her pie crusts, now that I've officially broken up with Mark Bittman's pie crusts. It wasn't him though, it was me. They were too flaky and hard to deal with. Much like most of my former boyfriends.

Chocolate Pecan Pie
Adapted from: Martha Stewart

Ingredients

4 oz semisweet chocolate, chopped
1 cup whole pecans
4 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 1/2 cups corn syrup
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 9-inch pie crust, such as this one

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees with rack in lowest position.

2. In a medium bowl, stir together (don't whisk) eggs, corn syrup, vanilla, and salt. Set aside.

3. Using a double boiler, or in the microwave, melt the chocolate. Gradually add melted chocolate into egg mixture and stir together. Pour filling into prepared crust. Arrange pecans in one layer over filling.

4. Bake for 50-60 minutes, rotating the pie once halfway, until filling is set. It may still be a little jiggly in the center. Let cool for at least 4 hours, or overnight, before serving.


Ready to go:

Cake Pops

I'm jumping on the cake pop train a little late, but it's a delicious train to be on and I'm never looking back.

A few notes: All but four of my cake pops had chocolate icing. I melted white chocolate chips as well, but they hardened very quickly after they melted, making it time consuming and difficult. The original recipe suggests using white chocolate bark, but I haven't tried this yet. Also - it is best to let the cake cool overnight before making the actual cake pops. You can also refrigerate/freeze the cake mix for up to three days before making the pops.

Cake Pops
(makes about 60 pops)

From: The Kitchn

Dark Chocolate Cake

2 cups sugar
1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
3/4 cup cocoa powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup boiling water

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour two 9-inch round cake pans.

2. Whisk together all of the dry ingredients, then add the eggs, milk, oil, and vanilla. Beat on medium speed for 2 minutes. (I just mixed this with a spoon and it was fine). Stir in the boiling water. The mixture will be very thin.

3. Pour batter equally into the two cake pans. Bake for 30-35 minutes until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cakes comes out clean. Let cool completely before decorating.

Making the Cake Pops
8 ounces cream cheese, softened
2 cups confectioner's sugar
4 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon milk
60+ lollipop sticks
12 ounces chocolate chips
12 ounces white chocolate bark
Sprinkles, sugars and other decorative candies

1. In a large bowl, beat together the cream cheese, confectioner's sugar, butter and milk.

2. Crumble the two cakes into crumbs and add into the cream cheese mixture.  Use a spoon and your hands to fully incorporate the crumbs into the cream cheese mix. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate until firm.

3. Once the cake mixture is firm, roll the cake mix into balls and set on a baking sheet covered with wax or parchment paper. (Important: keep the cake balls in the freezer so that they stay very firm while you make the icing. You also will want to keep the majority of the cake balls in the freezer while you decorate a few at a time. Otherwise they start to soften and will fall apart/fall off the lollipop stick while you ice/decorate them).

4. Use a double boiler to melt the chocolate chips on the stove. Dip each cake pop, one at a time, in the melted chocolate until covered. You can use a rubber spatula to take off any excess chocolate. Roll the top of the lollipop stick in the melted chocolate (this helps "glue" the stick to the cake pop).  Press the lollipop stick into each cake ball. Add any kind of sprinkle or topping to the icing and place back on wax/parchment paper with the lollipop stick standing straight up. Let cool so that the icing hardens.



Dark chocolate cake. This was also a really great cake recipe in general.

Adding into the cream cheese mixture: 

Cake ball mix: 

Rolled into balls: 

 Homemade double boiler:

Decorations.  These all came from Whisk in Williamsburg, they have a great selection of reasonably priced cake decorations:

Pops!

Chocolate Pecan Pie Squares

Last week was finals week, and the policy for professors is: If you don't hold a final exam, then you have to have some kind of "culminating experience."  Two of these culminating experiences were potlucks.  For the first potluck, I made lemon bars because a girl in my class was allergic to nuts.  I didn't dislike this girl because she has nut allergies, but this was the same girl who insisted we have class the last week of school.  When she didn't touch any of the food anyway, despite everyone's precautions, I decided to make these for the next potluck... although I don't think she was in that class anyway.

Anywho. These are good for potlucks because you can cut them into whatever size you like, so you can size them to meet the number of people to be fed. They're also delicious and super easy.

The original recipe says to use parchment paper or foil to line the pan so that the bars don't stick. I didn't use either and it was fine.  There is enough butter in the crust to keep it from sticking and it makes it easier to press to crust dough into the pan.  Last note: if you buy a bag of already "chopped pecans" from the store, chop them just a bit more so the pecan pieces are more spread out.

Chocolate Pecan Pie Bars
From: Bon Appetit

Ingredients

1/2 cups (1 stick) unsalted butter (at room temp), plus 2 tablespoons melted butter
1/4 cup packed light-brown sugar
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 large eggs
3/4 cup light corn syrup
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 cups semisweet chocolate chips 

2 cups coarsely chopped pecans

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. In a food processor, or with an electric mixer, beat together butter, brown sugar, flour, and salt until coarse crumbs form.

3. Press mixture into a 9x13 oven safe pan, flattening out the dough from the middle until it lines the inside of the pan. Bake for 20-25 minutes, until lightly browned.

4. While the dough bakes: In a large bowl, mix together eggs, corn syrup, sugar, and 2 tablespoons melted butter. Mix in chocolate chips and chopped pecans. Spread over crust and bake for 25-30 minutes, until center is set (not to wobbly). Cool completely before cutting. 

