Chocolate, chocolate, and chocolate!

Photo from Pixabay

Have you heard the saying (I'm sure you have!) "Chocolate is the answer; who cares what the question is?"  Some days are like that!  Lately I've tried a few good chocolate recipes and have been intending to post about them for awhile.  So, here goes!

I'll start with a simple mint brownie recipe.  Last spring we found the Winter Toll House baking morsels from Nestle's on clearance at Wal*Mart at a greatly reduced price.  If memory serves they were maybe 39¢.  These are simply a swirled dark chocolate and mint morsel.  They work well in place of Andes mints in my Chocolate Mint Crisps that I always make at Christmas.

I recently found a couple more bags of these morsels in my pantry and was trying to think of a way to use them in a bar cookie.  I recalled that my favorite brownie recipe calls for a cup of chocolate chips, which I often omit.  Why not use a cup of winter morsels instead, I wondered?  These turned out to be so delicious that the remaining morsels will go, one cup at a time, into brownies.

Here is the recipe, in case you're interested:

The brownie recipe is the best I’ve ever had. It came originally from my pastor’s wife, and I still want to give her credit for this great recipe even though I’ve changed a couple of things.

THE PASTOR’S WIFE’S BROWNIES
1 cup flour
2/3 cup baking cocoa
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup canola oil
2 scant cups sugar (I used about 1 1/3 cup)
3 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla

Sift together the flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt. Set aside. In a mixing bowl beat together the remaining ingredients. Sift in the flour mixture and stir it in thoroughly. (Here is where to add your 1 cup of winter morsels or chocolate chips if you like.) Scrape into a greased 13x9” pan. Bake at 350 for 25 minutes or just until done. Don’t overbake or you’ll lose the fudgy texture.

Photo from Inside BruCrew Life

The next recipe I tried was Moose Tracks Cookies from Jocelyn at Inside BruCrew Life.  These include lovely ingredients like white chocolate morsels and chopped peanut butter cups.  I happened to have both on hand and wanted to use them up, so this was a good use.  Don't be surprised, but the recipe calls for only 1/4 cup of flour.  And yes, that actually works.  I did refrigerate the dough for awhile before baking it, and I also kept it in the fridge when I wasn't actually working with it. 

I rolled the dough into balls because that is just my preference when baking cookies. Because of this, my cookies were rounder and less flat, but I'm sure they were no less delicious.

My cookies -- blurry photo taken with the Kindle

Lastly but certainly not least is the Cocoa Dreams  recipe from my blog friend Vee.  Oh, are these ever good!  (I doubled the recipe and used a 13x 9 pan.)  A nice shortbread layer is the base, and then there is a gooey chocolate layer.  You top with buttercream frosting and chopped walnuts.  These bars are indeed the stuff that chocolate dreams are made of.  Here are a couple of Kindle photos:

They are rich, so I cut them very small.

Better view of the cocoa layer

I had seen a recipe for buttercream frosting with marshmallow fluff in it and wanted to try it.  But when I found it, it was a huge recipe, intended for frosting and decorating a layer cake.  So I went looking through my old Cook & Tells and found the perfect one.  I cut the recipe in half for this and it worked admirably.  Here's that recipe as I made it, with the ingredients halved:

VANILLA BUTTERCREAM FROSTING

1 stick butter, softened
About 1 cup of marshmallow fluff or creme
1/2 cup confectioners' sugar
1/2 tsp. vanilla

Beat the softened butter with an electric mixer on medium speed till creamy.  Beat in fluff until well blended.  Beat in the sugar and vanilla.  Increase the mixer speed to high and beat 3 to 4 minutes, till fluffy.  Makes about a cup and a half of frosting.  

Since both bars and frosting are rich, I thought this frosting layer didn't need to be overly thick.  This was just right.

I will share just one more recipe since it's been on my mind (and my palate) lately.  I've made this old favorite Chocolate Pudding for One several times as a meal (!) since having a wisdom tooth extracted last week. 

Photo from Taste of Home

This winter when Toll House baking morsels were on sale for weeks for 2/$4 at our local supermarket, I bought bag after bag of the dark chocolate variety for my pantry once I tried them and found out how wonderful they are.  I've been using those in the chocolate pudding recipe and oh, is it delicious.

In the mood for chocolate?  Give one of these delicious recipes a try.