Korean KupKakes

These are for my Korean friend who has a ton of national pride. These were chocolate cupcakes out of a box, with strawberry filling. The filling is just strawberries, sugar, and water, boiled till it reaches a jelly-like consistency. I made holes in the cupcakes using a bottle cap, filled them up with the jelly, and then topped with store-bought icing.

Persistence of Memory

This is a double chocolate cake with cream cheese and blueberry filling. And as usual, it is eggless and the base is a boxed cake mix.

Ingredients:
1 box of Duncan Hines Devil Food cake mix
1 tub of whipped cream cheese
1 small basket of blueberries
1 large handful of chocolate chips
chocolate frosting
cream cheese frosting
sugar
milk
cooking spray
flour

Directions: Separate out the cake mix into two halves. Bake two separate layers from each half of the box mix. For each, mix 7/8 cup of milk with half a box of cake mix and half of the chocolate chips. Oil your cake pan, and sift flour over the oiled surface. You do not want the thin layers of cake to break when you are removing them from the cake pan/stacking them. Bake each layer at 350 degrees F for 20-25mins. The cream cheese filling is 8oz of cream cheese mixed with 3-5 tablespoons of sugar to taste. To make the blueberry filling wash the blue berries and cook them at medium heat over the stove with a few tablespoons of water. Mash the berries as they cook. Add 2-3 tablespoons of sugar to taste. Cook until the berries have reached a jam-like consistency. When the layers and jam have cooled, you are read to stack. Spread a layer of cream cheese over the bottom cake layer. Then spread a layer of the blueberry jam. Finally carefully stack on the top layer, and frost. Here, I was inspired by Dali.

Princess Cake

This is one of my favorite chocolate cake recipes. Its very rich and moist.

Ingredients:
1 box of devil's food chocolate cake mix
4 eggs
1/2 cup of veg oil
5ounce pack of chocolate instant pudding powder
1 cup sour cream
1/3 cup milk
2/3 bag of chocolate chips
1/2 cup of warm water
cream cheese frosting
food coloring

Mix up all the ingredients (except the frosting/food coloring). To make the princess's skirt we used a bundt cake and two cup cakes. Bake bundt for 50-55 mins. Bake cupcakes for 20-25 mins at 350degrees.

To decorate. Flip the bundt cake out of its pan. Slide a barbie doll up through the bottom of the cake. (Note, the Barbie will have to be in a sitting position to fit in the cake.) Fill in the rest of the hole using the cupcakes. (You may have to break up the cupcakes.) Frost to look like a skirt.

Chocolate Cupcakes with Fresh Strawberry Filling

When I bake, there are three requirements...it has to be eggless, quick, and delicious. Here is one of my favorite combinations that I have used in both cake and cupcake form.

The cake is easy...I use Duncan Hines devil's food chocolate cake mix. Instead of egg, oil, and water, I add milk (to replace the quantity of water on the box). The cake rises very well even without the egg. You can make a sheet cake or cupcakes.

Filling: Fresh strawberries and sugar at a ratio of two-three table spoons of sugar per small basket of strawberries depending on sweetness of berries. Chop the strawberries up into very small pieces, and heat berries and sugar on the stove top at a high setting. Let the mixture boil, and the moisture evaporate, and stir often. Eventually, the mixture will start to resemble a jelly. You want to wait until this stage, as too much moisture in the filling with make your cake soggy.

For a cake, spread the filling between layers. If you will be storing the cake before consuming, a thin layer of frosting between each layer of cake and the filling will help keep the moisture in the filling out of the cake.

For cupcakes, use a deep bottle cap (one from a screwtop bottle of wine works well) to drill/scoop out a hole in each cupcake. Fill this hole with the filling, and then frost.

Frosting: I have used both cream cheese and chocolate frosting with this combo, and both taste great!

Triple Chocolate Chip Cookies

Today I made another great recipe from Lovin From the Oven, her Grandma's Triple Chocolate Chip Cookies (I cut her recipe in 1/4th since it makes an obscene amount of cookies).

Ingredients:
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
1/2 cup vegetable shortening
3/4 cup white sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
2 and 1/4 cup flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
15 oz dark chocolate chips
3 oz white chocolate chips
3 oz milk chocolate chips

Directions: Combine butter, shortening, sugars, eggs, and vanilla until well mixed. Separately mix flour, baking soda, and salt and add to butter-sugar mixture until mixed. Add chocolate chips. Drop in spoonfuls on cookie sheet, bake at 375 for 11 minutes or until lightly brown.
The recipe claims to make 3 dozen, although I've found it makes about 4 dozen (unless you like your cookies giant).

