I had cherries and whipping cream left over from last week’s Summer Chiller. I’ve made ice cream a few times this summer, and I thought I’d try making it with cherries. Nothing goes better with cherries than chocolate, so I threw in some milk chocolate chips. I actually cobbled together a few different recipes to come up with this. I also used a no-cook, eggless ice cream base this time.
Chunky Chocolate Cherry Ice Cream
2 cups milk
1 cup sugar
2 cups whipping cream or half and half
2 tbs almond extract
1 cup pitted and chopped cherries macerated in 1/4 cup of sugar
1 cup of milk chocolate chips
Pit and chop cherries. Stir in 1/4 a cup of sugar. Refrigerate for one hour.
Combine milk, cream, sugar and almond extract. Stir briskly, about two minutes until sugar is dissolved. (Undissolved sugar crystals may be a cause of large ice crystal formation.) Pour into a 1-gallon ice cream freezer, and freeze according to manufacturer’s directions. When ice cream is partially frozen, add in cherry mixture and chocolate chips. (Again make sure all the sugar in the cherry mixture is dissolved.) Finish freezing. Put in a covered container and place in the freezer several hours to harden.
I don’t know if Classic No-bake cookies are technically Chillers, but they are a great summer cookie since they only require the use of the stove for a few minutes.
Chances are you’ve eaten these, and probably even made them yourself before. But if you’re not familiar, here’s the recipe.
Classic No-bake Recipe
1 3/4 cups white sugar
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup butter
4 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 cup crunchy peanut butter
3 cups quick-cooking oats
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
In a medium saucepan, combine sugar, milk, butter, and cocoa. Bring to a boil, and cook for 1 1/2 minutes. Remove from heat, and stir in peanut butter, oats, and vanilla. Drop by teaspoonfuls onto wax paper. Let cool until hardened.
There are several versions of this recipe out there. This is the only I’ve ever gotten to work. My mom has a recipe, but I can never get her’s to turn out for me. These can be a little tricky, because if you boil the chocolate mixture to long or not long enough, it won’t harden right. If it’s too humid in your house, that can also prevent the cookies from setting.
It was 90 degrees here today. Finally, a hot summer day! The kind of day where there’s nothing to do but spend it in the pool. We did drag ourselves back inside late in the afternoon once our skin was sufficiently pruney and bronzed.
When I started scratching up something to make for this week’s edition of Summer Chillers, I knew that I did not want to turn on the oven or the stove top. So I called my mom to get this recipe. She informed me that this actually came from the school cafeteria where she taught before I was born. Don’t let that scare you though. It doesn’t taste anything like cafeteria food. That was back in the early 1970′s, and no one yet cared what their children were eating in school, so things still had sugar, fat and flavor in them.
Anyway, class, the only heat source you will need for today’s lesson is a microwave.
Chocolate Peanut Butter Bar Recipe
3/4 C of Butter or Margarine, melted plus a little more
3 Cups of Peanut Butter
3 3/4 Cups of Powdered Sugar
1 Tsp Vanilla
5 ounces of Chocolate Chips
Melt the butter in the microwave. Mix together the melted butter, peanut butter and powdered sugar. Press into the bottom of a 9×13 inch pan.
In the microwave melt the chocolate chips with a little bit of margarine. (This is how recipe was written. I used about a tablespoon.)
Spread the melted chocolate evenly over the peanut butter mixture. Refrigerate for two hours before cutting into squares and serving. And you must eat these things with milk. A LOT of milk. They’re good, but that’s a whole mess of peanut butter to wash down.
Melting Chocolate in the Microwave
Up until a few moths ago I melted chocolate the old fashioned way, in a double boiler. I got brave one day and decided to try it in the microwave. While it’s quicker and easier, it must be done very carefully. It takes only a few seconds too long to turn you chocolate into a hard, burned mess. How do I know? Let’s just say experience is the best teacher.
