Chocoholic Anonymous

Welcome to the final TWD installment of 2008.  I hope everyone is having a wonderful holiday season; I know I am!  I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to participate this week since I am still out of town visiting family, but my mother graciously permitted me to take over her kitchen long enough to make Anne’s  (of AnneStrawberry) choice of Tall and Creamy Cheesecake (found on pages 235-237 of Dorie’s Baking: From My Home to Yours).

Since I’m sitting in my mother’s kitchen on a laptop essentially ignoring my family long enough to write this, I’m going to do my best to keep it short.

Cheesecake is definitely rated among my favorite desserts so I was excited to make this one.  For the most part I followed the recipe as it was written, but I couldn’t resist making a few changes…

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I had every intention of posting this a little closer to Thanksgiving, I planned to post it on Friday, which then got postponed until Saturday and I’m not entirely sure where Sunday went.  I think we all know what they say about “good intentions” and “best laid plans” which is why I’m here on Monday writing a post that I should have shared on Friday.  But, moving on…

It has been said a time or two (or 3 or 4 or 20) that I tend to go every so slightly (read insanely) overboard with my holiday menus and preparation.  If that is true (and I’m not admitting that it is!) I’m sure I come by it quite honestly by way of my mother.  Every holiday meal I’ve ever made has fallen short of the abundance my mother spreads on the holiday table multiple times a year; of course I think the largest number I’ve ever had at my holiday table is 5 (this Thanksgiving it was only 2, and that included me), but that doesn’t stop me from striving for the Holiday feast perfection that my mother serves up at every major holiday.

So did I truly go over board this Thanksgiving?  I’ll let you be the judge, but I will say that the leftovers are going to be enjoyed in several forms for quite some time…

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Every year around this time I find myself going through the exact same thing.  I go to store after store looking for the Heath toffee baking pieces (the ones without the chocolate), only to be disappointed at every stop.  I used to be able to get them easily; they were in the baking aisle of every grocery store, right there with the rest of the assorted baking pieces almost always next to the selection of nuts.  Then, about 3 or 4 years ago they quietly disappeared.

How could this be?  I asked at several grocery stores and I was informed that the Heath baking pieces were just not popular enough to keep them in stock and I should try a specialty store.  Well, I tried several to no avail.  Last year I actually bought full size Heath bars, melted the chocolate off them and crushed them myself.  I’ve looked online, and sure, I can find those wonderfully convenient baking pieces but the shipping costs are staggering.

This year I decided to finally give up on the idea of convenience (really, is it still convenient if you have to go to a dozen stores to not find what you’re looking for?), I decided I would try my hand at making my own toffee baking pieces.  It turns out that it is quick, easy, and well worth the (minimal) effort.

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Two things have recently come to my attention:

1) I haven’t actually shared a recipe with you in about a month

2) My last few posts haven’t had very much (if anything) chocolate in them

I simply cannot permit this situation to continue.  This recipe not only rectifies both issues but it satisfies every craving for sweet, gooey, chocolaty goodness that I’ve had lately.  Not to be completely immodest, but these little bars are positively to die for.  And I’m not the only one to hold this belief – they vanished in under a day at the office and every single person gave them a rave review.

I won’t keep you in suspense any longer, grab the recipe here and let’s get baking…

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We have a winner!

After the disappointment of the Deep Dark Rich Chocolate Fudge cake, we had to scramble to try out new recipes.  Would you believe we got lucky with the very first one we tried?  This recipe is adapted from one that I found on Epicurious.  I was a little hesitant to try it because the user reviews were a mixed bag ranging from people claiming it was a dry crumbly disaster to people claiming it was the best chocolate cake they had ever made or tasted.

I decided it probably fell somewhere in the middle and hoped that it fell closer to the positve side of that bell curve. I chose to give it a whirl, after all, what is the worst that could happen?  But, I did take the Epicurious reader comments to heart and adjusted the recipe accordingly.

