chocolate cashew butter

Posted on 5 May, 2013 by natalie

Whatever you do, don’t make this.

Sure, it seems harmless enough. It’s just some cashew butter… What’s the harm in that?

With the first bite you’ll be impressed by the texture, second bite, “ooh, that chocolate is a really good addition,” third bite “ooh, I can taste a little salt in there too…”

Using it to dip some banana or apple in, smearing a bit on some toast. Maybe dunking a graham cracker or two…

Next thing you know it’s gone and you’re torn between the shock of, “Did I just eat a whole container of cashew butter?” followed by the panic of realizing, “MY GOD, THERE IS NO MORE CASHEW BUTTER!”

You’ll know you’re in real trouble, though, when you’re standing at the counter eating the second batch straight out of the jar with a spoon… totally not speaking from experience.

Like I said, this is serious stuff.

Well, I put those graham crackers in there for the picture… it’d be a real shame to waste them. Might as well eat the rest of them too, since they’re already on the plate.

Chocolate Cashew Butter

Makes about 8 ounces cashew butter (mine fit into my 8 ounce mason jar)

Printable Recipe

2 cups (about 8 ounces) cashews*
1 ounce chocolate, milk or dark, chopped (or a tablespoon or two of mini chocolate chips)
1 teaspoon virgin coconut oil
salt, to taste (I added about a 1/2 teaspoon of sea salt)

1. Place 2 cups cashews (or nut of your choice) into the food processor. Blend continuously until they break down into a butter form. This will take awhile and you will need to scrape down the sides a few times. They will go from nuts, to chopped nuts, to something resembling almond meal, then to the consistency of chunky peanut butter, then to a smoother consistency.

2. Once smooth, add the chopped chocolate and coconut oil and continue blending and scraping until it is completely blended.

3. Taste and add salt as desired, blend and scrape down the sides one last time to incorporate the salt.

Can be stored at room temperature up to 3 days, or refrigerated for about a month (I’ve seen other sites say up to 3 months).

* You can use any nut you like, roasted or raw, but roasted nuts will give a more pronounced nut flavor (raw cashews basically just hold onto the chocolate and stay pretty neutral in flavor) – Just make sure to use unsalted so that you can control how much salt goes into the butter. (If you’re feeling adventurous, give honey-roasted peanuts a try, you might not even need want to add the chocolate with that one.)

* Use more or less chocolate, milk or dark, to your taste, or omit the chocolate all together. Other things that mix well – honey, maple, cinnamon, etc.

[ Adapted from How Sweet Eats ]

reeses cup bundt cake

Posted on 30 March, 2013 by natalie

By the time you read this, I should be on my way to California… on VACATIONNNNN!!!

So, since this will be the last post for awhile, and the last March (cake) Madness post, it is only fitting that I would combine two of my favorite things: chocolate and peanut butter. And Reese’s cups, to make it more redundant. And more delicious.

This cake was arguably the first “recipe” I ever made. Once upon a time ago, when I was a little girl baking with my momma, we needed to make a dessert for our neighborhood block party (remember those?). Mom asked what we should bring and of course my brain immediately went to my then (and still) favorite candy, Reese’s Cups. In cake form.

Of course back then it was just a box cake mix and a bajillion chopped up Reese’s cups. Mixed into the cake, adorning the top, dumped into the hole in the middle… I even halved them and made a little Reese’s border along the outside of the cake.

I didn’t have enough mini Reese’s to do that this time.

I didn’t really miss them. (Ok, maybe I missed them a little bit)

This cake was so good, as soon as I took a bite I was immediately upset, because I knew that it was suddenly a choice between cake and dinner… No one should ever need to make that choice.

Especially when ganache and Reese’s are involved.

It was even better the next day, in case yours lasts that long.

Reese’s Cup Bundt Cake

Makes 1 bundt cake

Printable Recipe

For the cake:

1 cup unsalted butter
⅓ cup dutch processed cocoa powder
½ teaspoon kosher salt (unless your peanut butter is really salty)
⅓ cup creamy peanut butter (I always use Jif)
1 cup water
2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for the pan
1 ¾ cups granulated sugar
1 ½ teaspoons baking soda
2 large room temperature eggs, lightly beaten
½ cup sour cream; room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
10 reeses cups, roughly chopped (usually easier to chop if they’re chilled)
Mini reeses, for decorating (optional)

For the chocolate glaze:

½ cup chocolate chips (or 4 ounces chopped chocolate)
½ cup heavy cream
2 Tablespoons light corn syrup

1. Heat butter, peanut butter, and water over medium heat in a small saucepan until butter and peanut butter are just melted. Stir in cocoa powder and set aside to cool to room temperature. To ensure my impatience didn’t get in my way, I decided to wait to preheat the oven until this point and didn’t let myself mix anything until the oven beeped.

