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Come back tomorrow for the whole cake and giveaway info!

Flourless Chocolate Cake With Spiced Cranberry Sauce

Did you do a quick double check to see if you were on the right blog? lol Yes, you read that correctly.  Chocolate, here on 3B’s.  :)  It doesn’t happen often but it does happen.  See here and here.   I know that for some of you it doesn’t happen often enough.  And that is why you are now seeing a flourless chocolate cake. (Naomi, I made this cake before I saw your/my tart.  Had I seen it first I would have been ALL over it!)  I’m trying to keep my chocolate lovin’ peps happy. For those of you that are  raisin lovers don’t hold your breath for them as it ain’t happenin’!  Sorry.  :)

So about this cake.  I’d like to say that it changed my opinion on chocolate but it didn’t.  That’s not to say you chocolate lovers wouldn’t go crazy for it;  just that it didn’t have me or the kids rethinking our position of chocolate.   (94% of the 259 reviewers would make it again)Because we found the cake super rich and chocolatey we topped it with whipped cream and Faith’s delicious spiced (and tart) cranberry jam.  Once we did, the cake slices were quickly eaten with no complaints of it being too chocolatey.

The flourless chocolate cake recipe is from Epicurious and the spiced cranberry jam/sauce is from An Edible Mosaic.  If you haven’t been to Faith’s blog yet you need to stop and click here.  She has a wonderful variety of recipes and lovely photos to go along with them.

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Here’s Babygirl in her Halloween costume.  She was a Hogwarts's student.

Everyone meet Jeter the newest member of our family. We’ve had him for almost a month and needless to say Babygirl is beyond thrilled!

Veteran’s Day; Remembering, Honoring……

Borrowed from Cagle.com

Cinnamon Chip Banana Coffee Cake

This baby got gobbled up the very night I made it.  It didn’t even get a chance to come to room temperature before the kiddos and several of their friends came running to the kitchen to see if it was done.  I did manage to save a piece to photograph the next day so you could see its lovely inside.  I barely managed. I had to boxed it up, tape a note to the top, and hide it. :)

I have Monica to thank for emailing  me the recipe along with a request that I make it and send her some.  At my house in order to get a piece of anything you have to be there when it’s being served or run the risk of losing out.  Sorry, Monica.  The piece I saved was eaten with breakfast by Devon who called “dibs” on it the night before.

Cinnamon Chip Banana Coffee Cake, adapted from Lovin’ From the Oven

• 1 cup cinnamon (or butterscotch or chocolate) chips
• 2/3 cup (packed) light brown sugar
• 3/4 cup chopped pecans or walnuts
• 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon, I left out as I used cinnamon chips

• 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1 large egg
• about 4 mashed bananas, I used 3 but would have used a 4th if I had it.
• 3 tablespoons buttermilk

1. Preheat oven to 350°F.
2. Butter and flour 8x8x2-inch baking pan. Stir chocolate chips, brown sugar, walnuts, and cinnamon in small bowl until well blended; set streusel aside.
3. Mix the all-purpose flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt into medium bowl. Set aside.
4. Using electric mixer, beat sugar, room temperature butter, and egg in a separate bowl until fluffy. Beat in mashed bananas and buttermilk.
5. Add dry ingredients and blend well.
6. Spread half of batter in prepared baking pan. Sprinkle with half of streusel. Repeat with remaining batter and streusel.
7. Bake coffee cake until tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 45 minutes. Cool coffee cake in pan on rack.

Printable Recipe

Devon topped his warm cake with vanilla ice cream.  I like how he thinks. :) 

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Thanks for all your kind words on my new “look” and a special thank you to Monica who made my new header!

