Category Archives: Dessert

September 18, 2011 · 8:19 pm

Banana cake

Kevin and I had three disgustingly ripe bananas. The idea of making banana bread crossed my mind so I searched for some recipes, and they all had an exhaustingly long list of ingredients that I wasn’t really in the mood to buy and mix together. In case you can’t tell, I’m not really a baker. I love to cook, but baking is not my favorite.

I was inspired by Paige’s blog post about her pumpkin cake bars where all she did was add a can of pumpkin to box cake mix. Genius!

ingredients

I know, those bananas are gross, right? Luckily, they’re perfect for mashing. I followed the instructions on the box, except I substituted two of the three eggs with the three mashed bananas. I could have probably even omitted all the eggs or added a banana.

batter

After mixing up the batter, I poured it into my baking dish, popped it in the oven and soon the entire house began to smell like banana bread.

baked

I used the store-bought cream cheese frosting. I had read somewhere that beating the icing makes it taste more homemade.

icing

It adds air making it lighter and more voluminous. It also got shinier. I’m sure there’s a scientific and culinary explanation for this.

iced cake

The cake turned out delicious, and I was really happy with my baking attempt. It tasted very similar to banana bread but sweeter.

slices

I can’t believe the weekend is already coming to an end. Kevin and I went shopping Friday evening, and then college football pretty much consumed my Saturday. After a day of watching football and getting things done around the house, now we’re watching The Emmys. I love award shows.

Weekly Workout Summary

  • Monday-treadmill run
  • Tuesday-off
  • Wednesday-abs and treadmill run
  • Thursday-arms
  • Friday-off
  • Saturday-abs
  • Sunday-treadmill run

Are you watching The Emmys? What shows do you think are award-worthy? Of those nominated, I’m a huge fan of Modern Family.

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Filed under Dessert, Eating In

August 27, 2011 · 4:21 pm

Chocolate covered pretzel rods

Just a few more days to enter my stainless steel straws giveaway!

On Friday we had a little social gathering at work to bring everyone together to take a break from the workday. There were board games, cards, charades and snacks. Pretty much everything at our office revolves around food, so everyone was asked to bring a dish.

I wanted to bring in something that would be easy to munch on, and I’m not a very skilled baker. Pretty much all of my desserts originate from a box.

To satiate my love of sweet and salty, I decided to make chocolate covered pretzels. This is a really quick and easy snack/dessert that went over well with my coworkers.

Chocolate covered pretzel rods

(Makes about 20 pretzel rods)

I made one batch using white chocolate chips and one batch using milk chocolate. These keep really well in the fridge if you’re worried about the chocolate melting, but once the chocolate is set, I left mine out here in Florida and had no issues.

ingredients

Ingredients:

  • 1 16-ounce bag of chocolate chips (any variety of chocolate or even butterscotch)
  • About 20 pretzel rods
  • Your favorite sprinkles (optional)

Directions:

Melt the chocolate using a double boiler. Or, if like me, you don’t have a double boiler, bring a pot of water to a simmer, and place a glass bowl over the pot to create a double boiler. We have a vegetable steamer, so I used the veggie basket to hold the bowl. I know a lot of people melt chocolate in the microwave by zapping it for a few seconds at a time and stirring in between, but I burned chocolate this way when younger and just never attempted it again. I’m sure normal people could accomplish the same result with this method though.

steamer

Remember that the water doesn’t need to be boiling, just simmering. The steam from the water will melt the chocolate.

chocolate chips

Add the chocolate chips to the glass bowl and begin stirring. Be patient as it will take a few minutes. Be careful when touching the bowl as it will get hot over time.

melting

melted

Once the chocolate is melted, dip your pretzel rods into the melted chocolate. Use your spatula to help coat about 2/3 of the pretzel rod.

dip

Transfer to a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper, and cover with your favorite sprinkles. Place the cookie sheet in the refrigerator to let the chocolate set.

white chocolate covered pretzel rods

I repeated the process using milk chocolate.

milk chocolate 1

milk chocolate 2

milk chocolate covered pretzel rods

Enjoy! I think it’d be fun to do black and orange sprinkles on Halloween and red and green ones for Christmas.

Today has been a pretty lazy Saturday so far. I’ve just been getting some stuff around the house done. Kevin and I are watching a special on Discovery Channel about the rebuilding of the World Trade Center towers, and it’s really amazing but also sad. I can’t believe we’re coming on 10 years since 9/11. I highly recommend you watch this series on Discovery Channel.

Tonight we’re off to cheer on the Orlando City Lions in the semi-finals. Have a great rest of the day!

What is your favorite type of chocolate? I actually prefer dark chocolate (especially when paired with something salty), but I stick with white and milk chocolate when making these for a crowd.