Pecan mixture: 

Ready to go: 

Baked: 

Yellow Layer Cake with Raspberry Filling and Chocolate Frosting

My sister's favorite birthday cake is a yellow layer cake with chocolate frosting, so that's what she got for her birthday celebration this past weekend (take a wild guess how old she is!). This year, however, she wanted the same cake, but with raspberry filling in the middle. I've made this cake (minus the filling) out of store bought boxes many times before, but this year I made it from scratch. My kitchen was a disaster when I left Brooklyn to go home to Long Island for the weekend. That's what you get when you frost a cake after a couple vodka sodas ... chocolate frosting everywhere.

This cake is a cross between a Smitten Kitchen recipe (the cake), and two separate Martha Stewart recipes for the chocolate frosting and the raspberry filling. Here goes ...

Ingredients (the cake)

4 cups plus 2 tablespoons cake flour (not self-rising) <~~~ I didn't research exactly what this meant. I used regular, all purpose flour. I did get 2 slightly higher than normal cakes, but they were fine)
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter, softened
2 cups sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
4 large eggs, at room temperature
2 cups buttermilk, well-shaken

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter two 9-inch round cake pans and line with circles of parchment paper, then butter parchment. Or you can spray the pans with cooking spray or butter/flour the pans.

2. Sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl.

3. In a large mixing bowl, beat butter and sugar in a large bowl with an electric or stand mixer at medium speed until fluffy, then beat in vanilla. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating well and scraping down any mixture stuck along the side of the bowl. At low speed, beat in buttermilk until just combined (mixture will look curdled... I didn't think so though). Add flour mixture in three batches, mixing until each addition is just incorporated.

4. Spread batter evenly into cake pans. Bake until golden and a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean, about 35-40 minutes. Cool for 10 minutes in pan then invert upside down onto a baking rack. Cool cakes completely.

Raspberry Filling
5 ounces frozen raspberries, thawed and drained
1/4 cup raspberry preserves

Chocolate Frosting (this recipe is doubled to cover the cake, but if you halve it, it will make enough for 12 cupcakes)
1 cup plus 4 tablespoons sugar
1 cup heavy cream
2 1/2 ounces unsweetened chocolate, chopped
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract


1. Place sugar and cream in a saucepan and bring to a boil over high heat, stirring constantly. Reduce
heat to medium and simmer, without stirring, about 5 minutes.


2. Remove saucepan from heat and stir in chocolate until melted. Stir in butter and vanilla until well combined. Chill, stirring occasionally, until cooled completely. (Stick in the fridge if you want, but definitely stir once in a while!

Put it all together ...

1. Spread raspberry layer over top of one cake (placed upside down) and put second cake (also upside down) on top of raspberry layer. (I didn't do this but some chocolate frosting spread in between the layers with the raspberry might be nice too).

2. Cover entire cake with chocolate frosting.

3. Top with some fresh raspberries if you like.

4. Put in fridge and go to sleep.

Brownies with Chocolate and Peanut Butter Frosting

My sister came over for dinner on Sunday night and while I was still trying to figure out what to make for dessert, we both talked about having cravings for Friendly's Reeses peanut butter cup sundaes. You know those delicious little prepackaged sundaes where the chocolate and peanut butter topping looks a little bit, or a lot, like plastic? Mmmm. So I did a search on Epicurious of "peanut butter" and "chocolate" and came up with this recipe for Peanut Butter and Fudge Brownies with Salted Peanuts. They were good, but by the time we had finished eating dinner, we were too stuffed to eat all 30 brownies. Darn. So if you haven't had any yet, and you'd like some, I still have about 20 or so left.

I don't have a lot of patience for cutting baked goods into squares, so they came out a lot more rugged looking than the photo on Epicurious, but unless you're really trying to impress someone, does it matter?

Lastly, I don't mess around with ingredients or instructions in baking recipes, so this one is pretty much straight from Epicurious. I think the salted peanuts in the brownies could be made optional, they were fairly peanut buttery as is.

Ingredients

Brownies
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter
7 ounces bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, chopped
3 ounces unsweetened chocolate, chopped
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon salt
4 large eggs
1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup roasted salted peanuts, chopped

Frosting and ganache

1 cup chunky peanut butter (the bad for you kind, not the natural kind)
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, divided, room temperature
3/4 cup powdered sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 tablespoon whole milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
7 ounces bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, chopped
For brownies:
Preheat oven to 325 and place oven rack in the center. Line 13x9 baking pan with foil, leaving a long overhang on each side; butter foil.
Place 3/4 cup butter in heavy large saucepan. Add both chocolates. Stir over low heat until smooth. Remove from heat. Whisk in sugar, vanilla, and salt, then eggs, 1 at a time. Fold in flour, then nuts. Place mixture in pan. Bake until a toothpick inserted into center comes out with moist crumbs attached, about 30 minutes. Cool brownies for a while.
For frosting and ganache
Using electric mixer or food processor, beat peanut butter and 1/4 cup butter until blended. Beat in powdered sugar, salt, and nutmeg, then milk and vanilla. After the brownies have cooled, spread the peanut butter mixture over them.
Stir chocolate and 1/4 cup butter in heavy small saucepan over low heat until smooth. Drop ganache all over frosting; spread to cover. Chill for about 1 1/2 hours.
Using foil, pull brownies out of the pan and cut into squares.