So put the chocolate in a heat proof bowl. Glass is better than plastic. Nuke it at 30 second intervals, stirring each time. Chocolate can deceive you by holding it’s shape even though it’s actually melting. When most of the chocolate is melted, take it out and stir until it’s smooth. A few remaining chunks will be dissolved by the chocolate that’s already hot and melted.
The same goes for melting butter in the microwave. It only takes about 30 seconds to a minute. You can melt it most of the way, then finish it up by taking it out and stirring. If you over cook the butter it will splatter, and you’ll have a nice greasy mess to clean up. I learned that hard way too.
Mmmmm! Yummy! This recipe is from a reproduction of Betty Crocker’s 1963 Cooky Book.
Tiny Fudge Tarts Recipe
1 1/2 cups of Flour
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 cup of butter
3 tbsp water
1 tsp vanilla
Fudge filling
Fudge Filling Recipe
Mix together thoroughly:
1/4 cup of butter
1 egg yolk
1/2 cup of sugar
1 tsp of vanilla
1/4 cup of cocoa powder
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix flour and salt; cut it in butter. Sprinkle with water and vanilla. Mix well with a fork. Using half of the dough at a time, roll out to 1/16 of an inch thick on a cloth covered board sprinkled generously with sugar. Cut into 2 1/2 inch squares. Spread 1 level tsp. of filling in the center of each square. Bring corners together and seal. Place on an ungreased baking sheet. Bake 15 to 20 minutes.
It took a little time to to make these because of the rolling, cutting and filling, but they are well worth it. The dough is easy enough to make. It’s just like making rolled biscuits, only a lot thinner. The filling is simple too. The recipe doesn’t call for it, but I’d advise letting your butter soften a little before adding it to the filling mixture. It’s a lot easier to stir.
This is a fun cookie to make with your kids. My three year and a half year old helped me do the rolling, filling and and sealing. It’s just like play-dough to him. But it got a little hairy towards the end when he lost interest, and decided playing in the flour bin was more fun. I’m dreaming of a white kitchen, not! Well it’s all cleaned up now, and the tarts are really tasty!
There’s one thing I love almost as much as chocolate and that’s coffee. So I jump at any opportunity to combine the two. These Cafe Mocha cookies are definitely a treat.
These cookies are easy to make, but require a lot of waiting time, ergo the reason I’m finally posting this at 10 o’clock at night. I whipped the cookies up in about 15 minutes this morning. As I was looking to see what temperature to bake then at, I saw that I had over-looked one crucial instruction, “Refrigerate over-night before baking.” Oops. Well, I didn’t wait that long. I gave them just 10 hours in chill box. And were they are worth the wait!
Cafe Mocha Cookie Recipe
1 cup of butter softened
2 cups packed brown sugar
2 tbs milk
2 tbs instant coffee granules
2 eggs
1 tsp rum extract
1/2 tsp vanilla
4 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp salt
1 12 oz. package semi-sweet chocolate chips
Beat butter in a large bowl. Add brown sugar. Beat until well blended.
Heat milk in a small sauce pan over low heat. Add in instant coffee granules. Stir until dissolved. Add milk mixture, eggs, rum extract and vanilla to butter mixture. Beat until well blended.
Combine flour, baking powder, nutmeg and salt in a large bowl. Gradually add flour mixture to butter mixture beating at a low speed until well blended.
Shape dough into 2 logs, about 2 inches in diameter. Roll logs up in plastic wrap and refrigerate over-night.
Preheat oven to 350. Cut rolls into 1/4 inch slices and place 1 inch apart on cookie sheets. Bake 10-12 minutes. (Keep unbaked rolls and slices in refrigerator until ready to put in oven.)
Melt the chocolate chips in the microwave, heating for one minute and then stir and heat at 20 second intervals until all the chips melt. Dip one end of each cooled cookie in the chocolate. Let dry on wax paper.
I didn’t have any rum extract, but I did have almond extract so I substituted with that.
