Extra Chocolatey Bundt Cake

If you actually know me really well, you would know that I seriously do not enjoy chocolate. The smell of chocolate alone makes me cringe a little bit, but for some reason, this chocolate bundt cake is a whole different story. I have a weird obsession with this recipe. It's just perfect.

Sweat pants, hair tied, chillen with no makeup on? Sounds fun but I have a better version of that. Sweat pants, hair tied, BAKING with no make up on. Now that is a perfect day. P.S. I'm having a really hard time writing this and not being able to throw in emojis in here.

Most peoples thoughts when they think about chocolate:

 

 

My thoughts when I think about chocolate:

 

 

Then everyone is like, "Sydney...."

 

 

 

 I made it for my daddy's birthday cake last year. Not a traditional birthday cake, but I did what I could to make it as cute as possible. :)

Making this bundt cake does take a little bit of time though. Nothing difficult or anything, just time consuming. Some things are just worth it. This being one of them obviously. Make this for a large group of people and every single one of them will love you. I promise you that.

HeRe wE gOoooOooOooo.
For the cake:

• 1 cup cocoa powder
• 1 1/4 cups semisweet chocolate chips
• 1 cup super hot water
• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 tsp. baking soda
• 1 1/4 tsp. salt
• 20 Tbsp. (2 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter
• 2 1/2 cups firmly packed light brown sugar
• 5 large eggs
• 4 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cups (12 ounces) sour cream
• 1 1/2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

For the ganache:

• 1 cup semisweet chocolate, finely chopped
• 2 Tbsp. unsalted butter
• 1/2 cup heavy cream

***** Preheat oven to 325°F.
1. Microwave 1 cup water for 1 minute. Pour into bowl with 1 cup cocoa powder and 1 1/4 cups chocolate chips. Whisk together until smooth. Set aside.

2. Beat 2 1/2 sticks softened butter in mixer for about 30 seconds. If your butter just came out of the fridge, put it in the microwave for like 8 seconds at a time until its softened but not melted.
3. Add 2 1/2 cups packed brown sugar to butter. Beat on medium speed for about 3-4 minutes or until fluffy.

4. Add vanilla and eggs, 1 at a time, beating until incorporated after each addition.

5. Measure out your 2 1/4 cups flour, 1 1/2 tsp. baking soda, and 1 1/4 tsp. salt in a bowl.

Alternate adding your flour mixture and your sour cream to the bowl, beginning and ending with the flour.



6. After mixing in the sour cream and flour, pour in the melted chocolate and beat until fully incorporated. Scrape the bowl really well so that there are no light colored streaks of batter left.



 7. Fold in your 1 1/2 cups chocolate chips.

8. Prepare your Bundt Cake Pan. Mines from Williams Sonoma and its wonderful. I believe its the 15 cup size. Make sure yours is big enough because this makes a very big cake! IMPORTANT STEPS TO PREPARING YOUR PAN:

• Cover it completely with SHORTENING, not spray!
• Dust it with cocoa powder, not flour!
• Fill it evenly with the batter. 



 9. Bake for 60-70 minutes. Let it cool for 15 minutes before turning it out of the pan.

 

10. Make your ganache topping after the cake cools for a little while.

1. Heat 1/2 cup heavy cream in microwave for 45 seconds, or until very hot.
2. Pour over 1 cup chocolate chips and 2 Tbsp. butter
3. Whisk until melted and very smooth.
4. Pour over top of the cake. You can top with more chocolate chips, sprinkles, M&M's, or white chocolate chips are pretty on top too.

Here's more stupid chocolate meme's I found haha

Enjoy your chocolate cake, you freaks!

Not Just Chocolate Chip Cookies

Y'ALL.

These are the best cookies I have ever made, hands down. I saw the recipe on pinterest and the pictures of them looked so beautiful and perfect so naturally I wanted to try to compete with the pictures and see if I could make them look better. HA. They still weren't as pretty, but the taste and texture of these cookies surprised me cause they were so good!

They are so SOFT and CHEWY. And thick. Cornstarch is the ingredient in these that makes them this way. 