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July 21, 2011 · 6:58 pm

Blue Bird Bake Shop

I took two glorious days off work earlier this week while poor Kevin has been busier than ever at his job, so I wanted to surprise him with something sweet. I headed to Blue Bird Bake Shop outside of Baldwin Park to pick him up some cupcakes.

Even though I live within a very short distance of the store, I hardly stop by because during the week they are closed before I get out of work, so I was eager to catch them while they were open. I picked up six cupcakes to surprise Kevin with upon his return from work that evening.

Their flavors change daily, and just a week or so ago they were doing a “Christmas in July” promotion where they sold holiday flavors. I’m so bummed I missed that. I love gingerbread and pumpkin flavors.

We ended up not trying the cupcakes the day that I bought them due to a late evening of seeing Harry Potter, but the next day I tried their tuxedo cupcake, which is chocolate cake with cream cheese icing. It was delicious. The cake was so moist and rich, and it definitely fulfilled my recent craving for chocolate. I couldn’t even tell that the cupcake was a day old.

Kevin ate the downside up cupcake, which is vanilla cake with chocolate buttercream. He enjoyed it, but warned the icing is VERY sweet.

Since I brought the cupcakes home, I’ve let them sit on the counter. I should have probably put them in a Tupperware container or the fridge because I think the humidity affected the taste after a little bit. At one day out, they are still delicious, but two days after purchase I ate a strawberry cupcake, and it wasn’t nearly as moist or fresh as the last one I had. Next time I’ll have to remember the shelf life.

The store is really cute, and you can dine in and sip on coffee and baked goods. It seems like a great little shop to catch up with an old friend. Once you walk in, you feel like you are in someone’s kitchen.

I can’t wait until those holiday flavors roll around again…

After a long day of work, what food or dessert would you want to be surprised with? Naturally, I think I’d want sushi.

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Filed under Baldwin Park, Dessert

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July 4, 2011 · 12:03 pm

Patriotic dessert

Happy Fourth of July! I’m a sucker for patriotic holidays. Perhaps it’s because both my dad and grandpa were Marines. I always feel such a sense of pride and gratitude for our troops and our nation.

I’m also a sucker for themes. So what better way to meld the two than with a patriotic dessert?

I took Paula Dean’s fruit tart recipe, omitted the glaze (I’m not the biggest fan of fruit tart glazes) and took some creative liberties (get it…liberty?).

Happy Fourth of July! How are you celebrating?

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Filed under Dessert, Holiday

June 26, 2011 · 5:18 pm

Sweet!

Kevin and I happened to be in East Orlando the other evening, so the obvious decision was to stop by Sweet! cupcakery to pick up a dozen mini cupcakes. We’ve been consuming them often ever since.

I have loved Sweet since they opened in Waterford Lakes, but they’ve been picking up popularity because Hollis, the owner, won the first ever episode of Cupcake Wars on Food Network then came back for an all-star episode and won again against the best of the best. It’s great to see one of Orlando’s own getting some publicity.

They have many flavors of cupcakes, which come in regular and mini sizes. The regular sized cupcakes are huge. They can easily feed two people. The mini sizes aren’t dried out at all despite their small sizes. We bought our dozen at the end of the day, and they were still incredibly moist and fresh.

Kevin’s favorite is the red velvet cake, which I also love. They also do a great Boston cream pie, complete with cream filling in the middle of the cupcake and chocolate ganache on top. Other favorites include cookies ‘n cream, key lime pie and s’mores. I could go on and on with the flavors I love. I haven’t met one I don’t love, actually.

Sweet also offers pay-by-weight frozen yogurt in a variety of flavors with toppings.

What is your favorite cupcake flavor?

Weekly Workout Summary

Now that I told you about all the cupcakes I’ve been stuffing my face with, here’s my workout summary for the past week.

  • Monday-Nada. Although I started off kind of weak, I feel like it was worth it since it was my friend, Carla’s, going away dinner.
  • Tuesday-Nike Training Camp’s abs burner and a treadmill run. This was my first time going straight to the gym after work, and it felt great to get there early (before the crowds!) and knock out a workout while still having the whole evening ahead of me.
  • Wednesday-Women’s Health Magazine’s Sculpt Sexy Arms and treadmill run.
  • Thursday-Family time so no workout.
  • Friday-Women’s Health Magazine’s Sculpt Sexy Arms and Oh Show Glow’s Whittle My Middle abs workout.
  • Saturday-Beach day!
  • Sunday-In the morning we went on a long walk with the pup so he could get cardio too. It’s been so hot so we’ve been trying to make sure he’s not outside for too long, but it was overcast and cooler this morning, making it the perfect opportunity to take him out for a few miles. That afternoon, I did Nike Training Camp’s ab burner and Stairmaster.

I’m happy with my balance between social activities and physical activities this past week, and I’m pleased that I didn’t skip a workout day twice in a row. This upcoming week is also pretty busy for the social calendar, but my goal is to start off strong with a workout on Monday.

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