You might notice that this looks almost exactly like the Nestle Tollhouse Recipe. In fact, there are only two differences: 1) subbing out half the butter for shortening, and 2) using different varieties, and a larger total amount, of chocolate chips. Shortening is apparently really ridiculously bad for you (something or other about trans fats...psh) but I think it makes cookies so excellent, because it has a higher melting point than butter or margarine, so the cookies don't spread out very much! They stay nice and fat, just the way I like them :P I also like my cookies loaded with chips, but if you don't, you could cut that down a little.

Chocolate Butterscotch Brownies

I couldn't decide if I wanted butterscotch brownies (like these) or just plain old chocolate brownies, so i thought, why not mix them?? The result was pretty ridiculous--incredibly chocolatey and rich and gooey with a crispy crust on top and amazing and probably all eaten in the next two hours hahaha

1 1/2 Tbsp butter

1/4 c oil

1 Tbsp instant coffee

1 c brown sugar

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla

1/2 c flour

1/2 c cocoa powder

1 tsp baking powder

dash of salt

Preheat oven to 350F. Grease and flour an 8x8 baking dish.

Melt butter in a microwave-safe mixing bowl. Stir in oil, instant coffee, and sugar. Mix in the egg and vanilla. Sift the remaining ingredients into the bowl and mix to combine. Pour and spread into prepared pan. The batter will be really thick and sticky, so carefully spread it out in the pan.

Bake for ~30 min and then test with a toothpick. Remove from the oven and allow to cool to make cutting them easier.

Cookie Dough Truffles (vegan!)

My boyfriend LOVES raw cookie dough, but I don't like to eat it, because I am very paranoid about raw and undercooked eggs and poultry. Also, while I like it, its not SO good that it really tempts me to stray from my no-raw egg policy (brownie batter, on the other hand...). Anyway, when I saw this recipe for chocolate cookie dough truffles, I absolutely had to make them. I knew my boyfriend would love them, they're egg-free, and the added chocolate coating made them really exciting to me. They definitely did not disappoint...the recipe made at least 40 truffles and we gobbled them up in...oh, I don't know...three or four days?

Ingredients:
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup (2 sticks) butter or margarine, room temperature
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/3 cup milk or soy milk (I used regular skim milk)
1 cup mini semi-sweet chocolate chips

1 12-oz package chocolate chips or dark candy coating (for dipping).

Directions:
Beat butter and sugars and in large bowl with until light and fluffy. Add milk and vanilla. Stir in flour, baking soda and salt and stir until incorporated. Stir in mini chocolate chips.

Cover and chill dough for 1 hour. (I think I actually omitted this step when I did it...oops)

When dough is firm enough to handle (it may help to lightly flour your hands), form dough into 1″ balls and arrange on a baking sheet lined with waxed paper. Place sheets in the fridge and let chill for 30 minutes.

Melt chocolate candy coating or chips in a double boiler or in microwave (I used the microwave - I zapped about half the chips at a time, for 30 seconds or until glossy and then stirred for awhile until they were completely melted.) Using forks or a dipping tool, dip cookie balls into candy coating to cover. (I actually used my hands because the cookie dough kept falling off the fork. Hands was VERY messy, but seemed to work well for the truffles). Chill until set. Store, chilled, in an airtight container. MMMMMM so good!

Coconut Chocolate Cookie

I like chocolate. I like coconut. I like cookies. So I combined them, and the result was very well-received. I mostly just modified a standard cookie recipe by adding flaked coconut and chocolate chips. I made some cookies without the chocolate chips because I thought there was too much chocolate, but my roommate's boyfriend convinced me that there's really no such things as too much chocolate. Sorry about the coldness of the picture though; I haven't quite worked out how to take good food pictures with my new camera.

Ingredients
1.25 cups sifted flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup melted butter
1/4 cup minus 1 Tbsp white sugar
1/4 cup plus 2 Tbsp packed brown sugar
1 egg
1 egg yolk
1 tsp vanilla extract
1.25 cups unsweetened shredded coconut
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 350F. Grease baking sheet(s).