2. Preheat oven to 350˚F and prep a bundt pan with butter and flour or with Pam for Baking

3. In a large bowl, sift or whisk together flour, salt, sugar, and baking soda until well mixed.

4. Slowly whisk or beat in the melted butter mixture until combined, making sure to scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl. Add eggs and vanilla and whisk to incorporate. Stir in sour cream until combined.

5. Option 1: Pour half of batter into prepared pan, sprinkle with chopped peanut butter cups, and pour remaining half of batter over the Reese’s.

Option 2: Stir peanut butter cups into batter and pour into prepared pan.

6. Bake 40 to 45 minutes until done. Cool 15 minutes in the pan, then invert onto a wire rack and remove pan to finish cooling completely.

7. Once your cake is cooled, make your ganache by heating your cream just until it starts to bubble. I usually do that by heating it in a 2-cup measuring cup in the microwave, but you can use a saucepan on the stove if you like.

Add chocolate and corn syrup and whisk to combine (if you used a pan for your cream, pour the cream over the chocolate instead). At first it will look like it’s going well, then it will look like it’s going very poorly, then if you just keep whisking you’ll be relieved when it all comes back together again.

Oreo Overload Cupcakes

Posted on 24 March, 2013 by natalie

This weekend was filled to the top with Oreos. I made these Oreo cheesecake cupcakes for the BF’s co-workers, and then I made these cupcakes for the BF. Well, in his honor, at least.

You see, he sent me the original inspiration for this recipe. Oreos, in my opinion, are pretty much the most perfect cookie in existence. The quintessential cookie. Crisp cookie, creamy filling, and once dunked in milk it will lead your tastebuds to immediate bliss.

Immediate.

The only way to make Oreos better? Mix them with more chocolate, more cream, and even more Oreos, for maximum Oreo consumpion. These cupcakes have an Oreo cookie base, then chopped Oreo cookies mixed into the cake batter, Oreo crumb frosting, and the tiniest cutest little Oreo right on top.

That’s right, we have four layers of Oreo here, people. Four!

The only problem I had was the frosting. This is probably the only frosting I have ever made that I would recommend chilling just a bit before using (although my kitchen tends to be a bit warmer than the average kitchen anyway). I had much better success using a spatula to spread the frosting than I did attempting to pipe it. This may be partly because I hand-crushed the Oreos for the frosting instead of using a food processor, so they weren’t uniformly-sized and therefor didn’t come out of my piping bag evenly. So, using a food processor to make your crumbs may help, but the easiest fix for me was just to spread the frosting with a spatula instead.

Oreo Overload Cupcakes

Makes: 24 cupcakes

Printable Recipe

For the Cake:

24 Oreo cookies, whole (I used birthday cake Oreos)

12 Oreo cookies, coarsely chopped (I used regular)

1 recipe your favorite chocolate cake – I used this one (halved), but this one would work too, or even a box mix will do

For the Frosting:

1 (8-ounce) package cream cheese, softened to room temp

1 (4-ounce) stick unsalted butter, softened to room temp

3 cups powdered sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

12 Oreo cookies, finely crushed*

24 mini Oreos

Make your cake

1. Preheat oven and line 24 cupcake wells with liners. Place 1 whole Oreo in the bottom of each cupcake liner.

2. Make your cake according to directions, stirring chopped Oreos in at the end. Fill each well 2/3 full with batter and bake until done. My cake recipe took 24 minutes to bake as cupcakes. Once baked, remove from cupcake tins and cool completely on a wire rack.

Make your frosting

1. Whip butter and cream cheese together with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Scrape down sides and add vanilla extract, beating again to incorporate.

2. Add powdered sugar 1/2 cup at a time, beating carefully after each addition to avoid exploding powdered sugar all over your kitchen. After the last bit is mixed in, scrape down the sides and beat on medium-high until light and fluffy.

3. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and add in the Oreo crumbs, beat again until well mixed. Allow to chill just slightly so it is easier to handle and spread on cupcakes, topping with a tiny Oreo cookie, if desired.

