52 weeks of baking: 52 - double chocolate torte

Fifty-two. We made it! I did it! 52 weeks of baking. Done. PHEW!

For my last week of baking I baked something that I knew I'd love, because it's my year of baking and I'll do what I want! I needed something involving chocolate, and specifically chocolate mousse. I think my favorite food might be chocolate mousse. So I made a double chocolate torte, via Smitten Kitchen of course. It's basically a big ol' pile of chilled mousse with an almost flourless cake at the bottom. It's a pretty little thing and very yummy. Oh and it has a pound of chocolate in it.

No lie huh, it's pretty. It had to chill in the fridge overnight and it was torture. I wanted at that thing. And raspberries are the perfect companion to chocolate mousse. They are killer on this and I'm not even that nuts about raspberries.

This torte is easy to make, just very time consuming. Like hours and days unless you start it in the morning. There's a lot of chilling and a lot of whisking involved. And chopping a pound of chocolate. Worth it though. Chocolate mousse is always worth it. Unless J-E-L-L-O has anything to do with it.

So that's it, y'all. 52 weeks!!! Thanks for hanging out if you managed to stick through the year. It's been fun and yummy. There will be a follow up post for sure. Because, I mean, a year of baking deserves one.

52 weeks of baking: 50 - chocolate lava cake

Alright people. This recipe. I don't know how I've survived without it. It's insanely easy and ridiculously delicious. It's molten chocolate lava cake. Like you get at restaurants. Except AT HOME and made fresh with quality ingredients, because who knows whats in that nonsense from Chili's and how long it's been around. Here's the recipe, and bookmark that sucker because it is a keeper. I found it months ago but somehow just got around to making it. SHAME.

Like I said, this recipe is EASY. It's a one bowl wonder and it's only downfall is that it makes four little cakes. And that's definitely not a bad thing. If you've got four folks around, perfect, but if you're me and Brendon that leaves you with two extra. And these babies are made to be eaten right out of the oven. Not sure how well they'll keep, but we'retrying it out. Even if they're not as melty and perfect as they were fresh, it's still chocolate cake. It will get eaten. I think next time, and there will be a next time, I'll try halving the recipe.

I mean, is that not heaven? I love cake batter far more than I should, so this little cake was my happy place. Oh, cake batter. I love you so. Don't kill me, raw eggs!

52 weeks of baking: 48 - black bottom oatmeal pie

Well, we're back to it. The only posts I seem to have time to do lately are my weekly baking. So here's a recap of Thanksgiving and the past week. It has been BUSY. Dear lord. I always work a lot, but this month man... I can't even tell you. I am exhausted and time is flying. How has Thanksgiving even come and gone? PHEW. It was a good day though. Brendon and I ran the 5 mile Turkey Trot here in Austin and I did soooo much better than I thought I would, seeing as how I hadn't run in over a month. And holy cow, I have never run a race with so many people. Usually a mile or so into a run people kind of stagger off so you aren't running in a crowd, shoulder to shoulder, but this race was a crowd all the way through. People all around you until the very end, and there was a mad traffic jam at the finish line. Like, seriously, a standstill. There were something like 25,000 people there. Craziness! But we had a lot of fun and it was definitely one of my favorite runs so far. Very positive and the view and weather were great.

After running our butts off we headed down to New Braunfels for two back to back Thanksgivings, one with my mom and one with my dad. Lots of good food (so full, STILL) and good company, but needless to say it was not the most relaxing day. Too much running around. A very good day though.

So of course, here I am, blogging my baking at the very last minute. I actually baked two pies this week, a pumpkin pie for my crew at work (undocumented because I was in a huge rush) and this black bottom oatmeal pie for us. This pie is very interesting. I've never really had anything like it. I guess the closest thing would be a pecan pie, but it's softer. Oh and there's chocolate.

Helloooo there tiny kitchen! How I dream of one day having counter space!

Why yes, there is a layer of chocolate ganache at the bottom of this pie. Hence, black bottom! Cute and clever!

It's real good with a hearty dollop (or two) of freshly whipped cream. Excuse my terrible pie crust. My crusts never look pretty, but boy do they taste good! This pie is a little like a mapley oatmeal chocolate chip cookie... but in a pie. It's very different and very good.

Can you believe it is December? Where did November go? WHERE DID THE YEAR GO? Although I am glad that time is going by so quickly (only 18 months until Brendon graduates!), I've been feeling a little left in the dust and frazzled. I need a break, but I don't see that happening anytime soon. Perhaps January will bring some calm into my life. Goodness knows I need it! Until then, bake on folks! Dessert makes everything better.

52 weeks of baking: 43 - pumpkin swirl brownies

 

Pumpkin month continues with pumpkin brownies! My mom sent me a pumpkin brownie recipe not to long ago, and I totally was planning on making it, but I couldn't find it for the life of me! So Martha it was. This was one of those recipes that was meant to be. I had everything already, and that's rare. I had exactly enough pumpkin, and exactly enough baking chocolate. It was a great recipe to use up some of my baking stash!

