There’s No Wrong Way to Eat a Reese’s!

Did you know that Mr. Hershey has created over 45 variations of the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup? A few examples include:

Marshmallow – the traditional cup with an added layer of marshmallow filling

Crunchy – a traditional cup with crunchy peanut butter, as opposed to the smooth peanut butter in the original

Thank you Wikipedia, for making me a little smarter and unfortunately, a little hungrier today.

Without realizing it, I created a similar version to one of Mr. Hershey’s ‘limited edition’ variations:

Dark Chocolate – peanut butter filling in a dark chocolate cup

These Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Balls are so simple to make and perfect for a quick chocolate fix!

The filling, three simple ingredients: peanut butter, butter, and confectioners sugar.

Mix the filling ingredients together with and electric mixer and then roll into approximately 2 inch balls.

Using a fork, dip your peanut butter balls into melted dark chocolate.

This is an optional step. Place the balls into mini muffin tins. You can also just place the balls directly onto a parchment paper covered baking sheet.

Refrigerate the balls for about 15 minutes and then peal them out of the muffin tin. They won't be perfect in shape, but they will taste fantastic!

Pop the whole thing in your mouth, eat the sides first, just remember, there’s no wrong way to eat a Reese’s!

Oscar Nominated Chocolate Mousse

‘I want to thank everybody and anybody who ever had anything to do with the making of this mousse. And most of all, I’d like to thank my family and friends, who supported me in eating it.’ -Kinjal

If you are hosting a Oscar party this weekend, nothing says elegance and excellence like this Chocolate Mousse.

I bet most people didn’t know that the main ingredient in Chocolate Mousse (besides the chocolate of course) is raw eggs. You heard me. I’ve never made a dessert quite like this so I was a little nervous, but ultimately very happy with the final product.

Egg White and Egg Yolks - both have a part in this movie.

You want to beat the egg yolks until you can form a ribbon that takes a few seconds to dissolve.

The egg whites on the other hand need to be beaten until you reach soft peaks.

And now for my favorite ingredients: Bittersweet Chocolate (get the good kind) and butter!

Melt the chocolate until smooth.

Once the chocolate has cooled slightly, gently whisk in your egg yolks (and a little bit of whiskey!)

Next, gently fold in the egg whites. Take your time with this because you want your end product to be light and fluffy. If you fold the egg whites and chocolate too quickly, you will have a very tough consistency.

You can also fold in fresh whipped cream for a lighter texture. I like my mousse a little dense and rich so I only folded in about 1/2 cup of whipped cream. Most other recipes will call for 1-2 cups.

And there you have it - your final product. But don't eat it just yet! Refrigerate it in your ramekins for at least 3-4 hours before serving. I used a star piping tip to make pretty swirls of mousse in my ramekins.

Happy Oscar Weekend!

Peppermint Hot Chocolate Cupcakes

What’s better than curling up on the sofa with a peppermint hot chocolate during the holidays? How about curling up with a Peppermint Hot Chocolate Cupcake!

Chocolate cupcakes dipped in ganache topped peppermint whipped cream

This was the first time I’ve ever made ganache. It was very easy and the flavor was amazing!

Pouring the hot cream over the chocolate chips

Stirring/Melting the chocolate chips

Finished Ganache - so shiny and delicious!

Dipping the Cupcakes in the Ganache

Dipped Cupcake vs. Non Dipped Cupcake - I vote for #1!

Look at those beauties!

Oh ya, I made some carrot cake cupcakes with vanilla icing too . People loved that the noses are actually carrots!

Ready for delivery!

Hazelnut Holiday Kisses

It’s that time of year again…you know, when the Christmas spirit is upon us and you spend every weekend going to holiday parties. Some parties you want to go to and others not so much. Let’s face it, sometimes you’d much rather be at home watching reruns of the Home Alone movies (even the third one).

This time of year, I love trying out new baked goodies that I can bring as my ‘hostess gift.’ This year, I thoroughly enjoyed making these Hazelnut Holiday Kiss Cookies.

This was definitely a fun recipe. I classify recipes as being ‘fun’ any time I get to use my standing mixer .

Creaming together the butter, 2 sugars and nutella...you heard me...nutella!

Adding the dry ingredients. I've learned that it really does make a difference in baking when you add the combined dry ingredients in after creaming the wet ingredients.

Just look at this fantastic batter!

I was shocked at how much these 1.5 inch rolled balls expanded.

Right before they are completely baked, you pull the pan out of the oven and stick a Hershey Kiss in the middle of the cookie. Then you put the cookies back in the oven to finish baking.

Wah Lah! You have yourself a 'kiss' ass hostess gift!

Note: This recipe makes A LOT of cookies (30ish). So you may want to cut the recipe in half. Or you can always do what we did. Make the full recipe, skip a few of the holiday parties and eat the extras while watching Kevin get into all sorts of shenanigans! I really love that movie…