mocha cheesecake

I could have titled this post: "the only cheesecake I ever make", because that is the truth.  

I've tried several other recipes for cheesecakes, but this one is my all-time favorite.  Since cheesecake is a relatively expensive dessert that I tend to only make once in a while (for special occasions!), I really don't like experimenting too much.  I just love this recipe too much!

Also, for those of you who aren't really coffee fans...fear not!  I'm totally not a coffee drinker (at all), and I can't get enough of this cake.  If you're still not sure, you can always leave out the instant coffee for an excellent chocolate cheesecake!

Mocha Cheesecake

from: Jean Pare - Company's Coming: Chocolate Everything

Ingredients:

1/3 cup margarine, melted
1 1/3 cups graham cracker crumbs
1/3 cup sugar
3 tbsp cocoa powder

3 oz semisweet chocolate chips
3 packages cream cheese (8 ounces each), softened to room temperature
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 tbsp flour
2 tsp vanilla
3 large eggs, at room temperature

1/4 cup milk
1 tbsp instant coffee granules

*whipped cream for topping (optional)

Directions:

Crust:
1)  In a small bowl, stir together margarine, crumbs, sugar and cocoa.
2)  Press into an ungreased 9-inch springform pan; set aside.

Cake:
1)  Melt chocolate using a double boiler (or in the microwave if you're very careful not to burn it!).  Set aside and let cool to room temperature once melted.
2)  Beat cream cheese, both sugars, flour and vanilla in a medium bowl.  Add in melted chocolate and beat until well mixed.
3)  Add eggs, one at a time, until just mixed.
4)  Stir together milk and instant coffee until granules are completely dissolved.  Add to the batter, mixing until just combined.
5)  Pour over crust.
6)  Bake at 300 degrees for about 1 1/2 hours until the center is almost set.
7)  When you've removed the cake from the oven, run a knife around the edges to help the cake settle without cracking.
8)  Chill for 8 hours or overnight.

Optional:

Chocolate Magic Shell Sauce:
Melt together 1/2 cup of chocolate (doesn't matter what kind!), and add 1 tbsp of coconut oil.  Stir together.
Pour over chilled cheesecake like you would a ganache, and the chocolate will form a shell!

*Our cheesecake was a teensy bit warm when we poured our magic shell over top, so that's why it looks a bit glossy still.  But if you've chilled your cake properly, or if you pop it back in the fridge once you've poured the chocolate over, then it will form a shell of chocolate that is so pretty!

This cake is long gone, but editing these photos were seriously making me drool.

#foodphotographerproblems

p.s. ♥ kelsey

tasty tuesday: bison cookies (chocolate sugar cookies)

I am ridiculously excited to share these cookies with you all.  They are bison!!!  And they're hilarious.  Totally a man cookie.  So make these for your man friends and I guarantee they'll be pretty stoked (mine definitely were).

I made these bad boys as a snack for my mini Grey Cup party (that's like the Superbowl for Canadian football in case you're confused) I hosted a million years ago in November right before Christmas took over the blog.  Ha!  One of my friends has a dream to own a bison ranch when he "grows up", so I knew these would be perfect to make!

Jordyn and I debated doing gingerbread for the cookie base, but eventually decided that we wanted something a little simpler.  I decided that chocolate shortbread might be the way to go, however, recipe after recipe called for several hours of chilling the dough, and that just wasn't cool with my timeline.  So, we decided to just try something new!  Jordyn adapted our favorite sugar cookie recipe (see it here, here, and here!), and it turned out beautifully.

Chocolate Sugar Cookies

by: Jordyn Siemens

Ingredients

1/2 cup butter (room temperature)
3/4 cup sugar
2 tsp vanilla
1 egg
1 Tbsp milk
1 3/4 cups flour

1/4 cup cocoa powder
1 tsp baking powder

Directions

1) In a small bowl, cream butter - add sugar, vanilla, egg and milk; beat hard.
2) Add flour, cocoa powder and baking powder to cream mixture and beat again.
3) Roll onto a floured counter and cut into shapes.
4) Bake at 400 degrees F for 5-6 minutes.

