Vegan Dark Chocolate {Gluten Free}

Craving chocolate? I was. With only three ingredients needed, I made some Vegan Dark Chocolate (and sprinkled some crushed almonds on top).

Phone Picture...not really a good one

To make this chocolate, you need coconut oil, agave syrup and cocoa powder.  That's it!

On low heat, melt 1/4 cup of coconut oil.  Once it is melted, remove from heat and add 3 tbsp agave syrup and 2/3 cup of dark cocoa powder.  Stir to combine. 

Once again, bad phone picture

Line a baking sheet with parchment or foil, pour the chocolate mixture. Sprinkle with nuts, dried fruit or anything else you may like.  Put the baking sheet in the refrigerator so the chocolate can set, it will only take about 10-15 minutes.

Break or cut into pieces. It turned out sort of bark like, with a softer consistency   You could probably pour into silicone molds if you wanted to.  I also think this would make a great chocolate base for peanut butter cups or peppermint patties. So stay tuned for some peanut butter cups...I am going to see if I can borrow a silicone mini muffin pan...yum!

Homemade Chocolate Syrup

We are currently out of chocolate syrup in our house, we always have chocolate syrup (it seems to be the only way I can get my son to drink milk).  Since, like I am sure many people are, I am trying not to spend money on things I don't have to and store bought chocolate syrup has fallen into that category.  Then I remembered that I saw something on Pinterest {Love Pinterest} about making your own, so I decided I would give it a try. There aren't many ingredients and I have them all so here it goes...

Homemade Chocolate Syrup

1 1/2 cups sugar
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (I used Hershey's Special Dark)
1/8 tsp salt
1 cup water
1 tsp vanilla

In a small saucepan, mix together sugar, cocoa, and salt.  Add water and whisk gently until well mixed. Bring mixture to a boil, stirring occasionally.  Reduce heat and cook 1 minute.  Remove from heat and add vanilla.  Cool.  Store in the refrigerator, fills a pint sized jar. Use just like you would normally use chocolate syrup; on ice cream, in milk, on a spoon...

I happened to still have the empty bottle of Hershey's Special Dark Syrup in our recycling so I pulled it out just to check the ingredients. Here is what is in the pre-made stuff, in the order written; High Fructose Corn Syrup, Corn Syrup, Water, Cocoa processed with alkali, Sugar, 2% or less of; Salt, Mono- and Diglycerides, Xanthan Gum, Polysorbate 60, Vanillin, Artificial Flavor.  Yep, I must say I like making my own with just a few ingredients.  I think I may play around with the sugar, and maybe substitue some with honey and see how that goes.

A satisfied taster!

I wish I had some ice cream to drizzle it on...

Side note...

I also mixed up some Taco Seasoning today, also super simple. For about 3/4 cups of seasoning, I combined 3 tbsp chili powder, 3/4 tsp garlic powder, 3/4 tsp onion powder, 1/2 tsp crushed red pepper flakes, 1/4 tsp oregano, 1-1/2 tsp paprika, 3-1/2 tsp ground cumin, 2 tsp salt, 3 tsp black pepper. I have it sealed in a jar waiting to be used.  I will let you know how it is after our next taco night.

{Gluten Free} Slutty Brownie Tarts

First of all I am going to say I feel really guilty that I made and ate these yesterday, even if it was just a half.  Why? Well I was talking to a friend who is also a personal trainer about getting toned up and having a session with him and of course he knows I bake...and here I go making a very not healthy dessert.  Go figure.  He isn't even my trainer (yet, maybe) and is already making me feel guilty, I guess that is a good thing? Anyway...on to the brownies (if you can even really call them that.)

I have made Slutty Brownies before, but used boxed mixes and they were not gluten free. If you don't know what a Slutty Brownie is, it is a layered treat made with chocolate chip cookie dough, chocolate sandwich cookies, and brownies.  This is a time consuming dessert, especially if you make them from scratch. You could, and I have usually seen them made in a pan.  I used mini tart pans, just because I just bought them and I wanted to use them, plus they would hold ice cream well.  Since Oreos are not a GF food, and I decided not to make homemade GF oreos for this, I used K-Toos.  They are a GF, dairy free, all kinds of free sandwich cookie.

