Dove Melt Away Brownies

Good morning everyone!! I wanted to post a great Valentines dinner recipe today, but the one I tried out over the weekend was not really that great, so I'm just going to post my own recipe for today. I wanted to create a recipe that included a melted Dove milk chocolate center, cause I love Dove chocolates.

Usually I would get the milk chocolates, but decided to try these Dove Dark Chocolate & Cherry Swirl Hearts cause they look really festive, but I would not recommend unless you have tried these and love them. It's not that they aren't good, but just not my taste, so stick to the milk chocolate hearts.

But the end result turned out so much better then I had hoped!! A melted chocolate center, moist brownie, and a layer of firm pink chocolate on top with a little crunch from the sprinkles. All together, it turned out amazing! Hope you like it :) Enjoy!!


Dove Melt Away Brownies
     1/2 cup butter, cubed
     1 1/4 cups semisweet chocolate chips
     2 eggs
     3/4 cup packed brown sugar
     1 1/2 tablespoons vegetable oil
     3/4 cups all-purpose flour
     1/2 teaspoon baking powder
     12 Dove milk chocolate hearts

Assembly
     1 1/2 to 2 cups pink melting chocolate chips
     Sprinkles to finish (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line the bottom of each heart cup with parchment paper. This is optional, but will make your life a lot easier when it is time to get these puppies out.

In a heatproof bowl, melt butter and chocolate chips in the microwave.

Stir every 30 seconds until smooth. Cool slightly.

In a large bowl beat eggs, brown sugar, and vegetable oil.

Add melted chocolate. Mix well. Combine flour and baking powder; stir into chocolate mixture.

Scoop about 2 tablespoons into each heart cup. Place 1 Dove piece into the middle of each heart cup and press down slightly into brownie batter.

Cover chocolate with an additional tablespoon of batter. Bake for 20 minutes.

Let cool for 5 minutes inside of cups, and then turn out onto a wire rack and let cool for another 15 to 20 minutes.

Remove parchment paper after un-cupping, but leave brownies upside down. This is the side you will be decorating.

After cooling, place pink melting chips into a microwave save bowl and melt in microwave...

... stirring every 30 seconds until smooth.

Place a large spoonful of melted chocolate on over each brownie.

Use the bottom side of the spoon to spread chocolate out over the brownie.

Allow chocolate to drip over the edge.

Immediately add sprinkles after you got the chocolate the way you want it. You can either serve immediately with gooey melted chocolate, or let stand for about 10 to 20 minutes until chocolate hardens to give you brownies a crunchy firm exterior.

Makes 12 brownie hearts.

Printable Recipe

A Food Snots Original Recipe.

Chocolate-Cherry Cupcakes

I'm back to my old ways again. Shoot!! But, with Valentine's Day coming up, there are just so many desserts I have to try. But today I'm going to practice some self discipline, and I'm not going to let myself make the Strawberry Cream Cheese Tart I want so badly to make until I try a filet mignon recipe that I plan on making for my Secret Valentine's Dinner.


Here is a super adorable cupcake recipe for today though. I don't know why, but this year I have been obsessing with chocolate and cherries.

For recipe and step by step instructions click here!!

Normally, I'm all about the Chocolate Covered Strawberries, but not this V-day, and these cupcakes are great for any fun or romantic setting. I had a tiny bit of trouble with the frosting being a little runny, which I loved for my photo, but makes it a little tricky to eat. But I guess that's why they invented forks. All together though, completely loved these cupcakes. A perfect balance of chocolate, cherry, and frosting. Plus, how stinking cute are they with that chocolate covered cherry on top! Enjoy!!


Chocolate-Cherry Cupcakes
Cake:
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup sour cream

Frosting:
8 ounces sour cream
1 cup whipping cream
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
2 tablespoons maraschino cherry juice

Topping (optional):
16 whole maraschino cherries, with stem
1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate pieces
1 teaspoon shortening

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line sixteen 2 1/2-inch muffin cups with paper baking cups.

In a small bowl, combine flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, and salt; set aside.

In large bowl with an electric mixer, beat butter on medium to high for 30 seconds. Add sugar and...

...beat until smooth fluffy.

Beat in eggs and vanilla until smooth.

Beat in sour cream and flour mixture.

Fill eat cup with two slightly rounded tablespoons of cake batter.

Bake 18 minutes or until top springs back. Cool completely on wire rack.

Prepare cherries (if using): Drain cherries, keeping stems attached; pat dry with paper towels.

In small microwave-safe bowl combine chocolate and shortening. Cook on 50% power 1 1/2 to 2 minutes or until melted, stirring once.

Dip cherries in chocolate; place on waxed paper until set. Store, covered, up to 24 hours.

Prepare frosting: In a large mixing bowl combine all frosting ingredients. Beat on medium-high until fluffy.

Ice cupcakes- spread onto cupcakes. Top with a chocolate covered cherry. Keep refrigerated until ready to serve.

Servings: 16

Printable Recipe

Recipe from culinarycovers.com.

Valentine's Day Scheme

Many of you might not know, but my wedding anniversary is Feb. 19th. So we never really celebrate Valentines Day because our anniversary is right behind it. Or maybe we do, but somehow they both get lumped together. Either way, had I of know this, I would have made our wedding either earlier or later cause I have always loved Valentines Day!! I don't understand how some people can hate it?.? I'm convinced that these are people that have either always had bad experiences on V-day, or have never had someone to share it with, cause how you can hate the day of love is beyond me.

