• Cake Mix Coffee Cake @ bestwithchocolate.com

    cake mix coffee cake;

    January 20, 2016bestwithchocolate@gmail.com

    So I was supposed to have volleyball tonight.  But lucky for you all, instead you get another recipe because it’s snowing and surprisingly dangerous for the less than 2″ of snow on the ground.  But it’s that wet, slippery kind.  I turned around before even going a mile to one of the major roads, and I passed at least 6 cars pulled over on the side of the road, and two in an accident right outside the complex.  Jeez.  And I don’t have an all-wheel drive vehicle, I have a sedan, but I also grew up in the Northeast and feel…

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  • Crispy Baked Fries @ bestwithchocolate.com

    crispy baked fries;

    January 20, 2016bestwithchocolate@gmail.com

    Here’s the twin to my previously posted recipe, jalapeno cheddar stuffed burgers, though they’d go great with honey mustard pretzel chicken tenders, or a chicken pesto burger.  So many possibilities! But I will say these fries are a wonderful side.  They’re not particularly work-intensive, but give you some fries in your own home.  I will be the first to admit that these are not a replacement for those triple-fried grease bombs that are your normal delicious french fries, but they’re a nice alternative with a tasty spice rub that you can make in your own home. You of course could mix up the spice…

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  • Chocolate Tart @ bestwithchocolate.com

    countdown to new year’s: chocolate tart;

    January 3, 2016bestwithchocolate@gmail.com

    So for this tart, because it was New Year’s Eve, I cracked out the cute confetti sprinkles!  I think it ended up pretty cute.  One of the best things about this recipe is that you can top it with anything.  The original recipe, adapted from Ella’s Home Cooking Adventure No-bake Strawberry Chocolate Tart recipe, uses strawberries and chopped nuts. I’ve used caramel pieces as topping before, but you could use sprinkles, or any kind of fruit, candied orange peels, chocolate, maraschino cherries, cookie crumbles, crushed nuts…all sorts of goodness.  I used raspberries on this one because I wanted something a little different…

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  • mimosa bar @ bestwithchocolate.com

    countdown to new year’s: mimosa bar;

    January 1, 2016bestwithchocolate@gmail.com

    The mimosa bar for our New Year’s Eve Countdown Bash came out super cute!  I decided that four was the perfect number: four fruits, four juices, four champagnes! Champagne Now we decided to use Andre as the champagne.  It’s not classy, but if you’re going to mix with super sweet juices and mix the champagne, no need for the good stuff.  We did reserve a bottle of “good stuff” for the actual midnight toast though! For champagne varietals, we had: (1) Brut, (2) Extra Dry, (3) Spumante, and (4) Blush.  We also had some sparkling cider which is a perfect non-alcoholic varietal!…

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  • Matcha Cookies @ bestwithchocolate.com

    countdown to new years: matcha shortbread cookies;

    December 30, 2015bestwithchocolate@gmail.com

    So today was a flurry of shopping, baking, and cooking!  I’m exhausted but excited.  It was lucky that I took the day off from work so I had enough time to do everything that needed to be done for our kick-ass New Year’s Eve Party!  We pulled out all the stops.  I’ve got a whole trivia game about 2015 ready, set with prizes;  I made some props for us to use in a makeshift “photobooth” (more like a golden photo corner);  and of course, the drinks — a mimosa bar!  I’m super excited about it all but especially the mimosa…

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  • Cake Batter Truffles @ bestwithchocolate.com

    cake batter truffles;

    December 16, 2015bestwithchocolate@gmail.com

    So here comes the wonderful-ness of cake batter and chocolate.  Seriously, who needs an oven?  Basically this is cake batter cookie dough wrapped in the sweet shell of chocolate. I made these truffles for a co-worker’s birthday.  He really wanted me to make this awesome birthday cake recipe from momofuku’s milkbar, however, since this is the week before Christmas, there was no way I was going to slave over that recipe on the busiest week I’ve had in a while (which includes the ones around Thanksgiving that I whined about in my last post.  <3).  I’ve been up late every…