O.K. We didn’t eat chocolate cake for dinner. I’m a slightly better mom than that. We had hamburgers. But I also made dessert last night. I don’t make dessert very often, because, honestly, my hips just don’t need it. However, I was craving chocolate cake yesterday afternoon. I was also due for a trip to the grocery store, so when I went to the fridge to gather the ingredients to make the cake, I realized I was out of eggs and had just enough milk to last until after dinner when I could get to the store.
I got on line and found several recipes for eggless cakes. I settled on the one which was also milkless and butterless. It turned out great. It tastes just fine. I can’t tell the difference between it and a regular chocolate cake. It’ very moist. The only thing I would change is the size of the pan. The recipe said to use a 9X13 baking dish, but that made for a very thick sheet cake, and I had to bake it longer than the recipe called for to get it done in the middle. I think it would have worked better in an 11×17 pan.
We are fortunate and don’t have any food allergies in our house, but this is a great cake alternative for anyone with dairy or egg allergies.
Eggless Chocolate Cake Recipe
4 1/2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
3 cups white sugar
1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 cup vegetable oil
3 cups water
3 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons vanilla extract
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C), grease and flour a 9×13 inch pan. In a large bowl, sift together flour, cocoa powder, soda and salt. Add sugar and mix together. Add oil, water and vanilla and mix thoroughly. Pour into a 9×13 inch pan. Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 1 hour or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.
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I frosted the cake with Hot Coffee Frosting. Delicious! A recipe I also found on line.
Hot Coffee Frosting Recipe
1 (16 ounce) package confectioners’ sugar
3 tablespoons butter, softened
6 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup hot, brewed coffee
In a large bowl, combine confectioners’ sugar, butter, cocoa powder and vanilla. Beat on slow speed until ingredients are combined. While beating, slowly add hot coffee until desired consistency is achieved.
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I did use decaf coffee in the frosting. Chocolate cake, caffeine and a three-year-old = bad idea.
Well, I made these because they just looked and sounded really good to me. Usually I make cookies for my son, but these were for me. They reminded me of those fancy Pepperidge Farm cookies that I never buy because one, I think they cost too much, and two, I’d eat the whole bag in one night.
Milk Chocolate Florentine Cookie Recipe
2/3 cup of Butter
2 cups quick oats
1 cup granulated sugar
2/3 cup all purpose flour
1/4 cup corn syrup
1/4 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp salt
1 3/4 cups milk chocolate chips
Preheat oven to 375. Line baking sheets with foil.
Melt butter in medium sauce pan. Remove from heat. Mix in everything, but the chocolate chips. Drop by level teaspoons on to lined baking sheets. Spread thinly with a rubber spatula.
Bake for 6 to 8 minutes. Cool completely on baking sheets on wire racks. Peel from foil.
Melt chocolate chips in microwave 1 minutes. Stir. If not completely melted microwave in 15 second intervals until. Stir between each time. Spread melted chocolate on half flat side of half the cookies. Top with remaining cookies.
First I love this recipe because there’s little mess to clean up. No mixer required, and just the one pot and a microwave safe dish. If you’re careful your baking sheets even stay clean since they’re lined with foil. And yes, the foil is necessary. Without, you will never get these sticky cookies off the sheet.
I discovered you have to be very careful with the baking time. Too long and the edges burn. Too short and the cookies come out gooey and sticky. Just as the edges start to brown ever so slightly take them out of the oven. The one saving grace is that because these cookies are so crisp, if you do burn the edges, you can crumble most of the burned part off with you fingers and salvage the cookie. Also they must be totally cool or they will not peel off the foil. You’ll end up scraping little torn pieces of foil off the backs of the cookies.
It only took about a minute and 15 seconds to melt the chocolate chips. I’m not sure I had quite 1 3/4 cups, because I’d even a few small handfuls out of the bag one day when I had a chocolate attack and couldn’t find any other in the house. But, even with the missing chips, I had plenty to fill the cookies.
These are good. There’s just something about chocolate and oatmeal together. The only thing that goes better with chocolate is peanut butter. (Combine all three and you’re in heaven.) Anyway these are yummy and pretty fancy. They’ll impress your friends, because they look like they took a lot of time to make.