For the Chocolate Chip Cookies

adapted from Make it & Love it, to see it click here

1 cup butter (softened)
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 1/4 cup GF four, I used Trader Joes
1 tsp. baking soda
2 tsp. xanthan gum
1 tsp. salt
12 oz. chocolate chips (Trader Joes has the best ones ever!)

1. Mix together the butter, eggs and vanilla. Mix well.  Add the sugars.  Shift together the flour, baking soda, xanthan gum and salt.  Add to the butter sugar mixture.  Mix until combined.  Stir in chocolate chips. 

2. Press about 2-3 tablespoons of the dough into greased tart pans, set aside.  (You could use a13x9 baking dish also to make bar brownies.) 

{With the remaining dough, I just made cookies, scooping 1 tablespoon worth of dough on to a cookie sheet and baking for about 10-13 minutes at 350 degrees.}

3. Layer, the chocolate sandwich cookies on top of the cookie dough. I broke mine up a bit, that is optional.  I would keep them whole if you are making them into bars.

For the Brownies

adapted from Jesicakes, see original recipe here

1/2 cup butter

3/4 cup dark chocolate chips
3 tbsp Hershey's Special Dark cocoa powder
1 tbsp vegetable oil 
2 eggs
3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
2 tsp gluten free vanilla
3/4 cup GF flour blend

1 tsp xanthan gum
1/2 tsp  salt
1/4 tsp baking soda

4. Melt the butter, I used the microwave.  Stir the chocolate chips into the melted butter until completely melted.  Add the oil and cocoa powder. Mix well. Set aside.

5. Beat the eggs, add the sugar and vanilla. Add the chocolate butter mixture.  Mix well.

6. Sift together the dry ingredients, slowly add the the chocolate mixture.  Mix well.

7. Spoon some of the the batter on the top of the tart pan, just until covered. (Don't over fill) If using a 13x9 pan, pour all the batter over the cookies. 

8. Bake tarts for about 15-20 minutes at 350 degrees.

Enjoy!

**Featured on Gluten Free Tuesday Linky 8/06/2013 with Easy Green Mama**

My top 12 of 2012!

The year is over, and I know I am a couple days late, it has been a long yet quick 2012.  I have made a couple life changes this past year which have made me stronger and healthier.  I accomplished my first triathlon, which I never thought in a million years (and probably anyone who knows me) thought I would ever do. I have completely changed how I eat, going gluten free has been a blessing.

So, I thought I would share my top 12 viewed posts of 2012 (in order from oldest to newest), thank you for following and listening to my rants, struggles and adventures! 

Adventures in Training #3: January recap & February Goals

Vegetable & Tofu Stir Fry

Recycled Crayon Disks

Antojitos: Mexican Pork Tarts

Super Chocolate Cake with a Homemade Fluff Icing

Homemade Chocolate Ice Cream

Moms Meet: Kashi Chocolate Soft Baked Squares

One Week Down: Gluten-free

Pumpkin Sweet Potato Soup

Sandy and Vegetable Quinoa Soup (GF)

My First Gluten-Free Thanksgiving (with recipes)

GF Stuffing

Sporty 3rd Birthday!

It's a soup kinda day!

Potato Soup - My top viewed post!

Looking forward to more in 2013!

Salted Flourless Chocolate Cookies (and a Month Gluten-Free)

My kitchen helper

I am about a month in to not eating any gluten; it has been a pretty good adventure so far.  I will admit I have had a few setbacks, but for the most part it has been pretty smooth.  I feel like I have explained myself and my reasons many times, but most people seem to understand (after first assuming I am doing it for weight loss.) I am not going to lie; the weight loss is a plus but not the reason. 

