Dark Chocolate Almond Cookie

There were a few surprises to this cookie.  For one, you might bite into a piece that has ginger, while another does not.  I baked this as a very crispy biscotti-like cookie, but it turned soft after a few days.  Weird!  Wonder what it will be in a couple of days?  Crispy again??  In any case, it was really good with a glass of milk or cup of  tea.  

I like using Valrhona 71% cacao dark chocolate.  The 81% is a bit too bitter to leave as chunks in the cookie.  Maybe next time, I will make a cardamon-pistachio-dark chocolate variety.

Dark Chocolate Pistachio Biscotti

My first good looking biscotti!  Yeah, the other times I've made them, they don't look like biscotti at all.  My flour amount was wrong, so the previous ones didn't come out right! :(  I think this is one of the easiest cookies to make, in terms on preparation.  Just mix everything together, bake, slice, and bake again.  No rolling dough into little balls!

Chocolate Banana Brownie

☆ Chocolate Banana Brownie ☆

With walnuts & cinnamon

The brownies weren't very dense and fudgey.  More like cakey-brownies.  I don't like a thick glaze on my brownies, so I didn't glaze them.

I was going to bake a chocolate banana bread (hence, why they're not dense brownies), but couldn't find my loaf pan anywhere!  So I had to bake it in a sheet pan, and cut it into squares!

And I couldn't find my cooling racks either! So these were cooled in the pan they're baked in..  Where are all my baking tools??! 

Brownies all gone!  Love them warm, straight out of the oven!

Chocolate biscotti

Are biscotti the only cookies that are acceptable to eat for breakfast?  Because you can have it with your morning coffee.

This was my first time baking biscotti, and it's kind of a failed one.  Not sure what I did wrong, because I ended up adding a bunch of uncalled for ingredients into the cookie dough.  Maybe that's what's wrong!  Adding additional ingredients and that messed up the ratio between the flour:eggs:oil!

• Do I really want extra dark chocolate chips in mine as well as melted dark chocolate?  YES.
• Do I want to add a bit of butter?  YES, don't be afraid of a little butter!
• How about a little ground almond?  Might as well, so I can wash the container!
• Got some extra walnuts?  Yes, dump that in too.  To clean up the extra odds and ends in my baking cabinet.

By this time, the dough looked nothing like it's supposed to.  But let's pop this in the oven anyway and wonder for an hour if they'll end up being dumped in the trash.

Nah.. they still came out deliciously crunchy and chocolatey in the end.

Maybe next time, I will make ginger-chocolate biscotti!

Brownieeeees!

Black bean brownies with walnuts.

Truthfully, I don't like brownies. At all. Except the one time I had this AWESOME sour cherry brownie from Clear Flour bakery in Brookline. MMm! I actually still think of that today.

This recipe was very interesting and intriguing. However, I'd rate it 7/10. I guess brownies are just not my thing. For my preference, I'd like my brownies very fudgey, not cakey. This came out pretty fudgey, but I still didn't like it. :(

Banana Nutella Cake

I love the combination of banana and Nutella. (I went through a phase of eating all nutella-banana sandwiches for breakfast and lunch one semester in college. But that's another story!)
So why not make a banana Nutella cake?

It was really hard to resist swirling in lots of Nutella because it's so good. I love eating through this cake- bits of crunchy walnuts, wonderful banana flavor and melty Nutella all through out.
This cake was topped with banana slices too, and as the cake baked, the bananas caramelized as well. When the cake was done baking, the top was not that brown, so I sprinkled on some sugar and put it back under the broiler for a minute or two. I love the crunchy sugary bits on top.

And each slice will get a piece of banana too!

Banana bread is one of my favorite things to bake because it makes the house smell so good! So if you need to freshen up your house, bake something! Don't use artificial Febreze! ^_^

(Not that my house smelled bad from durian or anything... :D )

Banana Peanut Butter Cookies

Sometimes I just have an urge to bake something... Maybe I'm stressed out, maybe I'm sad, or just plain bored. Two weekends ago, it was a combination of all three. :-( In the mood for some sweets, I thought cookies were the easiest to bake.

Cookies then! Soft, crunchy, chewy, chocolatey, nutty... Everything I like, I will put in a cookie!

This is not a recipe from any master chef. I just made it up, approximating the amount of each ingredient to my liking. (Another way of saying it is, I was too lazy too look up recipes.) ^_^

Banana Peanut Butter Cookies

A:
1 banana (well mashed)
1 egg (well beaten)
1 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 tsp baking soda + 1 tsp baking powder
1/4-1/3 cup peanut butter (I think I used 4 big scoops of a soup spoon. Whatever, it's just pb.)