Decorating

Icing (either soft butter cream or royal icing)

Chocolate sprinkles

Black icing (we bought a tube from Michaels)

1)  I used royal icing to outline where I wanted the bison's fur to be, leaving out the shape of the horn to fill in later.

2) Then I pressed chocolate sprinkles into the icing, and shook off any excess.

3)  Once the icing had set, I added in a small horn with white icing, as well as a black dot for eyes and black hooves.

*next time I'll use chocolate icing so that you can't see the white through the chocolate sprinkles.

I love how well these turned out, and am pretty stoked to have a new, no-fuss chocolate sugar cookie recipe.  It'll be great for more animal cookies that are sure to happen in the future!

p.s. ♥ kelsey

tasty tuesday: salted caramel pretzel mocha cake (aka: an incredibly late birthday post)

I am more than a little bit ashamed at how late this post is.

This ladies and gentlemen, is my birthday cake........from way back in October.
So yeah, procrastination for the win.

And I'm sure you're extremely surprised that it involves salted caramel, pretzels, and chocolate.  Ha!  Basically my favorite three food groups.  Really, the only three food groups there are.  Although maybe popcorn could be a fourth...

Anyway, this was my birthday cake, and it was pretty rad.  Thanks goes to Jordyn for being the master baker of this one, and complying to my every wish.  She's a pretty darn good sister!

I knew that I wanted chocolate cake, and our mocha cake recipe is simply the best.  And since I always want salted caramel on everything, that was a given.  We added pretzels in just for fun, since we had just made this ice cream, and were still pretty obsessed with the caramel pretzel combo.

The result was pretty delicious...although you must serve immediately and eat the whole thing, otherwise the pretzels get soggy due to the caramel.  Or you can just leave them out.  I do suppose it's a bit weird to have pretzels in a cake!

Salted Caramel Pretzel Mocha Cake

mocha cake recipe from: the Food Network

Ingredients
3 cups flour
1cup cocoa
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 1/2 cups sugar
4 Eggs
3 tsp Vanilla
2/3 cup of strongly brewed coffee or espresso
1 1/2 cup Vegetable Oil
1 1/2 cup hot water

Directions:
1) In a large bowl, sift together dry ingredients.
2) Add in eggs, vanilla, coffee and oil, and mix until batter is smooth.
3) Slowly add in hot water, until well mixed.

4)  Fill three, greased nine inch round pans about 3/4 full (you'll have enough extra batter to make a fourth round cake, or some cupcakes!)
5) Bake at 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes.

Salted Caramel Sauce

Ingredients

1/2 cup Sugar

3 TBSP Butter (we used salted butter!)

1/4 cup Whipping Cream

Directions

1)  The most important thing to do first is to assemble all of your ingredients!  Once your sugar mixture has reached the right colour, you'll need to move fairly quickly, and don't want to be fussing around with measuring out the other ingredients.

2)  Place your sugar in a medium saucepan, and melt at a medium heat.  Once it begins to melt, you'll want to start whisking it. (You can also add a tad of water if you don't feel comfortable melting dry sugar!).

3)  Once the sugar starts to boil, you can stop whisking, and wait for it to turn a light amber colour.

4)  When it's light amber, then add your butter, and stir like crazy!

5)  As soon as the butter has completely melted, remove from heat and add the whipping cream.  Again, stir like crazy! (Be cautious when adding the cream as it will foam a lot!)

6)  Let the caramel cool for a bit, and then you can move it to a heat proof container and pop it in the fridge to help hurry up the cooling process.

Buttercream

Ingredients

1/4 cup Butter (or margarine), at room temperature

1 1/2 cups Icing Sugar

1/2 tsp Caramel flavoring (or Vanilla)

1-3 TBSP Cream

Directions

1)  Begin by beating your butter on medium-high until well mixed.

2)  Add icing sugar, vanilla, and a couple tablespoons of cream.

3)  Beat on medium until combined.

4)  Adjust the taste and consistency by adding any of the above ingredients!

Ganache

Ingredients

4.5 oz of good quality dark chocolate, chopped

1 cup heavy cream

Directions

1)  In a small sauce pan, heat cream over medium heat and bring just barely to a boil.

2)  As soon as it comes to a boil, remove from heat and pour over chopped chocolate.

