Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Thin Mint Brownies

Thin Mint Brownies
 
 
 

As you may or may not know, this is a very special season. Valentine's day? No. Lent? Um okay, but not what I'm getting at. The end of winter? Well yes, thank goodness, but not quite. The season to which I am referring is Girl Scout cookie season. Yes, this is the season during which, for only $3.50, you can buy a box of the chewy or crunchy deliciousness that only an adorable little girl with badges on her vest can sell to you. A long time ago, I too was a girl scout, and I love the fact that somehow me eating cookies can help such a worthwhile cause. (P.S. if you want cookies and don't know where to buy them, here's a link where you can enter your zip code and find a girl scout cookie sale near you! Girl Scout Cookie Locator )

Rachey’s Birthday Cake


Rachey’s Birthday Cake: Flourless Chocolate Cake with Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Icing, Kit Kats, and M&M's

As promised, here is another birthday cake post, and one in which I will actually be able to tell you how I made the cake. In my birthday cake consultations I ask my friends a variety of questions, two of which are always “What’s your favorite dessert?” and “What’s your favorite candy?” Following these steps, I usually decide to base my cake off of one of these answers. In the case of my dear friend Rachey, I based the cake off of both, and also added an extra surprise that I knew she would love. She said her favorite dessert was flourless chocolate cake and her favorite candies were Kit Kat bars and M&M's. As an avid Pinterester, I had seen a picture of a cake with Kit Kats around the outside and had been wanting to try doing that anyway. Though I had not made a flourless chocolate cake before, I knew that wouldn’t be a problem. I decided to use chocolate chip cookie dough icing, because Rachey and I share a love for chocolate chip cookie dough. Finally, I decided to top this epic cake off with M&M's. LOTS of M&M's. Shoutout to Lauren for helping me with the icing and decoration of this cake, her help is probably the reason the cake did not end up looking like a total mess :-) For more specifics on how you can recreate this masterpiece, along with process pictures, all you have to do is click the “Read More” button below!



Monday, February 11, 2013

Chocolate Amaretto Cookies

Chocolate Amaretto Cookies 



I began this baking adventure by asking myself, “What’s better than chocolate?” The answer, of course, is nothing. That is, except adding other delicious things to chocolate. So, after a thorough search of my kitchen, I found an ingredient that I knew would add something extra special to normal chocolate cookies: amaretto liqueur. The liqueur gives these super-chocolaty cookies a delicious nutty flavor. I will warn you that this recipe yields a surprising amount of cookies. I ended up with 60. Not that this is really a problem :-)