2. In a small bowl, sift the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt together.

3. In a large mixing bowl, beat the butter and sugar together with an electric mixer until well blended. Beat in the egg, egg yolk and vanilla. Slowly add the dry ingredients until well mixed. With a wooden spoon, mix in the coconut and chocolate chips last.

4. Drop by tablespoonfuls onto baking sheet. Bake for 10-12min. Cool on wire rack.

Third Time's the Charm? Brownies #3

Adrienne's post on how brownies from scratch were always inferior to brownies from mix read to me like a challenge. So I started with a base recipe and started making adjustments, making sure to take careful notes after each batch. I also started making half-batches because y'know, trial brownies... Upon hearing my quest for the perfect brownie recipe, my friends started giving comments, which have helped a lot, so thanks guys! While I was making this batch, my roommate's boyfriend suggested I incorporate Nutella and hazelnuts into my next experiment - that suggestion was very well-received and will happen next time. I keep meaning to get walnuts to add as well, but I never get around to actually getting walnuts... Anyway, this batch was my third and I think the first one good enough to make a post about, so here we go.

Ingredients
2.5 ounces unsweetened chocolate
6 tbsp butter
2/3 cup sugar
2 eggs
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 teaspoon salt
2.5oz dark chocolate, chips or chip-sized chunks
slightly under 1/2 cup flour

For the flour, I use the scoop-and-sweep method. Using a 1/2 cup measuring spoon, scoop out the flour, then sweep your hand across the top, brushing off the excess flour without packing the flour in. Someday I'll get a scale and actually measure flour correctly, but this method suffices for now. I then shook out a little of the flour, about 1 Tbsp, to make it just that little bit fudgier.

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease 8x8-inch baking pan.
2. Microwave chocolate and butter together until butter is melted (add 30 sec at a time so you don't overheat). Stir until chocolate is completely melted. Stir in sugar.
3. Let the mixture cool down a little, then stir in eggs and vanilla (the first time I did this, I think the chocolate mixture was still too warm and it looked like the eggs were cooking as soon as I stirred them in...). Sift in flour and salt and mix until just incorporated; don't overmix. Stir in chocolate chunks (or chips if you like). Scoop into prepared pan (the mixture was dry enough that I couldn't really pour it, but a spatula scooped it out well enough).
4. Bake at 350 for 25-30min or until toothpick inserted in center comes out with fudgy crumbs. Do not overbake - check it at 25min, and add time as needed.
5. Leave it in the pan to cool. I put a plate over the pan while cooling also; I don't know if that affected it at all. Makes about 16 brownies. :)

Chocolate Chip Coookies

In my opinion, you can't beat plain old Nestle TollHouse for chocolate chip cookies! I practically have the recipe memorized. In case you don't here it is -

Ingredients
1 cup (2 sticks) butter
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
2 large eggs
2 and 1/4 cups flour
1 12-oz package of chocolate chips

Directions: Cream butter, sugar, and vanilla together. Add eggs, one at a time, and beat well after each egg. In a separate bowl, mix flour, baking soda, and salt. Gradually add the dry mixture to the wet mixture. Stir in chocolate chips, drop by rounded tablespoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets. Bake at 375 for 9 to 11 minutes. Enjoy with a big glass of milk!

mmmmm chocolate chip cookies :)

A Homemade Brownie That's Better than a Mix?

I have a confession: until today, I had never made brownies from scratch. This might be surprising, considering how much I love to bake, but I honestly believe that brownies from the best mixes (coughGhirardellicough) are darn near perfect, and growing up brownies were the only baked good that it was "acceptable" to make from a mix. When my boyfriend and I first met, he was SO skeptical of my boxed brownie mixes, but he quickly became a convert.
However, today we wanted to make brownies and didn't have any box mixed on hand - but we did have all the other necessary baking ingredients, so I decided to see if I could find a homemade brownie recipe that would stand up to my beloved mixes.



We tried this recipe for Killer K-A brownies, and although the batter tasted AMAZING, the final result was pretty disappointing. The flavor was good, but the brownies came out a bit crumbly and cake-y, as opposed to the fudgy brownies that we love so much! (I wondered if they would, with 4 eggs in the recipe!) My bf's comment was "I don't hate them." (But he still ate a lot, ha!)





The conclusion was that these brownies are definitely not better than from-a-mix brownies. Maybe if I find a recipe that's supposed to be super fudgy, I'll give it a try again some day, but for now I think Ill stick to my boxes!