I finally made it back to my doctor, I explained how I was getting fed up with nothing helping (I was on three different medications) I felt like I was losing a battle.  I told her how my mom brought up celiac and cutting out gluten, and that I figured it wouldn’t hurt to try it.  I was concerned with what she would tell me, but it was all positive.  She explained how I still should take my one medication, since I was diagnosed with colitis, but I should keep up with the GF diet as well.  She went on to talk to me about other patients that suffer from both diseases and how they cope.  Since I haven’t been eating gluten, none of the tests would show a positive result for celiac.  But because of the family history I shared, she said there may be a chance I do suffer from it, and even if it isn’t full blown celiac, I definitely have an intolerance.  My choices would be to start eating gluten just for the test, an endoscopy, or hold off being tested but continue eating GF.  For now I am just going to continue on.  I feel better; I don’t need a test to tell me that, at least 
not right now.

Adding chocolate chips and nuts, so serious!

I made it through Thanksgiving and now we are in full swing into the Christmas season.  We plan on having Christmas dinner at our house this year, which I am excited about since I will be controlling the menu.  I don’t plan on making the whole meal GF; I can’t deprive my husband and son of rolls that would just be mean.  I have been looking around for some different ideas for the dinner menu, but I must admit my focus has been more on the cookies.  We are suckers for cookies in our house.  Plus we are doing a cookie exchange at work, so I need to figure out what I plan on making for that.

I already tried one batch of GF cookies, in my last post, now I am going to try to venture into more…I found a lot of recipes for GF Cookies on Foodgawker, I am planning to try out a few. 

iPhone picture

Salted Flourless Chocolate Cookies

(Inspired from Meaningful Eats) 

3 cups powdered sugar
2/3 cup unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
4 egg whites, at room temperature
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
1 cup bittersweet chocolate chips

½ cup chopped pecans

Coarse Sea Salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Whisk together the sugar, cocoa and salt.  Slowly add egg whites and vanilla. Once all combined, stir in the chocolate chips and pecans.  

On a greased, or lined cookie sheet, add batter a teaspoon at a time.  The cookies will spread, so unless you want large cookies, use small mounds.  Sprinkle with the coarse salt.  Bake for about 15 minutes. (I made about 36 cookies)

The flavor of these cookies were really good and chocolaty, they were chewy and crisp at the same time.  They were also very thin (they would make great ice cream sandwiches.) I am not sure if my egg whites weren't quite warm enough or what.  I may play around with them a bit to see if I can make them "fluffier".  I will make these again.

Enjoy!

Chocolate Black Bottoms

I love black bottom cupcakes! They are by far my favorite type of cupcake, I don’t eat them very often but for some reason I was just craving them this week.

The 4th of July started off so nice, I woke up before my son and husband, enjoyed a cup of coffee and played around on my favorite food sites and Pinterest in SILENCE! It was de-lite-ful! But then my son started to stir, I heard my husband on the phone (which is never a good sign at 7 am on your day off!) so I started thinking of what to do for breakfast. Well, my husband ended up leaving to go to work, because it was something only he could fix. And my son got a bowl of Cocoa Puffs. I wanted to go to the lake or trail or something as a family and now I was trying to think of other things that my son and I could do to waste time until my husband came home. It was hot! So we decided to make cupcakes, and since my son is a chocolate lover like his parents, I decided to give into my craving and make my favorite…Black Bottoms.  (We also made sidewalk paint, which was totally awesome, I will do another post on that another time.)

Now to back up. If you don’t know what a black bottom is, it is basically just a chocolate cupcake with a cream cheese and chocolate chip filling. I have heard them called other things, but they will always be black bottoms.

I knew I had most of the ingredients, but the only cream cheese I had on hand was the new Philadelphia Indulgence Milk Chocolate flavored cream cheese, and the only chocolate chips I had were the large dark chocolate morsels. So, I now have the Chocolate Black Bottom…and who doesn’t like more chocolate. Since we are a dark chocolate family, I would love to try the dark chocolate indulgence next time, because there will be a next time! 

