Semi-homemade recipes & quick tips

There are so many times when you've promised to make something for a club or class bake sale, or it's your best friend's birthday the next day and you have absolutely no idea what to do. Instead of buying something from the grocery store (lamesauce), take a 15 minute break and make something at least semi-homemade and much more delicious. These recipes are simple and absolutely flawless - they come out perfect every time (trust me, I've made them enough times). Completely homemade recipes are obviously much healthier and taste more natural (see previous posts!), but here are some other options when you're pressed for time, as we always are.

Betty Crocker Chocolate Chip Cookie Mix
This recipe is done very quickly, and it requires little or no expertise. All you need is an egg and a stick of butter - blend those together and then add in the mix from the packet. It says to have butter at room temperature, but I recommend microwaving it a little bit even then (or for two 8 or 9 second intervals if it's straight from the fridge), because the butter doesn't mix well with the egg. Even if the two are very lumpy & clumpy when mixed and you can't seem to blend them anymore - no worries, just add in the mix; the cookies will taste and look exactly the same. Also - don't worry about shaping the cookies. You can leave ugly little lumps on the cookie sheet (I recommend parchment paper) because they cookies will spread out perfectly into nice little circles just from the heat (unlike sugar cookies). Be sure to leave lots of room for the cookies to spread, and bake them on the lower end of the recommended time - otherwise they will be hard by the next day. Enjoy - these cookies turn out beautifully, and are absolutely indescribable when fresh out of the oven (...though still not as delicious as the recipe for "Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies" from March 9's post!)

Ghirardelli Double Chocolate Brownie Mix
Because brownies require more time in the oven than cookies (40 minutes vs. 8-10), these may seem like a longer process, but in reality it doesn't take too much time to prepare. Add 1/3 cup each of water and vegetable oil (again, all the instructions are detailed on the back) and blend those together with an egg. Because you don't need to add butter in this recipe, I find that the ingredients mix well together (use a large rubber spatula to blend in the mix from the box) and never have any lumps, except for the chocolate chips. These brownies come out moist and delicious, and are delicious with ice cream (see previous post for tips on how to enjoy brownies, as well as a better - and longer - recipe!).

Ghirardelli Hot Cocoa - Double Chocolate
Nestle Hot Cocoa Mix - Mini Marshmallows
Both of these are heavenly hot chocolate mixes and quite popular as well, so be sure to buy some and keep them handy at home. The Ghirardelli mix comes in a cylindrical box, and the Nestle comes in 6 individual packets to a box (perfect to keep in the kitchen at work for everyone to enjoy - or in your locker at school if hot water is available, and also excellent for traveling). The Ghirardelli mix calls for hot milk, and the Nestle mix works with both water and milk. To make the hot chocolate richer, milk is obviously the better choice, but sometimes it's good to mix a portion water and a portion of milk, to keep it a little healthier - and you can't taste the difference!

Of course, all of these 4 recipes come in many other mix "flavors," but the ones above are my favorite. All of these are available at any local grocery store, along with various other types. Again, homemade recipes are much less precessed, more natural, healthier and much tastier - but don't resort to buying baked goods from the supermarket when you can make something fresher right at home. Be sure to keep some of the recipes above handy, so when you're pressed for time or just longing for something semi-homemade, you can whip up one of these.

The Chocolate Chronicles
photocredit1: savingwithshellie.com
photocredit2: shopniac.com

Recipe: Blissful Brownies

I find that these brownies are perhaps the best homemade creations I have ever eaten. They taste best when they're hot, with some cold ice cream and pecan pieces on top - delicious. See below for more ideas.

Ingredients
4 ounces (1 stick) salted butter, at room temperature
1½ cups granulated sugar
2 large eggs
½ cup & 1 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa
1 cup & 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon water
1 teaspoon vanilla
¾ cup walnuts, in small pieces (optional)

TIP: In step 4 below, beat the mixture for an extra 2 minutes on medium speed in order to make the brownies fluffier and tastier.

1. In a large bowl, using a mixer, beat the butter for half a minute or so; then add the sugar and beat until the mixture is well blended together.
2. Beat in the eggs.
3. Measure and then sift the required amount of cocoa. Add this in and mix until the batter is smooth.
4. Thoroughly blend together the flour, baking powder and salt; add them to the mixing bowl and beat at medium speed.
5. Add the water and vanilla and mix them in.
6. Gently blend in the walnuts (only if you want). The dough will be a bit stiff and sticky, which is all right.
7. Pour the dough into a greased baking pan, 8-inch or something similar. Grease the pan with butter, not olive oil if possible - the smell tends to linger. After, dust the pan with flour and tap out the excess, to make the brownies easier to remove at the end.
   