Brownie Cups

My coworker brought brownies in little cupcake cups to our potluck the other day, but it didn't work out too well. The brownies were stuck to the paper liners, but I liked the idea of individual brownie pieces. Instead of the paper liners, I used puff pastries, and it worked out pretty well. I made it again to bring to my family's Thanksgiving dinner - the Chinese generation was very confused (some thought it was filled with red bean paste, others thought just pieces of chocolate), but all thought it looked and tasted good.

Ingredients
2 oz unsweetened chocolate
2 Tbsp butter
1/3 cup sugar
1 egg
splash of vanilla extract
1 Tbsp flour
1/2 sheet puff pastry, thawed

1. Roll out puff pastry. Cut into 12 pieces and press into pre-greased mini muffin pan. Preheat over to 400F.
2. Melt chocolate and butter in a microwave bowl for 30 sec. Stir until chocolate is completely melted. Stir in sugar, egg, vanilla extract, and flour. Spoon evenly into puff pastry cups.
3. Bake for 18min, or until toothpick comes out clean.

I thought the brownie a little overly rich, but the puff pastry helped balance out a little of the sweet denseness.

Brownies Twice Over

I'm way behind on my posts, and in the last few weeks, I've made a couple types of brownies: Mint Brownies and Cream Cheese Brownies. So lots of chocolate :D

Mint Brownies
Yield: 8x8 pan of brownies
Adapted from Gale Gand

Ingredients
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
2 ounces unsweetened chocolate
1 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1/3 cup white whole wheat flour
dash of salt
1 cup mint chocolate chunks (I used chopped up Trader Joes's UFOs)

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Melt the butter and chocolate together in a double boiler over very low heat. Stir together and remove from the heat. Add sugar and eggs. Mix well. Stir in the flour and salt. Add chocolate chunks. Spread the mixture into a buttered 8-inch square pan. Bake until set, about 40 minutes. When cold, the chunks of chocolate got too solidified, so they taste best served warm with vanilla ice cream :)




Cream Cheese Brownies
Yield: 8x8 pan of brownies
Adapted from Joy of Baking

Ingredients
Brownie Layer:
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, cut into pieces
4 ounces unsweetened chocolate, coarsely chopped
3/4 cup granulated white sugar
2 large eggs
1/2 cup all purpose flour
dash of salt

Cream Cheese Layer:
4 ounces cream cheese, softened
2 Tbsp granulated white sugar
1 egg white

Directions
Preheat oven to 325 degrees F and place the rack in the center of the oven. Line an 8x8 pan with aluminum foil (bottom and sides).

Melt the butter and chocolate in a double boiler. Remove from heat and stir in the sugar. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well with a wooden spoon after each addition. Stir in the flour and salt and beat, with a wooden spoon, until the batter is smooth and glossy and comes away from the sides of the pan (about one minute). Remove ~1/2 cup of the brownie batter and set aside. Place the remainder of the brownie batter evenly into the prepared pan.

With a hand mixer, blend the cream cheese until smooth. Add the sugar and egg white and process until creamy and smooth. Spread the cream cheese filling over the brownie layer. Spoon small dollops of the reserved brownie batter evenly on top of the cream cheese filling. Then with a table knife or wooden skewer, swirl the two batters without mixing them.

Bake in the preheated oven for about 25 minutes or until the brownies start to pull away from the sides of the pan and the edges of the brownies are just beginning to brown. Remove from oven and place on a wire rack to cool. If you can wait, refrigerate the brownies until they are firm enough to cut into squares (at least two hours). These brownies can be stored in the refrigerator for several days. These brownies turned out a bit too sweet (I reduced the amt of sugar in the original recipe by 40% but I should have reduced it even further). Also, the original recipe called for twice as much cream cheese mixture, but I didn't have that much cream cheese, so I had to halve that. But it would have tasted much better with more cream cheese :)

Chocolate Chip Banana Bread

This is a great chocolate chip banana bread recipe that I made recently. The bread is very moist and dense, so even a tiny square is filling. This recipe also has a LOT of chocolate chips, so its great if you're a chocoholic like me, or if you're planning to eat this for dessert instead of breakfast.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, at room temperature

1 cup white sugar

1 egg

1 tablespoon milk

4 overripe bananas, mashed

1 and 1/2 cups all purpose flour

dash of salt

1/2 tablespoon baking powder

1 and 1/2 cups chocolate chips

Directions: Mix together the butter and sugar. Add the egg and milk, and then the mashed bananas. In a separate bowl, mix the flour, salt, and baking powder. Add the dry mixture to the wet mixture. Stir in about a cup of the chocolate chips. Transfer the mixture to a lightly greased loaf pan (if you don't have that, a brownie pan works just as well). Top with remaining chocolate chips. Bake at 350 degrees for 40-45 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Blondies!

