Posts tagged under Chocolate. Show all posts.
We don’t always have dessert with dinner, but it was Sunday and I was experiencing one of my daily chocolate cravings. Something sweet was definitely in order! Fortunately for me, I had just received a simple chocolate dessert idea from Holly Sisson, our EatSavvy photographer and head of production at SavvyMom—it’s called the Five Minute Chocolate Mug Cake. Her daughter came across this recipe online and we received an email submission from a reader about it the next day so it is clearly going viral. No stove is required, so it is a perfect cooking activity for kids. And, all of the ingredients are pantry staples, so I had everything I needed on hand. I placed the ingredients and measuring cups on the counter and let my son mix up personal-size chocolate cakes for each of us. Dessert doesn’t get much easier than this. Total prep and cooking time—10 minutes.
FIVE MINUTE CHOCOLATE MUG CAKE
You’ll Need
4 tablespoons flour
4 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons cocoa
1 egg
3 tablespoons milk
3 tablespoons oil
3 tablespoons chocolate chips (optional)
a small splash of vanilla extract
1 large coffee mug
Preparation
And why is this the most dangerous cake recipe in the world?
Because now we are all only five minutes away from chocolate cake at any time of the day or night!
Photos copyright Holly Sisson Photography, see more images of cake making here
On Good Friday, the kiddos and I did the classic Easter egg decorating thing but then they wanted to try their hands at something sweeter. I know we had done some great recipes on last week’s newsletters for homemade Easter treats but amazingly my kids don’t really like chocolate so I wasn’t sure how they would go over. What they do like though is marshmallows and any variation on the classic rice krispie square, and we tend to make those every week, using all kinds of cereal for them—corn flakes, bran flakes, whatever we have.
So inspired by our wonderful chocolate nest recipe, we mixed up a batch, substituting some of the rice krispies (actually leftover ones from the holiday season, with the red and green in them) with a mixture of corn flakes and bran flakes to make them look more authentic, as if a bird had really foraged for all the different materials for the nest. (This also had the added advantage of using up a couple of boxes of almost finished cereal—hate those!) Once the mixture was cool enough to touch, the kids had fun making balls of the cereal and then forming them into nest shapes, with a small indent in the middle. Make sure if you try this not to squish and squeeze them too much—you don’t want the nests to be too dense. We then cooled them in a muffin tray to keep their shapes, and when they were ready, we popped a couple of Easter egg candies in the middle to make them look like real spring nests. It was fun and easy—and yummy (all gone by dinner time!). Sure to become a family tradition for us. What’s your favourite thing to cook with the kids?
Much is written for moms by moms about snacks for kids but what about snacks for moms? Moms get hungry mid-morning and mid-afternoon too and are always looking for something healthy and filling, and ideally purse or diaper-bag friendly…no refrigeration, no special container, and non-squishable. Simply impossible to find, you say?
We thought so too until we found the Simply Bar from Wellness Foods, which has the most protein with the least calories of any natural food bar, and is made from pronounceable ingredients like soy and brown rice syrup, no weird fats and no artificial sweeteners. There are five yummy flavours—Cinnamon, Cocoa Raspberry, Lemon Coconut, Chocolate Peanut Butter, and Cocoa Coffee—and they all make for a great on-the-run snack. I’m keeping one in my bag at all times now—might save me from scarfing down that chocolate bar at 4 pm when I realize I still have not had a chance to eat lunch!
Having a mom who is one of the food editors for EatSavvy does have its privileges and in my children’s eyes being a “tester” is the top one. One of the recipes we chose to include in this month’s Eat Savvy edition was a Halloween-themed treat, Creepy Chocolate Clusters.
What better place to test recipes than in our own Savvy Test Kitchens with our own families. This is one of the fun parts of my job.
All my chocolate monsters needed to hear was “chocolate” and they were ready and willing to assist. Like Rice Krispie squares, this is a very quick and easy, no-bake treat—perfect for an impromptu get-together with friends, party snack, or when you’re in need of a quick chocolate fix. Start to finish, it took 25 minutes.
Measuring butter and corn syrup is easy enough for my six year old, but I left the cereal pouring to the nine year old. Plopping spoonfuls of glop is always a big hit, whether it’s muffin batter, meat balls or Creepy Chocolate Clusters. You may need to tidy up the clusters a little before they harden.
Did I mention how much fun you’ll have sweeping up the black and orange Halloween sprinkles?
What do your kids like to help you make in the kitchen?
