Chocolate Chip Cookie Pie :0

It's a chocolate chip coookie. It's a pie. It's a chocolate chip cookie pie! (and it tastes almost like cake!)

When I found this chocolate chip cookie pie recipe on Bakerella, I knew I had to make it. I love chocolate chip cookies. Believe it or not, I'm not a huge fan of pie, mainly because I'd rather have chocolate or cheese(cake!) than fruit. But chocolate chip cookie pie? That's my kind of dessert.



I still don't have chocolate chips, so I did the same method as my previous post and piped them by hand using fudge frosting.



It doesn't look as good as Bakerella's, but it tastes amazing!!
I used this recipe for the pie crust. It's "yum-o!" >.<

No Pops For Me :(

Due to some issues, I was unable to participate in this months challenge, Cheesecake Pops, but if you came here to see them, check out Karen's! She did an amazing job on them and they're definitely worth checking out!!

Anyway, so this is what I've been up to:

Iced brownies. Too cakey for me and not fudgy enough. I thought I was making the ones Mom usually makes, turns out I was using the wrong recipe! Next time.



Homemade tortilla shells! I didn't taste these, I made them for my brother. I was never of fan of soft tortilla! Next time I'll roll them thinner.



Cookies! With substitute chocolate chips. I made my favorite fudge frosting (in comment) but used milk instead of water, then plopped them on a baking sheet and put them in the freezer while I made My favorite chocolate chip cookies. The leaked a bit, but were incredibly delicious! Perfect for when you don't have chocolate chips!!





Sadly, no pops, but next month I'll be ready and daring!

Pecan Upside-down Cake & Cream Cheese Frosting &

I made a cake today! Pecan upside-down cake, with the best ever cream cheese frosting! Now, I love Cinnabon Cinnamon buns, and they have the best cream cheese frosting. It's light, fluffy, sweet but not too sweet, melts on top of the hot cinnabon and it's Oh so good!
So I wanted to duplicate that, and this time I've come the closest I've ever gotten, and it's delicious!


The upside down part stuck a bit to the bottom of the pan, so it turned out a bit like brown sugar crumbs! =3


Cinnabon-ish Frosting Recipe

1/2 cup sugar
2 large egg whites
1 stick butter, room tempature
6 ounces cream cheese
1 tsp. vanilla extract

Bring a pot of water to a simmer on the stove. Add egg whites and sugar to a large heatproof bowl. Place the bowl over the pot of water and whisk constantly until sugar dissolves, and mixture feel hot , about 2 minutes. Remove from heat beattil cool for 4 minutes, or until mixture turns white like thick marshmallow cream and it's slightly bigger. Add butter and beat till smooth, then add cream cheese and beat until smooth.
Recipe frosts the top of two 9 inch cakes.

Frozen Ricotta Cream Pie with Caramel Sauce

Saturday night I got home from work, thinking about this mixture of sweetened Ricotta that was sitting in the fridge. It was made as an attempt at cannoli filling for a cake, but was way to watery. ( I believe I needed to strain it some how) So, a random idea came and I tried it. I took a little bit of the mixture and but it in a small bowl, covered it, and froze it. a few hours later, I pulled it out and tasted it--and wow! It was like ice cream! It was very good.

So then I wanted to make a dessert with it...and came up with a "Frozen Ricotta Cream Pie" (name courtesy of my sister)

Very refreshing for the warm weather we've been having. Sadly it takes a whole night to set in the freezer, so no pie until Sunday!
Before freezing-

and homemade caramel sauce!


and for sunday dinner, Dad was grilling again- this time Teriyaki Pork, and grilled vegetables


Ricotta Cream Pie Recipe

Pie Crust
(pie crust taken from Great Coffee Cakes, sticky buns, muffins & more by Carole Walter)
This is a streusel recipe, used for a crust ^^

9-10 tablespoon of butter
1 1/2 cup flour
1/4 plus 1/8 cup granulated sugar
1/4 plus 1/8 lightly packed brown sugar (light or dark)
3 Tablespoons cocoa powder
3/8 tsp. baking powder
3/8 tsp. salt
3/8 ground cinnamon

In a saucepan over medium heat melt butter, taking care not to burn it, and set aside.
In a bowl, whisk together flour, sugars, cocoa, baking powder, salt and cinnamon.
use a fork and stir/toss until crumbs are formed. In a lightly greased pie dish, take crumbs and press into the dish until covered and crust is formed. Bake at 350 for 10 to 15 minutes. Crust will apear sof but will haren a bit once let to sit.