In general, I prefer chocolate chip cookies to blondies, but this recipe looked yummy and I was feeling like switching things up, so I tried it out the other night.

8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted, plus more for pan
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup packed light-brown sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup semi sweet chocolate chips

Mix butter and sugars in a large mixing bowl. Whisk in egg & vanilla. Add flour and salt, stir until moistened. Add half the chocolate chips. Spread evenly in a greased 8x8 pan, add remaining chocolate chips on top. Bake at 350 degrees for about 40 minutes, or until toothpick comes out clean. Makes 16.


Very easy and very tasty!

Mini Chocolate Almond Pie Surprise

My roommates had plenty of bars of chocolate and a huge bag of almonds leftover from a recent camping trip, so we decided to use up some of that.

Time: 0:20
Serves: 6-10

Ingredients:
6-10 mini ready-made graham cracker pie crusts
1 package (16oz) silken tofu
12 oz chocolate (we used Hershey's milk chocolate b/c we happened to have a lot)
1 tsp vanilla extract (we should have substituted 1/2 tsp almond extract, in retrospect)
1/3 cup chopped almonds, or to taste.

1. In a food processor or a blender, blend the tofu with the vanilla.
2. Melt the chocolate (since we were making 25 pies in one evening... to save time, I just stuck it in the microwave instead of doing the double boiler thing). Pour into the food processor and blend until well mixed.
3. Line the bottom of the pie crusts with the chopped almonds. That's the "surprise." :) Cover the almonds with the chocolate-tofu mixture. I filled it halfway first and lightly mixed the almonds with the chocolate-tofu, then covered it up and smoothed it out with the bottom of a spoon.
4. Refrigerate until firm. Garnish with some toasted slivered almonds if desired.

Hint: Don't tell people it's made with tofu. They'll never know, and don't things taste better if you think they're less healthy? ;)

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Brownies, aka Death By Chocolate. No, Seriously.

I stumbled across this idea on Bakerella and decided I just simply had to try it. I did the making it from scratch thing though, using the one bowl brownie recipe from smitten kitchen and Symphony cookie recipe from this very blog! These were a big hit with everyone - I found it incredibly sweet/rich, so I cut them into tiny little 1.5x1.5cm squares, handed people a toothpick, and had them eat it like little brownie/cookie lollipops.

Time: 1:30
Serves: a lot

Ingredients:
Brownie from smitten kitchen, minus 1/2 stick butter
Cookie from Epicurean Adventures

Ganache:
12oz semi-sweet chocolate chips
slightly less than 3/4 cup heavy cream
6Tbsp butter

1. Make the cookie dough recipe according to OhmsAndFarads's recipe on Epicurean Adventures.
2. Make the brownie batter according to the recipe on smitten kitchen. Preheat oven to 350F. Grease a 9x13 pan. Pour the brownie batter into the pan. Drop spoonfuls of the cookie dough into the batter, pressing lightly to level it. Bake at 350F for 35min, or until a toothpick comes out mostly clean. Let cool.
3. Heat the cream and butter over low flame (don't boil). Pour over the chocolate chips and stir until the chocolate melts. It initially looks like it's seizing up, but just keep stirring and it'll be fine. Spread over the cookie-brownies and let set in the fridge. Cut and enjoy!

I think you can cut down the amount of sugar/butter/eggs that the individual recipes call for. I personally found this super super rich, so next time I think I would only use 2 eggs & 1 cup sugar for the brownie, 1 bar of chocolate for the chocolate chip cookie, and perhaps use half unsweetened and half semi-sweet chocolate for the ganache. It's really up to each baker to determine how they want to adjust recipes to their own tastes though.

Symphony Cookies

These cookies are really easy to make, and they're always a bit hit. Soooo, there are times (like around Christmastime) when I make hundreds of these...