I unfortunately have made like 7 batches of these cookies in the past couple weeks. Today I woke up, went to the store and I got ingredients to bake these cookies. It's my day off, so why not? A couple hours later I decided I would be "good" and go to the gym INSTEAD of baking cookies. Which I did.....

Then I came home and made them anyway.

Shoot me. Not only did I make one batch, but 3. THREE different versions of this recipe.

Chocolate Chip with M&M's

Chocolate Chip with SPRINKLES

Not because sprinkles are necessarily tasty, but they're happy. And I'm a happy camper.

And last but not least, CHOCOLATE CHIP WITH CARAMEL BITS.

Why do I do this to myself? This is why my family hates me.

It just so happens that each batch of these cookies makes exactly 14 and ONE HALF cookies. What am I supposed to do with half a scoop of batter? ......

You have to taste the batter, just to make sure it isn't harmful to others.

Here's the recipe for these beautiful babes.

(originally from Sally's Baking Addiction )http://sallysbakingaddiction.com/2013/05/13/chewy-chocolate-chunk-cookies/ 

2 1/4 cups all purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 teaspoons corn starch

1 1/2 sticks butter, melted

3/4 cup (150g) brown sugar, NOT packed

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1 whole egg + 1 egg yolk

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 cup chocolate chips ( I use a little less )

1. Melt butter in microwave. Mix with sugars. Add vanilla and eggs. Mix until combined.

2. Combine flour, salt, soda, and corn starch in bowl. Add to butter, sugars, eggs and vanilla.

The dough will be VERY soft. Not like your normal cookie dough. This is because the butter is melted- but not to worry. The cookie dough will harden up in the fridge.

Stir in your chocolate chips. You can make plain chocolate chip cookies or you can dress them up a little. Instead of 1 cup chocolate chips, I did about 1/2 cup CC's and 1/2 cup M&M's.

I did the same for the ones with sprinkles and CC's, and also the ones with CC's and caramel bits. It honestly doesn't matter... the amounts. Just look at it and make sure it looks like there's enough.

Scoop your batter (about 3 tablespoons for each cookie) and shape it so that its like a tall cylinder. Forming the cookie dough into this shape is important because it helps the cookies stay thick when they are baked, rather than spreading out too much and being flat and yucky and ugly. Bleh.

 Refrigerate for 2 hours. I know it's hard to wait that long :(

Place them on the cookie sheet lined with parchment paper or a silpat. You could spray your pans too. Make sure they are a couple inches apart because these are big cookies.

Turn your oven on to 325 degrees F and bake for about 11 minutes. NO LONGER.

They WILL look underbaked, which they will be just a bit. They will continue to bake once you take them out of the oven and let them cool. Let them cool on the pan for 10 minutes then transfer them to a cooling rack to finish cooling completely.

M&M

SprANKLES.

Chocolate and Caramel

To end this off right I'll leave you with a smile, with no teefs. :)

Spicy Black Bean Soup





This soup is super easy to make, and its really cheap. Bonus!

This recipe makes about 6 servings.

You'll need:

olive oil, frozen southwestern corn mix, red onion, cumin, oregano, salt, chili powder, garlic, black beans and water.

 1. Heat 2 TBSP olive oil in a big pot. Add 1 chopped red onion and 1 bag frozen southwestern corn. Saute until tender. So pretty :)

**you can also add chopped carrots, celery, red and green peppers, and chopped jalapenos to the corn and onion, but I am lazy and prefer a bag of frozen corn and peppers. Ive done it both ways and its awesome either way!

2. In a small bowl, stir together 1 tsp salt, 1 tsp oregano, 4 tsp cumin, and 4 tsp chili powder. Add to vegetables and stir for about a minute over medium heat.

3. Mash with a fork or puree one 15 oz can of black beans. Do not drain it first. Set aside.

4. Add 1 tsp minced garlic to vegetables. Stirrrrrrrrrrr.

5. Pour in pureed black beans, and add another 2  15oz cans of black beans and 1 cup of water (you can also use chicken stock). Stir and simmer over low heat for about 30 minutes or until hot. Stir occasionally.

