Delicious Accidents

I took pictures but it’s at home, so I’m going to post one I found online. I can’t remember the site, but feel free to ping me if it’s your photo. I’ll replace with my own sometime soon.

I brought these into work and everyone raved about it. I think I’ll recreate them at Christmas time.

Oreo Truffle Balls or Dirt Balls

8 ounces cream cheese, softened
16 ounces oreos, broken into quarters
Enough best quality white chocolate chopped to measure about 2 cups

In a large mixing bowl, beat cream cheese for a couple minutes to smooth out. Add in just over 1/2 of the broken oreos and mix until thoroughly combined. Add in the rest of the oreos and mix just until combined - some bigger pieces are ok.

Cover bowl and chill for at least 2-3 hours. Scoop out dough with a heaping teaspoon and roll into 50-60 balls. Cover and place back in the refrigerator to firm up.

Slowly melt the white chocolate in a double boiler, stirring occasionally, until most of the chunks are smooth. Remove and stir to melt the rest of the chocolate. Dip each truffle ball and set aside on a silpat or parchment paper. If the chocolate mixture starts to firm up, place back over the double boiler to slowly remelt, or gently rewarm in the microwave. Store in the refrigerator after all are dipped.

After a short hiatus from the baking I decided to put my KitchenAid mixer into good use. I made three different things, all of which were easy peasy recipes. Hopefully my goodies will win my coworkers over :D

Anyway here’s what I made.

I had a can of pumpkin that I wanted to use up. So I decided to make a pumpkin bread. The piece I sampled was a bit dry, but that was the end. It did have that fall pumpkin flavor though and just enough spice. I decided not to put icing on this since the flavor itself was good why ruin it with icing. Anyway, we’ll be having this for breakfast.

Brian’s comments: Not too sweet, but good.

Recipe from Allrecipes.com

INGREDIENTS

* 4 ounces cream cheese, softened
* 1/4 cup margarine
* 1 1/4 cups white sugar
* 2 eggs
* 1 cup canned pumpkin
* 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
* 1 teaspoon baking soda
* 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
* 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves (I used pumpkin spice)
* 1/2 cup chopped walnuts (I omitted this)

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease one 9×5x3 inch loaf pan.
2. Put softened cheese, butter, and sugar in mixing bowl. Cream together well. Beat in eggs one at a time until blended. Mix in pumpkin.
3. In another bowl combine flour, soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, cloves, and walnuts. Stir until thoroughly mixed. Pour all at once over batter. Stir just enough to moisten. Turn into greased 9×5x3 inch loaf pan.
4. Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 60-70 minutes until inserted toothpick comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes in pan. Remove to rack to finish cooling.

The other two items I made were fairly simple. One of them is a plain jane Rice Krispie Treat. Brian didn’t think I put enough sugar, but you’re not supposed to put sugar in the recipe. I guess it wasn’t sweet enough. Maybe I should’ve added more marshmallows. Still good nonetheless. Recipe can be found anywhere. Just google it.

Final item, chocolate cupcakes from scratch. Why bother with Duncan Hines or Betty. I made this simple recipe which can be found in the back of the Hershey’s Cocoa box. It’s called the Heshey’s Perfectly Chocolate Cake, and perfect it is. Originally, I wanted to make these look like little mummies in honor of the season, but I didn’t make enough icing. And the flowers didn’t turn out too great…

Brian’s comments: It was very good.

Ingredients:

* 2 cups sugar
* 1-3/4 cups all-purpose flour
* 3/4 cup HERSHEY’S Cocoa
* 1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
* 1-1/2 teaspoons baking soda
* 1 teaspoon salt
* 2 eggs
* 1 cup milk
* 1/2 cup vegetable oil
* 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
* 1 cup boiling water

Directions:
1. Heat oven to 350°F. Grease and flour two 9-inch round baking pans.

2. Stir together sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt in large bowl. Add eggs, milk, oil and vanilla; beat on medium speed of mixer 2 minutes. Stir in boiling water (batter will be thin). Pour batter into prepared pans.

3. Bake 30 to 35 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes; remove from pans to wire racks. Cool completely. Frost with “PERFECTLY CHOCOLATE” CHOCOLATE FROSTING. 10 to 12 servings.

VARIATIONS:
ONE-PAN CAKE: Grease and flour 13×9x2-inch baking pan. Heat oven to 350° F. Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake 35 to 40 minutes. Cool completely. Frost.

THREE LAYER CAKE: Grease and flour three 8-inch round baking pans. Heat oven to 350°F. Pour batter into prepared pans. Bake 30 to 35 minutes. Cool 10 minutes; remove from pans to wire racks. Cool completely. Frost.

BUNDT CAKE: Grease and flour 12-cup Bundt pan. Heat oven to 350°F. Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake 50 to 55 minutes. Cool 15 minutes; remove from pan to wire rack. Cool completely. Frost.

CUPCAKES: Line muffin cups (2-1/2 inches in diameter) with paper bake cups. Heat oven to 350°F. Fill cups 2/3 full with batter. Bake 22 to 25 minutes. Cool completely. Frost. About 30 cupcakes.

Workout to continue the rest of the week!!

Oh another failed attempt at homemaking last night. I tried to make a french bread, bread bowl for soup. It didn’t turn out well. I used the breadmachine to process the dough and let it rise in a small mixing bowl. I think the dough may have been too dry. The bread was edible though, just not perfectly round. HMPH. I’ll leave to breadmaking to the machine.