Now, the trick is to use Symphony chocolate bars. Symphony chocolate is incredibly creamy, and far superior to any chocolate chips you'll find. I decided to also try out a few different ingredients: mint chocolate chips from Trader Joe's, mini peanut butter cups also from Trader Joe's, and Cadbury caramellos (chocolate stuffed with caramel mmm):


This recipe is adapted from a Hershey's cookbook we mail ordered many many years ago.

Symphony Cookies (yield: ~50 cookies)
2 Symphony bars (2-4.25oz bars), chopped into chocolate-chip-sized pieces
6 Tbsp. butter
1/2 c. granulated sugar
1/4 c. brown sugar
1/2 tsp. vanilla
1 egg
1 c. all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1 c. walnuts, chopped

- Preheat oven to 350F.
- Beat together butter, sugars, and vanilla.
- Add egg and beat
- Sift together flour and baking powder in a separate bowl.
- Blend flour mixture into butter mixture
- Stir chocolate and walnuts into into batter
- Drop batter by teaspoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheet. I usually put about 30 cookies on each sheet, because i keep the cookies pretty small. If you want bigger cookies, try maybe 15-20 cookies on a sheet. Bigger cookies generally taste better because there's more batter (this recipe has a LOT of chocolate chunks), and so the cookies become softer.
- bake for about 10-15 min until the cookies are golden brown. halfway through baking, rotate the sheet(s) for more even cooking.
- transfer cookies to wire rack to cool. for crispier cookies, allow the cookies to cool completely before placing in an airtight container. for chewier cookies, place into an airtight container as soon as they are cool enough to handle.
- best way to enjoy--nuked in the microwave to 15 sec with a tall glass of milk (or a scoop of ice cream!)

Chocolate Covered Biscotti

My mom really likes biscotti and buys them from Costco pretty often, so the other day I decided to try making them. It turned out to be a lot easier than I expected - some flour, sugar, eggs, baking powder, and I had biscotti.

I'd bookmarked Baking Bites awhile ago and was eager to try something out from it. I borrowed the chocolate covered strawberry biscotti recipe, with slight modifications.

Time: 1:30
Serves: a lot

Ingredients
2.5 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
3 large eggs, room temperature
2 tsp vanilla extract (or almond extract, if you prefer)
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup halved almonds (optional)

1. Mix the flour, baking powder, and salt.
2. In a large mixing bowl, beat the eggs until fluffy. Slowly add in the sugar and vanilla, beating to incorporate.
3. Preheat oven to 350F.
4. Slowly add in the dry ingredients. When you've added about half of it, stop using an electric mixer and start mixing with a wooden spoon. It will soon get too thick for the mixer to be useful.
5. Put a piece of parchment paper over your baking sheet. Divide the batter in half and spoon onto the parchment paper in two long logs. With well-floured hands, shape into rectangles about 1/2in high. Bake at 350F for 20min - it should rise a little and look kind of like a cake.
6. Take out of the oven and carefully slice into 1/2in thick pieces. Lay flat on parchment paper and bake at 300F for 15min. Flip onto other side and bake for another 15min at 300F. This is to help it dry so that it has the hard crunch that differentiates biscotti from other cakes/cookies.
7. Wait for it to cool, then dip into chocolate if desired. Serve with coffee, milk, or plain.

Chocolate Chunk Banana Bread

I had some old bananas last week, so the logical step was to make banana bread! I modified this recipe.

Chocolate Chunk Banana Bread
3 very ripe, soft, darkly speckled large bananas, mashed well (about 1 1/2 c.)
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
1/4 c. plain yogurt
1/2 c. (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 1/4 c. walnuts, coarsely chopped
1-4 oz. Hershey Symphony chocolate bar, coarsely chopped
2 c. white whole wheat flour
3/4 c. sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
pinch of salt

1. Preheat oven to 350F.
2. Butter and flour an 8x8 baking pan.
3. Mix the mashed banana, eggs, yogurt, melted butter and vanilla in a large bowl.
4. Stir the walnuts and chocolate into the banana mixture (doing so will reduce the risk of over-mixing).
5. Sift flour, sugar, salt and baking soda into the banana mixture.
6. Mix gently with a wooden spoon just until the dry ingredients are moistened. The batter will be lumpy. DO NOT overmix!
7. Pour batter into prepared pan and bake for ~1 hr, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
8. Let the bread cool in the pan; slice and serve.

The bread will keep well for a week or so. Store covered in plastic wrap. You can also wrap in plastic wrap and freeze it. Tastes best served warm--so nuke a slice in the microwave for ~30 seconds before eating!