***Optional- at this point, you can cook 1 cup of rice to add to the soup. I love it with rice!! I use my rice cooker (1 cup uncooked rice + 2 cups water) once its cooked, I dump it into my pot and stir, and my soup is done!

Without rice

 With rice mmm

OKAY GUYS I know it isn't a very attractive soup but it tastes really good!!!

 You can top it with sour cream, cheddar cheese and jalapeno slices to make it prettier for serving. 

2 TBSP olive oil
1 red onion
1 bag frozen southwestern corn
4 tsp cumin
4 tsp chili powder
1 tsp salt
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp minced garlic
3 15oz cans of black beans
1 cup water or chicken stock
rice (optional)

The Best Dang Pulled Pork

Just made this for the first time and it was SO GOOD, EASY, AND CHEAP!! Seriously. All I can say is, freakin yum. The meat literally falls right off the bone!

The Best Dang Pulled Pork:
1. Put 3.5 pound pork butt in your crock pot bowl.
2. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.
3. Pour 2 cups water into bowl.
4. Cook on LOW, 8 hours.
5. Take the meat out and shred in a separate bowl. I picked off all of the fat cause it grosses me out a lot. Discard the liquid in the crock pot bowl.
6. Stir in HEATED bbq sauce (I used one 16oz bottle) any kind you like. I used a mustardy one!
7. Toast your buns for 5 minutes on 350 in the oven.
8. Enjoy!!!!

Grocery list:
3.5 pound pork butt
salt and pepper
bbq sauce
buns

Whoopie Pies

Whoopie Pies are basically cake sandwiches, two little cakes with marshmallowy frosting stuffed inbetween. AKA the perfect little dessert! If I had my own bakery right now, I would definitely be selling these in there!

I've been making this recipe since 2010. This is the first and only whoopie pie recipe I will ever use. I actually went to a bakery in North Carolina and saw whoopie pies for sale. I figured they would be AWESOME since they were coming from a bakery... So me and my dad bought one and it was terrible (and expensive). Needless to say, I will forever bake them at home instead of buying them elsewhere, because this recipe is 43728974293 times better!!!

Here is EVERYTHING you'll need!

Flour, sugar, brown sugar, baking soda, salt, cocoa powder, milk, vanilla, eggs, butter, marshmallow fluff, and powdered sugar.

 

 

1. Combine these ingredients in medium bowl.

2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 cup cocoa powder

1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

 

2. In mixing bowl, mix these ingredients on medium speed until fluffy.

1/2 cup butter

1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar

1/2 cup sugar

 

3. Add these to your mixing bowl and beat until smooth.

1 egg

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

 

4. Measure out 1 cup of milk.

Alternately add your bowl of flour and your cup of milk to the mixing bowl (4 additions flour, 3 additions milk)

 

5. Grease a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper or grease a nifty whoopie pie pan :)

and scoop out your batter (heaping tablespoons) or, use a cookie scoop like me!

 

6. Bake in 375 degree oven for 7 minutes. Do not over bake!

7. Cool on cooling rack for 1 minute then transfer to wire rack to cool completely.

 

 

This recipe will make 36 cakes, so 18 whoopie pies total.

 

The frosting recipe is super simple!

1. Combine 1 stick butter and one 7oz jar of marshmallow fluff in a mixing bowl.

Mix on medium speed until combined.

2. Add 2 cups powdered sugar on low speed and beat until combined.

3. Last, beat in 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract.

 

Okay here's the fun part! Assembling!

 

A little piping.

 

A little sprinkles.

 

Or no sprinkles if you're boring. (but still delicious)

 

 

Phillip took his first bite, shook his head, and said, "these are naughty" haha!!

 

I'd love to hear about YOUR favorite recipe! Email me your recipe, I'll make it, and I might just post it on my blog and tell everyone how wonderful it is. :)

Sydneybarton16@gmail.com

 

Hope to hear from you soon!!! Enjoy!