TIP: Instead of using a spatula or your fingers to smooth the batter down into the baking pan, hold two sides firmly in your hands and rest the pan on a counter top. Shake it vigorously back and forth, up and down; the batter will move to the corners and even itself out quickly.

Bake the brownies for 30 to 40 minutes or until the top is set and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, without any batter on it. Wait at least an hour before cutting the brownies, otherwise the cuts won't come out clean. After you've eaten a few and treated your friends or family, cover the pan with aluminum foil and store them in the oven or the pantry.

The brownies will taste fine for a couple weeks max, but they taste best when fresh from the oven, of course. If you still have the brownies in your pan after a few days, a good idea is to warm up a brownie or two in the microwave (cover the plate with a moist - but not soaking - paper towel) for 10-15 seconds, and then eat it with some cold ice cream. YUM :)

The Chocolate Chronicles
photocredit1: candyaddict.com
photocredit2: piesandbass.wordpess.com

Chocolate 101: dark, milk, and white

We see it in the store, in the windows of See's or Godiva (more on that later), and in little kids' Halloween baskets. Most of us probably know that the darker the chocolate, the more "real chocolate" there is inside - and there's even debate as to whether white chocolate is true chocolate. In order to differentiate the different types (a must-know for any chocolate lover), we need to know where chocolate actually comes from. Here's an abridged version of the real chocolate production process:

1. Chocolate comes from the cacao bean, which grows on trees in large pods. Most (almost 2/3) of the world's cacao supply comes from Western Africa; the most common cacao bean (of 3 types) is called forastero.
2. The cacao pods (typically orange or similar in color) are harvested when completely ripe and then left to ferment, giving the beans the chocolate flavor we all love.
   
3. After drying, cleaning, and roasting the beans, the central "nibs" of the cacao bean are extracted from their white shells and ground and liquefied into a pure liquid chocolate, known as chocolate liquor or unsweetened chocolate.

Some other useful things to know - cocoa butter is a pale yellow or off-white natural fat with a mild chocolate flavor, taken from the cacao been; cocoa powder is the nonfat portion of chocolate, which is generally bitter in taste and reddish brown in color - it's essentially powdered chocolate liquor without any fat content.

Though the different chocolates aren't as black and white (or should I say, brown and white) as the photo above, here's a quick rundown of the different types of chocolate and their basic ingredients & differences.

Unsweetened chocolate is pure chocolate liquor, also known as baking chocolate.

Dark chocolate is produced by adding cocoa butter and sugar to chocolate liquor, and is the only chocolate without milk content. (Bittersweet chocolate is chocolate liquor with a very low sugar content - typically one third as much as dark chocolate, and semisweet chocolate has about half as much. Both are used for baking.)

Milk chocolate is made by adding cocoa butter, sugar, and milk powder (or condensed milk) to chocolate liquor - the use of condensed milk was first used in the 1800s by Henri Nestlé.

White chocolate - a type of couverture (chocolate rich in cocoa butter), white chocolate is made of sugar, cocoa butter, and milk - no chocolate liquor or cocoa solids.

As to the health content of dark chocolate - soon to come!

The Chocolate Chronicles
photocredit1: cacaolatino.com
photocredit2: chocolatecantina.com

Lindt truffles: an excuse to be a "fatty"

Lindor (Lindt) Truffles - the essence of pure chocolatey goodness. My personal favorites are the Extra Dark Chocolate & the Dark Chocolate Peppermint; each comes with a firm outer shell of chocolate (what else?), with a gooey filling of... more chocolate, which seems to be richer and more fatty. YUM.

Here are the flavors that these truffles come in - with the wrapper color in parantheses: Milk Chocolate (red), Dark Chocolate (blue), White Chocolate (yellow), Extra Dark (black), Peanut Butter (orange), Hazelnut (brown), Stracciatella (light blue wrapper - mainly white chocolate, with dark pieces of chocolate; kind of like a cookies-n-cream type flavor), Raspberry (pink), Dark Chocolate Peppermint (green), and a variety of "Seasonal Flavors."

I don't know if it's possible to have chocolate this good. But Lindt is, quite honestly, chocolate at its finest - and their recipe, of course, is a secret. In the summer of 2007, by which time I was already hooked on these amazing pieces of goodness, I went with my family to Switzerland (the 1845 origin of Lindt), hoping to go to a chocolate factory and, with all the luck in the world, figure out how to make these beauties. Lindt, however, had stopped offering tours of their factory (trip to Switzerland thereby deemed a failure) - so they evidently want to keep us both fat and in the dark.

Lindt's slogan for their truffles: "Do you dream in chocolate?" After eating one of these... most definitely. I dream in silky-smooth, completely pure, perfectly sweet [LINDT] chocolate. Available at your local supermarket.

The Chocolate Chronicles
photocredit: find.myrecipes.com