Photo copyright Holly Sisson Photography
Who knew that DIY chocolate for Easter was so doable? As long as you’re not aiming for the perfection of the perfect Peter Cottontail inside a big box covered with foil and wrapped with cardboard, I am amazed every year to discover more and more tasty Easter treats that you can actually make at home with the kids. And if you didn’t find a DIY Easter chocolate recipe you wanted to try in our latest edition, we’ve discovered the most amazing list of Easter recipes at razzledazzlerecipes.com. There’s an interesting variation on the birds’ nest recipe we love that uses peanut butter, and the jelly bean bark is definitely going to be a hit at my house. (What’s not to like about jelly beans, white chocolate and butter, really?) And the list goes on to include all manner of make-your-own chocolate egg.
So stock up on some baking basics and have fun in the kitchen this weekend with the family. Chocolate tastes good all the time, but when you made it yourself, it’s even sweeter.
I’d love to hear about your family’s fave Easter treat.
Saturday, August 7, 2010 was the perfect day for my wedding. Gord and I were married at 4:30 pm at our island cottage on Lake St. Nora, in Haliburton, Ontario. It was a magical day for all in attendance.
As is the case with most cottage weddings, this summer wedding was anything but traditional—it is a second marriage for both of us, we were married beside the lake, our children stood up for us, our playlist included hits from The Black-Eyed Peas, our dance floor was a dock and we served chocolate wedding cake for dessert!
While planning the menu for the wedding, there was unanimous consent from our children for a chocolate wedding cake. Pastry chef, Leigh, from Farmer’s Daughter in Huntsville, Ontario, worked her magic and created a gorgeous dark chocolate cake with chocolate ganache frosting and fresh raspberry filling, iced with a vanilla buttercream icing. Vertical rows of beautiful, hand-piped flowers encircled both layers of the cake. It was rich, moist and absolutely delicious.
I know I could never reproduce my wedding cake, but I couldn’t help wanting to try. Besides, chocolate cake will never go to waste in our house. I have a number of different chocolate cake recipes I use, but one more than the others. With a few modifications to that recipe, I have come up with something pretty close. As much as I love chocolate, I think a chocolate frosting would be a bit too much chocolate, even for me.
Decadent Chocolate Cake with Chocolate and Raspberry Filling
You’ll Need
Cake:
Filling:
Frosting:
Prep and Cook
Cake:
Filling:
Frosting:
More details (and photos) about the food to come in my next blog post.
What is your favourite cake recipe?
Same problem, different chocolate holiday. If your house is anything like ours, the Easter Bunny left way too much chocolate behind (even too much for the mom stash). Solutions for what to do with all of the leftovers were one of the topics for discussion at the Savvy HQ Monday morning meeting. Suggestions from around the table included everything from throwing it out, to melting it for fondue, to coming up with a chocolate management plan, much like the Halloween Candy Plan.
After reviewing suggestions, I have put together some of our favourite tips and tricks to reinvent leftover Easter candy and turn into a post-Easter treat.
Chocolate Bunnies or Eggs
Melt It: Make a chocolate fondue for a special dessert, make some s’mores on the BBQ or melt it in a double boiler or glass bowl over simmering hot water and drizzle it over ice cream. Add a couple of chunks to a mug of hot chocolate or use it as a dip for fresh fruit or chocolate dipped pretzels.
Chop It: Use leftover Easter chocolate in place of baking chips or squares in all of your favourite chocolate recipes. If you haven’t had the chance, now is your opportunity to try Sarah’s Chocolate Nests, Leslie’s Chocolate Skor Bars, Minnow’s Toffee Bits Triangles, Maggie’s Fantasy Fudge or Rising Chefs’ Healthy Chocolate Brownies. In your favourite chocolate chunk cookie, chocolate cake or chocolate frosting recipe, substitute chocolate chunks with chopped up hollow or solid chocolate bunnies or eggs. Insert one solid chocolate egg into the batter of each individual muffin or cupcake.
Candies
Store jelly beans, gummies and M&Ms in an airtight container and use for cupcake/cake/cookie décor for your next bake sale or birthday party. Create mini-bags of candy to hand out when watching movies or on car trips. Crumble malt eggs and M&Ms and sprinkle them over ice cream.
Freezing leftover chocolate for baking is quite acceptable, but be sure to wrap it well and store it in an airtight bag or container. Bring it to room temperate very slowly, because drastic temperature changes can cause the chocolate to bloom (turn white or grey, grainy), which can change the flavour and consistency.
What is your favourite tip or trick for using up leftover chocolate treats?
It seems the food world is having a love affair with s’mores these days, and why shouldn’t they? They are the quintessential Canadian summer treat, and a perfect snack whether you’re sitting fireside or not.
This year we made s’mores on a stick for my nine year-old’s class. He wanted to make his favourite marshmallow treat for his friends, and I couldn’t quite figure out how to do so without a stove or flame in sight. So we made some marshmallows, dipped them in melted chocolate and covered them with crushed graham crackers. It worked brilliantly, and the kids devoured them.