3)  Whisk until smooth.

4)  Wait for the ganache to cool for a bit before pouring over your cake.

Cake assembly:

1)  Start by leveling off the top of each cake so that you have a flat surface to work with.

2)  Place your first cake on a cake plate/serving dish, and apply a generous layer of buttercream just on top.

3)  Press pretzels into the icing, and pour cooled caramel over top.

4)  Add your second cake on top, and repeat steps 2 and 3.

5)  Add your third cake, and pour ganache over it all just before serving!

*You can also double the icing recipe to cover the cake, and do that instead of making a ganache.

Please forgive all the grain in these photos.  The sun had long since set when I was taking these outside, so the iso was cranked super high!

Happy Birthday to me....again, kind of.

Also, sparklers are my favorite.

p.s. ♥ kelsey (& jordyn)

tasty tuesday: hunky bills

Now Hunky Bills are actually something we make at Christmas time, but since I'm an excellent procrastinator (and life was nuts around Christmas), I'm just blogging about them now!  Really they would be a delicious treat all year round, we just happen to only make them once a year.  Which is probably good for my waistline!

Funny story:  their real name is definitely not Hunky Bills....but rather: Uncle Bill's Cuban Lunch.  Somehow, someway, over many many Christmases.....they slowly morphed into Hunky Bills.  

My family all knows it's not right, but we can't help that we call them that!  It's pretty hilarious.

Moving on.  These babies are another easy peasy recipe, where all you do is melt chocolate and stir deliciousness into it!  (Deliciousness being chips and peanuts....yum.)  

Man, I'm such a sucker for anything  sweet and salty!  Just so darn good.

Hunky Bills
from: my Auntie Bobbi

Ingredients:

3 cups chocolate chips

3 cups reese's peanut butter chips

200 grams plain Ripple Chips, crushed (these usually come in a 200 gram bag, so measuring is easy!)

2 1/2 cups salted peanuts, chopped

Directions:

1)  In a very large saucepan, first melt the peanut butter chips.  Add chocolate chips once the peanut butter chips are melted.  Stir together.

2)  Allow mixture to cool slightly, and then add crushed chips and chopped peanuts (you want the chunks of chips and peanuts pretty small).

3)  Line a mini cupcake pan with mini cupcake papers, and spoon the mixture into the papers.  Let them cool until firm enough to remove from pan.  

*We always pop ours in the freezer for a few minutes until hardened, remove the hunky bills, and then do another pan until all of the mixture is gone.

Soooo....once you've finally caved on your healthy New Year's Resolutions, you know where to find this recipe.  Ha!  They're totally worth it.  Promise.

p.s. ♥ kelsey

Christmas baking: cranberry almond bark

We really really love bark in our house (as you may remember: peppermint bark, coconut bark, toffee pretzel bark.).  Maybe because sometimes we're a little bit lazy, and maybe because it just tastes so darn good!

The toasted almonds and dried cranberries are such perfect flavors for winter, and we always make some for Christmas!  But honestly, there is no right or wrong time to make this bark.

p.s. Christmas is in 3 days....say what?

I'd just like to recommend you bringing this bark to the next party, family gathering, dinner, or potluck you go to.  So simple, but it looks so fancy.  Impress your friends, co-workers, boss, or in-laws.  They'll love you for sure!
(I'm so not ashamed to bribe people with food....a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do, right?)

Cranberry Almond Bark

Ingredients:

1/3 cup slivered almonds (blanched)

1/2 pound milk chocolate, chopped

1/2 cup dried cranberries

1 oz white chocolate

Directions:

1)  Spread your almonds out on a baking sheet, and bake at 350 degrees for about 8 minutes, or until toasted, and set aside.

2)  Melt milk chocolate in a double boiler.

3)  Remove chocolate from heat, an stir in almonds and dried cranberries.

4)  Pour onto a baking sheet lined with wax paper or parchment paper.  Spread evenly to about 1/4" thickness.

5)  Melt white chocolate in double boiler.

6)  Drizzle white chocolate over milk chocolate before the milk chocolate has set, and use a fork to swirl designs in the white chocolate.

