A Fun Cake

Rocky Road Cake

1 box dark chocolate cake mix
1 tub chocolate frosting
2 cups mini marshmallows, divided
1 cup dry roasted peanuts, divided
1 cup miniature Hershey’s kisses

Bake cake according to box directions for a 2-layer cake. Cool completely. Frost as for 2-layer cake. Using ½ cup of mini marshmallows, outline a “road” across top of cake. Coarsely chop half cup of peanuts and “pave” the road. Mix remaining marshmallows, peanuts and all of kisses; press into frosting on cake, covering both top and sides. Serve and enjoy.

This is the recipe I had. My picture looks different than what you'd get if you made this cake, because I used a homemade chocolate frosting recipe. My chocolate frosting was much, much lighter in color than a store bought tub of frosting would be. But I think it tasted much the same, except for the fact that the store bought stuff tastes fake to me. But that's just my palate.

At any rate this is an easy recipe to make for a special occasion.

Caramel Chocolate Cheesecake

Graham cracker pie crust

7 oz package caramels
1/4 cup evaporated milk
1/4 cups pecans
8 oz cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup sour cream
1 1/4 cup milk
1 3 oz instant chocolate pudding mix
1/2 cup fudge topping

Melt caramels and evap milk, stirring constantly until smooth, approximately 5 minutes. Stir in pecans; pour into crust. Combine sour cream, cream cheese and milk in bowl or blender; process until smooth. Add pudding mix, blend again. Pour cream cheese mixture over caramel layer. Chill 15 minutes. Drizzle with fudge sauce. Chill 1 1/2 hours.

OK. Here's another one that sounded much better than it was in reality. If you should make this, serve it immediately and don't expect it to keep well in the fridge (or anywhere else, for that matter.) The pudding mixture did some major weeping overnight, and the fudge topping melted into it as well. This is why the photo looks really gross. I'd say skip the fudge topping and drizzle with just chocolate sauce, or a homemade chocolate glaze.

It was really simple to make though and would do for an emergency dessert.

Brownies

White Chocolate Brownies

1 cup all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon baking powder
pinch of salt
6 oz white chocolate, chopped
or…white chocolate morsels
½ cup white sugar
½ cup butter, cut into pieces
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla
6 oz milk chocolate chips

Topping
7 oz semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat over to 350 degrees. Grease a 9 inch spring-form pan.

Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.

In saucepan over medium heat, melt white chocolate, butter and sugar until smooth, stirring constantly. Cool slightly, then beat in eggs and vanilla. Gradually beat in flour mixture. Stir in 6 oz milk chocolate chips. Spread batter evenly in pan, smoothing the top.

Bake for 20-25 minutes until a toothpick inserted 2 inches from the side of pan comes out clean. Remove from the over, sprinkle 7 oz of chocolate chips over surface, avoid touching the sides of the pan. Return to oven for 1 minute.

Remove from oven and, using the back of a spoon, smooth out the softened chocolate. Cool on a wire rack for 30 minutes, chill for 1 hour. Remove from pan, cut into thin wedges to serve.

These are quite rich, and always disappear when I take them anywhere. This is also the only brownie recipe I can make without ruining the brownies. I am a brownie making failure. But these are good and always turn out.

This recipe comes from a book called “1000 Recipes” by Martha Day. Believe it or not, the original recipe in the book did not say when to add in the flour mixture. I modified it a bit; in the book it calls for nuts and a milk chocolate topping. I am the only one in our household who enjoys nuts in things. Plus I make these for my Wednesday night teen class at church and one young lady is deathly allergic to nuts in any form.

Also; the topping is supposed to be made with milk chocolate and the semi-sweet chips are supposed to be in the mix, but I switched them. I tried using milk chocolate chips as the topping, but they wouldn’t spread; they just clumped and tore up the brownie as I tried to spread them. The semi-sweet chips melt and spread much more smoothly on top.

More Strawberries

Chocolate Cream Cheese Strawberry Pie

3 squares (1 oz each) semisweet chocolate, divided
1 tablespoon butter
1 9” pastry shell, baked
2 3 oz packages cream cheese, softened
½ cup sour cream
3 tablespoons sugar
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
3-4 cups fresh strawberries, hulled
1/3 cup strawberry jam, melted

To melt chocolate; in a glass jar or cup place 2 ounces chopped chocolate and butter, set glass into pan of hot water, stir chocolate and butter until smooth. Spread or brush chocolate mixture over the bottom and up the sides of the pastry shell. Chill.

Meanwhile, in a bowl, beat the cream cheese, sour cream, sugar and vanilla until smooth. Spread the cream cheese mixture over chocolate layer; cover and chill for 2 hours.

Arrange strawberries, tip end up, over the filling. Brush strawberry jam over the fruit. Melt remaining chocolate and drizzle over all.
This got two thumbs up from the husband. It's really good, and as I said before I prefer the chocolate in this recipe over the chocolate in the previous recipe. I do have to add that I prefer the strawberry/water puree from the other recipe as a glaze. Using jam seems like cheating to me for some reason. But that's just my preference.

Ellen, the 3 yr old, loved helping with this recipe, especially licking the spoon after I'd melted and brushed the crust with the chocolate. But she also loved helping glaze the berries.