Deep Dark Chocolate Bar

Wishing all my readers a Happy Valentines Day! 

This valentines day is a little different for me. So, what's happening in my life is that I'm doing this 10 week weight loss challenge with my bootcamp group. Its going great and I love it - but the biggest change I made to my eating habits is that I cut out sugar. Totally. Big, huge, humongous step for me. You all know how much I love that nasty little thing. But I've given it up. And after 4 weeks, I don't even crave it. An orange seems way too sweet for me now. 

But what's Valentines Day without a little chocolate right? I bravely told my husband not to bother getting me chocolates this year - he has my permission to get a box of protein powder instead. But I did hear a separate conversation between my daughter and him - and she made sure he still gets her a box of chocolates because she too is his valentine and that she's not off sugar or anything like that. What a loving family I have. 

Anyways, on my quest for some healthy chocolate recipes (and also the fact that I indulged in a little impulsive shopping when I saw this little chocolate bar mold), I came across this wonderful recipe from a chocolate lover's blog -  Three-Ingredient Chocolate Bars from chocolatecoveredkatie.com. Thank You Katie for making my dream come true! I'm saving this as a classic favorite recipe for all my life. 

The recipe is very simple. Three Ingredients. About three minutes to make. That's it.

Start of course, with some Cocoa Powder.

Next, some Organic Unrefined Coconut Oil. I was surprised to see how relatively healthy this is compared to the other oils and butters. And it smells divine too. And no, I'm not a spokesperson for them. 

The original recipe from Katie's blog uses Stevia extract to make a sugar free indulgence. But I chose to use Agave instead just because I wanted to make it in the 5 mins after I saw the recipe and I could not wait to go to the store to buy stevia extract and besides Agave is amazing as well!

The ratio of ingredients is 1/4 cup cocoa: 1/4 cup coconut oil: 1 tbsp Agave. 

I doubled that ratio while making this as you can see below. 

Measure out 1/2 cup of coconut oil. Add 2 tbsp of Agave to the oil.

 Stir well together. I love this color btw.

Measure out 1/2 cup of cocoa powder.

Add to the oil mix and stir together scraping the sides.

There's some magic showing already. On a very tangential note, did you know you could probably get a facial done with this - well, maybe without the agave. Ok. let't not go there and just stick to the eating part here.

Pour into molds. Can you see why I was obsessed with making this. My new silicone chocolate bar mold. Love it!

I just poured the remaining on a parchment sheet.

Tried some sweetened coconut and almond toppings. We all need variety right?

I haven't yet perfected the art of filling these up just right - but hey, when has a little extra overflowing chocolate hurt anyone?

Pop them into the fridge and just in about 20 mins, they are solid and amazing. You can chop them neatly or break them rough. Just play with them. They've been good to you.

Since virgin coconut oil hardens at temperature below 76F, these turn solid really quick in the refrigerator  Hence this recipe won't work with any other oils.

Enjoy some gorgeous Deep Dark Chocolate. These are great to make hot chocolate drinks too. Btw - these are bitter and I thought my daughter would not like these but she turned out a surprise and loved them!

Happy Valentines Day to all!

Enjoy. Peace Out!

Black Forest Cake For Valentines Day

Wishing you all a Happy Valentines Day! 

And what's a valentines day without some chocolate cake? It just has to be, right?

And when it just has to be, why not add some cherries as well?

This is another simple black forest cake recipe- source is from a favorite recipe app on my ipad. The Myrecipes.com daily indulgence app. If you have an ipad and love to bake, just buy the app. Even if you don't bake all the recipes on there, it sure brings a smile and a drool every single day.

Here's the ingredient list. I modified the original recipe very little - reduced the cocoa and used butter instead of shortening. 

1 can sweetened condensed milk

1/2 cup butter (1 stick)

2 Large Eggs

All Purpose Flour - 1 3/4 cup

2/3 cup packed brown sugar

1/2 cup cocoa powder

2 tsps baking powder

2 tsps baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/4 cup hot water

1 cup dark or semi sweet chocolate morsels

1 can cherry pie filling

Mix all the dry ingredients together - flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and mix well.

Combine condensed milk, brown sugar, butter and eggs and mix well until combined.

When that's done, add the dry ingredients and mix well.

When the batter is almost done, add the 1/4 cup of hot water to the batter and mix once well.

Keep your pans ready. Since it is indeed valentines day, I used the two heart pans I had. I loved the cute little bundt pan...but it sure is little, so added my big heart pan as well. Grease and flour them.

Here's the batter ready. It looks chocolatey enough but wait..

...just go ahead and add the chocolate morsels. Trust me, this bite is beautiful while eating the cake!

Pour in pans and bake at 350F for about 25-30 mins or until it passes the toothpick test.