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If you remember, in my first post I said I would be sharing my trials and tribulations as well as my successes on this blog.  Despite the absolutely divine sounding name of this cake, it unfortunately does fall into the “trials and tribulations” category.

First, I’d like give you all a little bit of background on why I was attempting this cake.  In just under two weeks “Prince Charming” and I are getting married.  I’m sure you’re wondering now what that has to do with attempting a new cake recipe.  Well, back when “Prince Charming” proposed, I asked my mother if we could make my wedding cake as a  mother-daughter project and she agreed (Thank you mom!).  My mother is absolutely amazing in the kitchen and she has done some wedding and anniversary cakes in the past (including my little brother’s wedding cake) that have been just phenomenal.

Since my entire wedding is Fairy Tale themed, you can imagine that the cake I designed isn’t exactly simple or straight forward…

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I know what you’re thinking: “No chocolate? And it isn’t even dessert??”  What is the world coming to?  The fact of the matter is that no matter how much I wish otherwise I cannot live on dessert alone (don’t think I haven’t tried!).  And if I can’t live on dessert alone, there is simply no hope of “Prince Charming” being sustained by sweets.

Over the weekend I usually try to make something in a large enough quantity that “Prince Charming” has easily accessible and readily re-heatable options for lunch during the week.  These ribs fit the bill perfectly because they are quick and easy to prepare and I can quite literally forget them in the pot until we are ready for dinner.

Here’s your recipe; let’s dive right in.

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I posted the full recipe for these muffins in anticipation of getting this post up, however, my day job then became my day and night job, neatly preventing me from doing much of anything else (as I’m sure “Prince Charming” would unhappily attest to if you asked him).  I’ve decided not to let that happen anymore (well, I can’t avoid the working late and crazy hours at the moment, but I can decide I’m still going to do the things I enjoy – sleep is optional, right?) so on to the real reason you’re here reading this…

This recipe was inspired by the need to use up some pre-sliced apples that were starting to brown a bit; there weren’t very many of them so many of my normal apple based recipes just weren’t an option.  So I decided to get creative and come up with something new.  Unfortunately, my creativity used most of my mixing bowls and challenged my limited counter space.  But don’t let that stop you from following along – I assure you these are worth all the bowls it took to make them.  Grab the recipe and let’s go!

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Cheesecake is one of my favorite desserts and it is also one of my favorite recipes to play with.  I have made cheesecakes with apples, blueberries, chocolate, caramel, peanut butter, white chocolate, butterscotch, toffee…and the list goes on.  However, until today, I had not made a cheesecake with coffee.

As a general rule I’m not particularly fond of coffee – at least as a beverage.  When I do drink coffee it has so much cream, sugar and flavored syrup in it that I’m really not sure you could even call it coffee anymore.  That being said, it probably isn’t that strange that I love coffee ice cream, mocha ice cream, a little bit of coffee in my hot chocolate or even mocha flavored candy.  While I was growing up it wasn’t unusual for me to choose coffee milk even over chocolate milk as my beverage of choice.

So I got to thinking…why not a mocha cheesecake?  I can’t claim it is a completely original idea, but this recipe is my version so follow along and I’ll introduce you to my interpretation of mocha cheesecake…

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I originally created these brownies as a crust for my Triple Chocolate Mocha Cheesecake.  I wanted something that would add to the mocha flavor and, while I positively adore a good graham cracker crust I am not quite as fond of the chocolate cookie crumb crusts.  I have used a number of brownie recipes as crusts for various cheesecakes in the past but none of them seemed quite right for a mocha cheesecake.  So, after rummaging through my recipe boxes and books and then taking a quick surf around the internet I pieced together this recipe.  As it turns out, these stand quite well on their own – they have a deep chocolate flavor with a hint of coffee and a nice fudgy texture.

Are you ready to give them a try?  Click here for the full recipe and click “Read more” below to follow along!

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