Berries with Champagne Cream

This week's baking challenge is "elegant". That can be interpreted so many ways. I have many websites that send me daily emails with recipes, and this was one that came in this week. It looked so pretty and "elegant" that I decided to give it a try.

Here is the recipe.The only thing I did different was cut the recipe in half and I added about 1/4 cup of sugar to the whipped cream.

Hubby and I enjoyed this, so I will be making it again at some point.

Orange Chocolate Chip Cannoli Cups

This week's challenge was frosting or filling. I am not a huge fan of frosting because it's way too sweet for me, so I started thinking about fillings. Cannoli's kept coming to mind, but I have never made them, nor do I own cannoli forms. I really didn't want to have to go searching all over Maryland for the forms, so I finally decided to try something different. I had some puff pastry in the freezer, so I figured I would go with that.

1 sheet of puff pastry
flour
cooking spray
1 15 oz container of whole milk ricotta
mini chocolate chips
1 cup powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp orange liquor
2 tbsp orange zest

The first thing I did was dump the whole container of ricotta into a cheese cloth lined strainer. All the recipes I read said to let it sit this way for about an hour. I kept moving mine around every 15 minutes or so, since that seemed to help with removing some moisture.

Next I started working on the cups. I knew puff pastry wasn't really perfect for this, but I was being way too lazy to make proper cannoli shells. I started by putting some flour on a large wooden board, then laying the pastry flat. I figured that I really wanted to make it a little thinner, so I ran my rolling pin over it until it was almost as large as the board.

Next, I used a pizza cutter to cut the sheet into 12 pieces.

I sprayed two cup cake tins really well with cooking spray, then sprinkled them with powder and shook them up until they were well coated, to prevent sticking. Then I carefully lined each one with a piece of the pastry.

I baked these at 400 degrees for about 15 minutes.

They still came out puffier than I wanted them, so I carefully crushed the centers a bit to allow room for the filling, then I moved them to a plate.

While they were baking, I started working on the filling. First, I zested an orange.

I added the orange zest, powdered sugar, about 1/2 cup of the mini chips, the vanilla extract, and liquor to a bowl and mixed well. When the cheese had been sitting for over an hour, I mixed that into the bowl.

I moved the filling mix to a plastic baggie, and put it in the fridge to chill for an hour.

Now that the filling is well chilled, it's time to fill the cups. Tilt the bag on it's side and snip a small piece off the corner to create a piping bag.

Use that corner of the bag to fill your cups. You can be generous, as I had a little too much filling.

Now, top them all with more mini chips, and you're ready to eat!

Chocolate Pretzel Toffee Bark

This week's challenge in the 52 Weeks of Baking is white chocolate. Since that isn't really a favorite of mine, I decided to use both white and dark chocolate (which I love!).

1 bag of white chocolate chips
1 bag of dark chocolate chips
some pretzels
about 1/2 bag of Heath toffee pieces

At the beginning of the week I was thinking about buying a double boiler for this challenge, but then I decided on two metal bowls instead. I could get the same result, but have some new kitchen items that would be a bit more versatile. I started by grabbing two pots that would hold the metal bowls and filled them with water until the water level was just about where the metal bowls would hit. I put the bowls on top of the pots, then turned the heat to about medium.

I added the white chips to one, and the dark chips to another.

While that was heating up, I lined a cookie sheet with wax paper. I filled the wax paper with some broken and some whole pretzel pieces, then sprinkled some toffee bits across the whole thing.

As the chocolate started to heat, I began to whisk it so it didn't burn. The dark chocolate melted nicely, but the white was a little different. It just wasn't melting the same.

I poured the dark chocolate over the lined cookie sheet and continued to try to work with the white. About this point I started to panic. The white chocolate was just a mess and it didn't want to melt right. The first thing I could think of was adding a little water to thin it out. In hindsight, maybe some butter or cream would have been better, but the water did the trick. The white chocolate was finally melting down, so when it was smooth, I poured it on the cookie sheet.

It didn't completely cover the whole sheet, so I grabbed a spatula and smoothed it out, mixing the dark and white together.

Once it was all covered and smoothed out, I added some more toffee chips, pressed them in, and put the whole thing in the freezer. A few hours later I broke the whole thing up, removing the wax paper a little at a time. Now Hubby and I can't stop eating this wonderful bark! 

Mini Brownie Bites with Bacon and Peanut Butter Chips

So, while I was looking at the website for 52 Weeks of Cooking, I found 52 Weeks of baking. I missed week 1, which was brownies, but week 2 (miniatures) is just starting, so I figured I'd kill two birds with one stone and do miniature brownies. While I was thinking about this, I saw on Facebook that my friend Jackie Dee had made bacon brownies. Mmmm! I've made them before, and they are wonderful, so I figured I'd do that too. But then I was thinking, if I'm going to kind of cheat, and do two weeks in one, I need to really make it awesome, especially since I'm using a box of brownie mix that was in my cupboard. I made a quick trip to the store and wandered the baking ailse, and it hit me: Peanut butter chips! That would make it even more wonderful! So, I humbly present my doctored up box of brownie mix with bacon and peanut butter chips...

1 box of brownie mix (I used Duncan Hines Dark Chocolate Fudge), prepared as the box instructs
1 lb of bacon, cut into bits, and browned, then drained
1 10 oz bag of Reese's peanut butter chips

Cut your bacon into little pieces and fry until brown and crispy.

Drain the bacon on a plate lined with paper towels. While you're doing this, prepare the brownie mix according to the direction on the box.

Halfway through making these I decided to do the three ways. Plain from the box, with peanut butter chips, and with peanut butter chips and bacon. I think it will be neat to have all three for comparison.

Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees. Spray the mini muffin tin really well with cooking spray. Start spooning the mixture into the muffin tins. These are really tiny, so I used about a tablespoon for each. After making 8 regular brownies, I added about half the bag of peanut butter chips, then did 8 of these. Then I added the bacon and did 8 of those.

I baked them for about 22 minutes. I'm not really sure why, but they really didn't want to come out of the pan. I had to scrape them out with a knife. There are yummy, but not really pretty. Since I had such a hard time getting them out of the pan, I put the leftover batter into a small Pyrex dish and cooked that for about 25 minutes.

Mmmm!  Now I just wish I had some ice cream!