Anyways, getting off subject... Where were we... Ah, yes... My V-day/Anniversary crisis. So this year I vow it to be different. This year I'm gonna surprise my hubby on V-day with a babysitter, all out steak dinner, and some kind of completely decadent dessert. All at home over candles. I know he wont see this cause he doesn't read my blog, so I can tell you all, but if you know my hubby, mums the word!! But this is my plan to start celebrating Valentines separately from now on.

So, these aren't my picture but to give you an idea of what I have in mind, here is my meal plan:

Appetizer:

For recipe click here!!

Spinach Artichoke Dip (cause it's my hubbies favorite)

Dinner:

To view photo source click here.

Filet Mignon with this amazing onion stack.

Dessert:

For recipe click here!!

And for dessert, Molten Lava Chocolate Cake, cause my hubby loves cake, and I love this cake ;) Plus between the chocolate and the melt-i-ness (not a word, sorry), this dessert just says romance to me. Might be my girlish idealism, but I'm hoping this makes everything work.

So that's my plan. That and I need to go get a cute little number from Victoria Secret to top it all off (which I will not be posting a picture of cause that would just be acquired :), but that about sums it up.

What do you have planned for Valentine's Day??

Photo's, in order of appearance, from homeklondike.com, www.lifesambrosia.com, fr.123rf.com, cleaneatingmag.com.

Homemade Samoas Cookies

This past weekend has been such a whirlwind. For the past year my hubby has been training MMA (mixed martial arts) at the gym. But at the end of last year he informed me he didn't want to just use it to get in shape, but he wanted to put his skills to the test by fighting. So this weekend was his first amateur fight. Can I just tell you, I was freaking out. Anticipation, stress, and shear fear. I know I should have more faith in him, but he's a really big guy. Which means the guy he's going up against is gonna be really big too.

But, no reason to fear! My baby rocked it out!! Felt kind of bad for the other guy, cause he kind of got clobbered, but so proud that my hubby was victorious! Here we are after the big event (me holding his medal for winning!!). Here is a link to the whole fight if you want to watch it, but be forewarned, if you can't watch UFC, then don't even click through.

So, that was my busy, crazy weekend. That and these Homemade Samoas Cookies.This recipe has been haunting me since I first saw it. Samoas cookies are my absolute favorite girl scout cookie, so of course I had to sample and see if these were anything in comparison. I'm not gonna lie, this recipe is extremely tedious. The amount of work that goes into them makes buying them completely reasonable. I did have to change the recipe around a little bit too.

The recipe says to just warm up the caramel until it melts. The problem being, the more you cook your caramel the harder it's gonna become. So to solve this problem, I added extra water in with the caramel. There are notes in the instructions where I did this so you'll know how to make these cookies the way I did. But just know, if you don't add the water in with the caramel not only will assembling the cookies be more difficult, but the cookies themselves will be almost impossible to eat. So I highly recommend adding the additional water where it appears. But over all, these cookies are amazing. Not quite the original, but still delicious. Enjoy!!


Homemade Samoas Cookies
     1 lb sweetened coconut, toasted
     1/2 cup confectioners' sugar
     1 cup butter
     1 tablespoon vanilla extract
     2 cups all-purpose flour
     1 11oz. bag of Kraft Caramels

Chocolate Dipping Sauce
     2/3 cups semisweet chocolate
     2/3 cups milk chocolate
     1/4 cup heavy cream
     1/2 cup confectioners' sugar
     3-4 tablespoons warm water

Place coconut on a baking sheet and bake at 350 degrees until golden brown, about 10-minutes. Make sure to stir the coconut half way through.

Place butter and sugar in a bowl and beat until light and creamy. Add vanilla extract and beat until combined. Add flour and beat until combined. Place dough in refrigerator and chill for 20 minutes.

Turn out dough on a lightly floured surface and roll out the dough to an 1/8 of an inch in thickness. Using a two inch round cookie cutter stamp out cookies and for the center use the wider end of a piping tip if you don't have a small enough cookie cutter.

Place stamped out cookies on parchment lined baking sheet and bake at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes. Cool cookies on a wire rack.

Place caramel squares in a medium size saucepan over medium heat to melt (I added about 1 cup of warm water also).

Once the caramel bits are completely melted, turn heat to low.

... and dip tops of cookies into the caramel. This will help the sticky caramel coconut mixture to quickly adhere to the cookie. Place cookies on a flat surface. At this point if you need to add another 1/2 cup of warm water to keep caramel from over processing, do so and stir until smooth again.

Add the toasted coconut to the remaining caramel mixture. Fill a shallow pan with hot water and place saucepan filling with the finished caramel coconut mixture in it to keep the mixture at spreading consistency (I just kept it over low heat and stirred after assembling each cookie. You can do this if you added the additional water). Reheat mixture as needed to maintain spread consistency during assembly. Let assembled cookies rest for 30 minutes before dipping the bottoms in chocolate and drizzling the striping on top.

After caramel has set, start making chocolate dipping sauce by placing chocolate and heavy cream in a bowl over simmering water. Let chocolate and cream sit for 2-3 minutes to melt without stirring.

Then slowly stir mixture to combine. Add powdered sugar and mix to combine. Add water 1 tablespoon at a time, mixing after each addition, until pouring consistency is reached.

Spread out a fresh sheet of parchment paper to place cookies on after dipped. Dip bottoms of cookies into the warm chocolate and place on parchment paper. Space cookies about 1/2 inch apart to make piping easier.

After dipping cookies, pour remaining chocolate into a small ziplock bag and seal shut. Snip a small corner off of the bag and pipe chocolate stripes across cookies. Place finished cookies into the fridge to help chocolate set quickly. Let cookies come back to room temperature before serving.

Printable Recipe

Altered recipe from www.bakersroyale.com.