* Using a food processor for your frosting crumbs will help to ensure you end up with a smoother, more uniform frosting. I ended up spreading my frosting with an offset spatula, glopping some on top of each cupcake and then letting it set for a bit and then came back to actually spread the frosting a later. Of course I didn’t find this out until the last couple of cupcakes (that had been sitting with glopped frosting on top)…

Brownie Swirl Cake

Posted on 3 March, 2013 by wee eats

I’m going to tell you all that I had high hopes for March. I know that Spring is right around the corner and I was all excited to share some “healthy” (well, more healthy than usual) recipes with you so that you didn’t have to swear off the website while you readied yourself for Spring Break or whatever it is that you have looming around the corner that may require you to wear some less-skin-covering clothing items.

Much to absolutely no one’s surprise, that ended quickly. I promise that I’ve been making juices and salads for you, but in between all of those green and healthful things there is cake. So. Much. Cake.

Well, since March is my birthday month and I’m always in search of the perfect cake for my birthday anyway, I decided to embrace my cake madness and MAKE ALL THE CAKE! Followed by eating all the cake, and posting all the cake.

Last year I made pretty much the best cake ever - a three layer rich chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting and finished off with a dark chocolate ganache. It was heavenly. It’s going to be really hard to top.

But not everyone has hours to dedicate to cake-making.

So, what if you have a birthday say, tomorrow, and you want to do something a little more special than just a box cake mix and you don’t know what to do because you have a job and a life and not enough hours in the day?

That’s where this comes in.

You get the ease of a box mix but with super fancy sprinkles and swirls that make it look like you worked really hard. And the weirdest part? Somehow you use brownie mix and a cake mix and it magically turns into this fun and pretty marbled sensation.

Not too shabby, huh?

So in honor of March, I’m going to say IT’S MY BIRTHDAY MONTH AND I CAN EAT CAKE EVERY FRICKIN’ DAY IF I WANT TO AND NO ONE CAN STOP ME. And if you feel the need to celebrate March (officially renamed “Cake Month”) with me, then more power to you! We’ll save all that healthy stuff for next month or something (or I’m sure I can sneak a recipe or two in between the cake).

For now, I’ll take another piece of cake please. Thank you.

Brownie Swirl Cake

Makes 1 9-by-13-inch cake

Printable Recipe

1 (15.25 oz) box cake mix
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 egg
1/2 cup milk
1 “Family Size” box Brownie mix
1 recipe frosting (or just a large can of frosting, I won’t tell)
Sprinkles, if desired

1. Preheat oven to 350°F and spray 9×13 pan with cooking spray or line with foil/parchment.

2. In a medium mixing bowl combine cake mix, oil, egg and milk. Beat together for about 1 minute, until ingredients are incorporated.

3. Spread batter in the bottom of the prepared pan (it will be thick). I find the easiest way to do this is to wet my hands with water and use them to press and spread the mix until it covers the bottom of the pan.

4. Make your brownie batter according to the directions on the box. Pour the brownie batter on top of the cake layer.

5. Bake approx 25-30 minutes until center is set, err on the side of slightly underbaking than overbaking. What I ended up with was delicious brownie outsides (I like the dry brownie outside) and a nice, cakey inside. Surprisingly tasty.

6. Frost and top with sprinkles, if desired.

[ Adapted from Cookies N Cups ]

DIY Ding Dongs Recipe

Posted on 26 February, 2013 by natalie

As you know, Wee Eats is hosting its first ever giveaway! If you head over to the giveaway page you can enter to win The Art & Soul of Baking, which includes this recipe for “retro ring cakes” (but we all know they are actually Ding Dongs). Given the recent demise of America’s long-beloved sweetheart, Hostess, making these from scratch may just be the only way to get your fix.

Warning: Once you make them from scratch, you may not be able to eat them any other way.

This recipe is a tender, chocolatey devil’s food cake with a fluffy, vanilla whipped-cream filling. Once upon a time ago (before I had a food blog) I used this very same recipe as cupcakes to make Little Debbie knock-offs. Same concept, different execution. The great thing about this book is that it will give you base recipes, then variations and ways to play with each recipe.

For the cupcakes, you make the cake recipe in a cupcake pan and bake at an adjusted time, for the ding dongs you make it as a sheet cake and cut out circle mini-cakes with a 3-inch round biscuit cutter. I tried to be smart and use a 2.5-inch cutter to get more mini cakes, but then I didn’t have a properly-sized smaller cutter to fit the maximum amount of filling in. So maybe just stick to the recipe for this one Unless you have a wide array of circular cutters.