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  • Bloomin' Baked Apples @ tipsychocochip.com

    bloomin’ baked apples;

    December 10, 2015bestwithchocolate@gmail.com

    So let’s go with:  I’m going to whip these out again one day and impress someone.  They look amazing.  They taste even more amazing.  And you can pretend that they’re healthy (they’re not).  I did forget to add that extra drizzle of caramel, but you know, that’s how these things go.   I used McIntosh apples because that’s what I had lying around the house, and I wasn’t able to make the nice rings that the gunny sack described.  Because my apples were softer, I just cut out from the center instead, making sure not to cut through the base.…

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  • Garlic Monkey Bread @ bestwithchocolate.com

    garlic monkey bread;

    December 7, 2015bestwithchocolate@gmail.com

    So we made individual garlic monkey breads as a quick side to caesar chicken tortellini the other other night!  They were quite tasty, and simple to boot, considering I pretty much always have some biscuit dough floating around in my refrigerator.  At the grocery store I had only been focused on picking up ingredients for the tortellini, so side dishes didn’t really cross my mind.  But I got home and was thinking, you know what goes great with caesar salad and tortellini?  Garlic bread!   But alas, no fresh crusty bread, so what’s a girl to do to get her garlic…

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  • Cake Batter Chocolate Chip Cookies @ bestwithchocolate.com

    cake batter chocolate chip cookies;

    November 18, 2015bestwithchocolate@gmail.com

    These are yum and fun to pull out!  I found that the recipe I used (see below) was actually a bit sweet, and judging by my taste-test of the batter, I think the cookies lost some of their cake-batter-ness with the addition of the sugars.  No, I didn’t eat 4 cookies worth of dough … >.>.  Shhhhh.  Next time I think I’ll try leaving out the sugar. Or maybe make a full batch leaving all sugar out of one half, and adding only brown sugar to the other half.  Will have to do some experimenting.  I know all my friends…

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  • Stuffed Pizza Rolls @ bestwithchocolate.com

    stuffed pizza rolls;

    November 16, 2015bestwithchocolate@gmail.com

    I’ve been cooking up a storm lately, so we’ve been eating leftovers out the wahzoo.  They’re delicious, but they impede my cooking because I don’t want to waste food!  So I made pot pie filling the other day for an easy Monday dinner before I go to volleyball.  But I was ravenous when I got home, so I had to make an appetizer/side.  These “pizza rolls” were perfect!  So easy to make and so yummy!  T approved. The ones pictured here are made with mozzarella and cheddar cheese!  But you can use whatever kind of cheese you like, e.g., pepperjack…

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  • Roasted Brussel Sprouts @ bestwithchocolate.com

    roasted brussel sprouts;

    November 14, 2015bestwithchocolate@gmail.com

    I recently discovered that I don’t mind brussel sprouts.  I honestly had never tried them before last year when I first made this recipe.  To be fair, it was because my mother hates them and obviously never made them for us growing up because she didn’t want to eat them.  So to my young self, since everyone said brussel sprouts were icky, they were obviously icky!  Child logic at work for you. I actually discovered that I liked brussel sprouts at a cooking class.  I use the term “like” loosely here.  I like them for a vegetable — they’re still…

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  • Pecan Pie Fudge @ bestwithchocolate.com

    pecan pie fudge;

    November 5, 2015bestwithchocolate@gmail.com

    So what I am about to write might be blasphemy.  I’m not a huge fan of every single fall staple.  I don’t really like apple pie.  I only recently started liking stuffing.  I don’t really like pumpkin flavored things.  I don’t really like pecan pie.   All of these I’ll tolerate, but I’m not about to go bananas over them.  So when I found this recipe by Dorothy Kern on Crazy for Crust, I pinned it, thinking it looked pretty but I would never actually make it for myself. Lucky for you all, it’s T’s birthday tomorrow!  And he loooves pecan pie.  So I thought…

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