What’s great about this treat is kids can do most of the work themselves. And they can get creative by deviating from the traditional milk chocolate and graham cracker combo by using other cookies (think Oreos or digestive biscuits), or toppings (Skor bits are a popular choice in our house) and a variety of chocolate (white, coloured, dark).
Toddlers can even get in on the fun by skewering the marshmallows onto bamboo sticks or pretzels, and passing them over to an older sibling who can then dip them in chocolate and roll in the toppings. And mom? Why she’s the taste-tester, of course.
S’mores on a Stick
You’ll Need:
Prep and Cook:
Do you find the marshmallows dry out? I am thinking of doing this the day before the party…will that work?
I’ve done marshmallows in the toaster oven—it works quite well for “in home” s’mores.
My youngest son loves hot cocoa in all forms, from all places, at all times. My older one doesn’t. You can’t please everyone all the time, but my youngest and I enjoy it after school and chat about our day.
This is a great recipe for your young ones to work on with you. The milk simmers in a pot over very low heat, and while you supervise the stove, your sous chef can measure and manage the addition of the cocoa, chocolate, honey and cinnamon. Yes, it’s the cinnamon that makes this so, so good.
I’m not going to tell you that I made this for my boy to drink with his dinner recently and I probably also won’t mention that it accompanied popcorn and apples for the nightly meal. Not every meal can be a grand affair, and last week was certainly a busy one. But I will tell you that what I served was devoured, and enjoyed, and it put a big smile on a small face. And despite the cooler temperatures outdoors, I was quite warm knowing how happy we were.
Hot Spiced Cocoa
You’ll Need
Prep and Cook
So which is healthier?
Now that I’ve burdened you with the bad news about peanut butter prices on the rise, I’ll let you in on another bit of interesting, yet hardly shocking, information: despite their healthy advertising campaigns, Nutella just isn’t that good for you.
If your kids are anything like my son Ben, Nutella is a favourite spread on bread, and often a requested breakfast food. Ads reassure kids and moms that Nutella is a healthy choice for them because it’s made with skim milk, chocolate and hazelnuts. While I never considered it the best choice for morning meals, I didn’t think it would be worse than serving up chocolate frosting for breakfast.
My good friend Julie recently wrote about the nutritional comparisons of both Nutella and No-Name Chocolate Frosting. I was shocked to learn that Nutella has 25% more sugar than the frosting. It also has more calories, fat and saturated fat than the brand it was compared to. I would never dream of slathering a thick slice of bread with a smear of frosting, but as it turns out, that may in fact be the healthier option.
The first two ingredients listed on the Nutella label are sugar and palm oil. That means there is more sugar than skim milk, chocolate or hazelnuts. More palm oil, too. In case you didn’t know, palm oil is a saturated fat known for its use in processed products.
What about those hazelnuts, they must be good for something? According to the Nutella website, 56 hazelnuts can be found in every 400g jar, making each serving worth 1g each of fibre and protein. The same can be found in two tablespoons of frosting. And the skim milk that makes it so nutritious? It only makes up 2% of the daily-recommended value.
At SavvyMom we don’t like to bash brands or products because we believe that if you don’t have anything good to say, you shouldn’t bother saying anything. Sometimes we feel the responsibility to share news we consider good to know, however. This is that kind of news.
I did a bit of digging and found a well-known recipe for homemade chocolate and hazelnut spread. The recipe ingredients are exactly what you might hope them to be—almonds, hazelnuts, milk, honey, and chocolate. I think I’ll be making a batch of this over the weekend.
Do your kids eat Nutella? If so, did you think you were serving them a healthy option?
I have to admit I love Nutella (tastes SO good on bread) but like your other reader, I have to hide it! BUT, i think I will try the healthier recipe and see how it goes.
our son has a peanut allergy, so we have no choice but to choose something other than peanut butter. based on the taste of nutella, i knew that there was a lot of sugar without even having to look at the list of ingredients. but i had no idea that it was MORE than chocolate frosting! we will definitely be looking into something else, but this will be very disappointing for the kids. as for the alternative nutella recipe…great! but i don’t have the time to make stuff like that. guess we’ll just have to look for other solutions.
My kids like to make holiday gifts for a few special people in their lives, and while I would definitely consider myself a crafty person, weekend hockey keeps me from committing to making Grandpa a wooden bird feeder or Aunt Beth a Pollock-esque painting. Instead, I turn to my kitchen cupboards and cookbooks and let the kids pick out something quick and easy that we can package up prettily and hand out to multiple people.
Jackson (my youngest), took this recipe straight from the December issue of Canadian Living. ‘Easy’ and ‘fudge’ are two words that speak loudly to him, and I suggested that we replace the walnuts in the recipe with graham crackers and marshmallows for a more kid-friendly concoction. He accepted the challenge and we successfully made this no-bake sweet in less time than it would’ve taken me to go to the store to buy some fudge.