B: 2 cups rolled oats (oatmeal) + 2 TBS whole wheat flour

C:
1/3 cup chopped chocolates or chocolate chips (dark chocolate is best)
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
Optional: Smarties or M&Ms

1. Combine ingredients of A together well first, then add B.
2. Mix in chocolate chips and walnuts (from C).
3. Roll out the cookies into 1.5" balls and flatten them out a bit. Press a Smartie candy in the center.
4. Bake 350F for 12-14 minutes.

Makes about 2 dozens, depending on how big you want your cookies.

p.s. You don't really taste any banana in these cookies at the end. Only the peanut butter. The banana is only there as a binder (like the egg) for the dry ingredients. It also keeps the cookies soft on the inside, and adds a natural sweetness, so you don't have to use as much sugar.

Healthy Oat Cookies

The healthy oatmeal cookies- no added sugar, no butter, no flour, no eggs.

I didn't think these will be good, but they are! The sweetness comes from the ripe bananas and chopped chocolate, and they are just right. If you prefer a little bit more sweetness, then add a bit of brown sugar or honey.

Here's the recipe:

Banana Oat Cookies

Makes about 3 dozen bite-sized cookies.

3 large, ripe bananas, well mashed (about 1 1/2 cups)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup olive oil
2 cups rolled oats
2/3 cup almond meal
1/3 cup walnuts, roughly chopped
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon fine grain sea salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
6 - 7 ounces chocolate chips or dark chocolate bar chopped

almond slices, sesame seeds

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

1. In a large bowl, combine bananas, vanilla extract, and oil. Set aside.
2. In another bowl whisk together the oats, almond meal, cinnamon, salt, and baking powder.
3. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and stir until combined. Fold in the chocolate chunks/chips and walnuts.
4. Spoon the dough out, about a tablespoon each. For each one, you can roll it in sesame seeds if you like, or put almond slices on it too, to make it look nicer.
5. Bake 15 minutes for a soft cookie, or 25 mins for a crunchy on the outside, soft on the inside cookie.

A messy cake, a messy kitchen

This was one of the earlier cakes I baked (in my baking mode)- a dark chocolate cake with banana and nutella filling, topped with chocolate ganache.

For some reason, this cake was better overnight. It tasted more fudgey, rather than light and fluffy when I made it. The melted chocolate might've soaked into the cake part, making it more dense.

I'm not a big fan of chocolate cake, unless with some hidden booze (like at Petit Robert). Hence, I like this one okay. But I really had a messy kitchen by the time I finished making it, chocolates everywhere!

Chocolate Cake!

Lesson learned: not to explore career as a CAKE DECORATOR.

I don't have any decorating tools, so I used the back of a knife to spread on the butter cream and wax paper to make a cone to pipe the chocolate bead border.

The Smarties candy on the cake- 2 on the top line, 4 on the bottom line = 24 yrs old!
It is a two-layer chocolate cake, made of semi sweet chocolate, cocoa powder, and tiny bits of chopped milk chocolate mixed in.

The chocolate frosting is also of semi-sweet chocolate, preferably a good one like Callebaut. Adding about a tablespoon of instant coffee powder really adds depth to the frosting and contrasts with the chocolatey cake.

Some Very Gooey Fudgy Brownies

With orange zest, walnuts, and chocolate chips running throughout these fudge bars, they are so delicious with a glass of (soy)milk.

I especially love that this is a one-bowl recipe. Easy clean up!

Fudgy Brownie Bars:

8 Tbs butter, melted
1 egg
1 Tsp vanilla extract
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup of all-purpose (unbleached) flour
pinch of salt
zest of 1 orange
1 cup chopped chocolate- (can be combination of dark+milk, or just semi-sweet)

Dark chocolate or semi-sweet chocolate goes really well with orange zest.

1. Preheat oven 350°F. Butter a 8x8 pan.
2. In a large bowl, melt the butter in a microwave (or pan if you like).
3. Mix in brown sugar and salt until smooth, and then egg, vanilla extract, and orange zest.
4. Add in flour, stir, then mix in chopped chocolate (the mixture was still warm for me so the chocolate melted.)

Fun part: Mix in anything you like! Add some toasted nuts, more semi-sweet chocolate chips, or peanut butter chips if you like. If you don't like orange zest, then mix in 1/2-3/4 cup dried cherries.

5. Pour batter into pan. Bake for 20-25 minutes. I took it out at 22 minutes, so that it'll still be a gooey cookie. Let cool before cutting. Refrigerate and it will harden up (if you want to cut easily.)

Recipe adapted from here. But I failed and these turned into fudgy brownie bars. (^o^)