My swirling technique clearly needs a little work. These are good. A little more cakey than I like my brownies, but yummy. I would definitely lower the pumpkin to chocolate ratio next time. For me, brownies are about fudgey chocolate, and with half pumpkin it just isn't enough chocolate action for me. I'd do about one third pumpkin, two thirds chocolate. And for some reason pumpkin bakes very cakey, which is totally cool if you're making a cake. I think because it acts similarly to eggs, and this batter already had quite a few well beaten eggs in it. Brownies should be dense and chewy, these are a little on the fluffy side. Definitely yummy, just not my ideal brownie consistency. Next time, as well as changing the ratio, I'd make the pumpkin and chocolate batters separately instead of splitting the same batter and adding chocolate and pumpkin, that way eggs could be left out of the pumpkin batter. But don't get me wrong! These are very good! Great for breakfast actually. And they're pretty!

52 weeks of baking: 41 - pumpkin chocolate chip cookies

Continuing with the pumpkin theme this month, I give you pumpkin chocolate chip cookies. Because that just sounds amazing. As I am currently enamored by Sally's Baking Addiction and her easy and incredibly delicious recipes, I found this recipe and knew I had to get my bake on. And yet again, she delivers. These babies are good. Is there anything chocolate doesn't go well with?

They are chewy and soft and spicy and chocolatey and reeeeeally good. And interestingly, this recipe does not make a whole lot of cookies. It makes just what you see up there, a dozen, which in our case is perfect. We often end up tossing out cookies because recipes tend to make like... 1,000 cookies. There are just the two of us, so a dozen is perfect. Although we do love sharing our 1,000 cookies with coworkers and friends. So if you're making these for a large group, double it up. Or triple it! Brendon and I will probably knock these twelve out in the next day or so. They're good and we love dessert.

52 weeks of baking: 39 - salted caramel dark chocolate chip cookies

Long enough name for ya? These cookies you guys. They are as insane as they sound. Salted caramel dark chocolate chip cookies. I mean, that's a hell of a cookie. I am becoming more and more obsessed with Sally's Baking Addiction, and girlfriend knows how to come up with some delicious goodies. Her recipe for these babies here. These cookies are very very good. SO rich. I mean, there's a freaking rolo baked inside. A rolo! You cannot lose.

Can we stop for a moment and just talk about how fantastic the lighting in my kitchen was for the first half of these photos? Good light makes a world of difference. Forgive the second, they were taken in artificial light after the sun went down because these cookies had to chill for two dang hours!

A MELTED ROLO INSIDE. Oh man, it's good. And the sea salt on these is perfect. I'm so glad someone decided to start adding crunchy sea salt to sweet things. The cookie itself is delicious, worth trying on it's own sans caramel if you're feeling something a little simpler. And speaking of simplicity, next time I think I'd opt for just caramels inside instead of rolos. Don't get me wrong, the rolo inside is brilliant, it's just along with caramel and dark chocolate chips, it adds milk chocolate into the mix. There's already so much going on in these things, and all of it good, I just would maybe simplify it a tad by losing the milk chocolate. These are perfect cookies to make if you are say, having a really rough day. Or week. Or month. Or if your life is completely perfect, make them anyway.

This was my fortieth week of baking. How insane is that? FORTY weeks have already gone by. Only twelve left in the year. Only twelve more baked goodies left. It's a little sad, seeing the end approaching. It's become such a nice and welcome part of my life, and I'm pretty proud of my little project. I'll need to think up a new one for next year! 52 weeks of... who knows!
EDIT: I couldn't believe it was the 40th week of the year, so I googled it. Turns out it's the 39th. I somehow misnumbered my weeks and missed 28. All is adjusted now, everything is numbered correctly. Forgive me, I am terrible with numbers. Just copy past that last paragraph onto next week's post with your mind, okay?

52 weeks of baking: 36 - flourless chocolate cake

Well, we're back to normal folks. Back to me basically just posting food. But it's dessert, y'all, and dessert is good. I promise I'll do something exciting outside of the kitchen soon. Maybe.

This week's baked adventure was a flourless chocolate espresso cake, from my girl Martha. Because I'm on a chocolate binge (isn't that my whole life?) and this recipe called out to me from an issue of Martha Stewart Living while I was melting into my couch.

Definitely had a Charlie Bucket moment opening up this bar of chocolate. No golden ticket for me however.

Chocolate concrete. I was worried I wouldn't be able to pull my beaters out of this nonsense. It was thick.

This cake is everything you'd expect it to be. Deliciously chocolatey with the perfect hint of espresso. The top has the sweetest little crunch and the inside is soft and fluffy. The recipe calls for a chocolate glaze, but even I felt that it might be TOO much chocolate (also, I am lazy), so I did without. I think freshly whipped cream would be absolutely perfect, and intend on whipping some up for my next slice. It is great by itself, but it definitely needs something... wet. Ha.

Lots of other weeks-o-baking!