Chocolate Black Bottoms
(adapted from The Capital Baker’s Chocolate Cream Cheese Surprise Cupcake)
makes about 30 regular size cupcakes

Ingredients

the filling:

8 oz. Philadelphia Indulgence Milk Chocolate Cream Cheese (or regular if you want the classic)

1/3 cup sugar

1 egg

1/8 tsp. salt

1 cup mini semi-sweet chocolate chips (I didn’t have mini on hand so I chopped up larger morsels, but would recommend the mini)

the cupcake:

3 cups all-purpose flour

2 cups sugar

2/3 cup cocoa powder (I used Hersey’s Special Dark)

2 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. salt

2 cups water

2/3 cups vegetable oil

2 Tbsp. white vinegar

2 tsp. vanilla extract

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line muffin cups with paper liners.

Prepare the filling; beat the cream cheese, sugar, egg and salt in a bowl until smooth and creamy. Stir in the chocolate chips.

Stir together the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda and salt in a large bowl. Add the water, oil, vinegar and vanilla. Beat for 3 minutes. Fill muffin cups 2/3 full with batter. Spoon 1Tbsp of the filling into the center of each cupcake.

Bake 20 to 25 minutes or until toothpick inserted in the cake portion comes out clean. Let cool for 5 minutes in the pans. Remove from pans to wire rack. Cool completely.

Homemade Chocolate Ice Cream

We tend to always have ice cream in our house...always.  Over the summer my father-in-law gave us our own ice cream maker, our own hot pink ice cream maker! So I decided that I was going to make a super chocolate ice cream to go along with the Super Chocolate Cake for my husbands birthday but...time got away from me so that didn't happen.  I happened to have egg yolks left over from the marshmallow fluff, so I needed to make the ice cream before the yolks turned.  And there is no reason why you can't make homemade ice cream in the middle of the week.

I looked around to find a basic starter so I could then tweak it and what I came up with was this:

5 egg yolks
1/4 cup sugar
1 pint of whole chocolate milk
1/2 heavy cream
1 cup dark chocolate chips

In a double boiler, melt the chocolate with the milk and cream.  While the chocolate is melting, beat the yolks and sugar until the yolks become bright yellow.  Once the chocolate is melted and mixed with the milk, slowly add about a cup of the hot mix to the egg yolks.  Pour the egg mixture in to the remainder of the milk mix and stir until combined.  Remove from heat and let cool to room temperature.  Refrigerate for at least 4 hours or overnight.

My Hot Pink Deni

Pour the custard mixture into your ice cream maker, per your ice cream makers instructions.  Mine churned for about 25 mins. I then added crushed heath bars and the remainder of the dark chocolate chips roughly chopped. It was the consistency of soft serve, for a more frozen ice cream freeze overnight.

We froze it overnight (after spoonfuls of tasting).  It was a struggle to wait, trust me, I really wanted to just scoop some into a cone and chow down. 

The wait was worth it, a super rich chocolate ice cream!  And I must say, it was made even better by the crushed heath bar. 




Kid Approved!!

Now that I have my first ice cream under my belt, I can't wait to experiment with different flavors.  Chocolate is always a go to and I can eat it everyday but now...I will take it to a new level.  I also want to try some dairy free versions.  I can't wait!

enjoy!

Super Chocolate Cake with a Homemade Fluff Icing

Today is my husbands birthday, and for some reason (he said it was because of his mother) I always thought his favorite type of cake was Angel Food...and was prepared to make him a from scratch Angel Food cake.  Well, I was wrong.  He told me his favorite type of cake would be a chocolate cake with chocolate chips, something super chocolaty and the frosting should be a whipped cream frosting or a marshmallow frosting.  So I am not one to argue chocolate, I reevaluated and planned to make something extra chocolaty with a marshmallow icing.  The results, well...awesome!  For the icing I was originally going to use my recipe for marshmallows and pipe it on top in little peaks, but right when I was getting ready to make it he seemed disappointed and wanted something more like an icing.  So once again, and last minute, I changed up my plan. 

