Banoffee Pie

I have something to share with you. I don't like bananas. As much as I try, I can't learn to love them. However, I dream about this dessert. Banana + toffee = banoffee.

Chocolate Toffee Bark

This delicious treat is also known across the internet as "chocolate crack". I had a friend visiting from out of town this weekend and I wanted to pull together something pretty quick and delicious to share with her and this is what I chose. 

This is one of those recipes that is in SO MANY different places on the internet that it's impossible to know where it started out. This is my version of the classic recipe.

Chocolate Toffee Bark

• 1 cup butter
• 1 cup brown sugar
• pinch of salt
• one package chocolate chips
• one box of graham crackers
• 1/2 cup toasted chopped nuts

Line a large cookie sheet with foil and parchment. This makes cleaning up so much easier. Fill the sheet with graham crackers (or saltine/soda crackers) to cover the whole bottom.

Mix the butter and sugar together over medium heat until the butter melts and starts to bubble. The mixture won't really combine and come together until it starts to boil. Once it comes to a boil mix constantly for about five minutes and pour over the crackers.

Bake in a 350 degree oven for about 5 to 8 minutes until bubbly and heated through.

Sprinkle the chocolate chips over the top and let sit for a few minutes until the chocolate melts. You'll see the color change from chalky to shiny. When the chocolate's melted, spread across the top of the toffee.

Sprinkle with whatever toppings you'd like. I used chopped nuts and sea salt. I read a version of the recipe today that used crushed candy canes. Totally up to you.

Let the toffee cool a bit and then put it in the fridge until solid, about an hour. Break it up into smaller pieces and you're ready to go. I usually keep this in a large cookie tin in the fridge to keep the chocolate and toffee solid. The upside is that this stuff is delicious. The downside is that this stuff is so delicious that I can't stop eating it when it's in the house. As soon as the weekend was over I was forced to take the leftovers to work and keep them there so I wouldn't finish off the batch by myself. This is a great, easy treat to take to any holiday gathering.

Have you ever made a batch of chocolate "crack"?

Double Chocolate Baked Doughnuts

The other night I was craving chocolate. I was also extremely bored and it was still pretty early in the evening so I decided to kill two birds with one stone and make something to satisfy my craving. After a quick internet search I found the solution to my problem - double chocolate baked doughnuts. Ever since I made my first batch of cinnamon sugar doughnuts I've been waiting for the right time to try some more.

I found a good looking recipe on the blog, Milk & Honey. These turned out to be a great solution for a weeknight baking endeavor. They came together really quickly and I had all of the ingredients in the cupboard. I did hold myself back a little and decided I'd only make half the recipe. It was a pretty easy recipe to cut in half. A quick tip - when I half a recipe that only calls for one egg, I just use the white. I figure it's probably about half the egg and the healthier half to boot. Alternatively, you could whisk up a whole egg and measure out half of it. 

Ready for the oven

 

I had the same problem with these as I did with the cinnamon sugar doughnuts. I had a really hard time getting them out of the pan. You can see a few chunks out of a couple of them where I had to pry them out of the pan. It might also have something to do with my impatience. I tried to get these out of the pan ASAP thinking that would keep them from sticking. It probably hurt more than it helped. I really need to invest in some cooking spray. 

The glaze for these doughnuts was super easy too. The recipe calls for melting the chocolate chips, corn syrup, butter, and vanilla in a double boiler on the stove. Instead, I just threw it all in a glass mixing bowl and melted it in the microwave. Take it out and stir every 30 seconds until everything is melted. Simple as that. The doughnuts were dipped in the glaze and sprinkled with different toppings. I always have sprinkles on hand and noticed I had a few toffee bit in the cupboard so I used those too. 

Toffee bits

Sprinkles make me happy

 

These were delicious. The texture was lighter and they tasted more like the "real thing" that you'd get at a coffee shop than the cinnamon doughnuts did. The glaze had good flavor and wasn't too sweet. I would certainly make these again. They became a bit messy because I threw them in a container while the glaze was still pretty soft. Like I said, I'm impatient. 

Do you ever throw something together to satisfy a craving?

C is for Cookie

By the end of the work day today I had a hankering for cookies. Peanut butter cookies to be exact. For some reason, I've been thinking about these cookies for a few weeks. I last made them a couple of years ago for a birthday celebration at the office. It must have been in one of my daily Martha Stewart emails where I first saw this recipe for Peanut Butter Toffee cookies. How could they be bad? It's a really easy recipe to pull together. I made these tonight in under an hour even accounting for all the pauses for picture taking. A simple peanut butter base with added toffee bits and chocolate chips for good measure. The recipe calls for Skor bars (Heath for any Americans out there) but the chips were a more less expensive option.

First things first...peanut butter

Cookie dough sans goodies

Mmmm...

The finished product

Looks good enough to eat!

I think they turned out quite well. Hopefully my co-workers are ready for some sugar tomorrow.

Do you have any favorite, easy cookie recipes you're willing to pull together on a weeknight?

Adventures in toffee

Until last weekend the only experience I'd had with candy making, or molten sugar of any kind, was the caramel and caramelized sugar decorations I made for my cupcakes for CupcakeCamp Ottawa. I had always been intimidated and figured that anything requiring constant and precise temperature monitoring just wasn't going to work for me. I was pleasantly surprised. It's kind of amazing what some sugar, corn syrup, water, and cream can turn into.

First attempt with a candy thermometer



Salted caramel

 
This past weekend I decided to break the thermometer out of the cupboard again and try my hand at some sponge toffee. If you're unfamiliar, it's the delicious crunchy hole-filled toffee in the middle of a Crunchie bar. In other parts of the world you may hear it referred to as honeycomb, sea foam, or hokey pokey. Sugar, corn syrup, water, vanilla, and baking soda - that's all it takes.

Two friends in the office were declaring their love of the stuff last week so I decided to make some for one of their birthdays. I was amazed at how easy the process was and how much candy I ended up with from so few ingredients. The 9x13 pan suggested in the recipe (from Canadian Living) barely contained it all.



Mmm...sugar



To make the treat a little more gift appropriate I decided to dip the pieces in melted semisweet chocolate.

Finished product

The resulting confection got rave reviews in the office the next day. As a result, I decided to add sponge toffee to the list of treats available from the Holiday Sweatshop. Let's hope every batch turns out as well!