Using only seven ingredients, I’m confident that children of reading age could likely make this recipe themselves, with only a little help from a supervising parent. I’d suggest opening the can of milk for them, and overseeing the melting of the chocolate, but other than that, I’m sure your little chefs could make a batch of this with only minimal assistance.
Do your kids ever make edible gifts for loved ones?
Easy S’mores Fudge
Adapted from Canadian Living
You’ll Need
Prep and Cook
Hi Holly - The fudge isn’t hard at all. It also isn’t gooey which I’m thinking might be good for braces (but I really don’t know!). Yes, it freezes perfectly (I have some in my freezer now) so should hold up until Christmas just fine.
Hi Jan,
These look yummy! I’ve never made fudge before, and given that both my children are in braces, I’m wondering how hard/soft this fudge is? Do you think this would freeze well? I’m doing some holiday baking this weekend, but will have to freeze so it is freeze for Christmas giving.
Thanks!
With less than a week until most of our holiday celebrations are officially underway, I’m happy to say that I am finally and fully prepared. Gifts are bought and wrapped, the freezer is stocked, cupboards are full and the supplies have been purchased for last-minute chocolate bark.
Inevitably, there is always a forgotten hostess gift that needs to be put together, or a small snack for unexpected guests. Having a supply of chocolate (dark, milk, white), nuts, dried fruit and/or candy on hand means that I’ll be able to put something together quickly if needed.
I first discovered the brilliance of chocolate bark when I lived in France. The lady I worked for would assemble it whenever she needed to have a sweet nibble on hand. It was almost always made from dark chocolate, dried fruit and nuts and often included the addition of a spice or two. Think cinnamon-infused chocolate or a sprinkling of ginger or rosemary as a finishing touch. It wasn’t candy-laden like we might make it here, and it was certainly a treat they perceived to be good for you.
I now make chocolate bark each holiday season and try to use simple, yet flavourful ingredients. Do you make bark? If so, what are some of your favourite add-ins?
To see the full printable recipe, click here: French Chocolate Bark.
Last fall, I wrote about the comparisons between No-Name chocolate frosting and Nutella. After a reporter reviewed the nutritional information of the two products, it was discovered that the popular cake icing is in fact a little more nutritious than the chocolate hazelnut spread.
I did a little digging around for the article and stumbled upon a recipe for a homemade version of Nutella, made from whole ingredients and no refined sugars. I took to the kitchen last week to test it out, and can honestly say we were pleasantly surprised with the results.
Easily made with a food processor, the nutty ingredients are pulverized into a paste, and blended with melted chocolate, warm milk and a touch of sweet honey. When poured into jars, it solidifies to a spreadable consistency, and tastes similar to the palm oil and sugar-laden treat we’ve all come to know and love.
I asked my son, the Nutella connoisseur in our home, if he thought the taste was on par with store-bought Nutella. He quickly replied “Nope!” I asked him if he liked it, and he emphatically answered “Yep!” I guess the homemade version, while slightly different in taste, will be given approval for a spot in our fridge.
Will you try to make your own Nutella?
To see the full printable recipe, click here: Homemade Chocolate Hazelnut Spread
I made this a few weeks ago, and *I* love it, but my kids are really not sold on it yet. But even if they don’t like it, it may stop them from demanding Nutella for every single breakfast, which makes me cringe!
I made these little pudding pots for my kids this past weekend, and they couldn’t have been more thrilled with the outcome. A simple stove-top chocolate pudding, lightly infused with a little peppermint extract, makes for a perfectly easy dessert that even the littlest of kids can help prepare.
Place the pudding in a small glass vessel, cover with a sprinkling of chocolate cookie crumbs, then insert a sprig of mint to create a little spring garden. The green garnish makes this a completely acceptable St. Patrick’s Day snack, and slightly different than the heavily tinted green foods typically on offer that day.
What is your favourite St. Patrick’s Day treat?
Find the full printable recipe here: Minty Pudding Pots
These chocolate nests have been my go-to Easter treats for a few years now, and I must confess that I really love them. I stumbled upon a more complicated version of the recipe many years ago, one which required far more ingredients and time than I had at that point in my life. I’ve since tweaked and refashioned this little gem of a treat, which I now serve each and every year. Using only five ingredients and a no-bake recipe, this is almost the perfect treat for any time-crunched Mom during the spring holiday season.
Ideal for a classroom or preschool party, these treats also make lovely gifts for friends and family when placed in a cellophane bag and tied with ribbon. I’m sending these to school with one of my boys this year, but I’m also working on a new delicacy, which will make use of all those homemade marshmallows I’ve been making.
How about you, what’s your favourite Easter/Spring treat to make?
Find the full printable recipe here: 5-Ingredient Chocolate Nests with Chicks and Eggs
Comments
That cake sounds amazing - congratulations and best wishes!