The marshmallow icing makes about 6 cups, that is a lot of icing.  (So far it seems to be storing well in an airtight container at room temperature.)  When I started to coat the cake, it spread...it spread on the cake, off the stand, and on to the table.  I was getting really worried.  Worried that there would be nothing left between the layers and nothing left on top, I was even concerned that the top layer was going to slide off.  So I put the top on my cake board and hoped for the best!  In the photo above you can see it is still oozing, by the time we took the cover off there was at least 3/4 of an inch of fluff around the base.  But some how there was still plenty of fluff in the middle and on top, and it still tasted AWESOME!!

Super Chocolate Cake
(inspired by Hershey's "Especially Dark" Chocolate Cake)

2 cups sugar
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cups cocoa powder (Hershey's Special Dark Cocoa)
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 cup boiling water
1-10 oz. bag of dark chocolate morsels
Homemade Marshmallow Fluff Icing
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour two 9-inch cake pans.

Stir together sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, soda and salt in a large bowl. Add eggs, milk, oil, and vanilla; beat on medium speed for about 2 minutes. Stir in boiling water (batter will be thin). Stir in chocolate morsels.  Pour into prepared pans.  Bake for 30-35 minutes or wooden pick comes out clean.  Cool, cover with marshmallow fluff icing.

Marshmallow Fluff Icing
(inspired by Food & Wine's Marshmallow Icing)

5 large egg whites
1 2/3 cups sugar
2 tablespoons cold water
1 1/2 cups light corn syrup
Pinch of cream of tartar

Bring 1 inch of water to a boil in a wide saucepan. In a large stainless steel bowl, whisk the egg whites with the sugar, water and corn syrup until blended. Set the bowl over the saucepan and whisk the whites until the sugar is completely melted, 4 to 5 minutes. Rub some of the mixture between your fingers to be sure it's not gritty.

Remove the bowl from the saucepan and add the cream of tartar to the whites. Using a standing electric mixer, beat the egg whites at medium speed for 1 minute to break them up. Gradually increase the speed to high and beat until the icing is fluffy, firm and no longer warm to the touch, about 10 minutes. Beat in the vanilla. Use right away or put in a covered container and leave at room temperature.

Enjoy!

Mexican Chocolate Cake

If you have tried my Mexican Hot Chocolate, this recipe is basically the hot chocolate in cake form. Delish! 

Mexican Chocolate Cake
adapted from Mario Bosquez's Mexican Chocolate Cake from Martha Stewart

Expand

1 stick butter

1/2 cup oil

4 tablespoons cocoa (I used Hersey's Special Dark cocoa)

1 cup water

2 cups unsifted flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

2 cups sugar

1/2 cup sour milk (buttermilk)

2 eggs, beaten

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

1 teaspoon vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine butter, oil, cocoa, and water in sauce pan. Heat until cocoa is melted.

Combine flour, baking soda, sugar, milk, eggs, cinnamon, cayenne and vanilla in a large bowl. Combine with first mixture. (Sidenote: add just a small amount to the flour mixture first to temper the eggs so they don't scramble.)

Pour into a prepared bundt pan, (or you can use a 13 x 9 pan, but will need to adjust the length of time) bake for about 30 minutes or until a knife inserted comes out clean.

Let cool and dust with powdered sugar.

Double Chocolate Cupcakes with Strawberry Cream Cheese Frosting

 Cupcakes for Valentine's day...what's better than extra chocolaty super moist cakes? Not much, but with an added fresh strawberry frosting, de-light-ful!

The chocolate cupcakes were my sons choosing, I signed up to make cupcakes for his Valentine's day party at school and when I asked what kind, he eagerly said "Chocolate!"  So that is what I did, I was also thinking of making cake pops, but he didn't like that idea.  The cake was the easy part and semi-homemade but finding a frosting that wasn't too sweet was another.  I have found that a lot of kids my sons age (2) seem to just eat the frosting and only a little cake.  So I made mini cupcakes, and decided on a cream cheese frosting with strawberries...sweet but not too sweet.