Ricotta Cream
(warning-- as my recipes are imperfect, you may have a little leftover cream! it tastes great as just ice cream though)
24 ounces ricotta cheese
16 ounces confectioners sugar
4 tablespoon very soft butter

Pour the Ricotta cheese into a large bowl and slowly beat in sugar. Taste as you add the sugar to see if you want more or less, or just follow the recipe. Beat in butter.
Poor the ricotta cream into baked pie crust, cover with plastic wrap and place in freezer over night. Keep frozen.

Caramel sauce recipe can be found here, with helpful pictorial.
http://www.elise.com/recipes/archives/001979caramel_sauce.php
I suggest the version with the water, as I burnt my first batch without it, but not the second with it.

What do you do when you have no food in the house?

You throw flour, water, salt and yeast in a bowl until you have a wet, sticky dough...and make no-cheese pizza, because you have no cheese.




I love how airy the crust was!!

And thogu we have no food, Dad brought home cookies someone gave him from work

Yumm....

Chocolate pound cake and the Foodie Blogroll~

Yesterday I wanted something sweet. I've had a cold for the past few days and couldn't go to work on Wednesday, so I needed some cheering up. Nothing says "get better!" like Chocolate cake. With cheesecake filling. And streusel toping.


Okay, so I took the recipe for Black and White Pound Cake from Great Coffee Cakes, and instead of turning less than half the batter chocolate, I doubled the stuff you add to the vanilla batter and made most of it chocolate. Most, because I didn't have the stuff to triple it. I than took 8 ounces cream cheese, 1 egg, half cup sugar and beat it all together. I thought I needed something, so I added some of the leftover vanilla batter to it. Then, in a spring form pan I put 2/3 of the chocolate batter, all the cheesecake batter, then the remaining chocolate batter. When it only had 5 minutes left in the oven I put on Carole's chocolate streusel topping. It was a very good cake.


The batter was so good I could eat it like pudding!



Speaking of batter, I had enough leftover for a whole vanilla pound cake! It don't look so pretty, but it tastes good! I took it out 5 minutes later than I wanted do to my scatter brain.

And I wanted to say I've joined the foodie blogroll! You can join by following the link on the side of my blog.

Kit Kat Kake: Happy Birthday to Heather!

This is the Kit Kat Kake that me and my friend Sarah made, for Heather.

Inside it's filled with chocolate buttercream and crushed Kit Kats:


Me and Sarah had a blast making this cake. Things really do come out better when from the heart. The cake is chocolate cake, filled with chocolate buttercream and crushed Kit Kats, topped with chocolate fudge icing and with Kit Kats "glued" to edges with more buttercream.

The cake was one of the best cakes I've ever had. My only regret is I only got a small piece because there were a lot of kids. (brought it to a youth get-together at my church) but the most important thing is Heather absolutely loved it.


She's so adorable! <3

The buttercream was SOO yummy in the middle!! And the cake was so fudgy! I always thought I didn't like chocolate cake but I've changed my mind. It's only the boxed cake mix that I don't like.(I love yellow and white box mixes)

Edit:
What do you do with leftover buttercream? Spread it on an Oreo, of course!


Yumm....perfect afternoon snack :)

Dinner Now, and Birthday Cake later

It was pretty warm today so Dad got out the grill and started some ribs. He let me season 'em and help glaze them. Not without supervision, of course.


Daddy grilling. Isn't he cute?


My Awesome Fluff-ball friend Sarah came over to help me bake a a birthday cake for my friend Heather (who is also Sarah's sister, she's a year older than Sarah.) She's turning 16 on Wednesday! Her favorite candy is Kit Kat, and she's obsessed with chocolate. We baked all day and I think we came up with a good cake. Will post tonight, after we've all tried it. Kit Kats and chocolate cake...where can you go wrong?
Just look at this for now:

No Knead Bread: Fast, easy & fun

I love bread. If someone asks me what my favorite food is, I'll either answer pizza or bread. I could live off nothing but bread if I had to, and I'd gladly do it. My favorite thing is the crust, so I always ask for the end of the loaf.

Another thing I love about bread, is the ingredients for great bread are so simple! The past two days we had barely anything to eat in the house, so I've made bread.

And now about the new recipe I found!


Monday I wasn't feeling so well. Whenever I moved my head I felt dizzy, but I really felt like some fresh bread without all the work. Then I found the recipe for "simple crusty bread" on the NY times website and gave it a try. It came out beautifuly! Super fast and easy, barley any work on my part.

On Tuesday I was in a hurry getting ready for work, but my mom was making marinara sauce and noodles for dinner and I knew we needed some bread to go with it. I made it again and it was even better this time around! I mixed it and let it rise for about 4 hours, then had my brother place it in the fridge while I was at work. When I got home, I pulled it out, shaped it, and let it rise again for about an hour and a half. Delicious, crusty bread, perfect for when you're in a hurry. (especially when you have no food in the house!)




The recipe can be found by click this sentence.