7)  Refrigerate until firm.  Break up into pieces and store in an airtight container in the fridge or freezer until ready to serve.

p.s. ♥ kelsey

Christmas baking: triple chocolate shortbread cookies

Soooo much chocolate.  We've come to the realization that nearly all of our Christmas treat have chocolate in them....and we're totally okay with that!  These triple chocolate shortbread cookies have been my all-time favorite for many Christmases now, and are still going strong.  The shortbread is chocolate, there are mini chocolate chips inside, and then they're dipped and drizzled in chocolate to make them pretty.  So...if you're not a fan of chocolate, these aren't for you!

But let's be real here.  Who isn't a fan of chocolate?

What I love most about these cookies is how the melt-in-your-mouth shortbread goes so well with the chocolate shell covering it.  It's oh so good!

Triple Chocolate Shortbread

Ingredients:
1 cup butter (softened)
1/2 cup icing sugar
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla
1 oz square of unsweetened semi-sweet chocolate [melted]  
2 1/4 cup flour
1 cup mini chocolate chips

Instructions:
1.  Mix together softened butter, icing sugar, vanilla and melted chocolate until smooth.
2. Add flour and chocolate chips and mix.
3. Roll dough into 1" balls (or whatever size preferred) and place onto a baking sheet.
4. Bake for 10 minutes at 375 degrees.

Decorating:
You can choose to dip these in any kind of chocolate you want; we usually dip ours twice (once in white and once in semi-sweet chocolate).  
Also, if you spoon a small amount of melted chocolate into a ziplock bag, you can drizzle a zig-zag pattern onto the top!  The drizzle looks the best when you cut the smallest hole you can in the ziplock.  Good luck!

Are you sick of Christmas baking yet?  I hope not.  We still have a few more Christmas-y recipes to share, so stay tuned!

p.s. ♥ kelsey

Christmas baking: toasted coconut shortbread

Why is toasted coconut so much better than regular coconut?

Like, it's ridiculous how good it is.  Toasting things is the way to go I guess.  It makes everything better.

Anyways, since we're both majorly into coconut, my mom and I made cookies with toasted coconut inside them, as well as on top!  So much wonderfully crunchy and delicious coconut.  If you're in a serious hurry, you can leave off the chocolate and extra coconut, but I'd advise against it.  You'd really be missing out.

These cookies were a new addition to our annual Christmas baking, and man are they a winner.  Our family always bakes up a giant storm of goodies in late November/early December since we love to give away plates of baking as presents.  We love it because we love baking, and our friends love it since we're not giving them stuff they don't really need!  Win win.

Toasted Coconut Shortbread
from: family circle magazine
yields: ~3 dozen

Ingredients:
1/2 cup sweetened flaked coconut
1 cup butter
1/4 cup icing sugar
1/4 sugar
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp salt (only add this if your butter is unsalted)

for dipping:
chocolate (doesn't matter what kind)
extra toasted coconut

Directions:
1)  Spread out your coconut evenly on a cookie sheet and bake at 250 degrees until golden brown, about 10 minutes.  Keep an eye on it, and stir every couple of minutes, otherwise you'll burn it!  *You can add a bit more coconut to the pan if you're planning on doing the chocolate and coconut topping.
2)  Place the butter, coconut, and sugars in a medium bowl and mix well.
3)  Add flour and salt, and mix again.
4)  On a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper, form a 1-inch-diameter log and cover with plastic wrap tightly.  It can be hard to make the log completely round and not flat on the bottom, so just do your best.  Place in the fridge for an 1hr minimum, or up to two days.  (You can also freeze it for up to 2 months.
5)  Take your log out of the fridge and cut 1/4 to 1/2-inch slices and place them about 2 inches apart on a parchment lined cookie sheet.
6)  Bake at 350 degrees until cookies are just starting to brown on the edges, about 18-20 minutes.
7)  As the cookies are cooling, melt your chocolate for dipping either in the microwave (being extra careful not to burn it!), or by using a double-boiler on the stove.
8)  Dip the edge of your cookie in the chocolate, press into the extra toasted coconut and allow to set.
9)  Serve and enjoy!

Served with milk, these are perfection!

p.s. ♥ kelsey