For the cakes:

1 package of Devil's Food cake mix

1 large box (5.85 oz.) instant chocolate pudding mix

1 cup sour cream

1 cup vegetable oil

4 large eggs, slightly beaten

1/2 cup warm water

2 cups mini chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350, prepare muffin tins with liners or spray.

In a large bowl, sift together the cake and pudding mix. Mix in the sour cream, oil, eggs and water until just combined.  Fold in the chocolate chips. Pour into the cupcake tins.

Bake for about 20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.  Cool slightly in pans before removing to a cooling rack.

For the Frosting:

1 pint strawberries

8 oz. cream cheese (I used the lower fat)

1/2 cup butter, at room temperature

2 cups powdered sugar

1-2 cups cool whip (optional)

Puree the strawberries using a food processor, add the cream cheese and butter. Mix well.  Slowly add in the powdered sugar. Because of the liquid from the strawberries the consistency was slightly more runny, and not in a bad way. So if you want to thicken it up to a pipable consistency then add cool whip to your desired consistency.

Enjoy!



Mexican Hot Chocolate and Marshmallows, the perfect gift!

Yes, I know the holiday gift giving season is pretty much over...so what!  This is a great gift or just something nice to keep in your cabinet. 

A couple of years ago, I decided that I was going to make everyone marshmallows and hot chocolate, I remember getting a lot of good reviews so I decided that I was going to do it again this year.  It is just something different then cookies and breads, and you can put it away for a later date if you want (well at least the hot chocolate.)

This year instead of just plain ol' hot chocolate mix, I made Mexican Hot Chocolate.  The difference is that it has cayenne pepper and cinnamon.  Now, I made the first batch and it was really good but I wasn't really able to taste the cayenne pepper. SO...when I made the second batch, being the super smart person I am, I decided to add just a bit more of the pepper.  Not something I recommend.  I didn't add much, but man!  I ended up having to split the second batch into two and mellow them down a bit to tame the heat.  The second (and third) batch were/are still spicier then the first but were much more tolerable.  I even got a "tell your wife shes the bomb" response from one of my husbands friends, I must admit the compliment felt good. 

Mexican Hot Chocolate

3 cups non-fat dry milk
1 3/4 cups powdered sugar
1/4 brown sugar (I used dark)
3/4 cups white chocolate chips
3/4 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/8 cups dark cocoa powder (such as Hersey's Special Dark Cocoa Powder)
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsp cornstarch
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

Add all ingredients into a food processor, pulse until well mixed and most of the chocolate chips are broken down. (This may need to be made in batches depending on the size of your processor.)

Combine about 1/3 of the mix with hot water or milk, mix well and top with a homemade marshmallow.

Now. Marshmallows.  If you like marshmallows and have never made your own, I highly recommend it!  They are so much better, fresher, softer, did I say better, then store bought and really easy to make.  The other thing with making your own marshmallows you can flavor them anyway you want by just adding extracts, or cocoa.  For this recipe I just did plain since the hot chocolate had extra flavors.

Marshmallows

Vegetable oil, for brushing
4 envelopes unflavored gelatin
3 cups sugar
1 1/4 cups light corn syrup
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsp vanilla extract (or what ever flavor you would like)
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar, for dusting
Water

Brush a 9 x 13 pan with oil, I like to also line the pan with foil (which will also be oiled) that hangs at least two inches over the sides for easy removal, dust the pan with some of the powdered sugar. *You can not over oil the pan!

Bring the sugar, corn syrup, salt and 3/4 cups of water to a boil. Stir to dissolve the sugar.

In a standing mixer, with the whisk attachment, add 3/4 cups cold water. Sprinkle the gelatin over the water. Let soften for at least 5 minutes.

On low speed, whisk the sugar mixture in to the gelatin.  Switch to high speed, add vanilla and beat until stiff and looks like marshmallow fluff.  About 12-15 minutes.
Pour into the prepared pan, smooth and set aside, uncovered until firm. About 3 hours. Cut in to 1" squares or what ever shape your heart desires.