Pumpkin Cream Cheese Bars

Jamie from My Baking Addiction described these as tasting like her nana’s pumpkin roll and while I’ve never tried her nana’s pumpkin roll they didn’t taste like any of the pumpkin rolls I’ve eatened.  They were however still  very good.  Good enough, in fact, for my pumpkin disliking son, Jalen to gobble up two and tell me pumpkin’s not so bad.  :)

Pumpkin Cream Cheese Bars

Bar

6 tablespoons melted unsalted butter

1/4 teaspoon salt (omit if using salted butter)

1 1/2 cups granulated sugar (288 grams)

2 large eggs

1 cup canned pumpkin (240 grams)

1/3 cup water

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour (220 grams)

1 tablespoon of pumpkin pie spice*

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

Cream Cheese Layer

8 oz cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup granulated sugar (48 grams)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 large egg

*Pumpkin Pie Spice mix, makes 1 tablespoon

1  1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

3/4 teaspoons ground ginger

3/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg

3/8 teaspoon ground allspice

Preparation

1. Preheat oven to 350°. Line a 9 x 13 inch baking pan with non-stick foil or parchment paper and spray with non-stick cooking spray.
2. In a bowl, with an electric mixer on medium speed, beat butter and 1 1/2 cups sugar until smooth. Beat in 2 eggs, pumpkin, 1 teaspoon of vanilla and 1/3 cup water until well blended, scraping down sides of bowl as needed.
3. In another bowl, mix flour, pumpkin pie spice, baking soda, baking powder, and salt; add the dry ingredients into the butter mixture until and combine until well blended. Spread batter evenly into the prepared pan
4. In a bowl, with an electric mixer on medium speed, beat cream cheese, 1 egg, 1/4 cup sugar, and  ½ teaspoon of vanilla until smooth.
5. Drop cream cheese mixture in evenly spaced portions over the pumpkin batter. Pull a knife tip through filling to swirl slightly into batter.
6. Bake in a 350° oven until center of the pumpkin batter (not cream cheese mixture) springs back when touched, about 30 minutes. Let cool completely in pan, then cut into 24 bars.

Printable Recipe

~ Notes ~

~ I did not swirl my cream cheese filling directly into the batter.  Here’s how I did things.  I put 2/3 of the pumpkin batter into my pan and spread  the filling over it.  With the balance of the batter I dolloped it over the  cream cheese layer in small amounts and smoothed out as best I could.  After smoothing it out I then dragged a chop stick through the batters to get a swirled effect.

Please Excuse the Mess

As I try to shake things up here! :)
~ingrid

Happy Halloween!

Hope everyone has a safe candy filled day!

Apple Pie Caramel Apples

Apple Pie? Caramel apple?  It’s the best of both worlds!  For me anyway. I get the apple pie taste but not the mushy fruit texture that all to often goes along with it plus  there’s homemade caramel.  See? Win-win! You with me?

I got the idea to turn my caramel apples into an apple pie version after visiting a local farmer’s market.  There was a vendor selling caramel apples and I got to sample her apple pie one.  It was really good and I was tempted to buy one but I knew I could make my own.  :)

I googled for a good caramel apple recipe but only found  adaptations of Kraft’s, which uses their caramel candies. Nope, ain’t happen.  It was those candies and jar caramel sauce that had me believing I didn’t like caramel and I wasn’t about to ruin perfectly good apples.  Eventually I found a few recipes but it wasn’t until I saw Jonna’s  caramel apple post that I made my decision.  I’m so glad I did.  It was very good and it makes plenty of caramel.

For the caramel apple recipe you’ll need to click here (or use one you’re happy with) and visit Jonna.  If you wanna know how to make ‘em into apple pie caramel apples here’s how I did it.  This is more a method than a recipe.  After prepping my apples I crushed up a package of Maria cookies  (Thanks Eliana!) and added apple pie spice (add to taste) to the crushed up cookies.  I set it aside until I was ready to dip my apples. After dipping my apples into the caramel I popped them into the fridge for  about 5 minutes or so to get the caramel to firmed a bit.  Once the caramel firm up some but was still soft I rolled the apples into the crushed cookies.  I gently  pressed the cookies into the caramel and set aside on silpat lined pan to pop into the fridge. That’s it!     A couple of things I want to share.  My caramel didn’t really want to stick to the apples so I didn’t really get a nice thick layer of it on them.  I missed the part in the recipe that said to chill the apples while I made the caramel.  They were at room temp.  I don’t know if that was the sole reason the caramel didn’t stick so well but I wanted to make sure you knew.  The recipe makes a lot of caramel.  Also, I didn’t have apple pie spice and made my own.