Happy Mother’s Day!

Happy Mother’s Day to all the mama’s out there! It’s my first Mother’s Day since Noah was born two days after Mother’s Day last year. How fun it is to have a little one year old running around the house this year! I dropped some heavy Mother’s Day gift hints via Twitter this year and somehow Noah picked up on them 🙂 I got a lot of wonderful gifts, but one of my faves has to be Mother’s Day special from Truffle Truffle.

Truffle Truffle is an amazing chocolate shop here in Illinois. I first discovered this place when I was buying beer infused sweet treats for my brother at Christmas. This place has jumped to the top of my all-time favorite chocolate places in the world. Not only are all of their treats amazing, but the presentation is top notch as well. I highly recommend you all check them out (yes, they do ship their treats!).

Enjoy your Mother’s Day!

Birthday Cake Truffles

Thank you, Pinterest, for introducing me to Birthday Cake Truffles. My life is a little more complete now!

One of my co-workers celebrated his birthday yesterday, so I decided that an adaptation of these Birthday Cake Truffles would be the ideal celebration treat. I bake something for each co-worker on my team every year for their birthday. My team is comprised of mostly men – men who don’t have people to bake them sweet treats very often – so it’s something I’m happy to do!

The best thing about these Birthday Cake Truffles is that they’re no-bake 🙂 Could you get any easier? Not really. The second best thing is that you could play around with pretty much any combination of flavors. I opted for yellow cake with sprinkles, and covered some in white chocolate and some in semisweet chocolate. Both were great. I usually avoid white chocolate at all costs, but it really worked well with these. And it looked nice 🙂

Unfortunately I didn’t get a good photo of these because they disappeared so quickly! I get a new phone in three months, so I promise that when I don’t have time to snap a good pic, the quality should still be better than this!

In any case, please make these. They’re so addicting! Enjoy 🙂

Cake Batter Truffles
Yield: About 3 dozen

Truffle Ingredients:
1 ½ cups flour

1 cup yellow cake mix

½ cup unsalted butter, softened

½ cup white sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/8 teaspoon salt

3-4 Tablespoons milk

2 Tablespoons sprinkles

Truffle Coating Ingredients:

16 ounces white or semi-sweet chocolate
4 Tablespoons yellow cake mix

sprinkles

Directions:

1. Beat together butter and sugar using an electric mixer until combined.
2. Add cake mix, flour, salt, and vanilla and mix thoroughly.
3. Add 3 Tablespoons of milk or more if needed to make a dough consistency (it took me 4-5 T).
4. Mix in sprinkles by hand.
5. Roll dough into one inch balls and place on a parchment or wax paper lined cookie sheet.
6. Chill balls in the refrigerator for 15 minutes to firm up.
7. While dough balls are chilling, melt chocolate in the microwave in 30 second intervals until melted. (Stir between intervals.)
8. Once melted, quickly stir in cake mix until incorporated completely.
9. Using a fork, dip truffles into chocolate and shake of excess bark by tapping the bottom of the fork on the side of your bowl.
10. Place truffle back on the cookie sheet and top with sprinkles.
11. Repeat with remaining balls until finished.

Chocolate Peppermint Cookies

For good measure, let’s go with one more peppermint recipe 🙂 Last year I was bound and determined to come up with a chocolate peppermint cookie. I love that combination of flavors and everything I came across online fell short of what I was looking for. So, by combining a couple recipes and experimenting a bit in the kitchen, I came up with this delicious cookie, which has become my favorite Christmas cookie to date.

The recipe is easily adaptable so you can make it heavy on the peppermint if that’s your preference, or heavy on the chocolate if that’s more your style. Just get creative. Enjoy – and have a wonderful holiday weekend!

Chocolate Peppermint Cookies

Yield: 3-4 dozen

Ingredients:
3/4 cup butter
1 and 1/2 cups brown sugar
2 tablespoons water
2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
2 eggs
2 and 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 and 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon peppermint extract

12 oz. semisweet chocolate
1 tablespoon shortening
1 teaspoon peppermint extract
Peppermint flavored sprinkles

Directions:

1. In a saucepan over medium heat, cook the sugar, butter and water, stirring occasionally until melted.
2. Remove from heat, stir in the chocolate chips until melted and set aside to cool for 5-10 minutes.
3. Pour the chocolate mixture into a large bowl, and beat in the eggs one at a time.
4. Combine the flour, baking soda and salt in a different bowl, and then stir into the chocolate mixture.
5. Cover and refrigerate dough for at least 1 hour.
6. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) and grease your cookie sheets.
7. Roll cookie dough into walnut sized balls and place 2 inches apart onto the prepared cookie sheets.
8. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven – be careful not to overbake.
9. Melt the 12 oz. chocolate in a saucepan with the shortening and peppermint extract. Stir frequently to avoid burning the chocolate.
10. Spoon the chocolate on top of the cookies and spread around with the back of a spoon.
11. Sprinkle some red and white peppermint flavored sprinkles on top before the chocolate has set.

Chocolate Covered Pretzels

With Christmas only 10 days away, I’m sure many of you are scrambling to get all your shopping and baking done. If you need something quick, easy, and delicious to add to your holiday cookie trays, look no further!

Hanover sells their yummy Hershey’s covered pretzels this time of year (October – April to be exact). And though they are delicious, they’re also so easy to make yourself. It’s hard for me to buy something so simple to make. Plus, I like making them myself so I can control the combinations of chocolate.

 

I tend to decorate my chocolate covered pretzels with more chocolate, but they can easily be spruced up with some holiday sprinkles if you prefer. I also go for the big sourdough or pretzel rod variety rather than the little twists. No matter how you decide to make these, you can’t go wrong: chocolate and pretzels are the perfect pairing!

Chocolate Covered Pretzels
Yield: 2 dozen

Ingredients:
12 oz. chocolate (dark, milk, semisweet, white…I prefer semisweet)
1 tbsp shortening
2 dozen pretzel rods or large twists
Assorted sprinkles or candies (optional)
4oz. chocolate for decorating (optional)

Directions:
1. Prepare a baking sheet with aluminum foil, parchment paper, or waxed paper

2. In a saucepan or double-broiler, melt the 12 oz. of chocolate with the shortening. Stir the chocolate constantly and make sure not to burn it.

3. Dip your pretzels in the chocolate, and shake off the excess. Put them on your prepared baking sheet.

4. If using sprinkles or candies, make sure to sprinkle them on before the chocolate sets.

5. If using chocolate as a decoration, wait until the first coat of chocolate sets, and make sure the entire pretzel is set before serving.