Here are the cakes ready to go..

This is pretty. Yes.

This is also good. Yes.

But this way, its pretty good indeed! YES!

                                           

Drizzle the cherry pie filling on top of the cake. And drool just like the cherry syrup.

I love you so much that I gave you more than one of my hearts!

Someone else here is also drooling at the cake.

Introducing to all you - my little girl Aadhya! Can't believe she's already three months. This is the reason you all don't see me often on here now. I can't believe how someone so little takes over the lives of multiple people! However all that is pure joy and I'm loving every moment of it.

Can I jump inside the cake daddy?

 Make this luscious cake and impress your loved ones.

Happy Valentines Day to all of you!!

Enjoy. Peace Out!

Red Velvet Cake and Cupcakes

Happy Valentines Day to all of you out there. Thanks for all the love. And sending it all back right to you.

So until last evening I had absolutely no plans of making anything. After a whole weekend of re organizing the house (i.e my closets and pantry). I finally sat down to watch the Grammy's and suddenly remembered that Valentines day was today. And I kind of just mentioned - maybe I should do something for the blog. (I know.. forget actual people!) My daughter got all excited that I was going to make cupcakes. TH told me - just relax no big deal, you don't have to bake anything. To this, the little one got all worked up, fisted up and declared - In this house, we  always bake. We bake for everything and Valentines Day should not be missed. True. 

So I got up and looked for a recipe for Red Velvet cupcakes and came across this and absolutely loved the post. And my daughter even more because it had her fav X and O's. So, this was it. Thank you Picky Cook for an excellent recipe! Loved every bit of the end result. Even though mine is not as pretty as yours - it tasted just perfect. The way I want a red velvet cake to taste. 

I used the same measurements in the recipe for the cupcakes. But only made about 12 cupcakes. I poured the remaining batter in a heart shaped pan and made a little festive heart cake. 

On the icing though, I halved the recipe provided. Since I had only half of the cupcakes anyways. And also, my icing was a little on the soft side and not really stiff - so it was a little painful to actually pipe the icing. But since it was not going to get perfect anyway, I just handed over the icing bag to my little one and she had a ball piping the X's and O's and one little heart - she also tried to write LOVE on one - but the cupcake just was small for that!

 Here's the recipe from Picky Cooks -


2 1/2 cups sifted cake flour - sift it before you measure it.
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
2 oz. red food coloring (two bottles)
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 eggs, at room temperature
2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup buttermilk, at room temperature
1 teaspoon white vinegar
1 teaspoon baking soda


Sift the flour and then measure out 2 1/2 cups. Then, add the baking powder and the salt and sift one more time and set aside. 

Beat together the butter and sugar till creamy.

Add the eggs one at at time and keep beating at medium speed till mixed well.
Also, add the vanilla essence and beat together well.

In a small bowl, mix together the cocoa powder and the red food coloring and stir well to make a smooth paste without lumps. Also, another thing - the recipe calls for 2 bottles of 1oz red food color. I used 1 bottle and also added some red food color concentrate. But if you want the real bright red like the original recipe, go ahead and use the 2 bottles. Side note - I'm still trying to get the redness off my tongue from last night!

Add the red paste to the batter.

Does that not look gorgeous already!

Add the sifted flour and buttermilk alternately starting and ending with the flour. Keep scraping off the sides to mix in all the flour.

Now I just wish I could eat it right now. So pretty!

We're almost done. Just need a little bit more oomph. Enter Vinegar and baking soda. Mix them together in a small bowl and love the little bubbles popping up.

Mix the bubbling soda vinegar mix with the batter. Mix well.

Pour halfway into little cupcake liners.

Bake in a pre heated oven at 350 F for about 18-20 mins. Until they are just perfect. No pressure.

For the cream cheese icing, here's the recipe again from Picky cook's site -

16 oz. cream cheese (2 packages), softened
1/2 cup unsalted butter (one stick), softened
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups powdered sugar, sifted
pinch of salt


I made just half of the above quantity. So it was 1 block of cream cheese, half a stick of butter and 1 1/4 cups of powdered sugar. 

Decorate them any way you want. My little one of course wanted the X's and O's exactly like she saw on Picky Cook's site - and so yes, we made that too!

And a little shaky heart!

How can I not show you how bright and red it was inside?

This was the cake with the remaining batter after the 12 cupcakes. Looks wonderful, doesn't it? Instead of just cutting the cake, use a cookie cutter and cut little heart shapes and you can decorate them individually too. Which is what I did and shared with my neighbor.

Oprah might like this. 

With love and kisses of course!

Wrap up your heart and hand it over to someone..pronto. Happy Valentines Day!

Enjoy. Peace Out!