Make sure you enter the giveaway to win the book, but in the mean time, enjoy this recipe for “Retro Ring Cakes” (/cough-ding-dongs-/cough). They’re so good, even kitties can’t resist!

DIY Ding Dongs Recipe

Makes: 9 cakes

Printable Recipe

For the Cake:

½ cup dutch-process cocoa powder
½ cup + 1 cup water, divided
1 ½ sticks (6 ounces) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
¼ cup brown sugar, firmly packed
3 large eggs, room temperature
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups (7 ounces) sifted cake flour
¼ cup (1 ¼ ounces) all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt

For the Filling:

⅓ cup heavy whipping cream
1 teaspoon sugar
½ teaspoon vanilla extract

For the Glaze:

8 ounces dark chocolate*, finely chopped
1 cup heavy whipping cream

Optional: Fleur de Sel, for sprinkling

Make the cake:

1. Preheat oven to 350ºF and line a 9 by 13-inch cake pan with foil and/or parchment. In a medium bowl, mix together the flours, baking powder, and salt.

2. Place cocoa powder in a small bowl. Heat ½ cup of the water until it just begins to simmer and pour it over the cocoa, whisking until incorporated. Add remaining 1 cup of water and stir until smooth; set aside to cool.

3. In the bowl of a stand mixture fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter with both of the sugars on medium-high speed until very light; 4 to 5 minutes (a couple minutes longer if using a hand mixer). Scrape down the bowl.

4. In a small bowl, beat the eggs and vanilla together just to blend. With the mixer on medium speed, add the eggs to the butter mixture 1 tablespoon at a time, scraping down the bowl after half the eggs have been added. Make sure to allow each addition to completely blend before adding the next.

5. With the mixer on the lowest speed add the flour and cocoa mixtures alternately, beginning and ending with the flour ( ⅓ flour- ½ cocoa – ⅓ flour – ½ cocoa – ⅓ flour). Once the last of the flour has been added, mix just until combined and turn off the mixer. Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl, incorporating any last bits of flour.

6. Pour the batter into your cake pan and bake about 35 to 40 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Prepare for the filling:

1. Once the cake has cooled, use a 3-inch cutter to cut eight rounds from the cake. You can freeze the scraps for ice cream sundaes or midnight snacks. Press a 2-inch round cutter into the cake round until it is ¼-inch from the bottom.* Pop the cake piece out of the 2-inch cutter and cut off ¼-inch of cake from the bottom of the small cake round (this will ensure that you have enough room for your filling).

* You can do this by inserting a paring knife ¼-inch from the bottom and insert the 2-inch cutter until you feel it hit the paring knife.

2. In the bowl of a stand mixer, whip the cream, sugar, and vanilla on medium speed until it reaches firm peaks. Transfer to a pastry bag, or to a quart-size Ziploc bag with the corner snipped off. Pipe the cream into the whole of each cake. Press the reserved 2-inch cake rounds into the top of each cake to cover the filling.

Prepare the Glaze:

1. Place chopped chocolate in a medium bowl* and warm the cream in a small saucepan or microwave until it just begins to boil. Immediately pour the cream over the chocolate and let it sit for 1 to 2 minutes, then whisk gently until completely blended and smooth. It will start to blend right after you hit the point where you are about to give up all hope. Have faith. Once mixed, let the chocolate mixture cool for 5 to 10 minutes to thicken slightly.
* I put my chocolate in a large 4-cup measuring cup, to make the next step easier.

* I also used dark chocolate chips instead of chopped chocolate, because chopping chocolate is the bane of my existence.

2. Place the cream-filled cake rounds onto a rack set over a foil-lined baking sheet. Working one cake at a time, pour about 3 tablespoons of glaze over each cake, using an offset spatula to gently spread the glaze over the top and sides of the cake.

3. Continue with each cake, being careful not to drip new chocolate onto your newly beautified cakes. If your glaze thickens too much, microwave it in 10 to 15 second intervals, stirring after each, until it reaches your desired consistency.

4. Before the chocolate sets, sprinkle with fleur de sel, if desired.

Adapted from: The Art & Soul of Baking

Chocolate Cashew Butter

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Reese’s Cup Bundt Cake

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Oreo Overload Cupcakes

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DIY Ding Dongs Recipe

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